The Crisis of Comparison and the World Literature Debates

Abstract

Current debates over the disciplinary categories of comparative literature and world literature provide an occasion for rethinking the governing taxonomies of literary study. This article offers an overview of important recent books by David Damrosch, Pascale Casanova, and Franco Moretti and builds on their arguments to propose an alternative framework for classifying literary works that foregrounds their mobility, capacity for regeneration, and functional diversity. (DP)