ABSTRACT
This essay deals with the relevance of the enlargement of Comparative Literature’s field of studies in the West throughout the 20th century, which was consolidated with the founding of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA). Through conferences held both in Europe and in North America, this association has managed to gather researchers from different parts of the world as well as to lay the grounds for the dissemination of lines of action and of the increase of works related to this field of knowledge. By redefining problems and broadening world views in face of international collaboration, both linked to the teaching and analyzing of the discipline’s methods, the ICLA played an important role in the interchange of ideas among a myriad of nations. Despite controversies (between historicists vs. formalists), which resulted in a division between the so-called “French” and “American” schools, as well as the modest participation of Latin American scholars in the association, it is important to highlight the role that both Brazilian and Spanish-Americans had in the development of the discipline. This study is intended to shed some light on the cadre of literary theory and criticism produced in Latin America, and to do justice to those who have contributed to the discipline’s expansion, in conformity with the transnational and transcultural spirit that is perhaps its main trait, especially in contemporary times.
Keywords:
Comparative Literature; literary studies; literary criticism, Latin America; contemporary literary theory