What is Comp Lit?

The discipline of comparative literature has been defined by

literary scholars in a myriad of ways. Below are definitions
from a wide range of such scholars, including some from the
faculty of the Princeton University Department of
Comparative Literature.

Some Famous Definitions

Comparative Literature is the study of literature beyond the
confines of one particular country, and the study of the
relationships between literature on one hand and other areas
of knowledge and belief, such as the arts (e.g. painting,
sculpture, architecture, music), philosophy, history, the social
sciences, (e.g. politics, economics, sociology), the sciences,
religion, etc., on the other. In brief it is the comparison of one
literature with another or others, and the comparison of
literature with other spheres of human expression. Henry
Remak, Comparative
Literature:
Method
and
Perspective (1961)
"Comparative Literature is the whole study of the whole of
literature as far as ones mind and life can stretch. By its very
scope Comparative Literature is a presumptuous study.
Lowry Nelson, Poetic Confirgurations (1988)
The premises and protocols characteristic of [comparative
literature] are now the daily currency of coursework,
publishing, hiring, and coffee-shop discussion. The
transnational dimension of literature and culture is
universally recognized even by the specialists who not long
ago suspected comparatists of dilettantism. .. Comparative
teaching and reading take institutional form in an everlengthening list of places. Comparative literature now
is the first violin that sets the tone for the rest of the

orchestra. Our conclusions have become other peoples

assumptions. Haun Saussy, Comparative Literature in an
Age of Globalization (2006)
"Comparative literature is the laboratory or workshop of
literary studies, and through them, of the humanities.
Comparative literature compares literatures, not only as
accumulations of primary works, but as the languages,
cultures, histories, traditions, theories, and practices with
which those works come." Roland Greene, "Their
Generation," Comparative
Literature
in
the
Age
of
Multiculturalism (1995)