The task and scope of comparative literature is to study the influence of one national literature on another national literature and the influence of another national literature on this national literature; At the same time, "Random Thoughts" studies the similarities and differences between two or more national literatures that are not directly related in theme, subject matter, style, style and development trend. It also studies the relationship and similarities and differences between literature and other art forms such as painting and music and other ideologies such as philosophy and pure science.
The study of the relationship between the works of writers of different nationalities is called influence study. It pursues the "passing route" of literary development. This paper not only discusses the influence of a writer or a kind of literature on other national literature from the perspective of "broadcaster"; It also studies the external factors contained and transformed by a writer or a literature from the perspective of "receiver". Impact studies include "origin studies" and "media studies". "Origin" studies the mutual influence of the origin and evolution of literary development in many aspects; "Media Studies" studies the ways and means that influence national literature, such as translation and adaptation. The study of influence helps people to understand how one kind of literature becomes an integral part of another through creative absorption, which is not only an indispensable part of studying the development of literature, but also helps to sum up experience and guide the increasingly extensive cultural exchange today.
The study of similarities and differences between different national literatures that are not directly related in subject matter, theme, genre, characters and style features is called parallel research. Parallel research includes subject history, anthropology, typology, morphology and comparative criticism (or comparative poetics). Theme history studies the different forms and development history of the same theme in different national literature, such as the different manifestations and development of the theme of human origin in national myths and folklore. "Themology" studies the expression of the same theme in different national literature, such as "the conflict between love and obligation" and "the eternal contradiction between the brevity of life and nature". Typology makes a comparative study of the works, characters and storylines of the same type of writers in national literature. "Morphology" studies the different development process of the same style in different national literature. "Comparative criticism" or "comparative poetics" studies the different critical concepts and principles of different national literature and their development history, as well as the uniqueness and characteristics of poetry creation of various ethnic groups. Parallel research helps people to summarize the universal laws of literature from a broader perspective, thus generalizing richer literary phenomena, and also helps people to deeply understand the original characteristics of their own national literature in a broader background.
Comparative literature is a marginal science, which studies the relationship between literature and other art forms such as music, painting and sculpture, as well as the relationship between literature and other ideologies such as religion, philosophy and pure science. This interdisciplinary research needs extremely extensive knowledge and has not achieved remarkable results yet.
The research on the development of comparative literature in brief history did not begin in19th century. As early as14th century, Dante compared early French literature with similar Provence literature in his book Proverbs. /kloc-Montesquieu, a French enlightenment thinker in the 0 th and 8 th centuries, made a comparative study of the different poetic rhythms formed by different national languages. Voltaire also made a comparative study of different epic types in different national literature. Vico, the leader of the Italian Enlightenment, made a detailed comparison between Homer's two epics in the third volume of New Science, and thought that they were all oral works of folk singers in different regions and periods, and it was impossible for Homer to write them alone. However, the rise of comparative literature as a discipline occurred after the second half of19th century. This is no accident. Marx and Engels pointed out in the Manifesto of the Productive Party that because the bourgeoisie has opened the world market, "the past state of self-sufficiency and isolation of local and ethnic groups has been replaced by mutual exchanges and interdependence of all ethnic groups. This is true of material production, and so is spiritual production. The spiritual products of all ethnic groups have become the property of the public. The one-sidedness and limitations of the nation are becoming more and more impossible, so a variety of national and local literature has formed a world literature. " This is the socio-economic reason for the rise of comparative literature. At the same time, the rise of modern humanism, especially romanticism, affirms that any language and literature has its own cultural value. Pay attention to the analysis of the environment in which writers and works are produced and their relationship with other literary works. /kloc-since the 0/9th century, comparative methods have been widely used in natural sciences and other social sciences, and new disciplines such as comparative biology, comparative linguistics and comparative legislation have been established, which constitutes the cultural background for the rise of comparative literature.
The word comparative literature first appeared in 1829, when veerman, a professor at Paris University, was the first to call one of his works "Comparative Literature Research" in the introduction of a course he taught. 1830 Ambel, another professor at the University of Paris, called his course "Comparative Literature and Art History". 1848, Arnold, a British critic, also adopted the term "comparative literature among countries" and called for "every critic must be familiar with at least one great literature besides his own literature, and the greater the difference between this literature and himself, the better" in his article "The Role of Current Literary Criticism". However, the name of comparative literature is generally accepted as a technical term, but it was not until 1865 that French critic Saint Boff called Ambel "Columbus of comparative literature".
The word comparative literature was not popular in Russia in the19th century, but there were quite a few academic works about it. As early as 1833, Yakimov, a famous critic, wrote "On the characteristics of Russian literature development since lomonosov period", trying to scientifically explore the relationship between Russian literature phenomenon and literature of other ancient European countries. Later, he wrote about the development of Russian literature in contact with foreign literature. In addition, Ping Pei's History of Russian Ancient Novels and Fairy Tales in International Relations and Daszkiewicz's Comparison of Russian Writers' Creation with European Writers' Creation are representative works to study the mutual influence of national literature.
In western Europe, in 1895, German linguist Ben Fay wrote a preface for the German translations of five books, pointing out that some themes of European literature came directly from Indian stories and were regarded as the beginning of comparative literature between East and West. From 1872 to 1884, Danish critic brandeis completed his six-volume masterpiece1the mainstream of literature in the 9th century. He emphasized the necessity of comparative study of European literature, and pointed out in the preface: "This comparative study has double convenience: on the one hand, it can bring foreign literature closer to us and enable us to integrate with it; At the same time, we put our literature far away so that we can look at it from a real perspective. " From 65438 to 0886, the first monograph on the theory and method of comparative literature appeared, Comparative Literature (written by Bosnett, England). Specialized comparative literature journals have also appeared one after another, such as Hungarian Journal of Comparative Literature (1877~ 1888, formerly known as Journal of Comparative Literature two years ago), edited by Mecl; The German Journal of Comparative Literature (1887~ 19 10) is edited by Koch. At the same time, some schools, such as Harvard University (1890) and Lyon University (1897) in France, have successively opened special lectures on comparative literature after Paris University. 1899, Columbia University first established the Department of Comparative Literature, and Harvard University's Department of Comparative Literature was also established in 1904. Professor De Koster, who presided over the first lecture at the University of Lyon, made extensive and systematic research on the methods of comparative literature, and applied these methods to the analysis of modern European literature, and made great achievements. He was once called "the father of comparative literature". Schoffel and Babbitt of Harvard University also made important contributions to the development of comparative literature. 1900, French scholar Bates compiled the Bibliography of Comparative Literature, 1903, and Luo Liye wrote the History of Comparative Literature-from its origin to the 20th century, collecting and summarizing the research results of comparative literature. On this basis, in 193 1 year, the masterpiece of comparative literature by French scholar Paul Van Digen came out, which comprehensively summarized the theory and history of the development of comparative literature in the past hundred years for the first time. The book is divided into three parts: the formation and development of comparative literature, the methods and achievements of comparative literature, and the overall literature. This is a comprehensive work. France has always been the center of comparative literature research at this stage.
Due to the war and other reasons, the study of comparative literature has not made great progress since the 1940s. After World War II, comparative literature developed around the United States. 1952 Yearbook of Comparative Literature and General Literature was first published in the United States, and the achievements and problems in the development of comparative literature were summarized and analyzed year by year. 1958, after 1956 held its first congress in Italy, the International Society for Comparative Literature held its second congress in the United States, which discussed many important issues in the development of comparative literature. This is a historic conference. American scholars believe that the study of comparative literature should not be confined to the literature of all ethnic groups with direct relations, but should also explore the similarities and differences of completely unrelated different literary systems and introduce the concepts and methods of parallel research into the research scope of comparative literature.
Since the 1960s, comparative literature has also developed greatly in the Soviet Union. 1960, the Soviet union held a symposium on "the interrelation and mutual influence of literature" and a conference on "the comparative study of Slavic literature" held in 197 1, which promoted the development of the theory of comparative literature. Volume 24 of Encyclopedia of the Soviet Union published in 1976 and Volume 9 of Concise Encyclopedia of Literature published in 1978 respectively expounded the contents of comparative literature with the entries of comparative history and comparative literature.
In the 1970s, the field of literary research, like other research fields, gradually got rid of the limitations of Eurocentrism and Soviet Centrism, and many scholars began to feel that they lacked understanding of the literary traditions and present situation in Asia and Africa, and could not conduct a comprehensive study of literary phenomena. The oriental literature system, especially the traditional literature system of China, India and Arabia, has attracted more and more attention from researchers of comparative literature, and the comparative literature between the East and the West, especially the comparative literature between China and the West, will surely attract more and more scholars' attention. At present, international conferences on comparative literature between China and the West have been held many times, and the development of this field will become an important part of the study of comparative literature in the world, which has become an obvious trend.
In the development of comparative literature, due to the different research emphases, the three schools formed different schools. The most representative schools are French school, American school and Soviet school. The French school represented by Van Gogh, Gael and others is the oldest school. They emphasize the study of influence and think that comparative literature should focus on the direct influence between writers and works of various nationalities, that is, the "factual relationship" that does exist, without aesthetic evaluation or appreciation. They believe that the word "comparison" should get rid of all aesthetic meanings and gain a scientific meaning. René Wellek, a Czech scholar in exile in the United States, is a representative figure of the American school that rose in the 1950s. They emphasize parallel research, oppose limiting comparative literature to the empirical analysis of different national literature with direct influence, advocate linking literature with other cultural phenomena, and advocate analyzing the similarities and differences of national literature from an aesthetic point of view. The Soviet School was formed in the 1960s, and its representatives were Vi Zhirmunski and Mi Aleksev. They emphasize the inseparable connection between the influence study and the parallel study, and think that the identity of the literature of all ethnic groups is the basis and condition for the mutual influence of the literature of all ethnic groups. However, they also stressed that it is wrong to make no obvious difference between the comparative study of various literary connections and the comparative study of various literary similarities and differences, because we are studying two different literary phenomena here. With the development of comparative literature research, new schools will emerge constantly, such as China School, which is brewing to promote the study of comparative literature between China and the West.
The development of comparative literature between China and China didn't start recently. Lu Xun, Mao Dun and Guo Moruo all explored a new way for the development of China literature on the basis of extensive comparison of other countries' literature. As early as 1907, Lu Xun comparatively analyzed the characteristics of the development of literature of various ethnic groups in his book On Moro Poetry. He pointed out that the political decline of India, Hebrew, Iran, Egypt and other ancient cultural countries brought about the silence of literature; Although Russia seems to be silent, "Russia is silent and excited"; German young poets "condensed into a loud voice" with enthusiastic patriotism, which made people excited; The "devil poetry school" represented by Byron and Shelley in Britain is based on their poems "aimed at resisting and pointing to action", and "when you speak, the listener rises". Lu Xun also studied the development of "Demon Poetry School" in national literature such as Poland and Hungary and Byron's influence on Russian literature. He also compared the differences between Nietzsche and Byron, Byron and Ibsen, and concluded: "If you want to publicize the greatness of a clan, you must first judge yourself and know others, and you will be conscious if you are more careful." In other words, we must assess the situation, know ourselves and ourselves, and find out the advantages and disadvantages through countless comparisons, so as to find the way to revitalize China. Mao Dun compared Tolstoy and Gorky with British writer Dickens, French writer Mo Bosang, Hugo and Norwegian writer Ibsen for many times in Tolstoy and Today's Russia and Miscellaneous Talks on Modern Russian Literature written by 19 19 and 1920 respectively, and thus put forward many useful opinions. Promote China literature to actively and consciously draw nutrition from world literature and move towards a new stage of development.
In 1930s, Fu Donghua and Dai Wangshu respectively translated Luo Liye's History of Comparative Literature and Paul Van Gogh's Theory of Comparative Literature, which systematically introduced the history, theory and methods of China's comparative literature for the first time. 1936, Chen Quan's monograph "Sino-German Cultural Studies" came out, which comprehensively commented on the spread and influence of China's novels, dramas and lyric poems in Germany. Qian Zhongshu's On Art, Zhu Guangqian's On Poetry and Fan Cunzhong's Sir Jones and China Culture all contributed to the development of China's comparative literature.
There were many influential research works in the 1950s. The influence and spread of Shakespeare, Goethe, Bernard Shaw, Tagore, Ibsen, Pushkin, Nikolai Nikolai Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gorky and Mayakovski in China are all concerned by China scholars and reflected in many monographs. In recent years, the study of comparative literature in China has become increasingly prosperous, and a number of high-quality articles have appeared in both impact studies and parallel studies.
Comparative literature is a new discipline in the field of literary research, and there are still a series of problems to be solved in practice and methodology theory. For example, the standard of "comparability" of literary phenomena in different independent systems, the independent methodology system of comparative literature, the connection between literature and other art forms, and the connection between literature and the whole human culture are all problems that need further study, and it is these problems that point out the broad prospects for the development of comparative literature.