Comparing the Literatures - by David Damrosch (Paperback)

About the Book

Paperback reprint. Originally published: 2020.

Book Synopsis

From a leading figure in comparative literature, a major new survey of the field that points the way forward for a discipline undergoing rapid changes

Literary studies are being transformed today by the expansive and disruptive forces of globalization. More works than ever circulate worldwide in English and in translation, and even national traditions are increasingly seen in transnational terms. To encompass this expanding literary universe, scholars and teachers need to increase their linguistic and cultural resources, rethink their methods and training, and reconceive the place of literature and criticism in the world. In Comparing the Literatures, David Damrosch integrates comparative, postcolonial, and world-literary perspectives to offer a comprehensive overview of comparative studies and its prospects in a time of great upheaval and great opportunity.

Comparing the Literatures looks both at institutional forces and at key episodes in the life and work of comparatists who have struggled to define and redefine the terms of literary analysis over the past two centuries, from Johann Gottfried Herder and Germaine de Staël to Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Franco Moretti, and Emily Apter. With literary examples ranging from Ovid and Kalidasa to James Joyce, Yoko Tawada, and the internet artists Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Damrosch shows how the main strands of comparison--philology, literary theory, colonial and postcolonial studies, and the study of world literature--have long been intertwined. A deeper understanding of comparative literature's achievements, persistent contradictions, and even failures can help comparatists in literature and other fields develop creative responses to today's most important questions and debates.

Amid a multitude of challenges and new possibilities for comparative literature, Comparing the Literatures provides an important road map for the discipline's revitalization.

Review Quotes

"No summary could do justice to the wealth of writers, works, and critics discussed in this book, so my recommendation is that readers just lose themselves in this celebration of what comparative literature is and aspires to be."---César Domínguez, Modern Language Quarterly

"Few scholars active today can claim to have done as much as David Damrosch to shape the discipline of comparative literature in the United States. . . . Damrosch writes with great clarity and care, vividly bringing individual figures and their ideas to life. . . . [He] not only displays the breadth of his own personal canon, but also argues compellingly for the idea that our understanding of a given text is always enhanced by comparing it with other texts, whether or not the pairings are conventional or expected."---Alexander Beecroft, Modern Philology

"How does globalism affect the books we read, and the way we read them? A leading scholar investigates."-- "New York Times Book Review"

About the Author

David Damrosch is the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Comparative Literature and director of the Institute for World Literature at Harvard University, and a past president of the American Comparative Literature Association. His many books include What Is World Literature? (Princeton), the coedited Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature, The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh, and We Scholars: Changing the Culture of the University.