The Vitality of Comparative Literature

This essay deals with both the crisis of Comparative Literature and the aspects that should be considered in a renewed version of the discipline. In recent years, Comparative Literature has been struggling with newer disciplines, like Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Postcolonial Studies, World Literature, each of them with their new research interests and methodologies. But Comparative Literature has also been quite successful in the integration of these new topics, questions and insights, even if it sometimes did so by abandoning elements that should remain at the core of its business, like multilingualism, a strong historical perspective, and a persistent focus on textual objects and close reading. This article addresses the importance of these three elements, illustrating them with, first, a literary example (Éric Vuillard’s novel 14 juillet) and, second, a literary-historical example that might serve as a possible model of what Comparative Literature may stand for in the coming years (Nicholas Dames, The Chapter).