Cultural Ponderings

Something I've been thinking about a lot lately has been the field of Comparative Literature and how we define it. I think it is a bit too vague to just categorize things based on the language they happen to be written in. Oh, there are certainly plenty of reasons to do so ranging from catching the exact meaning of the author to the fact that not all concepts are equally well expressed in all languages. I just feel that if we're looking beyond the poetic, and for the purpose of most of my discussions that happens to be true since I can't really grasp anything but the more basic poetic structures, we end up with a collection of plots and ideas drawn from shared cultural experiences. Which becomes very clear to students of the field when they're trying to compare things like Marquez to Borges. So why does this field get its own distinction at so many universities? It would only make sense to express it as a method of literary interpretation that everybody should be trained it. We literally have people left with the impression that English is the only language with modern nuanced literature and others from the comparative side who believe that all works in English draw from the same cultural background.

I know that I'm drawing rather extreme pictures of the two sides here, but it occurred to me earlier that it would be a good idea to look at things like American Indian literature as a separate comparative field rather than an offshoot of traditional english literature since it draws from a completely different set of concepts and values and there should be some effort made to express to students that they need to be willing to readjust their thinking and do at least a minimum of outside research to understand the subtleties of the plot.

But yeah, I'm ranting now. Also, two days sober and hating it! Damned short Spring Breaks