ABSTRACT
The development of a global economy, accompanied by modern commimications and information technology, the fall of political borders, increasing voluntary mobility and emigration as a result of war, poverty or political persecution are all factors that have far-reaching consequences for our approach to cultural products, forcing us to rethink cultural identities beyond traditional national paradigms. The study of transnational cultural products lies at the heart of comparative literature, which was established in the universities of the nineteenth century as a counter-discipline to studies of national language and literature. This opposition determined the subject of comparative literature: whereas ‘national’ philologies concentrated exclusively on literature within the political borders of the nations concerned, comparative literature, as a kind of corrective measure, dealt with so-called Weltliteratur or ‘world literature’. The subject of comparative study goes beyond a single literature; it is what different literatures have in common, as well as the peculiarities and individual features of the various literatures which come to light only when they are seen in relation to others. Its subject traditionally derives from several languages, thus distinguishing it from the study of single literatures.
