literary history, comparative literature, methodology of literary science, comparative method
Abstract
The article builds on Leibniz’s definition of comparison as a form of cognition and, accordingly, makes a distinction between a pre-theoretic function of comparison in everyday life and the comparative method, which becomes a foundation of all cognitive operations in philosophy and the sciences, including literary history. Here, its subject is the correlation between literary phenomena that enable us to determine their conceptional uniformity on the basis of similarities, as well as make distinctions on the basis of their differences. In gaining knowledge on literature and its historicity, discerning the differences is more important: they enable us to determine the particularities, uniqueness and originality of literary works, authors and their opuses. Such comparative correlations need to include, not only correlations of genesis and causality in the form of influences and intertextuality, but above all, topological and structural correlations which permit various levels of literary research: within a limited national context, as well as within world history. In doing so, the comparative method needs to be complemented by other philosophic and scientific methods – from those of Geistesgeschichte to phenomenological and sociological methods – in order to avoid a mere description of literary similarities and differences, and to be able to analyze and interpret them according to their motifs and themes, as well as their formal and aesthetic conceptions. Since comparison is the most general basis of acquiring knowledge about literary history, it has a central role within national literary history, as well as within the comparative history of world literature.
