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Today
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SOME THEORETICAL
AND METHODOLOGICAL
TOPICS FOR COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
EARL MINER
Comparative Literature, Princeton
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124 EARL MINER
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COMPARATIVE POETICS 125
1. The rest of the present first section is largely based on Miner 1979b. This study is a re-
vised version of a paper presented at the first Sino-American symposium on comparative
literature in China during the summer of 1983.
2. The most familiar account of primitive thought is probably that of Levi-Strauss 1966,
which posits the presence in such thought of the elements of later thought. He does not say
so, but it is implicit throughout that the presence involves non-differentiation. For an expli-
cit discussion, see Konishi 1984, pp. 111-200, 266-306.
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126 EARL MINER
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COMPARATIVE POETICS 127
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128 EARL MINER
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COMPARATIVE POETICS 129
the teleology was fused with the Japanese sense of the heig
moment.) Whether these speculations fully hold, it is clear
Japan and China great prose fictional narrative first eme
literature tinged by Buddhism.
Although the evidence from various cultures is not easily mast
it does seem clear that fundamental differences occur when
critics initiate a critical system by defining it in terms of ly
drama. Similarly, if lyric is thought hospitable to narrative,
sults again differ. Such comparative historical evidence confir
theoretical assumption that lyric, narrative and drama are meani
entities (whether those be termed genres or whatever).
B. LITERARY COLLECTIONS
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130 EARL MINER
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COMPARATIVE POETICS 131
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132 EARL MINER
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COMPARATIVE POETICS 133
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134 EARL MINER
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COMPARATIVE POETICS 135
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136 EARL MINER
11. One sociological essay stands far above others known to me. This is Zelditch 1971. His
most important contribution is the positive one of adapting - by correction and amplifica-
tion - J.S. Mill's System of Logic on comparison. His severe remarks apply no less to what
we glibly term comparative literature: "in the present state of the social sciences there are
investigations that pass as comparative that in fact are not in any useful sense comparative"
(p. 270); "a political investigation is often said to be comparative if the political scientist is
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COMPARATIVE POETICS 137
American but his subject France or Russia" (ibid.); "A study is sometimes called compara-
tive when all that it does is illustrate a concept by describing an example that is in some
sense foreign" (p. 271). In the strict sense stipulated by Zelditch, comparative literary study
hardly exists and certain questions such as the privileged status of theory or history have yet
to be raised in terms of strict comparison. My observations represent only a few first steps.
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138 EARL MINER
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COMPARATIVE POETICS 139
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140 EARL MINER
REFERENCES
Bloom, Harold, 1973. The Anxiety of Influence (New Haven: Yale UP).
Duriin, Dionyz, 1974. Sources and Systematics of Comparative Literature (B
versita Komenskeho).
Guillen, Claudio, 1971. Literature as System (Princeton: Princeton UP).
Konishi, Jin'ichi, 1984. A History of Japanese Literature, Vol. 1, The Ancie
ton: Princeton UP).
Levi-Strauss, Claude, 1966. The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago
Liu, James J.-Y., 1962. The Art of Chinese Poetry (Chicago: University of Ch
1975 Chinese Theories of Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Pres
Miner, Earl, 1979a. Japanese Linked Poetry (Princeton: Princeton UP).
1979b "On the Genesis and Development of Literary Systems," Critic
339-353,553-568.
1985 "The Collective and the Individual: Literary Practice and its Social Implications,"
in: Earl Miner, ed., Principles of Classical Japanese Literature (Princeton: Princeton
UP), 17-62.
Miner, Earl and Hiroko Odagiri, 1981. The Monkey's Straw Raincoat and Other Poetry of
the Bash6 School (Princeton: Princeton UP).
Zelditch, Morris Jr., 1971. "Intelligible Comparisons," in: Ivan Vallier, ed., Comparativ
Methods in Sociology (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press),
267-307.
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