Practice question · Select all that apply
Which are true of comparative literature as a discipline?
Hints
- Three describe the discipline; one describes multilingual texts, which is a different thing.
- The unit of study is the comparison, not the polyglot work.
Show the answer
- A. It refuses the national frame as the default unit
- C. It tests whether categories built on one literature travel
- D. It works with more than one literary tradition at once
Why
Comparing traditions is a way of testing generality. A claim about "the novel" made entirely from French and English examples may or may not hold for the Chinese or Arabic novel, and the only way to find out is to look. The second option confuses the discipline with a property some individual texts happen to have.
Practise Five Disciplines and Their Questions
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