Wendy C. NIELSEN
Querying Komparatistik:
Recent Books by Corbineau-Hoffmann, Konstantinovic, and O'Sullivan

Nicoletta PIREDDU
Comparative Literature as a Messenger of Diversity:
New Books by Cassola, Durišin and Gnisci, and Kushner and Pageaux

1. In this review article I discuss three books that reflect current work being done in comparative literature in German in the fields of translation studies, cultural critique, and children's literature. Angelika Corbineau-Hoffmann's Einführung in die Komparatistik (Berlin: Erich Schmidt <http://www.erich-schmidt-verlag.de/>, 2000. ISBN 3-503-04977-0. 259 pages, bibliography, index), Zoran Konstantinovic's Grundlagentexte der Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft aus drei Jahrzehnten. Ed. Beate Burtscher-Bechter, Beate Eder-Jordan, Fridrun Rinner, Martin Sexl, and Klaus Zerinschek (Innsbruck: Studien <http://www.studienverlag.at/>, 2000. ISBN 3-7065-1452-4. 445 pages, bibliography), and Emer O'Sullivan's Kinderliterarische Komparatistik (Heidelberg: Winter <http://www.winter-verlag-hd.de/>, 2000. 549 pages, bibliography, index) provide a complementary view of comparative literature in German. Corbineau-Hoffmann's introduction to what comparative literature means in German-speaking countries illustrates Konstantinovic's life-long work in the field, and O'Sullivan's exhaustive study of international children's literature exemplifies the breadth and depth of comparative literature scholarship in German.

2. Corbineau-Hoffmann's Einführung in die Komparatistik (Introduction to Comparative Studies) begins by defining the field for introductory readers and students. Allgemeine- und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft (General and Comparative Literary Studies or AVL) pertains to everyone who considers him- or herself a "Weltbürger" or so-called world citizen among books and who embraces a global understanding of literature and culture (Corbineau-Hoffmann 11). The author's inclination to define this field carefully is not without cause, since some confusion exists in German-speaking academic institutions about who can claim membership to General and who to Comparative Literary Studies. For example, while updating the International Directory of Comparatists for CLCWeb (see at <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/library/directory.html>), I was queried frequently by German scholars whether or not their scholarship constituted "comparative literature and culture." Corbineau-Hoffmann's illustrative definition of the field should give German comparatists a sense of communal identity for the reason that she bases her categorization on a study of German literature's roots in world literature and culture. For instance, German Classicism flourished on account of its intertextual communication with foreign languages and literatures and Corbineau-Hoffmann elaborates on this relationship. It was Goethe, after all, who broadened the definition of literature to include textual studies (on this, see, for example, Hendrik Birus's paper in CLCWeb 2.4 (2000): <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb00-4/birus00.html>). Moreover, Goethe, in Corbineau-Hoffmann's view, embraced literature and texts according to their relevance to contemporary issues. Romanticists like the Schlegel and the Grimm Brothers helped widen the German canon to include works of more diverse cultural value.

3. Although she begins to present the history of comparative literature in German in a linear way, Corbineau-Hoffmann nonetheless notes the ambiguities and difficulties of characterizing AVL. Here Corbineau-Hoffmann refers to the works of Anglo- and Francophone scholars such as R.A. Sayce, Anthony Thorlby, Jean-Marie Carré, Pierre Brunel, Jeune Simon, and Paul Van Tieghem in addition to a few German-speaking writers such as Austrian Zoran Konstantinovic to trace the history of AVL in the twentieth century. Interestingly, Corbineau-Hoffmann's book is directed at a German-reading audience yet its author turns mainly to her French predecessors in order to classify comparative literature. Overall, Einführung in die Komparatistik serves the valuable function of reminding readers and scholars of the distinctive qualities of comparative literary studies. Corbineau-Hoffmann comes to the conclusion that while the critic of national literature approaches texts in a foreign language as different and somehow "other," for comparative critics, this distinction does not exist. This somewhat optimistic hypothesis dictates that AVL scholars have a twenty-first-century European Union and post-Cold War perspective of literature and culture: a world without borders and a hope for a new humanism based on global understanding. Backtracking a few centuries, Corbineau-Hoffmann notes the roots of Komparatistik in early modern times. In contrast to the happy globalism of the twentieth-first century, the first German critical scholars adhered to the theory of climactic difference to describe world literature and only with the beginning of French-German intellectual exchange (such as Madame de Staël's De l'Allemagne) in the Romantic period did German writers begin truly to embrace world literature as their own.

4. From this brief historical overview of comparative literature in German-speaking lands, Corbineau-Hoffmann launches into a typology of genre, translation, and analysis. While her treatment of genre and translation is brief, the author follows the German tradition of thorough systematic categorization and attempts to classify what a text is and how it could be interpreted by scholars in comparative literature for whom a text is an "open system in which the exchange of different discourses occurs" ("ein offenes System, in dem sich der Austausch verschiedener Diskurse vollzieht" 33). The author applies this Bakhtinian model to closely analyze poetry by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Baudelaire. In fact, much of the book and particularly the material exemplifying textual analysis and reception are based on Hofmannsthal, Baudelaire, and Oscar Wilde. In my opinion, although the author provides a slightly Eurocentric view of comparative and general literature, her explications of the mechanics of textual analysis are strong. These textual analyses would be useful for beginning scholars in our field looking for ways in which to approach texts from the Western canon comparatively. Corbineau-Hoffmann employs lists of literary characteristics to underline her examples of literary analysis frequently, which could serve literature teachers well in the classroom.

5. The final chapter of Corbineau-Hoffmann's book is devoted to cultural studies. Again the author often relies on English and French writers such as René Wellek and Michel Foucault to illustrate a sphere of thought not yet canonized in the German academy. The first part of this chapter examines "imagology," in Corbineau-Hoffmann's definition the intersections between picture and text. With the example of Aubray Beardsley's illustrations for Wilde's Salome on hand for the reader to share, the author demonstrates a gender-informed literary criticism that cuts across disciplines in art and literature. The last parts of this chapter address hotly debated issues like periodization. Turning a final time to Hofmannsthal and Baudelaire, Corbineau-Hoffmann suggests that comparatists draw authors together based on thematic, rather than temporal, affinities. Corbineau-Hoffmann's concluding epilogue presents the author at her best, for the reason that she is no longer confined to discuss a single subject or exhaustively document the history of ideas in comparative literature. The role played by thinkers and writers in comparative literature, she notes, should be central to the humanities. Since it lies at the crossroads of national literatures, comparative literature has the capacity to become the consciousness of trends in the academy, embodying the "self-reflection of literary studies" ("Selbstreflexion der Literaturwissenschaft" 239). The author concludes by making a prediction about the future of General and Comparative Literature programs in German-speaking countries and suggests that by embracing the concerns encapsulated by cultural studies and liberal concepts of text and textuality, AVL will emerge, like German Classicism, as an international entity.

6. For readers already familiar with the work of Zoran Konstantinovic, reading Corbineau-Hoffmann's introductory piece may not be entirely necessary. Zoran Konstantinovic's anthology, Grundlagentexte der Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft aus drei Jahrzehnten (Foundational Texts of Comparative Literature from Three Decades), is a pure pleasure to read. Composed of essays from the last three decades -- from 1973 to 1998 -- of this preeminent Austro-Serbian scholar's work and occasioned by his eightieth birthday, this book manages to find a perfect balance between thorough scholarship and readability. Compiled by his students and colleagues, the editors have given one the most renowned European scholar of comparative literature -- and the general reading public -- a better birthday present than in recent decades (Konstantinovic's sixtieth and seventieth birthdays were celebrated by Festschriften or commemorative publications). For readers used to the jargon-laden, scientific, and dry prose of the last two decades, Konstantinovic offers a refreshing reminder about what our field should be doing: communicating across diverse cultures, literatures, and schools of thought. Both newcomers to our field and advanced scholars would delight in Konstantinovic's clear prose, cross-disciplinary insights, and profound observations.

7. Konstantinovic begins where Corbineau-Hoffmann's book leaves off: cultural studies. The book is divided into five distinct categories: essays on theoretical, interdisciplinary, hermeneutical, Central European, and Austrian issues. A final sixth section presents essays that do not fit into any of the previously cited categories. The first part articulates Konstantinovic's theory of comparative literature. Like Corbineau-Hoffmann, Konstantinovic recognizes the ambivalence and uncertainty surrounding definitions of comparative literature in German-speaking countries. In the first paper of his book, in "Literary Comparison and the Comparative Reflection" ("Der literarische Vergleich und die komparatistische Reflexion" 19-32), Konstantinovic distinguishes between general comparative literature methodology and the challenges faced by scholars of German (and, in his case, Slavic) AVL. The history of Central European literature, he argues, is synonymous with a history of literary "appropriation" ("Aneignung" 22). Weimar Classicism began with the creation of a German Shakespeare, just as the Slavic literary renaissance began with an East European Schiller. Drawing from the work of the Structuralists (Jurij Tynjanov, Dionýz Durišin), Konstantinovic argues that these critics gave comparatists the directive to investigate the aesthetic, social underpinnings of literature. The author gives examples of psychological and interdisciplinary (music and literature) comparative methodologies in order to underline his thesis that it is comparative literature's "job" to explore the larger literary systems (epochs, periods, etc.) and spheres of literary influence. In "Transformation in Change" ("Verwandlung im Wandel" 33-51), Konstantinovic argues that the self-reflexive, monitoring mandate of comparative literature is bolstered by comparatists' ability to draw on the interplay between literary historical, psychological, and sociological observations. Similar to Corbineau-Hoffmann, Konstantinovic sees a need to distinguish between national philologists who talk and write about "foreign" literature and the work done by comparative scholars. The latter, he points out, investigate difference and alterity in literature, which reveals itself to be intertextuality. In other words, only a comparative literary approach can do justice to the complex interchange between national literatures.

8. In contrast to Corbineau-Hoffmann, who focuses mainly on canonized authors, Konstantinovic expands the parameters of comparative studies. In "The Heuristic Point of Departure" ("Der heuristische Ausgangspunkt" 53-64), Konstantinovic recognizes that comparative literature will be responsible for broadening the field of literary study beyond the borders of belles lettres to include non-canonical texts. Further, he points out that comparative literature will integrate non-literary perspectives into the field, including cybernetics and information theory. While this observation might seem mundane to twenty-first-century scholars, we must remember that Konstantinovic makes these predictions in 1983, almost a decade before the birth of the internet. Comparative literature is thus given the responsibility to examine a literary work's originality and importance to world literature and culture (including technology, society, philosophy, psychology, religion, and history). Therefore, comparative literature claims a domain over not just literature, but also the self-reflective study of "nation and humanity" (Vajda, qtd. in Konstantinovic 64). In another more recent article in this first section ("On Comparative Studies Present at the Present Time" / "Zum gegenwärtigen Augenblick der Komparatistik" 77-88), Konstantinovic elucidates on this point further and declares that literary studies must be seen as a "study of cultural semiotics" ("[ein] Studium einer Kultursemiotik" 84).

9. Part two of Grundlagentexte der Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft gives further examples of interdisciplinary approaches to literature, culture, and society. After outlining comparative literature's interdisciplinary roots in the nineteenth-century, Konstantinovic examines the intersection between photography and photographic novels (in "From the Photographic Novel to the Photo-sequence: Reflections on a Comparative Bordercrossing" / "Von Photoroman zur Photosequenz. Überlegungen zu einer komparatistischen Grenzüberschreitung" 105-12). An article about the influence of the Bible in Polish and German literature ("The Effects of the Bible as a Problem in Comparative Literary Studies" / "Die Nachwirkungen der Bibel als Problem der Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft" 113-23) is followed by an investigation of Berlin's role in non-Germanic European literature ("Foreigner in the City: A Comparative Article on the Research of Berlin's Image" / "Fremde in der Stadt. Ein komparatistischer Beitrag zur imagologischen Erforschung Berlins" 125-38). Here, Konstantinovic's analysis foreshadows contemporary Berlin's role as a meeting place between West and East: "Perhaps no one in Germany itself ever thought enough about the fact that so many foreigners contributed to Berlin's growth as a cultural metropolis, simply because that the paths of writers from east and west met there more and more intensely" ("Vielleicht hat man in Deutschland selbst noch nicht genügend darüber nachgedacht, wieviel die Fremden dazu beigetragen haben, dass gerade Berlin zur Kulturmetropole wurde, allein schon dadurch, daß sich dort immer intensiver die Wege der Schriftsteller aus Ost und West trafen" 132). This observation rings true for observers of Berlin today, who encounter Germany's new capital as the new Paris of Central and East Europe.

10. The third, hermeneutical, part of Konstantinovic's book makes an overview of comparative critics (from France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Poland) from the nineteenth century to the present, establishes a number of comparative terms through which to analyze literature and culture, and includes an authoritative bibliography of international comparative criticism. In addition, Konstantinovic discusses the ramifications of Freudian psychoanalysis and phenomenology on comparative analyses. The fourth part of Grundlagentexte is devoted to Central European (Austrian, Czech, Slovakian, Russian, Hungarian, and Serbian) literature, culture, and criticism and ruminates extensively on Mitteleuropa's relation to, exclusion from, and intersection with the Western literary tradition. In the texts of the fifth section of his book, Konstantinovic discusses Austrian literature, culture, and criticism similarly on the ambiguous position of Central European thought within mainstream Western hegemony. Apart from the illuminating and thought-provoking essays within, the most valuable part of Konstantinovic's Grundlagentexte is probably the final extensive bibliography (50 pages) of the author's life-long, multilingual work.

11. Emer O'Sullivan's voluminous book Kinderliterarische Komparatistik (Comparative Children's Literature) won the Award for Outstanding Research 2001 from the International Research Society for Children's Literatures and the book is certainly an important contribution to that field. And no doubt could exist about the thoroughness of O'Sullivan's research: with a bibliography of over forty pages and detailed reference notes on almost every page, this book will prove to be an important bibliographic resource for students and scholars of children's literature in German-speaking countries and for scholars who know German. Whereas Corbineau-Hoffmann and Konstantinovic seek to redress the uncertainty of what comparative literature is, O'Sullivan provides a good demonstration of how comparative approaches and texts come together. Although the book's cover promises a truly international comparative approach (with quotes of Alice in Wonderland featured in Arabic, Russian, French, German, English, and Swedish), Kinderliterarische Komparatistik focuses mainly on German and English children's literature but includes brief forays into Swedish, South African, Italian, Irish, French, and Brazilian textual examples. O'Sullivan's critical references, however, span the literary, critical globe.

12. Kinderliterarische Komparatistik compares European children's literature using a historically critical and philological methodology strongly informed by reader-response theory. In the first two parts of the book O'Sullivan's delineates the history of children's literature in German, French, British, and Russian criticism. Illustrative graphs are included to demonstrate a theoretical model of reader-response as it relates to "implied" and "real" authors and readers. Here O'Sullivan excels in pinpointing the major issues in comparative children's literature today: the ambiguous yet endless possibilities for dividing children's literature into distinct "categories," the status of children's literature within the academy and comparative studies, and the culturally specific traits of children's literature. The end of the second part of Kinderliterarische Komparatistik would be most interesting for comparative readers and scholars, since the author provides a few diverse examples of children's literature across Europe and Africa.

13. Owing to the fact that Kinderliterarische Komparatistik is textually- and thematically-based, O'Sullivan's reflections on translation problems in comparative literature take on greater meaning than similar reflections in Corbineau-Hoffmann and Konstantinovic's books. O'Sullivan devotes the third part of her book to translation issues and examines the problems and unique issues associated with translating literature for children. The author classifies children's literature as a "special case" ("Sonderfall" 179) in translation studies since translation of literature for children aims to capture the imagination of younger readers within their culturally specific contexts, while satisfying parental anxieties in distinct geographical areas. This argument explains the strange alterations to original texts in their translated forms such as the omission of dangerous mushrooms from the German version of Pippi Longstocking or the substitution of a pony for a horse, which the eponymous protagonist lifts above her head in the French version. Inscribed in every translation of a children's story, O'Sullivan points out, are cultural codes and norms. The examples O'Sullivan provides here stem from such well-known texts as Winnie the Pooh and Pinocchio and extend to lesser known stories and picture books.

14. The heart of O'Sullivan's monograph is an in-depth comparative study of Carroll's Alice in Wonderland's German translations and reception history during the past century. In all, O'Sullivan makes a typology of twenty-nine translations of Alice in Wonderland before turning to the story's place in television and animated movies. Despite its many translations, German versions of Alice in Wonderland did not become truly popular until Hans Magnus Enzensberger's translation in 1963. O'Sullivan attributes this long and arduous reception history to Alice in Wonderland's status as "nonsense" literature. Moreover, the author takes pains to show how Carroll's tale was carefully "eingedeutscht" or "made German" over the past one hundred and thirty years. Particularly useful here are the illustrations from earlier Alice in Wonderland translations, some of which portray the "Mad Tea Party" as a German "Kaffeekränzchen" (coffee circle; 323). Although it is not explicitly stated in Kinderliterarische Komparatistik, this final section on Alice in Wonderland strengthens the author's implied thesis that, internationally, any given work of foreign children's literature only succeeds after it has been carefully appropriated into native cultural values by the translators. In other words, literary success on the international children's market depends on the ability of translators to make stories seem less "foreign" and to adapt stories to culturally specific pedagogical, moral, and aesthetic norms in "native" children's literature. The conclusion to Kinderliterarische Komparatistik points to further political implications of world children's literature. The majority of books read by children in non-Western and non-European countries, for instance, come from North America and North-Western Europe. Referencing postcolonial discourse, O'Sullivan seems dissatisfied with the natural conclusion of her hypothesis (i.e., works from non-European countries fail to appeal to European and North American children because they are not "Western" enough). The solution to this problem, she suggests, is one of canonization. In order to become a classic, the author explains through references to secondary literature, a story for children must contain explicit pedagogical value concerning "childhood." But later, the author admits that the values of "childhood" are relative. With the example of Pinocchio, O'Sullivan reiterates her hypothesis that only literature that can be assimilated by translators will succeed within culturally specific contexts. However, she avoids a lengthier discussion on the more elusive issue of canons and canonization in German literature and culture. Instead, O'Sullivan attributes the popularity of children's stories to the globalization of entertainment and to the growing tendency towards generic aesthetics. O'Sullivan ends her book on a sobering note, emphasizing the impact of new media and global culture on world children's literature.

15. O'Sullivan's final point about the bland character associated with globally-popular literature is reminiscent of Corbineau-Hoffmann and Konstantinovic's critical concern with Germany's history of literary (and cultural) "Aneignung" ("appropriation"). If these three books are indicative of the ingenuity and progress of Allgemeine- und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft or Komparatistik in German-speaking countries, then German literary history will become increasingly more global.

Reviewer's Profile: Wendy C. Nielsen <http://www.writing.ucsb.edu/faculty/nielsen/cv2.html>, formerly an editorial assistant and currently Book Review Editor of CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, received her Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of California, Davis in September 2001. Prior to her doctoral studies, Nielsen studied German literature and history at the University of California, San Diego and studied at Georg-August Universität in Göttingen, Germany. Her Ph.D. dissertation, Female Acts of Violence: French Revolutionary Theater in British and German Romantic Drama analyzes how the French Revolution's violence was translated into dramatic productions on stage and in print. In particular, Nielsen explores women's role as performers and writers in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British, German, and French theater. Since July 2001 Nielsen has an appoitment as faculty fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she teaches in the Writing Program and researches comparative literature and European Romanticism. Email: <nielsen@writing.ucsb.edu>.

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1. This review article is about the following volumes: Dialogues des cultures. Actes du XIe Congrès de l'Association Internationale de Littérature Comparée / Dialogues of Cultures: Proceedings of the XIth Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association. Ed. Eva Kushner and Daniel Pageaux (Bern: Peter Lang <http://www.peterlang.com>, 2000. ISBN 3-906764-70-2, 225 pages), Arnold Cassola, The Literature of Malta: An example of Unity in Diversity (Sliema: Minima Publishers <http://minima.hanut.com>, 2000. 99909-999-2-9, 221 pages, bibliography, index), and Il Mediterraneo. Una rete interletteraria. Ed. Dionýz Durišin and Armando Gnisci (Roma: Bulzoni <http://www.bulzoni.it>, 2000. ISBN 88-8319-470-5).

2. Since the tragedies of 11 September 2001 questions have been raised more insistently about the relevance of the literary world for a reality that has managed to surpass any fictional construction. Articles in academic journals and messages in literature-oriented discussion lists have brought to the foreground the sort of inferiority complex affecting literature with respect to cognitive domains that allegedly can boast of a substantial impact upon the urgent problems of real life. How can we working in the domain of literature -- authors, critics, publishers, scholars -- alleviate the troubles of the world through our profession? The ultimate answer, more often than not, seems to lie in the need for literature to rethink its mission. Literature can claim its right of survival by renouncing its primary identity and transcending its own object, as though nothing properly and primarily "literary" could, by definition, be convincingly "committed," "political," or "ethical" in itself without the additional support of a strong extraliterary discourse.

3. Within the framework of this debate, a reading of the three books Dialogues des cultures, The Literature of Malta, and Il Mediterraneo can be particularly enlightening. In addition to refreshing a strictly academic discussion by providing innovative perspectives on the role of literary studies, they can offer a poignant answer to those larger ethical questions. The authors of and in these volumes show us how literature continues to be intrinsically political and relevant above all to the complexity of globalization, and even more so now that the recent horrors seem to have replaced the freedom to go towards the other with a fear of the other.

4. From the arguments in the three works, it is not simply literature and its study, but comparative literature in particular that emerges as a privileged medium to rethink the approach to other cultures. Comparative literature can and should teach us to question the self-sufficiency of ourselves as singular individuals and embodiments of a linguistic, national, geographic, religious identity, and to rethink ourselves and the other without losing our autonomy or dignity. The authors and contributors to the three volumes thus help us understand that it is not only with economic or political measures that a relationship with another culture can be established or improved. This can happen also, and above all, by means of communication through literature and language. Comparative literature becomes the catalyst for a dialogue which, even when it may appear difficult or impossible, must be sustained by a sort of Pascalian wager, the wager of succeeding in better understanding one another and in attaining mutual respect.

5. Dialogues des cultures / Dialogues of Cultures is a collection of papers originally presented at the XIth Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association in 1985 in Paris. As the editors explain in their introduction, the gist of the volume is not so much to impose a common vision or methodology as to explore different ways in which literary and cultural frontiers can foster dialogue, creativity, and change, and to provide pragmatic and inductive answers. Authors in the two sections of the volume -- devoted to forms of dialogue between the Eastern and the Western traditions and to inter-European literary relations, respectively -- argue that the international dimension of comparative literature has transcended clearly its traditionally Eurocentric perspective and now encompasses the literature of the whole world. However, they also recognize that the question of literary relations and dialogue can no longer be conceived within the framework of precise geographic and political boundaries defining monolithic cultural realities. Rather, it is necessary to rethink the comparative approach in a dynamic way, taking into account the pervasive phenomena of transnationality, multiculturalism, and plurilingualism.

6. The authors of the papers in the volume tackle such issues as the shift from the image of the West as bearer of culture to the acceptance of an intercultural exchange between East and West (in Bernard Hue's study of the French intellectual debates between the two wars), the epistemological and political implications of Shakespeare's Turkish translations during the westernization of the Ottoman Empire (where translation, as explored by Jale Parla, emerges as a process of appropriation and of ideological manipulation of a text as an authoritative pretext to legitimize the norms of the local cultural context), but also, at the same time, the progressive and transgressive effects of translation in the case of the model of self-affirmation that Rousseau's Confessions fostered in late nineteenth-century Japanese autobiographical literature (as Janet Walker discusses). Already from these selected references, we can grasp the presence of an alterity as integral part of the cultural, literary and linguistic identity of the authors or periods examined in the essays. Moreover, the emphasis on this intrinsic otherness is meant to pertain to both West and East, although the volume as a whole seems to concentrate more on the non-Western as a recipient of Western canons, rather than portraying it in equal measure as a source of inspiration and as an original provider of literary and cultural models.

7. Papers in Dialogues des cultures are not only about influences and reception (as in Liljana Pavlovic-Samurovic's treatment of the presence of Don Quichotte in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Serbian prose; in Liliana Zancu's essay on Baudelaire's impact on Stuart Merrill and Tudor Arghezi; or in the case of Aragon's assimilation of German romanticism according to Ana Maria Delgado), but also with "convergences" (as in Debaprasad Bhattacharyya's essay on the conceptual meeting points between the Indian concept of rîtî and the Western concept of style; in the interaction of different novelistic forms in the making of baroque fiction in France, according to Maria Alzira Seixo; or in Tolstoy's and Ivo Andric's philosophy of history analyzed by Dragan Nedeljkovic), and "continuity" (for instance in S. Ade Ojo's essay on the African novel and European characterization) between diverse cultures and literatures. By going beyond the mechanism of influence at the roots of literary relations, the volume thus endorses implicitly a non-hierarchical reconceptualization of the comparative approach in line with what Armando Gnisci illustrates as the principles of "literary democracy" and of "European decolonization" (Il Mediterraneo 18). The argumentation makes us aware of the risk of interpreting certain cultures as devoid of autonomy and of annihilating them in an allegedly reciprocal exchange. At the same time, it investigates what a real dialogue between cultures is, warning the critic against the danger of saying everything and anything about the "other" without having the tools for such an operation.

8. Therefore, the question in the title of Mona Abousenna's opening essay, "Cultures in Conflict or in Dialogue?" -- a leitmotif in the whole collection -- invites us not only to meditate upon the necessity of the intercultural model (well exemplified in Thomas Bleicher's essay on the paradigmatic reciprocal relations between European and Arab literature), but also to be sensitive to the complexity of questions it entails in each circumstance. In this respect, the conclusion of Hiam Aboul Hussein's study on the contemporary Egyptian writer Tewfik El-Halim offers a symptomatic answer: "Les rapports culturels n'auront rien de conflictuel tant que chacun saura traiter l'autre en partenaire égal et non en subordonné" (101). These remarks can be equally insightful if connected to the linguistic choices at stake in the practice of comparative literature. The volume contains essays written in English, French, and German. Although, of course, far from representative of the linguistic plurality of literature at large, the presence of three different languages can remind us that there are and there should be alternatives to the more and more common tendency to adopt English as the esperanto of comparative literature criticism. Precisely because it has become impossible to think of culture and of literature outside transnationality, multiplicity, and creolization, it is equally appropriate to open up to linguistic plurality, to learn and to preserve more languages, rather than reducing all communication to one.

9. The dialogical and intercultural model emerging from Dialogues des cultures, as well as the privileged position of the comparative approach in this framework, seem tailored to the historical and current reality of Malta as Arnold Cassola discusses it in The Literature of Malta and further confirm their effectiveness for an analysis of Mediterranean culture like the one proposed in the volume Il Mediterraneo. Cassola, in his The Literature of Malta, allows us to rediscover, or to familiarize ourselves for the first time, with the uniqueness of a literary production in six languages (Arabic, Latin, Sicilian, Italian, Maltese, English) belonging to three distinct linguistic families (Semitic, Romance, and Anglo-Saxon). Chapter by chapter, Cassola retraces the main stages of this phenomenon, delineating gradually the establishment of a national literary corpus in Maltese, from the first poetic achievements of Petrus Caxaro and Giovanni Francesco Bonamico to the migration theme in contemporary Maltese fiction, touching upon such issues as different representations of the Muslims, the nineteenth-century Maltese claim to an international dimension through the adoption of English, and of English romantic poetic models, as well as the endorsement of Italian and Manzoni's historical novel, to name a few.

10. To linger on the interaction and cross-fertilization of languages in these texts is extremely fascinating. But only if we enrich the linguistic dimension with an attention to the larger cultural question that goes hand in hand with it, are we able to appreciate fully what Cassola presents explicitly as the success of Maltese literature in bringing together ways of life, values, and creeds often deemed incompatible. With mere textual evidence -- so precious especially for the reader who is new to Maltese literature -- without theorizing at length on the issues presented (which is not the aim of the book), the author succeeds in demonstrating how in a complex microcosm like Malta -- a land of emigration, conquests, immigration, and continual exchanges -- literature has accomplished a syncretism and a cohabitation which, as Cassola underlines, failed in so many other places when pursued through political means. Cassola does not overlook the concrete problems entailed by the Maltese melting pot. Conflict is as present in the social texture as dialogue is in the literary corpus. However, the problems of the real world become for Cassola also a way of reflecting even more on the important role of literature and culture in the effort to overcome strife, and to preserve the peculiarities of a nation or region while remaining aware that "no country can live on its own or consider itself superior to others" (iii). The role of culture -- as Cassola reiterates -- is that of fostering understanding rather than imposition. A multi-cultural society is such only if it succeeds in treating diversity as a source of enrichment, and if it harmonizes differences rather than assimilating them. Therefore, the Maltese connection between different linguistic, ethnic, and cultural heritages cannot correspond to the model of the bridge, insofar as the bridge implicitly acknowledges a preexisting isolation, nor to that of the hub, because this for Cassola would be tantamount to accepting the center-periphery dichotomy (iv). Hence, we are back to the non-hierarchical intercultural model that I mention earlier with regard to Dialogues des cultures and that in the case of Cassola is best synthesized by the European Union's motto "Unity in Diversity." With its literary and cultural harmonious blend, Cassola's Malta can offer an exemplary testimony of what the idea of Europe can accomplish starting from the recognition of its own plurality.

11. At the same time, however, the Maltese focal point of a dialogue between different cultures is not only a living embodiment of an ideal European Union but also a microcosm of what Dionýz Durišin and Armando Gnisci illustrate in their edited volume Il Mediterraneo. Una rete interletteraria with their study of the Mediterranean basin according to the concepts of "interletterarietà" (interliterariness), "centrismo interletterario" (interliterary centrism), and "comunità interletteraria" (interliterary community) (on Durišin's notion of interliterariness see Marián Gálik's "Interliterariness as a Concept in Comparative Literature" in CLCWeb 2.4 (2000): <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb00-4/galik2-00.html>). With respect to the idea of Europe which, despite its undefined boundaries and components, seems to remain anchored to a precise continental reality, the Mediterranean as an entity evokes, historically and geographically, a network of cultures belonging to three different continents, a hybrid space where Europe has always encountered and continues to encounter the cultures of Africa and the Orient. Therefore, as Malta shows us in Cassola's volume, the Mediterranean justifies and requires a comparative approach. For their part, the essays collected in Il Mediterraneo -- the result of a collaborative research project between the Institute of World Literature of the Slovak Academy of Science and the Comparative Literature section of the Department of Italian Literature and Performing Arts of the University of Rome "La Sapienza" -- bring to the foreground important methodological and epistemological implications that can be drawn from a study of the Mediterranean and can be extended to the comparative and intercultural investigation of any other literary space as a middle ground between national literature and world literature.

12. First of all, in Durišin's definition of the Mediterranean as interliterary centrism the geographic element remains crucial. It is only by adopting a precise territorial criterion that it is possibile for Durišin to study the distinctive features of Mediterranean literatures and their evolution through intercontinental relationships with neighboring cultures (Durišin "Le relazioni intercontinentali nel processo letterario e culturale mediterraneo," 29-39). Although the phenomenon of interliterary centrism is not represented exclusively by the Mediterranean, as Miloš Zelenka underlines ("Il centrismo mediterraneo nella letteratura céca" 90), the intercontinental element that characterizes the Mediterranean civilization at all stages of its expansion makes the Mediterranean a particularly relevant instance of centrism precisely because of its persistent cultural heterogeneity. A good portion of the essays, indeed, are devoted to the presence of the Mediterranean tradition in specific national literatures and cultures, from Portugal, Italy, and Greece to Eastern Europe and Russia (see essays by Dorovský, Koprda, Ilinskaia, Škoviera, Zelenka, Pospíšil, Celnarová, Prozogina, Riauzova). In its own migration, the Mediterranean culture can thus be considered, as Gnisci claims, "figura concreta della letteratura mondiale" ("a concrete figure of world literature") (Gnisci, "Premessa in memoria di Dionýz Durišin" 17), since, as an important step in the expanding interliterary process, it anticipates the most comprehensive and ultimate interliterary community, precisely world literature.

13. The Mediterranean as a new geographical and cultural unit requires, as Ján Koška observes, a pluralist and dialogical vision of literature as encounter and exchange ("La letteratura mondiale come processo di appropriazione letteraria" 23). This entails -- in line with what we saw in Dialogues des cultures -- the need to abandon the traditional comparative study based upon influences, which is, allegedly, still charged with an evaluative nuance and is caught in the tug of war between dominating and subaltern literatures (see Durišin "Convergenze tra le ricerche italiane e slovacche sull'interletterarietà" 176-77). The most appropriate role for the comparatist who has to deal with the gradual evolution of literature towards more general forms is, rather, that of the messenger and bearer of a double diversity, the diversity of the other culture and of his/her own.

14. This reformulation of the task of the comparatist thus underscores the full meaning of the prefix "inter" in the adjective "interliterary." It defines a relationship founded upon equality and reciprocity, and able to preserve different identities. It is from this new perspective that comparative literature can introduce a communicative and collaborative dimension, which Armando Gnisci defines as "reciproca ospitalità" ("reciprocal hospitality) ("La letteratura comparata come forma di decolonizzazione" 43). By promoting "un sapere dell'incontro" ("a knowledge of the encounter") (42) in which linguistic, literary, and cultural traditions remain alive and circulate, comparative literature can begin to work -- according to Gnisci -- as a discipline of decolonization. It can help non-Western cultures disenfranchise themselves from the imperialism of Western thought. Yet, it can no less foster a process of self-criticism and transformation of the Western intellectual tradition leading, for instance, to Europe's decolonization from itself  (44) and to a rediscovery of ourselves as part of a general métissage (45).

15. Thoughtful and stimulating as it is, the overall picture that we get from these three works might at times be perceived as somewhat utopian and Gnisci himself, for example, does not exclude this possibility. It will ultimately be up to each reader to take a position with respect to this issue. However, in the light of prophetic statements like the following one by Cassola, which foreshadows the disaster that has inaugurated the twenty-first century -- "Tolerance and the respect of diversity must be the hallmark of all, if we do not want to experience anew the tragedies that Europe and the world have been through during the twentieth century" (The Literature of Malta iii) -- even supposedly utopian nuances can spark the desire to transform a dream into a concrete cultivation of reciprocity through literary practice. Dialogues des cultures, The Literature of Malta, and Il Mediterraneo do not only convince us that comparative literature is anything but a discipline in crisis. They also trail new critical paths and assign far more encouraging and promising tasks to comparatists than what we had read in the "Bernheimer Report" (Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism. Ed. Charles Bernheimer. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1995).

Reviewer's Profile: Nicoletta Pireddu teaches Italian and comparative literature at Georgetown University. In her research and publications, Pireddu focuses on literary theory and on European literatures and cultures from the nineteenth-century to the present. She is the author of Antropologi alla corte della bellezza. Decadenza ed economia simbolica nell'Europa fin de siècle (Fiorini, 2002), a book on the relationships between decadent aesthetics and the anthropological discourse in turn-of-the-century European culture, with emphasis on the connections between beauty and gift-economy and of numerous articles on decadence, modernism, and postmodernism. E-mail: <pireddun@georgetown.edu>.

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