Poetry's Two Estates and Shared Meanings: the Grounds of Comparative Literature

Abstract: Literature is studied in different ways and at different levels: as works, namely the productions of geniuses, or in Heidegger's sense of made things, which at the same time share with natural things the sense of being by themselves and self-sufficient; literary works are also studied as part of cultural phenomena and part or even the expression of a cultural tradition. In certain historical reconstructions, they may also be discussed as milestones and representative portrayals of the ethos and sensibility of a period. Their study as things making up a class of phenomena which can be compared among themselves is another level which, like the approaches focusing on the work as a self-sufficient entity, calls for specific kinds of expertise. Originality as an artistic requirement may lead in the study of literature to emphasis on the unique and distinctive features, which are easily identified at the surface level, whereas comparative studies are in real terms a challenge to explore literary phenomena in depth for shared core values. In this paper, these shared values are sought in the poetic image, found to be involved in the identity of literary works qua poetry, and serve as a basis of comparative literary studies.