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COMPARATIVE LITERARY STUDIES
Saxibova Dilrabo Ergashevna
English teacher
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13925464
The comparative historical method is a way of studying and explaining
various phenomena, in which, based on the establishment of similarities
between these phenomena in form, a conclusion is made about their genetic
relationship, i.e. about their common origin. The peculiarity of the comparative
historical method used in the study of cultural phenomena is that its starting
point is the restoration and comparison of the most ancient elements common
to various areas of material culture and knowledge.
Prehistory of comparative historical literary criticism. The first experiments
in the field of comparative literary criticism were made in Germany at the end of
the 18th century. Comparing multinational cultural and literary traditions,
German scholars came to the conclusion about the existence of a single
European and world "cultural space". I.G. Herder entered into polemics with
Lessing's "Laocoon..." ("Critical Forests..."), showed a deep interest in the
folklore of different peoples (collection "Voices of the Peoples in Songs" 1807). It
is characterized by the search for the laws of development of human society as a
whole - from the lower to the higher levels, the study of the culture of various
peoples of the world, including the peoples of Asia and the Slavs ("Ideas for the
Philosophy of the History of Mankind"). Herder gives an interpretation of the
concepts of "culture", "tradition"; speaks of the dependence of the culture of a
people on climate, form of government, religion, etc., asserts historicism in the
development of mankind.
Distinctive features of the artistic cultures of the East and West as
interpreted by Herder. The problem of continuity of generations and culture in
the works of Herder. Contradictions of Herder's concept, its impact on romantic
historicism.
Herder draws attention to the commonality of the cultural life of European
peoples, and I.-W. Goethe, continuing Herder's ideas, introduces the concept of
"world literature" into cultural studies. The idea of the unity of culture, and
above all the cultures of the West and the East, which make up world culture in
the "West-Eastern Divan". Justification of the connection between cultures by
the regularity of the progressive historical process, the essence of which is in the
constant interaction of peoples and their cultures, in their mutual influences and
mutual borrowings.
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Based on the dialectical method and within the framework of its idealistic
system, the historicism and aesthetics of G.V.F. Hegel are formed. Geographical
and cultural substantiation of the concepts of "East" and "West", determination
of the features of spiritual development of Eastern and Western peoples,
specificity of Eastern and Western types of aesthetic consciousness. "West" and
"East" as two inextricably linked, constantly interacting and essentially opposite
spiritual worlds. In studying the history of artistic culture, Hegel relied on the
dialectic he created, which allows us to see the opposition of two types of artistic
culture as a natural condition of their unity and interaction; the law of negation
explains the transition from the symbolic form of art that developed in the
ancient East to the higher stages of classical and romantic art, and the latter
synthesizes the criteria of Western and Eastern art. Hegel linked symbolic art
with the artistic culture of the East, classical art with Greece and Rome, i.e. with
Western Europe, and in romantic art he saw a synthesis of the cultures of the
East and West with the leading role of the latter. Developing in parallel, the
poetry of the East and the poetry of the West, Hegel believes, differ significantly
from each other in the uniqueness of content, and special methods of depiction,
and specific expressive means. Justification of the idea of the stage-by-stage
development of the arts, the historical principle of examining poetry (its themes,
characters, conflicts, leading pathos, genres).
Similar constructions of Jean-Paul, F. Schelling and other German
aestheticians (division of literature into genres, antithesis of heroic epic and
novel, etc.). Hegel's Eurocentrism and his criticism by A.N. Veselovsky.
The source of the comparative-historical method is the aesthetics of
romanticism with its characteristic principles of historicism and universality.
The affirmation of the individual-authorial artistic consciousness, freedom of
creativity, stimulating writers to turn to foreign works created not according to
the "rules" of classicism, their creative assimilation (the importance of
Shakespeare for Goethe, V. Hugo, Pushkin). The romantic concept of personality,
emphasis on the elements of feelings (as opposed to enlightenment rationalism)
- and the rehabilitation of the Middle Ages. The growth of national self-
awareness: interest in the history of one's people (the emergence of the
historical novel: W. Scott; the popularity of ballads based on national history),
the collection of folklore (Heidelberg Romantics), the requirement to convey in a
work "local color" as well as "the color of the era" ("Preface to the drama
"Cromwell" by Hugo). Comparisons of literatures: "naive" and "sentimental"
poetry (F. Schiller), new European literatures of the "south" and "north" (J. de
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Staël). The emergence of comparative historical linguistics in the bosom of
German Romanticism (F. Bopp, R. Rask, J. Grimm, W. Humboldt, etc.); its rapid
development and influence on literary criticism and folklore studies; many
scholars of the 19th century. were also linguists and literary scholars (J. Grimm,
F. I. Buslaev, A. A. Potebnya). Positivism in philosophy (O. Comte, G. Spencer) as
a reaction to the speculative, metaphysical nature of the systems of Hegel,
Schelling and other German philosophers; the most important principle of
positive (i.e., according to Comte, scientific) research is the derivation of "laws"
from a repeatedly observed sequence of facts and phenomena. The impossibility
of "pure" induction in science; the importance of hypotheses in the creation of
scientific directions. The idea of historical development, progress, evolution - in
its various versions - as the leading one in the sciences of nature and society
throughout almost the entire 19th century. Comparisons of similar phenomena
in the folklore and literatures of different peoples, the breadth of the material
involved, characteristic of the scientific schools of the 19th century. The genesis
of works, images, plots is the main subject of study; the heuristic value of many
hypotheses (generally one-sided), their complementarity.
The intensive development of ethnography in the 1830s, including
comparative ethnography, gave a new impetus to literary comparative studies.
Identification of a fund of universal, universal themes, motifs, and plots
when turning to the works of different peoples, including those at different
stages of social development; study of the path of movement of these themes
and motifs in time and space, from one national culture (era) to another culture
(era). The work of Jacob Grimm, Gaston Paris and other researchers.
The next stage in the development of the comparative historical method,
associated with the works of Georg Brandes, Max Koch, G.-M. Posnett. Georg
Brandes' idea, expressed in his work "The Main Currents in Literature of the
19th Century", that the genius of one people always needs contact with the
geniuses of other peoples, and this gives it strength for development; an appeal
to both the mutual connections of national literatures (Max Koch) and their
common features associated with the characteristics of social life common to
different peoples (G.-M. Posnett).
Proof of polygenesis, the independent emergence of similar forms of life,
beliefs, rituals, etc. in societies at the same level of civilization, by
representatives of the ethnographic (anthropological) school (E. Tylor, J. Frazer,
etc.). "The inhabitants of the lake dwellings of ancient Switzerland can be placed
next to the medieval Aztecs..." (Tylor).
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The mythological school in folklore studies and literary criticism (J. and V.
Grimm, A. Kuhn, M. Müller, F. I. Buslaev, A. N. Afanasyev, O. F. Miller, etc.) and its
influence on the formation of the comparative historical method.
Rapprochement of folk poetry, language and myth; explanation of similar images
and plots in the poetry of Indo-European peoples by their common ancient
mythology (proto-myth).
The cultural-historical school (I. Taine, V. Scherer, G. Lanson, G. Brandeis, J.
Lewis, A. N. Pypin, N. S. Tikhonravov, etc.) and its influence on the comparative-
historical method. A literary work as "a snapshot of the surrounding morals and
evidence of a certain state of mind" (Taine); likening a work to a plant growing
in a certain soil, and the humanities to natural science. Three different sources
("factors") explaining the features of a work: race, environment, moment
("History of English Literature" by Taine). Strengths of the method, its influence
on the sociological, including Marxist, approach to literature (G. V. Plekhanov).
At the same time, there is an unclear connection between the “factors” that
determine aesthetic phenomena, the leveling of the aesthetic merits of works,
since the latter are of interest to the researcher as “monuments” of their time
(the works of F.V. Rostopchin for N.S. Tikhonravov), the dissolution of fiction in
the history of writing.
Synchronous regular sequence of literary movements, caused by
historically similar conditions of development of peoples: Renaissance, Baroque,
Classicism, Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, Socialist Realism.
According to V.M. Zhirmunsky, the change of large literary movements and
styles is connected both with the change of social ideology and the means of its
artistic expression. This is the common basis on which more frequent
convergence of ideas, images, plots, genres, and styles is possible. This is a two-
sided, dialectical process - the change of literary movements is caused by both
internal development and an external push. At the same time, the determining
factors for the typology of a literary movement are not external, but internal
prerequisites for evolution. Direct influences and borrowings are less common
in modern literature than in medieval literature, since the typical and
traditional, stable and repetitive are supplanted by an ever greater
differentiation of artistic manners. In general, V.M.Zhirmunsky prefers the
comparative-typological approach and pays less attention to the problem of
contact interactions.
The latter aspect is most thoroughly developed in Russian literary criticism
in the works of N.I.Konrad. The concept of "Eastern Renaissance". Definition of
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the subject and tasks of comparative studies in the article "Problems of modern
comparative literary criticism". Development of the problem of contact
interactions in the works of N.I.Konrad. Typology of literary contacts:
penetration of a literary text into a foreign cultural environment in its own
"guise" - in the original language, the original text when penetrating into a
foreign cultural environment does not receive a strictly fixed appearance - each
reader creates his own version of the work based on the invariant text;
translation, which has become part of the foreign-language culture. The third
type of penetration of a foreign-language work, according to N.I.Konrad, is the
reproduction in the work of one writer of the content and motives of a work
created by a writer of another people. This form was especially widespread in
Asia in the Middle Ages, and its illustration can be the literary fate of the plot of
Layla and Majnun.
The problem of the literary mediator as a figure in the world literary
process that facilitates the implementation of real contacts between cultures.
The literary mediator has many faces, and hence the difference in the ways in
which one literature can influence another. Types of mediators noted by N.I.
Konrad.
The image of the personality of the poet, the "master of thoughts", who attracts
the attention of foreigners to the literature and culture of his country not only by
his work, but also by his fate (often legendary), his extra-literary activities, as
one of the types of mediation. Attention to literary creativity in this case often
comes as a consequence of interest in the individual, in the person. A special
type of mediation, characteristic of medieval literature, is the activity of masters
of oral retelling of foreign-language literature. The third type of mediator, also
characteristic of medieval literature, is the wandering singer, musician, buffoon.
In addition to those mentioned by N.I. Konrad, the following types of mediators,
characteristic primarily of the literature of the New Age, can be distinguished.
This is, first of all, the wandering writer, whose contact with a foreign cultural
environment leads to the mutual enrichment of both cultures, both literatures.
In dramatic periods of the history of modern European countries, situations of
mass literary mediation arise, associated with waves of literary emigration.
Among literary mediators, publishers occupy a special place.
List of references:
1.
Alekseev M.P. Comparative Literary Criticism /M.P. Alekseev. - L. Nauka,
Leningrad Branch, 1983. - P.6 - 100.
2.
Bushmin A.S. Methodological Issues of Literary Research /A.S. Bushmin. -
L.: Nauka, 1969. - P.67 - 72.
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3.
Veselovsky A.N. Historical Poetics /A.N. Veselovsky. - M.: Higher. school,
1989. - P.36 - 41; 310 - 316.
4.
Zhirmunsky V.M. Comparative Literary Criticism /V.M. Zhirmunsky. - L.:
Nauka, 1979. - P.383-403.
5.
Zhirmunsky V.M. Epic creativity of the Slavic peoples and problems of
comparative study of the epic / V.M.Zhirmunsky // Studies in Slavic literary
criticism and folklore studies. - M.: Publishing house of the USSR Academy of
Sciences, 1960. - P. 252-254.
6.
Kalacheva S. Comparativism / S.Kalacheva // Dictionary of literary terms. -
M., 1974. - P.149-152.
7.
Konrad N.I. West and East: articles / N.I.Konrad. - M.: Science, Chief editor
of Eastern Literature, 1972. - P.315-329.
