An introduction to Comparative Literature

Buddhadeva Bose (1908-74.) has been called the most multifaceted genius among the modern poets in Bengal. For those who are unfamiliar with Bengali literary history, this translates into the post-Rabindranath Tagore generation of poets who tried at once to move out of Rabindranath’s long shadow and establish an intellectual connection with Modernisms as they arose in western literatures, even while attempting to define themselves as Indian in a newly independent nation-state. These were the concerns that framed Bose’s founding of the first (and till date, the only) full-fledged department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University in Bengal in 1956. The defining characteristics of the Comparative literature Movement in India owed much to these foundational impulses. His engagement with "tradition" whether in the form of the immediate past (Rabindranath) or the more ancient treasures identified as "Indian" literature, an engagement with the "other", whether it was the remote and alternative other in the form of continental Europe and America, or the other as the English colonial master, more immediate and overwhelming, formed the dialectics that informed the need for a methodology of literary study that went beyond the boundaries of compartmentalized single literatures. Comparative Literature in India bears the traces of Bose’s intricately historicised ,discerning and deeply felt analysis of western Modernism (witness his introduction to his translation of Baudelaire, Charles Baudelaire O Taar Kobita 1961) his own careful delineation of the "modern" in Bangla literature (intro, Adhunik Bangla Kobita, 1954). Introduction to 'Kalidaser Meghaduta' called "Samskrta Kavita O Meghadhuta" may also be mentioned for his perception of the 'modern', besides his numerous essays in the pages of the magazine 'Kavita' {1935-61}. Probably he spoke the most on the Bengali 'modern'). He was active in the Progressive Writers' Association in the late 30s and the Anti-Fascist Writers and Artists' Association in the early 40s--both before Independence and the birth of the nation. 'Comparative Literature: Germany and India' brought out by the JU Dept.) The thrust was of course on the non-English (there anti-colonial to a degree) West, mother-tongue and traditionAlong with these traces, it also harbours within its discourse his argument for the importance of each Indian language and its literature to take central position in the literary map of India after independence, his involvement in the Progressive Writers’ Union not in terms of political ideology but in terms of artistic freedom as a defining concept in a free, democratic country quote from textadded a special dimension to the ideal of a "mother tongue" in a milieu of mental colonization. Indeed, his multilayered analytic skill, his practice as critic and poet and translator, and last but by no means least his ability as an inspiring and inspired teacher laid the foundations of Comparative Literature in India

[Potentially, India is one of the richest fields for Comparative Literature. The age and complexity of our civilization, the diverse elements that compose it, that 'world-hunger' of which Tagore spoke a hundred times and which took possession of us with the dawning of our modern age - all these provide the material and atmosphere demanded by the nature of this discipline. The history of India is a story of absorption, adaptation and assimilation, of continual coming to terms with foriegn influences, and of resistance transformed into response. We have great links with many cultures of the East and West; our religions have influenced Western thought; interest in our arts and literatures is now keen and widespread. If Comparative Literature is permitted to develop, it can be of service in bringing India and the world spiritually closer and it can make a small contribution to the growth of that cosmopolitan spirit which is much more discussed than achieved. Nothing reveals the soul of a nation as clearly as does its literature, nor is there any other thing where the basic unity of mankind is felt with such force and animation. The controversy provoked by Comparative Literature at Jadavpur can in itself be regarded as a sign ot its viability, and its necessity has been recognized at least by the Bengali department of Calcutta University which has recently introduced a Comparative paper for the study of one literature other than Bengali, but connected with it.]

(The article 'Comparative Literature in India' by Buddhadeva Bose first appeared in the Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature, 8 (1959), 1-10.)

The emergence of Comparative Literature as a concept in the western world may be dated from Goethe's (1749-1832) use of the term "world literature," which he coined in the last decade of his life as a reaction to Romantic -- even pre-Romantic -- literary criticism, breaking through the traditional limits of Occidental literature by revaluating popular poetry and the literatures of the Middle Ages and of the Orient. "I am more and more convinced," Goethe remarked, "that poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere and at all times in hundreds and hundreds of men . . . I therefore like to look about me in foreign nations, and advise everyone to do the same. National literature is now a rather unmeaning term; the epoch of world literature is at hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approach." Speaking to his young disciple Johann Peter Eckermann in January 1827, the seventy-seven-year-old Goethe used his newly minted term Weltliteratur, which passed into common currency after Eckermann published his Gespräche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens in 1835, three years after the poet's death. It is mere speculation (but certainly a speculation that the comparatist can take as her point of departure) to wonder whether the imperial ambitions of napoleon and the consequences which the German principalities faced because of the aggressive cultural and political ascendance of France in Europe led Goethe to term “nationalism” as unmeaning, and proceed to cast literature in the guise of an equalizer, a weapon of peace rather than war. The idea of Comparative Literature, then, is from its very inception a radical idea that refigures divisive antagonisms based on given and assumed parochialisms into relations of engagement and exchange – in other words, an idea and ideal for the future.


[acknowledgements: www.complitju.org]
P.s I wasnt even awar that our department had a website, i am sure no one else is aware of it as well. I did a google and it popped up in the second page