Planned topics

In this issue, we would like to focus on the analysis of source materials and the systematization of knowledge regarding the beginnings of comparative literary studies as an academic discipline, which developed in Europe between the end of the 18th and the first half of the 19th century. We take into consideration the significant role in the development of comparative studies methodology played by contributions of scholars, philosophers and poets descendant from various cultures and associated with various academic centres. The comparative way of thinking has much in common with the aesthetic ideas of Romanticism, and the period preceding it. Contrary to the classicist tradition, which refers to the universal model of ancient, Mediterranean literature and culture, individualism, regionalism and diversity turned out to be fundamental values ​​in Romanticism. A critical comparison of literatures considered as distinct, due to the fact they did not originate from a common tradition (of the ancient Greece), but from numerous different folk (national) traditions, has therefore become a necessity, as well as a specific reflection of the modern way of thinking about art, analysing and interpreting it. The ideas of correspondence and the synthesis of arts, on the other hand, e.g. those formulated by Novalis, and developed by Baudelaire, inspired to discover and describe the similarities and differences not only between them, but also between the communication codes or the languages ​​they use.

Taking into account the importance of the romantic roots of contemporary comparative studies, we would like to reflect on the achievements of such authors as: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Johann Gottfried Herder, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Abel-François Villemain, Jan Kollár, Ludwik Osiński, Leon Borowski, Maurycy Mochnacki, Adam Mickiewicz and others. The list of names remains open. The scope of our interest involves also the role of nineteenth-century comparative thought in the development of knowledge about literature and culture of individual nations, and in shaping the theory of comparative research in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Leading editors: Dr hab. Olaf Krysowski, Prof. UW, Dr hab. Żaneta Nalewajk-Turecka

Deadline for article submissions: January 30, 2022