Why Compare?

So, not to beat the same drum for this entire microseminar, but again I’m struck by a problem I have seen consistently, from Hogan’s attempts to think about precolonial non-Western Theory, now to Miner’s discussion of how to make a contemporary cognitive poetics. This is the issue of establishing exactly what the goals of studying literature are. Of course, this is not an easy question; if it were, someone would have answered it a while back and we wouldn’t have so much trouble justifying our work to our relatives and to our deans.

            To relate this to these two specific chapters, let’s examine Miner’s thesis, as he states it clearly on page seven: “[A]n originative poetics develops when a critic or critics of insight defines the nature and conditions of literature in terms of the ten most esteemed genre.” This is a fine formulation, even if a little circular (“poetics develops when someone develops a poetics.”) What is missing here for me is that Miner does not really address the issue of why a poetics develops, what its cultural conditions are, and what the poetics sets out to do. Why do Westerners become so interested in art as representations (26), while India develops a theory about emotional affect (27)? 
           I find that the question persists as miner goes onto to discuss what can be considered a valid comparison and not. Again, more than the formal aspect that Miner highlights as the "for the moment" best possible criterion for comparison, I want to know why we bother holding one author up to another in the first place. Again, these questions aren't easy, and I don't have a quick answer, but I really think that this discussion is missing from the discourse, and we should spend some time, not just by ourselves, but as a group, as a department, as a discipline, really asking these kinds of questions.