Daily News Online
   

Wednesday, 10 August 2011

Home

 | SHARE MARKET  | EXCHANGE RATE  | TRADING  | OTHER PUBLICATIONS   | ARCHIVES | 

Comparative literary studies

From a broad point of view the terms ‘comparative literary studies’ and ‘cross cultural communication studies’ look similar in their respective embrace of content and form. But on a closer examination and interpretation there seems to emerge several visible traits of difference. In the first instance it was the translation and the adaptation process of literary works from one language to another that created the climate of studies for the two subject areas. It is observed that these translations of literary views and creative works like poetry, drama and narratives enacted like a catalytic process in the creative process of writers.

In the orient as well as the Occident this could be visualised as the seminal creative influence the creators had from one language and culture to another language and culture. One good example from our own context is seen as the influence of both Pali and Sanskrit works on the development of Sinhala literary works.

While Jatakas, Panchatantra and Hitopadesa had a creative impact on Sinhala literary works, several Sanskrit works like Megha Dhuta and Sakuntala had an impact on the poetic creative works like Kavsilumina and later Guttila. Most local scholars from the very beginning had knowledge in at least three to four languages. It was believed that a wider knowledge in the awareness of literary works depended upon the knowledge acquired via the study of several other languages and rhetoric. This former background set the creative scene also as a cultural acquisition via literary and creative works.

Marshall McLuhan James Joyce

An overview of the studies in comparative literature shows that it is initially a study of linguistics or seeking knowledge in a language and from there transcending the mere narrow barriers of the use of language, as suited to a particular social context. One good example may be drawn from the study of oriental narrative forms and its influence drawn from the other oriental works written in other languages. This gradually evolved to the point where more and more works came to be translated and / or adapted for the local reader.

The result was the advent and the gradual emergence of both the content and the form. The content and form could be envisaged from several literary and cultural standpoints. As the pioneer narrative writer Piyadasa Sirisena points out in most of his Sinhala novels, he was influenced by two literary channels. The context was a visible cultural and historic standpoint. The treatment of the content according to this view had been largely due to the occidental influence of the narrative works known by the term ‘novels’ which he brands as story telling process.

The art of story-telling had been known by most creators from their birth, yet the fact remains that the process could have had varying degrees of influences. The content could be as usually perceived as what one wants to express. But how does one say it?

It is widely known as the ‘form’, a term applicable to many artistic creations, inclusive of art, architecture and music. Sirisena is seen as a genuine creator of his time. His content falls with his form, where dialogues, monologues, fantasies, poems and other forms emerge through his characters and their situations. Perhaps this example could be extended to seek many more examples drawn from other countries.

I am reminded of a more modern example from America. When the black writer Ralph Ellison wrote his well known chronicle-like novel titled Invisible Man the literary critics of the time never denounced some of the merits it possessed, drawn from Negro culture in transition. One critic Ellison Horowitz introduced the work of Ellison as the rebirth of the artiste and enveloped a passage drawn from James Joyce’s novel A Portrait of the Artiste as a Young Man in the following words:

“Welcome o life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”

The literary critic Horowitz heightens the fact that it is the extension of the thought stream of one cultural milieu to another that has resulted. Similarly when most writers from the orient are influenced by the experiences of the Occident, the creative patterns physically change. The most visible pattern was the use of the form and literary techniques. Perhaps the process may have emerged as a creative flux. In this manner the need arises, whether one wants to know how the process works. This then is the essence of the study of comparative literature.

With the advent of the wide use of mass media channels, the term may have broadened the meanings.

The broadening of the media channels resulted in bringing the cultures closer to one another. Marshall McLuhan termed it as ‘global village’ and our own Arthur C Clarke termed it as ‘global family’.

Comparison may not seem easy as it implies a series of layers such as religious, cultural, racial, political and other nuances. But the fact remains that it happens that comparison becomes an ongoing process. But when the essentials are understood, the unity of attitudes and judgements underlying the variety of works become startlingly explicit.

[email protected]
 

..................................

<< Artscope Main Page

EMAIL |   PRINTABLE VIEW | FEEDBACK

ANCL TENDER for CTP PLATES
Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL)
www.news.lk
www.defence.lk
Donate Now | defence.lk
www.apiwenuwenapi.co.uk
LANKAPUVATH - National News Agency of Sri Lanka
www.army.lk

 

Produced by Lake House Copyright © 2009 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.

Comments and suggestions to : Web Editor