GEOPOLÍTICA DA COMPARAÇÃO: A LITERATURA MUNDIAL AVANT LA LETTRE

Comparative Literature has always been conscious of its geopolitical situatedness. According to a well-known genesis story, the concept of Weltliteratur and its academic correlative, the discipline of Comparative Literature, originated in the nineteenth century with the emergence of nationalism. But there is another genesis story, equally expressive of geopolitical interests, which begins earlier in the late eighteenth century, in Spain and Italy, whose literary traditions are intertwined with Arabic literature and marginalized in American Comparative Literature. Emphasizing the role of Arabic literature in the formation of European literatures, the work of Juan Andrés was the first attempt to write a universal, comparative history of "all literature," before the concepts of Weltliteratur and Comparative Literature became widely used.