Abstract:

Although Literature and Comparative Literature are two different disciplines, they are interrelated and continuously act together. Comparative Literature (in German: Komparatistik), the consolidation of these two disciplines providing indispensable contributions to literary criticism along with the development of literary historiography, provides opportunities for determining the place of national literatures in world literature. Thus, Komparatistik has significant contributions to national philology as an independent discipline of literature. In this study, four concepts have been investigated to explain Komparatistik’s power of influence; literature, comparative literature, national literatures, and world literatures. To this end, another issue that causes frequent misperceptions has been investigated; the act of comparison constituting one of the basic elements of Komparatistik is not the main objective but a starting point for reaching knowledge and supporting analytical thinking. With the help of other disciplines, genetic and typological comparisons make the text-based studies more suitable for human perception. The ignorance of these opportunities provided by Komparatistik may have a negative impact on National Literatures and cultural developments.

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