Acknowledgements

Abstract

It was in Naples that twenty years ago was born the first degree course in Comparative Literature. At the University “L’Orientale”, the course was born as a comparison between European and non-European Languages and Literature: it was born as a plot of relationships and knowledge between East and West. It is right, therefore, that Naples has welcomed the encounter between scholars of Comparative Literature in a conference dedicated to East and West, emphasizing a vocation of Comparative Studies which is not the result of the present globalization.