| Every endeavour to characterize the actual state of affairs
of the aims and possibilities of comparative imagology as a contribution
to solving identity problems (of a national, ethnic or other kind)
has to consider right from the beginning two different sorts of facts.
First of all, it is necessary to recall that comparative
imagology was originally a branch of comparative literary studies,
established as “Comparative Literature“ (littérature comparée,
Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft etc.) at the end of the 19th and the
beginning of the 20th century; an academic discipline (although not
immediately taught at the universities) with distinct and well refined
objectives: the comparative study of parts of different literatures (called
particular or national literatures), understood as an independent domain
of research and teaching; and this, of course, also with special methods
of its own, based on the principles of a specific supranational cultural
neutrality.
Secondly, we have to consider that this Comparative Literature,
which somewhat later was occasionally referred to as “General and Comparative
Literature,“ was the result of a real scholarly urge to solve problems
of our European multinationality. It was indeed not invented, for instance,
in order to be of help to professors of philologies in need of subjects
for doctoral theses and dissertations, or to provide them with the possibility
to use their own “national literature“ as a basis for comparison with other
literatures and in doing so, to enlarge their horizon and the prestige
of this national literature. (For that kind of studies, no new discipline
was needed and they could be realized within the frame of the existing
national philologies.)
Genuine comparatism was thus a special discipline institutionalized
at the end of the 19th century, at first in Klausenburg [Cluj] by
Meltzl de Lomnitz, later in Zürich by Louis-Paul Betz, as well as
in Lyon by Joseph Texte in 1893.
In contrast to the existing national philologies, it strove
to compare several - usually, at least three - particular, so-called “national“
literatures with each other, as well as investigate their relations respectively
reciprocal relations. And here, the basic model in Europe consisted in
a combination of French, German, and English literature.
As a matter of fact, comparatism originated from the idea
that as a consequence of the diversity and plurality of the European national
literatures and cultures, problems of literary (but also of other) kinds
sprang up which showed, on the one side, conflicts and antagonisms and
on the other the possibilities to surmount them; these were problems that
should be tackled in the interest of the coexistence of the European national
respectively tribal entities (called nations, peoples, linguistic communities,
or otherwise).
Here we were, so to speak, confronting the very crux of
all those complicated questions of the present “identity problems;“
in front of the task to start scrutinizing all this from a downright
neutral, that is to say, supranational point of view.
However, this also meant that comparative literature
- similar to comparative (history of) law, comparative pedagogics, comparative
history of religion and so on (they all came into being at the turn
of the century) - aimed at “higher objectives“ than the older national
disciplines. And this implied that literary comparatism was to be connected
with aims which in the end went far beyond not only national philological
goals but also beyond so-called literariness itself.
The history of this new special discipline, so different
from national philologies so clearly marked by national thinking everywhere
in Europe, is well known. Among the national philologists it earned - especially
in connection with its supranational and neutral position - as much sympathy
as comparative religion with the theologians, that is to say, none at all.
Even today, only very little is known about the details
which made it possible that imagology, as the last consequence of the research
of interrelations between the literatures, succeeded finally to be accepted
by about 1950/51 on the part of the French school of comparatism.
You have to realize that under the label “Littérature
Comparée,“ up to that time, two different sorts of research work
were done:
First of all, the synchronic analysis of movements and
currents common to different literatures, a study which in France was called
later on “littérature générale“ and which, by means
of cross-sections, stated common characteristics and differences as ascertained
in specific periods of literary history. (Best examples: Paul Van Tieghem’s
study of European pre-romanticism and Paul Hazard’s “Crise de la conscience
européenne“ from 1935.)
Second, the investigation of reciprocal relations;
that is, in principle, the research of the influence of one literature
on another; respectively, the influence on authors of another literature
as well as the investigation of the “reception“ of one representative of
a literature X in one or more foreign literatures (let us say, Y, Z).
Those investigations into mutual relations got more and
more popular in the long run, in France as well as in other countries.
And finally it was precisely this kind of research which, shortly after
World War II, brought about the change to imagology. No matter how
influential the success of the study of influences may have been (here
we have prime examples, as well: Baldensperger’s “Goethe en France“ and
“Les orientations étrangères d’Honoré de Balzac“,
Carré’s „Goethe en Angleterre“), researchers by and by became aware
of the fact that the search for influences conducted until then, as well
as the analysis of the international orientation of the authors, were not
at all methodologically correct and, [it was simultaneously understood],
that by a strict limitation to a precise and well-defined research matter,
it would be possible to realize the essential, fundamental objectives of
the discipline. (Therefore the concentration on the problem of “L’étranger
tel qu’on le voit.“)
Today you can be of the opinion that Jean-Marie Carré,
who by about 1950 paved the way for the basis of his new orientation, made
no doubt also some mistakes (for instance, with his poorly explained rejection
of the “Littérature Générale“). Equally you may think
that he did not succeed with his new programme to help establish Comparative
Literature for good, giving it the hoped-for a status of an independent
non-problematic discipline side by side with the national philologies in
the European universities. But he had, without any doubt, success with
his concentration on this special kind of reception studies; the study
of “the otherness,“ “alterity,“ “l’autre,“ “l’étranger.“
Indeed, this could be considered a life achievement with
a great future! For in this way, a new subdiscipline was born, a subdiscipline
within comparative literature still fighting for international acceptance;
a subdiscipline which got its special profile in the long run just because
of its possibilities situated in the field of the so-called extrinsic study
of literature, and which was well on its way to become a “key“ in
the research on the psychological background of the inner-European nationality
conflicts. - And remember, we did not need to concern ourselves - to put
it blandly - with the question in how far the other parts of the initial
comparatist teaching and research programs (“Littérature générale“
as well as “Comparative literary theory and methodology“) could still be
developed or could be conformed to the national philologies.
In other words: imagology working with literature (i.e.
literary research matter) did not only become, in the long run, the research
province par excellence of all comparative literature, but moreover it
became a special field promising to form a bridge to other human sciences,
in order to solve problems the importance of which indeed “depassé
la seule littérature“ (to cite here Carré’s disciple and
collaborator Marius -François Guyard).
As you know, the study of “images“ and “mirages“ has at
the time been violently attacked by René Wellek and some of his
followers respectively epigones, in the context of the French-American
fight between comparatists, concerning our methods of research. Exactly
the interdisciplinary possibilities and ambitions of imagology, he did
not like at all. For him this was “rather a study of public opinion useful,
for instance, to a program director in the Voice of America.“ Or more in
earnest: It was “national psychology, sociology...“ and so on. As
a matter of fact, he did not want to recognize the legitimacy of such research
as part of a larger concept of the study of literature. The basis of these
negative statements was lying, of course, in Russian Formalism and in the
principles of New Criticism and the so-called “intrinsic study of literature.“
This subject is well known and has often been extensively
treated.
That Wellek’s view on comparatism and its future potentiality
- as well as his judgement concerning the French school - were outright
erroneous is meanwhile considered proven. Just at a moment when after World
War II the discipline faced a time of worldwide revival, he, without any
doubt, damaged (nolens volens) ist reputation. Thus in spite of (or just
because of) the great prestige he enjoyed (first of all as a co-author
with Austen Warren of “Theory of Literature“ and later as author of the
monumental “History of Literary Criticism“), the fact stands out
that he indeed no longer contributed to a stabilization or even a further
expansion or consolidation of Comparative Literature in the United States
or the World. And the other fact stands out as well that his efforts for
the discipline had become a fatal counteracting force. By the way, he failed
also to give a substantial answer to the problem he obviously had in mind
all the time and which concerned the question of the “essence“ of literature
and poetry, i.e. the problem of “literariness“ which in his opinion our
discipline could elucidate.
His influence on the development of comparatism was rather
destructive. And it is typical that a discipline which on the international
level was still called “Comparative Literature“ (and which was impregnated
by an American dominance stimulated by him), ended in a complete
desorientation, which de facto led to the inner destruction of the discipline:
from “Literature and the other arts“ up to “Gender studies,“ “Postcolonial
studies,“ “Culture studies,“ even “Gay studies“ - and consequently
to one “change of paradigms“ after the other.
Besides: after Wellek’s attacks and especially after the
death of Carré, a sort of stagnation took place in France as well.
the heyday of “Littérature comparée“, as witnessed at the
time of Paul Van Tieghem, Paul Hazard and Fernand Baldensperger, has never
been repeated.
A study like Claude Diegeon’s “La crise allemande de la
pensée française“ (1959) which Jean-Claude Carré supervised
till shortly before his death, was one of the stunning exceptions and even
this did not find the reception of a specific comparatist work. Typical
of this spiritual climate was also Robert Escarpit’s solo attempt, aimed
in the direction of empirical reception studies while referring explicitly
to “littérature comparée“ and the investigation of “images“
and “mirages,“ which he labelled, correctly or not, “sociologie de la littérature.“
In this way, Escarpit in the wake of the much earlier attempts of Fernand
Baldensperger, became the precursor of the Rezeptionsaesthetik such as
it was later on formulated in the German context by Hans Robert Jauss.
Ulrich Weinstein who had played a leading role especially
in the development of North American comparative literature, invented for
this lamentable evolution the striking slogan, “From Ecstasy to Agony.“
And the state of affairs of comparatism in general has, since then, indeed
become accordingly bad, in the European-American domain as well as in other
parts of the world. A scupulously detailed description of the situation
of the discipline at the respective universities, even where is once functioned
properly, would fully confirm this.
Once the possibility existed to establish definitely an
independent discipline of cultural neutrality, free of national philological
ties, and formed out of a combination of international comparison of literatures
and research of international literary and intellectual relations; a discipline
which could be made part of the (list of) specialisms in language and literature;
a full-sized authority. But this distinctly profiled program has not been
generally put into practice; and where this happened, it was either slowed
down, prevented from functioning, or simply abolished; not to the least
degree at the instigation of the national philologists. When, some day,
the history of the Humanities in the 20th century will be written, the
failure of Comparative literature will undoubtedly be one of its saddest
chapters.
In this respect the development of comparative imagology
as taught by me and my collaborators at Aachen University has been an outright
solo achievement, with modest successes but with the provable and legitimate
conviction that here a program could get a special profile that was of
great extraliterary promise and in the end far from all sorts of quarreling
about the possibility of an academic establishment of “comparative“ or
“general and comparative literature“. And this imagological program was
at the same time able to extricate the very best from the rich cornucopia
of the original “littérature comparée“ on a - true enough
- restricted but, for that matter, highly specialized basis.
Thus at first it turned out to be undisputed that imagology
such as presented by Carré and his disciples (above all, Marius-François
Guyard) had given the opportunity to show the existence of “images“ and
so-called “mirages,“ as Carré said in certain cases, in a multitude
of fields that were all part of the literary domain and could only be comprehended
by way of literary research. It was in the first place in the field of
belletristic writing that numerous works could be named in which images
and “imagotypical structures“ played such an “intrinsic“ role (to use a
term dear to Wellek) that an interpretation of those texts without regard
to the images* in question was not possible.
[* Editorial Note: It is necessary to remind the
reader that the author, professor Dyserinck, understands by ‘images’ the
objectivation of specific ways of perceiving cultural, ‘national’
or ‘ethnic’ collectives, e.g. ‘the French,’ and its derivatives, e.g. ‘French
culture’, or what appears to be the ‘French quality’ in ‘French’ culture.
He suggests that we critically scrutinize such, more or less stereotyped
perceptions (heteroimages as well as autoimages), as they crop up in the
literatures studied. As ‘imagist’ tendencies (Ezra Pound; Wallace
Stevens; William Carlos Williams; all indebted to Ernest Fenellosa’s
famous essay, and in league with the film theory and pactice of Eisenstein
and Dziga Vertov) played a role in modernist Anglo-American literature,
especially in poetry, departing from a completely different concept
of the ‘image’ and giving it a completely different relevance, it
is important to point out the specific, though well-defined use of the
term ‘image,’ in the context of Dyserinck’s imagological approach.]
Additionally there was the role that “images“ and “mirages“
played in the dissemination of literature outside its field of origin (for
instance by translation). And last not least the influence they have on
literary criticism and even literary historiography itself.
This lead also to scientific findings which might at first
sight seem of secondary importance but which - looked at more closely -
revealed themselves as linked to an issue with essential prospects.
Thus, for instance, the notion that the images and imagotypical
structures were not a reflection or so, of real collective qualities of
the communities in question (“nations,“ “people“ and so on) but fictions,
i.e. ideas that at some time in the course of history emerged in the countries
or communities concerned. These ideas were partly handed down from generation
to generation and they were in the long run even able to produce effects
completely different from the original opinions and intentions of those
who started them. This ontologically exceptional position, in connection
with a sometimes striking vitality and longevity, would enable us later
to point out ist relationship with the so-called “Objects of World 3“ in
the philosophy of Karl Popper. Here the best-known example was the French
image of Germany during the 19th and 20th century that could be traced
far back to Mme de Stael’s precursor, Charles de Villers. This distinct
and clear structure (with the well-known contrasts romanticism/classicism,
protestantism/catholicism, love of freedom/cult of authority, and so on)
till far into our century served some people as an illustration of the
Germanophilia - and others as a reason of their Germanophobia.
At this point, also, the highly important fact (important
for every kind of imagology and equally for every discussion of identity)
became clear that every “image of the other land“ has ultimately an underlying
basis in the image of one’s own country, be it openly declared or latently
existent.
In other words, hetero-image and auto-image belong together.
And it became also clear that the play and interplay of hetero-images and
auto-images could only be investigated from a radically neutral point of
view, which is to say, at least from that standpoint we have come to know
already, in the context of the basic principles of every authentic comparatism,
as supranational; a standpoint which, combined with a politically highly
relevant imagology, was absolutely necessary.
It hence follows that none of these much talked about
(and promising) “images“ - or “mirages,“ as Carré
called the images of Germany - could be seen as the result[s] of whatsoever
a de facto existing “national“ or “ethnic“ character or “genius“ (“Wesen“;
or essence) on this or that side of the Rhine and that therefore, without
any doubt, you could not use them as integral parts of a supposed “ethnopsychology.“
And finally, this made distinctly clear that the so-called
“Voelkerpsychologie“ (this pseudo-scientific product of ideologically based
fantasy), let alone, “Wesenskunde“ (cultivated at an earlier time in German
universities) cannot be promoted by imagology but rather had
to be abolished. Therefore we could speak of the de-ideologizing or even
de-mythologizing function of imagology.
However, this did not prevent us from keeping in mind
that, as we said before, images and imagotypical structures managed to
stay alive for generations by their very consistency and resistance. And
above all, we could not forget the fact that those images, by their sheer
existence, nurtured up to the present day, either directly or indirectly,
even such irrational and wrong ideas as the notion of “national character,“
of the “soul of the peoples,“ and of the “genius“ (“Wesen“) of nations.
The belief in so-called “ethnopsychology“ was sheer ideology (in the sense
of “false consciousness“, “falsches Bewusstsein“, as challenged by Karl
Marx), but the concepts that nations and peoples nurtured with respect
to one another were hard realities; of course: realities of a special kind.
So that they had to be examined in a specific way and with particular objectives.
And the importance, for politics which these ‘hard realities’ permeated,
entering this field as they did, via literary criticism and literary historiography,
came here to light with double force. They became indeed one of the strongest
powers in international communication and life.
In connection with the identity problem already referred
to, two concepts follow from the numerous results of the comparatist’s
imagological theory that are of equal relevance:
(1) The statement that thinking in national categories
is relative, that even concepts like “nation“, “people“ [peuple, pueblo,
Volk] and so on, are only conceptual models which in the course of history
have obtained a transitory concretization. - This is a result of the insight
into the relativity of all image formation.
(2) The realization that there is, at the same time, something
like an inherent need of collectivity formation and of a sense of belonging
and being “sheltered.“ The human being of modern times has answered this
need (as everybody knows) with his national feelings; an attitude which
should now, once and for all, be replaced in a new way, on a higher level,
i.e. by going beyond national thinking. - This is a result of the
investigation into the impact, and even “obstinacy“ with which images and
imagotypical structures appeared again and again in the course of history.
Therefore we should conclude that one of the tasks of
comparative imagology consists not only in investigating identity problems,
to go all the way from former “ethnopsychology“ to a new scientifically
well-founded “ethno-imagology“ in the vein of critical rationalism. But
imagology should also investigate the possibility of developing - in literature
and ist surrounding field - post-national identity models; a task that
leads us very close to similar phenomena in the European literature of
the 19th century. (Let us take, as an example, the attacks against national
thinking, of the Frech romanticists Lamartine, Musset, Hugo and so on,
and moreover, Victor Hugo’s conviction that the postnational human being
could satisfy its “sense of shelter“ not only in European culture but even
in the conviction to belong to the whole universe.) And again, we are confirmed
that literature and its surrounding field - including literary criticism
and literary historiography - is a rich source of materials for research
of this kind, without any doubt.
As a practical example of the possible application of the
principles of imagology to the problem of national and cultural identity
- and as an illustration of the consequences of the concept of relativity
of national thinking, we may take (out of numerous European research subjects)
the identity problems in the Benelux area. This at least as a suggestion
concerning the possibilites for an analysis of a given situation in
certain territories, where points of contact and interaction of ethnic
or lingual groups exist.
If we have in Europe a territory where the relativity
of ethnic identity is expressed in a most consequential way, then it is
indeed this area. Not only because here diverse “national,“ “ethnic“ and
lingual entities (which are even difficult to define) come into close contact.
But because, moreover, they overlap in language and space.
In Wallony, where the female prime minister is a child
of immigrated Flemish parents, where leading politicians of the big Francophone
political parties have names like Spitaels, Cools, Van der Biest and where
also well-known authors, publicists and journalists have Flemish names,
not even the biggest racist could have the idea to define “nationality“
by the concepts of biological descent. And if the linguistic boundary,
a factor endlessly discussed, leads to ‘violent’ conflicts at regular intervals
and if, for instance, the “Charter for the protection of regional and minority
languages“ has still not been ratified by the Belgian government, this
is above all due to the fact that this situation, since generations in
movement, is in the final analysis caused by problems of linguistic
usage, a phenomenon which in the end is not limited by frontiers.
And all this in a political structure in which separate
parts of the - if you like - “federal union“ are not even clearly defined
by a proper name: the three parts of Belgium (French, Dutch and German
speaking) have official names that in comparison to each other are not
logical at all: “Communauté Française,“ “Deutschsprachige
Gemeinschaft,“ and “Vlaamse Gemeenschap.“ The term “Communauté
Française“ uses the adjective “française“ as an indication
for everything French, that means not only language and culture but also
the state of France. On the other hand, the term “Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft“
(which is the only one of the three that is clear and exact) indicates
only the fact that the people of this community are speaking German. And
the term “Vlaamse Gemeenschap“ (and Flanders anyway) is based on a merely
historically conditioned, and not even legitimate, predominance of one
part, the provinces of West and East Flanders. And this even though the
other Dutch-speaking parts of Belgium, Brabant and Limburg, do not belong,
strictly speaking, to Flanders.
As for the so-called “Kingdom of the Netherlands“ (I say
so-called because in English, and in Dutch too, the official name contains
a plural which is not correct, the southern part - i.e. Dutch or “Flemish“-speaking
Belgium - being also a part of the “Nederlanden“ or “Netherlands“, the
Low Countries), we have an analogous situation, at least in colloquial
language, when the whole is simply called “Holland.“ Here we also encounter
a pars pro toto method, without consideration of the names of the other
regions except Holland, such as [Northern] Brabant, [Northern] Limburg,
Zeeland, Gelderland, Groningen and so on.
So we might go on in a way which could lead us to the
impression of complete absurdity, if there was not the fact that all this
leads also to continual psychological conflicts and that each of these
unlogically labelled territories finds temporal approval in remarkable
parts of the population, linked together by feelings of “belonging,“ of
being “sheltered,“ and even by burst of patriotism; feelings with which
big parts of the population live and for which certain individuals suffered
or even died in wars. Something that applies also, it goes without saying,
to the „“twin model“ Belgium, consisting only of “Flanders“ and “Wallony“.
Also the Grand-Duchy of Luxemburg is an excellent example
where the impossibility of a thorough gallicization (or Frenchization)
of the population is confronted with the simultaneous refusal to be regarded
as an integral part of the German speaking territories of Europe, like
any other German dialect area. Result: Even at the end of the 20th century,
a serious attempt is made to develop from the German dialect Moselfraenkisch*
[* editorial note: the mosan-franconian dialect, a variety of the Franconian
dialect as spoken in certain areas traversed by the river Mosel and adjacent
territories] Luxemburg’s “national language.“ By the way: something similar
took place in Western Flanders during the second half of the nineteenth
century, as an attempt at lingual disengagement from the all-Dutch (respectively
Netherlandic) speaking area, made by certain “particularists“ - and it
failed.
Faced with these facts, comparative imagology, as a study
of identity following the principles of critical rationalism, has to call
to mind one of ist most important findings: “nations“ and even “peoples“
are not constant or God-given factors, but only conceptual models; models
which in the course of history have obtained a transitory concretization.
But imagology has also to state that in these “transitory“
structures, at the same time, desires of “belonging“ can be satisfied -
just as in other forms of longing for human bonds.
In this perspective, we see in the end what can
be expected from imagology as one of the last consequences: the possibility
to investigate also the human need of concepts of collective identity,
and therefore we should ask the question how long and in what dimension
this - or anything similar - will be the case in postnational thought.
Literature, too, bears witness to it, by the immense role it played in
the processes of the conceptualization of identity: a role it will possibly
continue to play in the future.
In this way, comparatist imagology will be all the more
a part of that field to which it definitely belongs: a general philosophical
anthropology as the science of man, with special regard to his existence
in a world still essentially marked by collective differences - be they
called “national, “ethnic,“ or otherwise.
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