The Study of Influence
What is Influence Study?
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Influence study is an attempt to
trace the influence of a writer
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It is an important branch of Comparative
Literature whose practitioners study literature across
national borders, across time periods, across languages, across genres, across
boundaries between literature
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According
to Weisstein, “The notion of influence must be regarded as the key concept in
Comparative Literature Studies since it suggests the presence of two distinct
and therefore comparable entities - the Emitter and the Receiver
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Influence
Study is an attempt to trace the influence of a writer (Emitter) or for a set
of writers upon another (Receiver) in the area of theme, idea, attitude,
technique, etc.
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The term “influence,” linked to the problem of
connections between various national literatures, has become a favorite in
comparative literary studies
Influence Studies in French and American
Schools
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The
study of influence has been the study of debate between the French and American
schools. The French have been attacked for their devotion to
‘source-hunting’ which reduces the study to a mechanistic concept
The French School :
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In
the French sense of Comparative Literature, it is the moral responsibility of
every French Comparatist to trace and relate the world literary experience to
the French literary response because , according to him, the French
literature is the backbone of the universal literary system
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But
scholars like Baldensperger, Van Tieghem and Carre have emphasized
the study of the movement of themes, attitudes and techniques from
one writer or group of writers to another
Questions of degree in Comparative Literature
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Influence
is only a question of degree, whether it is direct or indirect, conscious
or unconscious, strong or weak
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The
influence is more between one work and another work rather than between one
writer and another writer. It is more internal than external
Contribute to Influence Studies
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The
noted contributors to influence studies are Baskell Block, Claudio Guillen,
J.T. Shaw, Anna Balakian, S.S. Prawer and Ulrich Weisstein
Objections against Influential Studies
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Some
objections have been raised against Influence Study by some American
comparatists- Malone and Harry Levin
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It
is said that the approach is positivistic and therefore mechanical. But
this is not very much correct as ‘Influence Study’ is not merely a
cause-effective relationship. Any technique can become mechanical in the
hands of unimaginative people
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The
second objection is that imaginative works are not willing to answer for
factual investigation. This is a primitive view of criticism and has to be
dismissed
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The
third objection is that the influence study should be concerned with the personality
of the author whereas his work must be evaluated in terms of the literary
tradition, which is autonomous. The Influence Study is descriptive rather than
evaluative
Prawer on Influence Study
There are three types of Influence Studies
according to S.S. Prawer
(i) There is direct borrowing, if study,
which requires a balancing appraisal of similarities and dissimilarities
between Emitter and the Receiver. Otherwise, it will lead to cultural
aggression - Cultural aggression is a threat to our cultural and
national identity
(ii) This is concerned with
‘a conflux of impulses from various literatures’ which join the
traditions the poet finds in his native country and encourage the talent
he was born with. For example, T.S. Eliot, in his early
poetry, combined the techniques he borrowed from the metaphysical poets
with those he learnt from Baudelaire and Laforgue
(iii) This is the study of literature in
contact and that of literature of exile. In Switzerland, the three
languages French, German and Italian are in frequent fruitful
contact. They have mutual influence
J.T. Shaw on Influence Studies
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According
to J. T. Shaw, any serious study of any author includes consideration of the
component parts of his work - how they were subjected to the
author. That Shakespeare has borrowed copiously
from Holinshed is a known fact. What interests one is how
he converts into his own what he consciously or unconsciously derives from
different sources. He is of the opinion that borrowing is not a shameful
act
Influence or Imitation
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Ulrich
Weisstein Mixer obscure observation to distinguish between influence and
imitation. According to him, influence is unconscious imitation and
imitation is directed influence. Influence does not reveal itself in
a single pattern or manner. it must be sought in many
different manifestations. Influence cannot be quantitatively
measured
‘Terms used in the Influence Studies
Weisstein explains many of the terms that are
used in the Influence Studies:
(1) The term originality ‘applies to creative
innovations in form of content as well as reinterpretation and combinations of
ingredients borrowed from varied models’. In imitation, the author
surrenders his creative personality to another author or work
(2) Adaptations refer to the reworking of a
model to the commercial attempts to make the work available to the
foreign audience. Sambanda Mudaliar’s adaptation of Shakespeare for the
Indian tourist may be cited as good example
(3) Sometimes adaptation results in
‘Creative Treason’, due to the native author’s imperfect understanding of
the original. Creative Treason is a phenomenon common in the history of the
relationship between a foreign and native literature with reference to
reception influence and translations. “Gulliver’s Travels” is regarded as a
children’s work and “Alice in Wonderland” is an adult’s work
(4) Another kind of imitation is stylization.
It aims at the style of a single writer, a whole movement or even an entire
period. Stylization relates to the imitation of a style of a writer
for artistic purposes. In his epitaph for Byron, Pushkin uses the old
Russian in “Eugene Onegin”
(5) The comic variant of stylization is
burlesque (comically exaggerated imitation of something) which is a comic alteration of a
particular style. It is a comic imitation. Its purpose is to ridicule a
particular style through comic distortion. Operas of Gilbert and Sullivan in
the 19th century is a good example.
On the other hand (6) Pastiche is not
humorous but in which the traits related to subject matter, extracted from
different works are loosely mixed. Its intention is serious. T.S. Eliot’s The
Waste Land is a good example
(7) Parody (imitation of the style of a
particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic
effect) is poking fun at
specific literary models. Sometimes parody excels the original
(8) Plagiarism is a bad example of influence.
It is a stealthy imitation, using passages without acknowledging the sources
Negative Influence
Scholars like Anna Balakian refer to what is
called Negative Influence
It refers to an instance where a work is
written by the receiver as an antidote to the bad influence of an earlier work.
Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan was written to be here corrective to the
tarnished image of Joan projected by Shakespeare in
England and Schiller in Germany
Different varieties of negative
influences are noted
(a)
A young
writer rejects a tradition. Wordsworth rejected the new classical
tradition and introduced the romantic literature
(b)
A
writer may reject his own past. Yeats in the Last Poems is different
from the Yeats of earlier poetry
(c)
(c)
The variant of negative influence is the phenomenon known as Counter-design,
a term popularized by the German dramatist Brecht. A literary model may be
changed into its opposite. Wesker’s The Merchant, which is a
remaking of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, is a good
example. False influence is one in which a receiver
intentionally distorts and it transforms the basic character of a
model. For example, the eighteenth-century Blake is represented as a
modern poet by the French translators
(d)
Thus,
the concept of Influence his central to Comparative Literature studies
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