French School
From the early part of the 20th century until WWII, the field was characterised by a notably empiricist and positivist approach, termed the "French School," in which scholars examined works forensically, looking for evidence of "origins" and "influences" between works from different nations. Thus a scholar might attempt to trace how a particular literary idea or motif traveled between nations over time. In the French School of Comparative Literature, the study of influences and mentalities dominates. Today, the French School practices the nation-state approach of the discipline although it also promotes the approach of a "European Comparative Literature."
Read more about this topic: Comparative Literature
Famous quotes containing the words french and/or school:
“Have ye got the parcel there for Mrs White?
Ye haven’t! Oh, begorra!
Say it’s comin’ down tomorra—
And it might now, Michael, so it might!’”
—William Percy French (1854–1920)
“A man of sense and energy, the late head of the Farm School in Boston Harbor, said to me, “I want none of your good boys,Mgive me the bad ones.” And this is the reason, I suppose, why, as soon as the children are good, the mothers are scared, and think they are going to die.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)