Concept of Influence a Symposium

8/6/2019 Concept of Influence a Symposium

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The Concept of Influence in Comparative Literature: A SymposiumAuthor(s): A. Owen Aldridge, Anna Balakian, Claudio Guilln, Wolfgang Bernard FleischmannSource: Comparative Literature Studies, , Special Advance Number (1963), pp. 143-152Published by: Penn State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40245620

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A SYMPOSIUM

T h e C o n c e p t o f Inf luencei n Comparative Literature

/. A. OWEN A L D R I D G Eessence of literarycriticismis comparison whether within a single na-

tional literatureor in a perspectiveembracingseveral.In the same way thatthere never was a good war or a bad peace, all methods of comparison aregood even noting typographicalcharacteristics.To take an actual illustration,it is valid literary criticism to note that Laurence Sterne and Machado deAssis deliberately eft blank white pages as a hoax on their readers.It is equallyvalid to point out that Machado de Assis mentions Sterne in his preface,indicating that he also was aware of the similarity. When critics point outMachado'sindebtedness to La Rochefoucauld, Hugo and Schopenhauer, theyare noting resemblances at least equally important with the blank pagesmerelyless obvious.Comparison may be used to indicate affinity, tradition or influence. Affinityconsists in resemblancesin style, structure,mood or idea between two workswhich have no other necessaryconnection. As an example, the Russian novelOblomov may be compared to Hamlet because each work is a characterstudyof indecision and procrastination. Tradition or convention consists in re-semblancesbetween works which form part of a large group of similar worksheld together by a common historical, chronological or formal bond. HereOblomov may be compared to a number of nineteenth-centuryRussian novelswhich present a prevailing type in Russian history, the indolent man. Finally,

influencerepresentsa direct effect upon one literarywork causedby a precedingone. To press Oblomov into service once more, when Peggy Guggenheim inher memoirs refers to Samuel Beckett under the appelation of Oblomov, sherevealsa direct influenceof Goncharov'snovel.The vogue of seeking influence in literary criticism has sometimes beenattributed to the nineteenth-centuryemphasis upon scientific method- to an

143


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144 COMPARATIVELITERATURE STUDIESanalogybetween Naturwissenschajtand Literaturwissenschaft.n English litera-ture at least the method went back well into the eighteenth century, and sincenearlyall of the eminent criticswere ministersand theologians, I would assumethat the method is an outgrowth of textual criticism of the Bible, where seekingparallelsbetween the Old and New Testaments was standardprocedure.Themethod was stimulated moreoverby the close relationshipbetween poetry andthe Latin classics, the poets themselves frequently printing parallel passagesor pointing out resemblancesin footnotes. T. S. Eliot's notes in The WasteLand belong to this tradition. In the Augustan age, hunting for parallel pas-sages was almost a parlor game.The three primary critical techniques of the neo-classicalperiod were (i)applying the rules; (2) pointing out beauties and faults; and (3) indicatingparallelpassagesand other resemblances.The relianceupon rules has faded outof criticism,but the seeking of influencesremains. In a sense, the beauties andfaults method was a forerunner of modern esthetic criticism or esthtiquecompare.The most penetrating study of a single English author in the eighteenthcenturywas JosephWarton's two volume Essay on the Writings and Genius ofPope. His methed is essentiallythe same as that of R. D. Havens' modern study,The Influence of Milton in English Poetry.The study of influence is, of course, much broader than merely isolatingparallel passages or sources. All sources are influences, but not all influencesare sources.I would define an influence as something which exists in the workof one author which could not have existed had he not read the work of aprevious author. When the resemblances between the two authors are clearenough to be discerned, the literary historian has legitimate material for hisuse. Influenceis not something which reveals itself in a single, concretemanner,but it must be sought in many different manifestations.A major reason for our interest in influence is that it helps explain why awriter expressesa thought or a sentiment in the way he does. It has sometimesbeen held that when we look for literary connections "la cration artistiquese rduit un processus mcanique, ou les concepts de cause et d'effet sontnavement remplacspar ceux de 'sources'et d' 'influences.'"*Yet the discoveryof a source is not merely an end in itself. Understanding a source shows theprocessof compositionand illuminates the mind of the author.We may analyzea highly poetic passage in Shakespeare,for example, and elucidate the estheticvalues which we find in it but we cannot be sure that Shakespeare wentthrough the same esthetic or emotional process in creating the work which weexperiencein interpretingit. But if we know, to be specific,that certainpassagesin The Tempest are a paraphraseof Montaigne, then we know that Shakespearecame into contact with the French essayist and was favorably impressed withwhat he read. We know something concrete about Shakespeare'smind andhis processof composition.Guillen has used preciselythis contributionof influencestudies as an argumentagainst them that influence shows creative process,but has no value in com-paring one literary work to another. "Toda critica de influencias tiende a ser


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INFLUENCE IN COMPARATIVELITERATURE + 145un estudio de genesis" and cannot serve as means of "comparacionde indoleesttica entre textos literarios,considerados como objectos artisticos."We canadmit this except when two works can be shown to have undergone similarinfluence.Then we have a clue to a common esthetic bond or we may perhapsuse one as a commentaryon the other.To point out influences upon an author is certainly to emphasize the crea-tive antecedents of a work of art to consider it as a human product,not as anobject in a void. We derive a similar satisfaction from learning relevant bio-graphicaldetails. To most readers, t matterswhether Milton wrote his Doctrineand Discipline of Divorce on his honeymoon or at some later period; andwhether one of Wordsworth's most sentimental sonnets refers to his sister orto his naturaldaughter.One of Harry Levin's discoveries of influence has by now become almosta classic.He used an edition of Don Quixote with manuscriptnotes by Melvilleto point out parallels between Don Quixote and Moby Dic\. If this editionhad been lost or if Melville had been without pencil, Levin comments, Melville'srelationshipto Cervantes would have been none the less authentic; but strictcomparatistswould have been able to refuse to recognize it. Another Americanwriter, Hemingway, because of his cryptic style has left few tracesin his workof the predecessorsfrom whom he has drawn. But the biographical evidencethat Hemingway attended the funeral of Pio Baroja with visible evidences ofgrief would indicate that Hemingway had learned from the art of his Spanishcontemporary and that a comparative study of the two men would revealinfluenceas well as affinity.It is important to know whether an author is completely intuitive, reliesentirely upon experience and observation, or is impressionable to his ownartistic experiencesto such a degree that he carries over an impression fromanotherliterarywork into his own.

My further observationsmay be illustratedby some comments on the influenceof La Rochefoucauldin the Americas.Studiesof influencemay sometimes be instrumentalin opening new perspec-tives and unsuspected relations. One would not, for example, look for theworldly philosophy of La Rochefoucauldamid the homespun proverbsof PoorRichard'sAlmanac. Yet a study of the sources of Franklin's proverbs revealsthat two dozen are close paraphrasesof the French moralist, embodying his

cynical outlook. This reveals the influence of La Rochefoucauld upon PoorRichard,but not necessarilyupon Franklin himself. Two of my colleagueswhohave made priordeclarationsconcerninginfluence,ProfessorsHassan and Block,have insisted that we must make a distinction between influence upon aliterarywork and influence upon the author of the work. As far as Franklinhimself is concerned, it may be of no significance at all that he incorporatedmaxims of La Rochefoucauld since his proverb collection, contrary to generalbelief, representsno fixed point of view, and many proverbs are contradictedby absolutelycontraryones. Yet one may point out that Franklin also elaboratedone of La Rochefoucauld'smaxims in his autobiography, giving no indicationof its sourceand presenting it as his own view of human character.This must


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146 + COMPARATIVELITERATURE STUDIESbe considered of vital importancein regardto Franklin's thought. But here wemust make another distinction the reverse of that insisted upon by Hassanand Block. One author may be influenced by parts of another'swork withoutbeing aware of his predecessoras an artist or of the totality of his work. Thestudy of Franklin's sources indicates that he drew most of his proverbsfromcompilations or anthologies, which printed proverbs and maxims indiscrimi-nately with no indication whatsoever of their authorship.I am not saying thatFranklin did not know La Rouchefoucauld'sliterary work- but the study ofhis sources indicates that he could very well have extracted from some inter-mediate sourceevery one of La Rouchefoucauld'smaxims which he used with-out knowing who had originated the saying.

The distinction between influence and reputation which Professor Balakianwill elucidate may be illustrated by La Rouchefoucauld. In colonial Americahis work had a measurable influence upon Franklin, but his reputation wasnegligible. In nineteenth-centuryBrazil, La Rochefoucauld enjoyed a brilliantreputationand also exercised a directand powerful influence- particularlyuponthe Marques de Maric,known as the Brazilian La Rouchefoucauld. We canbe confident that this was a direct influence, not only because Marica para-phraseda large number of maxims from his predecessor n his own collection,but also because a copy of the Reflections morales was found in his possessionwhen an inventory of his books was made during his youth.Maricaillustratesthat which ProfessorBalakiancalls a negative influence: anauthor impressedby a system of thought in a predecessorwhich repels him inpart and causes him to repudiate it at the same time that he is imitating it.Marica'sown philosophy was an optimistic deism at odds with La Rochefou-cauld'scaustic view of human nature. He, therefore,paraphraseda number ofmaxims warning against the extremes of self-love but fitted them into his ownbenevolent system.Another question of influence which a comparatist cannot avoid is that ofwhy a work may have an effect in foreign countriesquite differentfrom that inits native literature. Young and Ossian in France and Germany are goodexamples.One must recognize in partial answer that translationsare powerfularbitersof foreign influence.This leads to the kindred question of the determination of influence as anelement in value-judgment: for example, whether originality is good in itself.And whether an author should be held personally accountable for ideas orattitudeswhich are part of his literary heritage ratherthan his private feelings.

// . ANNA BALAKIANStudies which link the names of literary figures nationally apart, or situatea literaryname in a national orbit other than its own generally contain in theirtitles the little word "and."A variant of the comparatistuse of "and"is "in,"and I am surprisednot to see "with"used in the same sense. The flexible"and"


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INFLUENCE IN COMPARATIVELITERATURE 147affordsa most convenient ambiguity as it encompassesthree different significa-tions. The most dbvious one is related to the discovery of real influences,andthe most untenableone is the suggestionof vague and often far-fetchedaffinities.The latter objective seems a futile preoccupation for the comparatist, onemore suited to impressionistic ournalismthan to scientificallyoriented research.Between these two poles there is anotherline of study which is implied, thoughnot often pursued, in titles containing "and" or "in," namely the discoveryand evaluation of literary fortunes gained by writers in countries other thantheir own. Paul Van Tieghem in his Littrature Compare called this phe-nomenon "doxologie"but went on to say that it was very difficult to separatethe reputation from the influence exerted by a writer. Other treatises onmethodology in historical and comparativeresearchoverlook entirely this formof inquiry.In my opinion, it is not only true that influence and literaryfortune can bedistinguished one from the other, but that the lack of distinction is and can bethe source of many misunderstandingsand misconceptionsin matters of classi-fication and evaluation. Furthermore, it seems to me that the possibilities ofresearch n this somewhat neglected area are infinite and worthy of the effortsof the comparatist.First, even a rapid perusalof literaryhistory can show that what is admiredis not necessarily imitated. Consider the fame of Dante abroad, andhis relatively minor influence on foreign writers. The corollary is thatrarelydoes genuine influence occur without preliminarydiffusion of the work.Thus the study of literaryfortune seems to be a prerequisiteto an accuratede-terminationof influences.It is true that this kind of work could be undertaken in a very superficialmanner: compile editions, collect book reviews and journalistic comments,count the number of copies sold, and trace a graphic curve, give a delightfullyaccuratebibliography. All this is extremely commendable, and it is an essen-tial ground work, but do you then have the literaryfortune? Not as it concernsliterarycriticism, for the fortune of an artist transcendsfigures!In the search for influence one must stop at a certain point to determinewhether it is coincidence or imitation which has been discovered,or whetherby some mysterious alchemy the borrower has found, via the influence ofanother'swriting, his own true characterand originality. In the case of literaryfortunes the same kind of assessmentis indicated. After the evidence has beengathered and the data compiled, the literary historian must determine thesignificanceof the reputationacquired either as it reflectson the author or onthe receptive country, whichever happens to be the objective of his study. Ifthen he happens to possess a sense of perspectiveand a power of synthesis,hisstudy can lead to specificand significant conclusions.In the first instance, the author thus observed is freed from arbitraryclas-sifications and local prejudices.Just such a case is brought to light in JosetteBlanquat'sstudy of "Clarin and Baudelaire." Clarin is one of the first to haverehabilitatedBaudelaire and to have viewed him not as the decadent whomBrunetire at that very moment was condemning, but as a master of poetic


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148 + COMPARATIVEITERATURETUDIESmysticism; thus, the work, presentedand diffused in Spanish speakingcountriesunder the auspicesof a critic such as Clarn,rises above the medley of notoriousbiographicalfacts that tended to distort the literaryreputationof its author inhis own country.Or considerthe English Swinburne, overshadowedas a lesserconstellation in the Pre-RaphaelitePleiades. Abroad he becomes a poet in hisown right and is discovered as a sensitive aesthetician.Or RichardWright who,in our own day, is read in France as an American writer more than as a Negro,his power as a novelist looming more impressive than his rancor.In fact, maynot our yardstick for the measurement of universality become more accurateand less sentimental if we take into account the scope and strength of theforeign reputations?

In the second instance, the study of a literaryfortune can reveal a great dealabout the receptive country. What better index to the taste and moral timberof a nation at a particularmoment in its history than the authors it importsand loves, or even discards! May we not learn much about eighteenth-centuryItaly when someone is able to answer the question posed by Paul Hazard manyyears ago in his "Influence ranaiseen Italie au 18esicle,"8 namely: why werecertain writers such as Baculard d'Arnaud, Mercier, Sedaine and Flabaire sohighly regarded, out of proportion to their merits, while BeaumarchaisandMarivaux remained practicallyunknown? Was it accident? Was it intentionalrejection?And today, are there not certain interesting indications to be probedin the fact Russians stand in line to buy a book of Hemingway, and that inIndia they take no interest in him; that one of the favorite authors of theJapaneseis Mark Twain, while their novelists devour Zola?Finally, beyond the study of an author and his general reputation we canobserve the inroads made by an individual work of an author, or even ofcharacters such as Hamlet or Faust as they pass from the literary to thelegendary.Here is then a means by which the critic can ease himself out of theSainte-Beuviandogma that the work is the productof the author as the fruit isof the tree. The comparatistcritic tracing the fortune of a work in a foreignland finds it plucked from its tree and the seed transplanted in a differentclimate; and by the same token the book is freed of the bonds of authorship,making its own personal fortune like the peregrinating message of Vigny's"La Bouteille la Mer." The work, liberatedfrom its mortal shackles,can thenbe viewed on a broaderaestheticplane, in a state of autonomy such as enjoyedin the field of the plastic arts; even as a painting or a statue is generallyappreciated or its own intrinsic worth ratherthan explained away on the basisof biographicalfacts about its creator.In addition, thereare a number of supplementary hemes that can be groupedaround a literaryfortune: the oversights, the failures, the declines, the revivals,all calling for interpretation.In sum, here is an importantbranch of literaryhistory. Jos Ortega y Gassetonce distinguished between facts and history by calling the former a seriesof static images and the latter the fusion of these images into movement. It isunfortunate that so much of what is called study in influences winds up instatic facts. Perhaps by tracing the evolution of literary appreciationsover and


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INFLUENCE IN COMPARATIVELITERATURE 149above a specific time and locality, and beyond the influences emerging fromthem, we can relinquish descriptive criticism and aspire for a place in theannals of universalhistory.

///. CLAUDIO GUILLEN

Comparatistsare embarrassed at times by the remembranceof things past.For Gustave Rudler could write forty years ago: "la LittratureCompare estun cas particulierde la critique d'influence." But the reign of influence studieshas now ended. Even the specific field that they covered is being encroachedupon to be very brief- by the definition of traditions and conventions.Influences,nevertheless,will not vanish- becausethey exist, or rather,happen.Poetic influences continue to take place and to disregard the indifference ofcritics. The ties between Don Quixote and Tom Jones,Hrodiade and La JeuneParque,as Haskell Block was telling us not long ago 5,are influences that oughtto be treated as such. One of our tasks, then, is to find the correct place forinfluenceswithin the presentcoordinatesof comparativestudies- more precisely,to examine the articulation between influences and, in the general sense,conventions.Allow me, first of all, to touch upon some of the problematicalaspects ofinfluencestudies.

For many decades they reflected the spirit of what Ren Wellek has called"the genetically-mindednineteenth century."It was indeed in this use of thegenetic imagination, in this concern with how literature is born and grows,that influence studies found their highest justification. The stress, in thissense, was not on what passes from one writer to another,but on the fact thatit passes from one to the other and creates between them a direct, nearlybiological link.But the period in which we live is characterizedin a number of fields notby a genetic but by an analytical or synthetic frame of mind.6 The presentemphasis, among literarycritics,on genres, myths, archetypes,etc., is a perfectexample of this. Simple chronology, to which the old concept of influence waswedded, is now used at will by both novelists and literaryhistorians.Even influence studies, paradoxicallyenough, are being stripped today, bythe non-geneticmind, of their original meaning. They are being recommendedfor providing us with occasionsfor aesthetic analysis and understanding.Thuswe may compare Kafka to Dickens with no real concern for influence quainfluence or genetic link. Or because one book reminds us of another whichwe have not forgotten, habit leads us to think of influences instead of con-ventions. Influences thus become perspectives for reading and a critic's fairgame. But as soon as we examine only the aesthetic end-result of influencesno genuine distinction can subsist between their study and that of conven-tions, traditions and other correspondences. Influences become contingent


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150 COMPARATIVEITERATURETUDIESdevices. In other words, it seems superfluousto keep them alive by equatingthem with conventions.This and other confusions bring out the stupendous complexity of boththe phenomenon and the word. The phenomenon cannot be separated fromthe riddle of artisticcreation.The word concealsat least two sets of ambiguities.When we state "Kafka was influenced by Dickens" we ought to be saying"America was influenced by Martin Chuzzlewit" but do not becausethe verbappearsto imply or require a person, a human agent. The word "source" ismuch clearer.But the metaphorof the source seems today not only more liquidthan that of influence,but more simple-mindedand positivistic.Thus we preferto retain the equivocal "X was influenced by Y," where we blend the psycho-logical with the literary. (Notice the passive mode of the verb. Influences, ofcourse, often are. This is one of the departuresfrom the active, neo-classical"X imitatedY.")The word "influence" s also ambiguous in that it often implies both a factand a value-judgement.We describe the effect of one work on another; butwe also insinuate that this change, however slight, is not trivial. One can makethe best of this and admit that "influence" is synonymous with "significantinfluence," nasmuch as these phenomenaare truly innumerable.

Significant influences are usually individual, one-to-one relationships notdistant kinships by association.Where conventions are extensive, influencesareintense. Mallarm and Rimbaud were crucial nourishment for the youngerAndr Breton, just as the conversationswith Vach and the events of WorldWar I must have been. These were positive incitements, not just negativeconditions "without which certain works could not have been written." If arecentwar novel, on the other hand, reminds us of Homer, a common body ofculture or a traditioncomes into play, ratherthan the tte--tteof an influence.Similarly, it would be hardly adequate to state that Virgil influenced Dante,when so many other elements stood by and what was operative was theauthority and continuity of a tradition. It is true that one steals from singleworks, not traditions.But it is also true that certain poems incarnatetraditionsand symbolizeotherpoems.Also, when influencesspreadand amalgamate,whenthey become the air many writersbreathe at the same moment, then they oughtto be called something like conventions. Who influences, for example, thecontemporary novelist, or the film-maker, who portrays aimless, cynicaladolescents?Did a Renaissancepoet have to have readPetrarch n orderto writea petrarchansonnet? In other words, literaryconventions are not only technicalprerequisitesbut also basic, collectively shared influences. To recognize thiswould lead us to limit the number of significant influences (and of wildhypothesesabout them).

One tends to think of conventions synchronically, and of traditions dia-chronically. A cluster of conventions forms the literary vocabulary of ageneration, the repertoryof possibilitiesthat a writer has in common with hisliving rivals. Traditions involve the persistence of certain conventions for anumber of generations, and the competition of writers with their ancestors.These collective "available nfluences"permitand regulatethe writing of a work.


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INFLUENCE IN COMPARATIVELITERATURE 151But they also enter the reading experience and affect its meaning. The newwork is both a "deviant" rom the norm (as a crime is based on an attitude to-ward social custom) and a process of communication that refers to the norm.When influences,then, seem to make the deviant possible,ratherthan the norm,they are furthest apart from conventions and least likely to be confused withthem.

Literary influences will continue to play an important role in ComparativeLiterature. But, whenever possible, they ought not to be miscast. Influences,of course, can lead to literary analysis. Conventions can provide us with aninsight into the creative process. Yet it seems to me that in each case theopposite function is the more effective one. Conventions and traditions, themesand genres, etc., suggest broad perspectivesmore readily than influences can;and they lead us to the patterns that literature presents when viewed eitherhistoricallyor at a moment of time. Influencesdo not "organize the chaos" ofindividual literaryfacts in such a useful manner. But they can open, throughthe intense study of single writer-to-writeror work-to-workrelationships,morevigorously than conventions or traditions could, the doors of the writer'sworkshop and the infinitely complex processesof artisticcreation.

IV. WOLFGANG BERNARD FLEIS CHM ANNIt has become clear, in the past decade'sdiscussion among comparatists,thatthe concept of influence correspondsto a reality at the answering position ofvalid questions in Comparative Literature studies. Whether the researcheraddresseshimself to finding causalitiesin literaryhistory, to detecting formativefactors for the individual work of art, to discerning affinitiesand relationships

among authorsand literarymovements, or even to the epistemologicalproblemof how the reader perceives resemblancesamong texts, a formulation of in-fluencerelationships or a denial of them is well-nigh bound to be incorporatedin his answer.7

The concept of influence, or some more flexibly expressed cognate formula-tion thereof, is thus to remain a working notion in the comparatist'smethodo-logical scheme. To what extent should he seek to make the concept central tothis scheme? How should he phrase questions which address themselves toestablishing influence, or non-influence? What kind of response relating to"influence"should satisfy him?Answers to these questions are, I fear, dependent on final agreement as towhat constitutes, n termsof aestheticsand of literarytheory,the legitimate realmof comparativestudies in literature.To the establishing of this comprehensiveformulation of ends and methods in Comparative Literature, any attempt atredefinitionand clarificationof the concept of influence is secondary.8Indeed,I should assertthat what constitutes use and abuse of the concept of influence,as well as what it precisely should connote, are sets of ideas which will "fall


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152 + COMPARATIVEITERATURETUDIESinto place" as deductions from a validly agreed upon theory of ComparativeLiterature.

Meanwhile, it might well be profitable to study the range of factors whichcurrentlymake comparatistsconclude that "influence"exists, in fact. The studyof a statistical sample of recent articles concerned with asserting and denyinginfluence, gleaned from journals representing Comparative Literature in anyand all senses, might well reveal a profile of methods dealing with influence,now in use.Such a study could focus on two points, neither of which has receivedmuchprevious attention: What epistemological bases for perceiving influence areinvoked by the majorityof researchers?And, are there recognizable"minima"of formal affinity,stylistic resemblance,or demonstratedimitation, which leadinvestigatorsto conclude that an influence exists?At the very least, such a study would help define a usual working procedurefor comparatists,both for suspectingand for then establishingwhat they under-stand by influence.Hopefully, this comparisonof working methods on a broadscale would also reveal unsuspectedgeneral agreement on what is understoodby the concept of influence, and provide sympathetic ground for illuminationby a comprehensivetheory of ComparativeLiterature.

NOTES1. Harry Levin, "La Littrature Compare: Point de Vue d'Outre-Atlantique,"Revue deLittratureCompare,XXVII (1953), 24.2. Cf. J. Blanquat,"Clarfn et Baudelaire,"Revue de LittratureCompare(Janvier-Mars,1959).3. Cf. EtudesFranaises,34e Cahier, (1934).4. G. Rudlcr,Les Techniquesde la Critiqueet de l'Histoire ittraires . . . (Oxford, 1923), p. 160.5. Cf. H. M. Block, "The Concept of Influence in ComparativeLiterature,"Yearbook of Comp.and Gen. Literature,VII (1958), 35-37.6. Cf. Enrique Tierao Galvin, Tradicin y modernismo (Madrid, 1962).7. It should be pointed out here that even the sharpestcritics of the classical"Sorbonne"concep-tion of the conceptof influence,as it would be statedrepresentatively y scholars ike Van Tieghemor F.-M. Guyard,admit both to the existence of such a conceptand to its usefulnessin ComparativeLiteraturestudies. To the point, see Ren Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature(New

York, 1949), pp. 269-270; Ihab H. Hassan, "The Problem of Influence in LiteraryHistory: NotesToward a Definition," JAAC, XIV (1955), 66-76; Claudio Guillen, "The Aesthetics of InfluenceStudies in ComparativeLiterature,"ComparativeLiterature,I, ed. W. P. Friederich (Chapel Hill,1959) 175-192.8. It is not clear to me whether H. M. Block, when making such a plea in "The Concept ofInfluencein ComparativeLiterature,"YCGL, VII (1958), 30-37, meant to imply that the conceptof influencecould be methodologicallyseparatedand clarifiedseparately rom other researchproce-dures in ComparativeLiterature. f this was his implication,I should differ with him, here.

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Concept of Influence a Symposium