Lecture
Literary comparativism (comparative literary studies) took shape in the nineteenth
century. It develops in interaction with literary theory, cultural studies, philosophy,
and psychology. It is oriented toward the methodological foundations of phenomenology, hermeneutics,
and reception aesthetics. At the center of comparativist research are the following problems:
the migration of plots, motifs, and their variants across national literatures; — the typology of artistic
forms (the comparison of artistic phenomena from different periods and literatures in order to identify common features and
patterns of development); – the historical evolution of artistic forms (genres, styles, stylistic
varieties, types of creative work) in the verbal art of different peoples, the reconstruction of the general world
(regional) dynamics of literary development; the cultural context of individual literary-
aesthetic phenomena.
Phenomenology. At the beginning of the twentieth century, phenomenology spread first in philosophy and subsequently in literary studies
– a scholarly method of literary-critical interpretation of verbal works,
based on ascertaining its linguistic-semantic sources and the psychological preconditions of its emergence.
The artistic perception of a work acts as an act of co-creation, as an act of «recognizing the work.»
Phenomenological doctrine is applicable for uncovering the psychology of literary
creativity.
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Literary hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the science of interpreting a literary text.
The foundations of modern hermeneutics were laid by M. Heidegger, H.-G. Gadamer, and P. Ricoeur. Its key
concept is the understanding of the text. The basis of human being is language; but in actuality speech is realized
only in an utterance. Hermeneutics presupposes an individual reading, an appropriation of the text, one that
relies on the reader's prior aesthetic experience. A dialogue arises between the work and the interpreter.
Interpretation is in principle open (a multiplicity of interpretations of a text is possible) and is never
completed. P. Ricoeur distinguished three stages in the understanding of a literary text: 1) analysis of the content
and form of the work; 2) the process of reading, which conditions a particular reaction in the reader; 3) the appropriation of
the meaning of the text.
Reception aesthetics. What matters most for reception aesthetics is the active role of the reader in
the process of coming to know a literary text. Reception aesthetics regards the literary text as
a reader-oriented open structure, and studies readers' reactions and evaluations. Within the system «author –
work – reader,» the emphasis falls on the last component. The problem of the reception of a literary work
must be resolved from the standpoint of the aesthetic nature of the artistic word, taking into account the following
fundamental features: 1. The receptive approach presupposes a dialogue between the work and the reader;
the structure of a verbal work is designed for a potential dialogue, and is therefore dialogic by its very
nature. 2. A work of art, though it has its own invariant (the realized authorial intent),
is, in artistic perception, many-faced, many-sided, that is, it possesses a receptive
variability. 3. The character of reception depends on what is depicted in the work, on the emotional and psychological state of the reader at the moment of perceiving the work (mood), on the level of culture, on aesthetic
experience, on one's understanding of literature, on the capacity to enter imaginatively into it, to be subject to the suggestive power of the word. 4.
The recipient is a co-participant in the creative process. 5. No reception should depend on the opinion of
the author, the literary critic, or any other interpreter. 6. Artistic language is the language of play.
The reception of a work of art is likewise a game played by certain rules. 7. Reception is always a new
reading of the work of art.
Self-check questions
1. Characterize the principal theoretical foundations of comparativism.
2. Characterize the principal theoretical foundations of phenomenology.
3. Characterize the principal theoretical foundations of reception aesthetics.
4. Characterize the principal theoretical foundations of literary hermeneutics.
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