East/West Studies, Schematism, and Cultural Relativism: Some Reservations about Earl Miner’s Comparative Poetics

Abstract

This report aims to examine contributions for a comparative poetics made by East/West Studies, whose presence in Spanish comparativism is rather restricted or, even, nonexistent. This examination is built upon the following categories: a) critique to literary theory’s Eurocentrism (René Étiemble, Desiderio Navarro), b) empirical fieldwork: micro-comparisons of theoretical concepts (the main field of East-West Studies), c) inductive reasoning: regional literary theories (James J. Y. Liu, Roberto Fernández Retamar), and d) deductive reasoning: contrtastive reading of cultural paradigms of literary theory (Nikolái Konrad, Earl Miner). Both the positive and negative aspects are discussed, with specific attention to Miner’s contribution, and an integrative solution is advocated with the aim of approaching to a comparatist-oriented, vraiement générale literary theory.

Keywords

• east/west studies
• esquematismo
• eurocentrismo
• poética comparada
• relativismo cultural