1,720,973 research outputs found
The literary work and it\u27s (implied) author
No full textVlogo avtorja v literarnem delu najprej preverimo preko kontroverznega koncepta implicitni avtor, pri katerem najprej pokažemo njegovo genezo. Magistrsko delo vsebuje izvirno sintezo rekonceptualizacij implicitnega avtorja, ki je vsebinsko razvrščena glede na osnovne kazalnike: povezava z empiričnim avtorjem in antropomorfnost ter trije vidiki opredeljevanja: vidik literarne produkcije, vidik literarne recepcije, vidik literarnega dela kot fenomena. Ta razdelitev je nastala preko vsebinske analize večine sodobnih in izbranih ključnih starejših razprav na to temo. Sinteza omogoča, da razkrijemo osrednje anomalije teorij, med temi problematično težnjo k simultanemu definiranju vloge avtorja v literarnem delu za vse procese, ki so povezani s književnostjo, hkrati. Posebej izpostavimo tiste teorije, ki koncept opredeljujejo z vidika literarnega bralca: gre za bralčev konstrukt, ki nastane preko znotrajbesedilnih lastnosti in poznavanja zunajbesedilnih dejstev o empiričnem avtorju ter širših kontekstov nastanka literarnega dela, pa tudi kasnejše recepcije literarnega dela. Tako opredeljen koncept je temelj za razpravo o vlogi dejstev o empiričnem avtorju v šolski praksi, pri čemer temeljimo na pouku slovenščine na gimnazijah. Za integriranje znanja o zunajliterarnih kontekstih v znanje o samem literarnem delu je ključno kognitivno branje. Omogoča namreč povezovanje literarnega dela v širše (kulturno-, duhovnozgodovinske in druge) kontekste. Kognitivna naratologija opaža, da bralci besedilno strukturo pripišejo določenemu delovalniku, empirična raziskava literarnega branja z vidika predstav o literarnem avtorju pa kaže, da emotivnih spodbud pri bralcu ne sproža le vsebina literarnega dela, pač pa tudi poznavanje dejstev o implicitnem avtorju. Na temelju sistemske književnodidaktične paradigme z elementi recepcijske zagovarjamo, da temelji spoznavanje avtorja na teh osnovah. Učenčevo zanje o literarnem avtorju ne sme biti ločeno od drugih kontekstualnih elementov produkcije in kasnejše recepcije književnosti. Med temi elementi književnega znanja naj bodo vzročno-posledične in logične povezave, ki jih zagotavlja znanje z(a) razumevanje(m). Dosežemo ga s poukom, kjer je na prvem mestu komunikacija s književnostjo in v katerem usvajanje znanja poteka dejavno % problemsko. Dokument Evropski literarni okvir za učitelje v srednjih šolah (2012) pri spoznavanju sistema književnosti izhaja iz učenčevega zanimanja za literarnega avtorja. Literarna zmožnost, ki jo določa, je tesno speta s književnim znanjem, ki empiričnega avtorja locira v kompleks okoliščin, ki določajo produkcijo in kasnejšo recepcijo literarnega dela. Višje stopnje literarne zmožnosti terjajo problemske obravnave zunajbesedilnih dejstev o literarnem delu, v tesni navezavi s slednjim.We check the role of the author in a literary work through the controversial concept of the implied author, in which we first check the establishment of it. This master\u27s thesis contains an original synthesis of the reconceptualizations of the implied author, which is substantially classified in terms of basic indicators: the link between the empirical author and the personification and three other defining aspects: the aspect of literary production, the aspect of literary reception and the aspect of the literary work as a phenomenon. This division was created through a content analysis of the most modern and even of some older discussions on this topic. The synthesis allows to reveal the abnormalities in the central theories, one of these is the troublesome tendency to define the role of the author in a literary work simultaneously for all the processes that are associated with literature. We particularly expose the theories that are determined in terms of the literary reader: the implied author is a construct of the reader that occurs via intratextual characteristics and knowledge of the extratextual empirical facts about the author and the broader contexts of the emergence of a literary work, as well as the subsequent reception of the literary work. Thus defined concept is the basis for a discussion on the role of the empirical facts about the author in the school practice at the Slovene grammar schools. To integrate the knowledge of the contexts in the knowledge about the literary work itself is a key for cognitive reading. It enables the integration of the literary works in the broader (cultural and historical) contexts. Cognitive narratology notes that the readers of the text attribute the structure to a factor, the empirical study of literary reading in terms of performances of literary author shows that emotional stimulus for the reader not only raises the content of a literary work, but also the knowledge of the facts about the implied author. Based on the systemic paradigm of literature didactics the reception of literature advocates to meet the author. Pupils\u27 knowledge of the literary author can not be separated from other contextual elements of the production and the subsequent reception of literature. These factors include literary knowledge to be causally and logically connected that provides the learning for understanding and learning by understanding. This is achieved by the classes where the first communication with literature and the acquisition of knowledge take place actively. The Literary framework for teachers in secondary education (2012) stems from a student\u27s interest in literary author to get to know the system of literature. It provides a literary ability, which is closely coupled with literary knowledge that the empirical author locates in the complex circumstances that determine the production and subsequent reception of a literary work. Higher levels of literary abilities for solving a problem require the treatment of the extratextual facts about the literary work that is closely linked to the latter
Beloved: how to be with the Other?
No full textV diplomskem delu skozi svoj intimni proces branja romana Ljubljena avtorice Toni Morrison raziskujem odnos do drugega/Drugega, ki ga v njem srečujem. Za lažji popis procesa v začetku na kratko predstavim discipline, ki se z drugostjo ukvarjajo in navedem nekatere njihove predstavnike: Virka, Lévinasa, Ricoeurja, Freuda, Spivakovo, Saida, Waldenfelsa, Junga, ki omenjena pojma raziskujejo, definirajo ter kontekstualizirajo v skladu s svojim področjem raziskovanja. Ponudim še grob zgodovinski pregled ukvarjanja z drugim/Drugim – ta služi predvsem zavedanju o že dlje trajajočem prizadevanju za razjasnitev tega izmuzljivega pojma in nezmožnosti njegove dokončne zajezitve. Poleg navedenih izrazov se dotaknem še pojmov literarnost in univerzalnost, saj z njima pogostokrat ubesedim občutja, ki mi jih je branje odprlo. Tu pa poudarjam, da je smoter diplomske naloge popis intimnega procesa branja in iskanje odgovorov na naslovno vprašanje Kako bi(va)ti z Drugim? v literarnem delu samem, ne pa v teoriji. Da bi ta smoter kar se da učinkovito in jasno zaživel, sem si zavestno izbrala bolj poetični diskurz in teorijo uporabljala zgolj na mestih, kjer se mi je to zdelo potrebno. To delo je tako zamah v smer poudarjanja veličine literarnih del, ki se kaže predvsem v tem, kako se lahko globoko dotaknejo in temeljito preoblikujejo bralko ali bralca, jima pomagajo, da se naučita bi(va)ti z vsemi mogočimi drugostmi – tako s tistimi najbolj neznatnimi kot tistimi najbolj radikalnimi. Moj način pisanja diplomske naloge je povabilo vsem študentkam in študentom primerjalne književnosti in literarne teorije, da si dovolijo več intimnosti in poetičnosti v svojih diplomskih nalogah in s tem počastijo prizadevanja vede ter v sebi zavestno raziščejo in natančno upovejo, kako se jih literatura dotika in zakaj je ta študij pomemben in vreden.In my graduation thesis, through my intimate process of reading Toni Morrison\u27s novel Beloved, I explore therelationship to the other/Other I encounter in it. To facilitate the description of the process, I briefly introduce the disciplines that deal with otherness and cite some theorists, such as Virk, Lévinas, Ricoeur, Freud,
Spivak, Said, Waldenfels, and Jung, who research, define, and contextualise these concepts in accordance with their field of research. I also offer a rough historical overview of dealing with the other/Other – this serves primarily to raise awareness of the long-standing effort to clarify this elusive notion and the impossibility of definitively containing it. In addition to the above terms, I also touch on terms such as literariness and universality, as I often use them to express the feelings that
reading has opened to me. I want to emphasise that the purpose of the thesis is to take stock of the intimate process of reading and to find answers to the title question How to Be with the Other? in the literary work itself, not in theory. For this purpose, to come to life as effectively and clearly as possible, I consciously chose a more poetic discourse and used the theory only in places where I considered it necessary. This work is thus a swing in the direction of emphasising the greatness of literary works, which is manifested primarily in how they can deeply touch and thoroughly transform the reader, helping him or her to learn how to be with all that represents otherness—both the most insignificant and the most radical one. My way of writing my thesis is an invitation to all students of Comparative Literature and Literary Theory to allow themselves more intimacy and poetics in their
diploma theses, thus honouring the efforts of literary sciences and to consciously explore and thoroughly articulate how literature touches them and why this study is important and worthwhile
Truth, confession, and the subject: Searching for theautobiographical self in literature, philosophy and psychoanalysis
No full textČeprav je avtobiografija kot pojem, literarni žanr in navsezadnje tudi način »osmišljanja« lastnega življenja precej heterogen pojav, pa združuje v svoji klasični obliki nekaj ključnih elementov, ki jih lahko opredelimo kot specifično avtobiografske. S svojo osredotočenostjo na prvoosebni jaz, na notranjost duše ter iskanje in izpovedovanje resnice o samemu sebi je razvoj avtobiografije neposredno povezan z razvojem moderne subjektivnosti. V poskusu razumevanja avtobiografije se bomo natančneje ukvarjali z razvojem subjektivnosti v nekaterih ključnih zgodovinskih obdobjih ter poskusili orisati spremembe, ki so pripeljale do razumevanja človeka na način »spovedne živali«. V ta namen bo posebna pozornost posvečena obdobju razsvetljenstva in Foucaultovi konceptualizaciji krščanskih spovednih praks ter njihovi sekularizaciji in implementaciji v literarni in psihoanalitični kontekst. Vprašali se bomo o statusu retrospektivnega pripovedovanja ter o problemu realnega in fikcijskega v psihoanalizi in literaturi. Posledično bo nekaj pozornosti posvečeno tudi problemu avtorja kot vladarja, funkcionarja in utemeljitelja diskurzivnostihkrati pa nas bo to pripeljalo do razumevanja napetosti med avtobiografijo kot »žanrom discipliniranosti« ter avtobiografijo kot žanrom kreativnega samo-osmišljanja.Although autobiography as a concept, a literary genre, and, ultimately, a way of "making sense" of one\u27s own life is a rather heterogeneous phenomenon, it combines in its classical form some key elements that can be defined as specifically autobiographical. With its focus on the first-person self, on the inner soul, and the search for and confession of the truth about oneself, the development of autobiography is directly linked to the development of modern subjectivity. In an attempt to understand autobiography, we will look more closely at the development of subjectivity in some key historical periods and try to outline the changes that have led to an understanding of the human being in the manner of a »confessing animal«. To this end, special attention will be paid to the Enlightenment period and Foucault\u27s conceptualization of Christian confessional practices and their secularization and implementation in a literary and psychoanalytic context. We will question the status of retrospective narration and the problem of the real and the fictional in psychoanalysis and literature. Consequently, some attention will also be paid to the problem of the author as ruler, functionary, and founder of discursivityat the same time, this will lead us to an understanding of the tension between autobiography as a "genre of disciplinarity" and autobiography as a genre of creative self-construction
The Meaning of Alpinism in Autobiographic Novels by Slovenian Alpinists
No full textV diplomskem delu predstavim vprašanje o smislu alpinizma in poskušam nanj odgovoriti z obravnavo desetih slovenskih avtobiografskih alpinističnih romanov in sicer Sfinga Anteja Mahkote, Stene mojega življenja Toneta Škarje, Klic gora Tineta Miheliča, Pot Nejca Zaplotnika, Objem na vrhu sveta Marije in Andreja Štremflja, Biseri pod snegom Dušana Jelinčiča, Ožarjeni kamen Frančka Kneza, Sneg na zlati veji Igorja Škamperleta, Igra in biseri Bogdana Biščaka ter Smisel in Spoznanje Matevža Lenarčiča. Temo smisla alpinizma razdelam na več podtem, in sicer šport, avantura, prijateljstvo, preseganje samega sebe, individualizem, lepota narave in presežno. Z obravnavo teh tem osvetlim pogled posameznih avtorjev na vprašanje o smislu, ki je kompleksno in subjektivno.In this thesis I present the dillema of the purpose of mountaineering. I try to adress the question by discussing ten autobiographic novels by slovenian alpinists which are Sfinga by Ante Mahkota, Stene mojega življenja by Tone Škarja, Klic gora by Tine Mihelič, Pot by Nejc Zaplotnik, Objem na vrhu sveta by Marija and Andrej Štremfelj, Biseri pod snegom by Dušan Jelinčič, Ožarjeni kamen by Franček Knez, Sneg na zlati veji by Igor Škamperle, Igra in biseri by Bogdan Biščak, and Smisel in Spoznanje by Matevž Lenarčič. I divide the theme of the purpose of mountaineering in sub-themes which are sport, adventure, friendship, overcoming oneself, individualism, beauty of nature, and transcendence. By discussing these sub-themes I illuminate the views of different authors on the question of the purpose of mountaineering which is complex and subjective
Analysis of the screen adaptation of Vladimir Körner\u27s novella Adelheid from the perspective of the transfer of ethical norms
No full textDiplomsko delo analizira ekranizacijo češke novele Adelheid Vladimíra Körnerja v režiji Františka Vláčila. Osredotoča se na okoliščine nastanka ekranizacije v kompleksnem družbeno-političnem kontekstu šestdesetih let 20. stoletja in za takratni čas problematično tematiko povojne prisilne izselitve nemškega prebivalstva iz Češkoslovaške. Predstavlja pereč odnos med protagonistoma, in sicer Čehom in Nemko, z gledišča etike ter primerja pripovedna sredstva literarnega in filmskega jezika, ki recipientu osvetljujejo dinamiko odnosa v noveli in filmu.This thesis analyses the film adaptation of Vladimír Körner\u27s Czech novella Adelheid directed by František Vláčil. It focuses on the circumstances of the development of the film adaptation in the complex socio-political context of the 1960s and, for that time, the problematic topic of the post-war forced emigration of the German population from Czechoslovakia. It presents a problematic relationship between the two protagonists, a Czech man and a German woman, from ethics\u27 point of view and compares the means which are used to reveal the dynamics of the relationship to the recipient of the novel and of the film
Ethics in Science Fiction on the basis of novels Ender\u27s Game and Iksion
No full textV diplomski nalogi sprva predstavim glavne značilnosti žanra znanstvene fantastike in vanj umestim izbrana romana Enderjeva igra Orsona Scotta Carda in Iksion Mihe Remca. Pojasnim izbiro romanov in nato oba analiziram z vidika etike. Poglobim se v tri glavne teme, in sicer v zlo, svobodo in manipulacijo. Zanima me, ali lahko v romanih govorimo o zlu in katera dejanja veljajo za zlobna. Na zlo in svobodo se osredotočim v povezavi s posameznikom, družbo in resnico. Zanima me prisotnost manipulacije, katere vlogo poskušam ugotoviti s pomočjo Kirschnerjeve knjige: Umetnost manipuliranja.The thesis introduces the main features of the science fiction genre and places the two chosen novels Ender\u27s Game by Orson Scott Card and Iksion by Miha Remec in its context. The choice of novels is also explained in the thesis. Both novels are analysed from an ethical point of view with focus on the three main themes – evil, freedom and manipulation. It also focuses on which actions in the novels are considered evil and if, one can even talk about morally wrong actions. The thesis focuses on immorality, freedom and truth among individuals and the society at large. The role of manipulation and its presence in the novels are also explained with the help of Kirschner\u27s Manipulation: Eight ways to control others
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Primerjalna književnost na prelomu tisočletja. Kritični pregled
No full textIn a comprehensive and at times critical manner, this volume seeks to shed light on the development of events in Western (i.e., European and North American) comparative literature in the past two decades. It is divided into two parts: part one tackles disciplinary self-reflection, starting from the first half of the 1990s onwards, and especially focuses on the “crisis" of comparative literature. The second part focuses on particular fields of literary studies (literary theory, literariness, otherness, translation, literary history, and world literature), seeking to demonstrate they are a special domain of comparative literature.
Part one is introduced by a brief historical overview of the development of Western comparative literature up to the 1990s, the time of the “second crisis" of comparative literature (the first was discussed by Wellek in his well-known lecture entitled “The Crisis of Comparative Literature" at the end of the 1950s). The two strongest indications of this – both dating back to 1993 – are Susan Bassnett’s work Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction, known for its famous thesis that “Today, comparative literature in one sense is dead," and The Bernheimer Report, one of the reports regularly made each decade by the American Comparative Literature Association, stating among other things “that the term ‘literature’ may no longer adequately describe our subject of study." Both works sparked debates between their supporters, who advocated a rapprochement of comparative literature with translation and cultural studies and even its merger into them, and their opponents, who pleaded for the preservation of the autonomy of comparative literature and its basic object of study – that is, literature. This state generated a flood of methodological and meta-theoretical discussions on the nature, role, and meaning of comparative literature (particularly in North American comparative literature, where the “second crisis" was by far the most intense). It was brought about by a paradigm shift in the humanities; namely the “cultural turn," according to which particular “cultural (and social) practices" can no longer be studied in the “phenomenological spirit" (namely, as a Ding an sich), but instead in a context, in particular the cultural context that constructs its subjects and “practices" in one way or another. In addition to these two works, this book also deals with Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek’s Comparative Literature: Theory, Method, Application (1998) and some later essays by this author, who strongly supports the metamorphosis of comparative literature into “comparative cultural studies" and proposes the introduction of more exact research methods, such as those used by social and natural sciences, which are socially more acknowledged (e.g., systemic and empirical approaches). The discussion analyses the reasons for such a development in particularly North American (and partly British) comparative literature in the 1990s. It establishes that the demand for contextualization is not new and that contextualization – at times more, at times less intensely – has accompanied comparative literature from its beginnings as an integral element. It defends the position that literature or the “literary field" should remain the basic subject of comparative literature despite self-evident contextualization, it advocates an autonomous methodology for literary comparative studies, and, last but not least, it attempts to illustrate the self-destructive nature of the exaggerated “cultural" tendency of North American comparative literature in the 1990s because this consequently leads to the abolishment of comparative literature.
The discussion perceives a partial digression from this tendency in another recent infamous work on comparative literature; namely, Gayatri C. Spivak’s book provocatively titled Death of a Discipline (2003; based on lectures from 2000). This work is controversial in many respects because in its introduction (and only there) it predicts the death of comparative literature and its collaboration with cultural studies. On the other hand (even in the debate over The Bernheimer Report), it opposes the merger of comparative literature into cultural studies and (again in strong opposition to The Bernheimer Report) advocates research on literariness as a specific domain of comparative literature. The book of Bengali comparativist points towards a new paradigm shift in the humanities – namely, the “esthetic turn." Its features are also visible in Saussy’s American Comparative Literature Association report from the following year (2003). Here, there are much more moderate views on contextualization, and in particular Saussy supports the autonomy of the discipline and argues for the study of literariness as one of its main tasks. The discussion tries to illustrate how these changes are also taking place under the influence of wider social movements, especially globalization, which poses new challenges for the humanities. Particularly comparative literature with its disciplinary specifics should therefore have fewer problems with social legitimization than a decade before. The rehabilitation of universality is also one of the central indicators of methodological changes in comparative literature. This concept was strongly rejected by comparative literature in the past few decades due to its hegemonic pretensions and Euro-centrism; however, its revitalization (in a more purified form) has proved its necessity, in particular within the framework of globalization. Globalization itself demands the manner of thought that perceives one subject as a part of a multitude of other subjects, sees uniformity in diversity; in other words – as Latin American comparative literature puts it – the dialectics of local and global, universal and partial, or, more specifically, in a language of intercultural hermeneutics, also defended by this paper – the position of in-betweenness and mediation. The thematization of this in-betweenness – as a response to unilateral relativisms and essentialisms – seems to be the priority task of comparative literature within literary studies.
A chapter on literary theory follows. Due to its principle-based universality or transnationalism, literary theory was the focus of research in comparative literature, at least in the 20th century, if not from its very beginnings. The chapter first sheds light on the terminological problem; from the 1970s onwards in English-speaking countries, the term “literary theory" (or simply “theory," but in the context of literary studies or comparative literature) was used to denote theoretical currents that do not have much in common with traditional literary theory; for example, Marxism, structuralism, Lacanianism, particularly deconstruction, and so on – in other words, that which can be more appropriately termed “methodology" in the context of Slovenian (and partially German) terminology. The discussion proposes a more precise distinction between both terms of “literary theory," and later focuses on defining its place in modern literary studies and comparative literature. In this area, too, it faces the question of “the death of the theory" and suggests that literary theory’s applicability for research in all domains of the literary field should be the decisive factor for determining the validity of a particular theory, be it modern or traditional. The conclusion of the chapter states that comparative literature should take into consideration and make use of theories of literature provided by different disciplinary discourses, but should at the same time (and especially) develop its own, autonomous literary theory, specifically adapted to its basic object of research.
The chapter on literariness deals with a topic that became extremely controversial during the 1990s; at the same time, as the paper seeks to demonstrate, it is obvious that it must remain one of the central research domains of comparative literature as literary studies. Various approaches and ways of understanding literariness are possible, as well as two extreme viewpoints: the essentialist view, which understands literariness as a merely immanent, objective, unchangeable character (an “essence") of literary texts; and the relativistic view, according to which literariness is only a construct, a consequence of a particular attribution from the “outside." The paper defends a middle way, illustrated by the comparative theory of invariants (Etiemble, Fokkema), according to which at least a minimal identity is conserved in the contextually dependent diversity of particular (literary) phenomena. Literariness is therefore on the one hand partially understood as the “immanent" characteristic of literature; however, the chapter concludes with the observation that literature with its literariness is always entangled in an actual (cultural, historical, social, ideological, etc.) context, so that literariness is understood and formulated somewhat differently every time.
The chapter on otherness highlights the overall importance of this concept for the humanities in the 20th century, and later on its importance for comparative literature, because the relationship to otherness is in fact integrated into the basic idea of comparative literature as a discipline. In the past few decades, otherness has become one of the most important comparative and conceptual tools. The discussion briefly touches upon the importance of this concept for particular research areas of comparative literature; for example, for comparative literary history, imagology, travel literature, the problematics of literary translation, intercultural and postcolonial studies, gender studies, and so forth, and later focuses on the attempt to define “contextualized literariness" by means of the term “otherness." In doing so, it tries to point out the boundaries of particular discourses, in this case theoretical discourse, and briefly mentions the fact that even modern comparative literature is most successful in this definition when crossing those boundaries (by referring to the concept of otherness).
The study of translation is one of the traditional domains of comparative literature because the modern translation studies developed from comparative literature. The chapter goes on to separate the traditional comparative dilemma or the question of “reading the original or the translation" from the problematics of studying the translation (which obviously necessarily involves reading the original) and focuses on the latter. It points to the importance of studying a translation for comparative literature and calls attention to new dimensions in modern (as well as comparative) translation theory; for example, to the changed relationship between the original and the translation, and to the independent meaning of the latter for modern literary studies.
The extensive chapter on literary history focuses on the complex problematic of modern comparative literary history. Comparative literature was in its origin conceived of as a study within literary history, which remains one of its priorities today. In today’s context of globalization in particular and findings on transnational links between literary phenomena, best contributed to by the theory of intertextuality and reception esthetics, it has become clear that the role of comparative literary history with regard to the nature of literature is becoming increasingly important compared to national literary histories, which predominated just a few decades ago. In the 1970s, the International Comparative Literature Association conceived a vast project on comparative literary history, which has undergone constant conceptual change. The most radical changes were wrought by some of the most innovative products of the project, particularly the literary histories of Latin American and Eastern-Central European cultures. These two projects – along with some other, conceptually related ones (e.g., Hollier’s A New History of French Literature) – are based on certain new historiographic principles; for example, the relativization or rejection of principles of linearity, the continuity, and teleology, the collapse of “great narratives", and so forth. The discussion first thoroughly examines these new historiographic concepts, especially the clash between their theoretical breakthrough and their potential for practical realization. It advocates the necessity of conceptual renewal, although when these renewals become too radical their transfer into the concrete practice of literary history can be questionable and even conterproductive. It points to historicity as the basis of human existence, which defines all human perceptions of reality and its manifestations, even past events, as a time continuum. This is therefore not only an ideological construct subjected to different interests of power (although it can of course be abused for these purposes), but more of an a priori condition of every historical discourse, even discourse within literary studies or comparative literature. The chapter briefly analyses the advantages and drawbacks of new concepts of literary history and advocates pluralism in this area, “pluralistic" comparative literary histories, which could shed light from various viewpoints on particular “objects" or circumstances, including of course the supposedly controversial traditional positions.
Universal (economic, cultural, informational, etc.) globalization has in some way created a new interest in world literature. In the second half of the 20th century, world literature was practically abolished from comparative literature – the term “universality" was done away with for similar reasons, namely because of (alleged or actual) Euro-centrism, false humanism, imperialistic hegemony, and so forth. This chapter presents three possible ways of understanding world literature (the qualitative, quantitative, and “communicative") and then goes on to explain Goethe’s concept of world literature. In doing so, it faces its surprising modern applicability (it is therefore no surprise that Homi Bhabba, one of the most important post-colonialism theorists, modernized it in his own way). In the historic overview of the development of the concept, it touches upon Strich’s and Auerbach’s understandings and draws attention to the most important achievement in this direction: namely, the concept of world literature as a final goal of interliterary research in the Slovak comparative school of Dionýz urišin. It primarily focuses on three modern approaches; namely, those of Franco Moretti, Pascale Casanova, and David Damrosch. Moretti’s approach is accompanied by the critical question of “distant reading," which Moretti believes is the only possible way to conceptualize world literature because it is not possible to present it as an corpus of particular authors or works, but rather as a system of given structures or rules of the literary field. Pascale Casanova’s concept of “The World Republic of Letters" brings with it the interesting notion of a relatively independent literary field, but what is more controversial is the actual execution and the author’s barely disguised “Gallo-centrism." The most promising – and the closest to Goethe’s idea – is Damrosch’s concept of world literature, which includes works that have had a “transnational" fate for various reasons and, by surpassing the boundaries of national literatures, become works of world literature.
The final chapter attempts to pithily sum up the central idea of the work. It addresses the identity of comparative literature and demonstrates how this identity – like, for example, the concept of literariness – has been constantly crossed with varieties, diversities, and disparateness whether they manifested themselves as a multitude of comparative “schools," as the plurality and diversity of methodological approaches, or as the changeability of various ideologies (as well as scholarly and paradigmatic changes). It demonstrates how all these differences are inevitably contextually conditioned, and ascertains at the same time that the view of comparative literature in its context-surpassing “identity" should not be hindered. This is why it proposes that comparative literature be thought of as one and at the same time as a variety; as an invariant discipline, drifting in constant, contextually-bound changes; as a multi-perspective polilogue where minimal identity does not arise from a given postulate, recipe, or obligatory rule, but rather from the “natural" subject of the discipline that bears the name comparative literature; a discipline that is neither universal nor merely partial, local, and contextually-bound, but instead plural. Comparative literature best suits the mediating “essence," described in this book on several occasions and accepted consensually in modern comparative literature, by opening once up again to its somewhat forgotten hermeneutic basis. When “comparing" (this expression is still in its name) various literatures or literary works (or their literary contexts), it should try to behave as (inter)cultural hermeneutics by exposing “what is in the middle, that which mediates the profusion in the passage between one’s own and the foreign" (Komel 2002: 137). It is the concept of (inter)cultural hermeneutics (which has best helped define literariness on the basis of the concept of otherness) that seems the most appropriate for formulating those characteristics of comparative literature constantly outlined by this discussion; namely, that it acknowledges the differences, not renouncing the moment of identity, but instead thematizing the question of the “middle," the non-reflected intermediateness, implied by Husserl’s concept of the life-world, and postulated by Heidegger in Identity and Difference.Primerjalna književnost je bila v 20. stoletju osrednja literarnovedna disciplina: združevala je literarno teorijo, zgodovino, kritiko in interpretacijo, po drugi strani pa vzpostavljala komunikacijo z drugimi umetnostmi in humanističnimi ter družboslovnimi znanostmi. Zaradi svoje univerzalnosti je bila v drugi polovici 20. stoletja ena od osrednjih humanističnih ved, iz nje so nastale nove discipline, na primer prevodoslovje, velik del kulturnih in postkolonijalnih študij, teorije večkulturnosti ipd. Proti koncu 20. stoletja pa so te nove discipline na nekaterih področjih (zlasti v Združenih državah, delno tudi v Evropi) začele spodrivati primerjalno književnost, ki se je znašla v nekakšni krizi in si zato prizadeva za svojo vnovično utemeljitev in upravičenje. Knjiga analizira opisano dogajanje, skuša reflektirati vzroke zanj, predstavlja novejše poskuse legitimacije literarne vede nasploh in posebej primerjalne književnosti.
Knjiga si poleg tega prizadeva premisliti pojav »smrti literarne teorije« in aktualno usmerjenost v »kontekstualizacijo« literature; predstavlja najvitalnejše poskuse prenove primerjalne književnosti (sistemske in empirične študije, primerjalne kulturne študije, smer »literarni darvinizem«, koncept interliterarnosti idr.), skuša ugotoviti aktualno stanje v stroki (z vidika teorije in institucionalizacije) in začrtati vizijo primerjalne književnosti na začetku tretjega tisočletja
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