Comparative Literature and the Quest for Global Literary Theory

Exploring a West African Margin

Abstract

This article reflects on the intellectual aspirations and current challenges faced by the discipline of Comparative Literature. The challenge identified comes from the global margins and the necessity of integrating the plurality of non-colonial legacies in the syncretic vision of global literary studies. The case study presented in the article, the literature of Guinea-Bissau, is considered not in the usual inter-literary context of Lusophone universe, but in its regional, West African cultural history, rich in tribal legacies and Islamic influences. The regional focus permits to emphasize the plurality of local languages, legacies of oral literature associated with them, as well as non-European literacy. The focus proposed permits us to see the literature of Guinea-Bissau not as an emergent phenomenon, but as a conclusion of long-lasting cultural processes reaching, with the postcolonial writing, their stage of exhaustion rather than auroral moments.