Status tipološkog proučavanja književnosti
The status of thr typological study of literature

Summary/Abstract: Conceived as an examination of the present revival of typological studies in comparative literature (as distinct from influence studies and genetic studies of other kinds), this paper opens (1) by ob serving the present extent and prestige of studies based on the idea of typological analogies between literatures, and proceeds by inquiring into the nature of the relation of these studies (a) to the Marxist idea of history (and Marr's idea of the stadiality of linguistic development), (b) to the tradition of literary scholarship originating with A. N. VeselovskY,and (c) to the contemporary search in European scholarship for a conceptual language adequate to the discussion of the literatures of the East. While (2) the typological approach is found extremely fruitful in what is sometimes called a theoretical history of literature, the need (a) for its being clearly distinguished from other approaches of similar kind or having just similar names, and (b) for determining clearly the nature of the approach itself and its proper uses and limitations, is felt to be very important today, as exemplified (c) in the current attempts at the periodization of the literatures of the East. Finally, (3) the current contempt for the study of international contacts in literature, and the inclination to accept the typological study as its alternative, are questioned; (a) even traditionally conceived influence studies have somehow been, if often clumsily, responding to some real and important questions of literary historical interpretation, which (b) can in no way become a subject of a typological study; (c) the impasse into which the discussion of the so-called Oriental Renaissance has come at present is seen as a natural outcome of the limitations inherent in any typological study.

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