INTRODUCTION

As early as 1906, Tagore used the term Viswa Sahitya (world literature) to refer to an approach to literature that cuts across boundaries – national, political and linguistic. René Wellek argued in 1956 that a truly comparative literary history would describe transnational genres, schools or periods, placing texts inside a scheme of universal literature (Wellek and Warren 245). There had been no doubt among early scholars that Comparative Literature should include the possibility of studying all literatures with linguistic vigour. Perhaps, the most significant question that Comparative Literature has raised till today is the ideal of ‘open borders’ in a ‘global republic of letters’. Nevertheless, renewed nationalism has led to a sustained reconsideration of the geographic and linguistic identities that have often regulated Comparative Literature.

Comparison: What with What?

Ulrich Weisstein, in The Year Book of Comparative and General Literature, asks the question, ‘What is to be compared with what, by whom, to what end and under what conditions?’ This question acquires more importance in the context of external as well as internal differences of cultures. One cannot, however, obscure the complex interweaving of cultural processes.