This major new introduction to comparative literature is for thestudents coming to the subject for the first time. Through anexamination of a series of case studies and new theoreticaldevelopments, Bassnett reviews the current state of comparativeliterature world-wide in the 1990s. In the past twenty years of arange of new developments in critical theory have changed patternsof reading and approaches to literature: gender-based criticism,reception studies, the growth of translation studies,deconstruction and orientalism all have had a profound impact onwork in comparative literature. Bassnett asks questions not only about the current state ofcomparative literature as a discipline, but also about its future.Since its beginnings in the nineteenth century, comparativeliterature has been closely associated with the emergence ofnational cultures, and its present expansion in many parts of theworld indicates that this process is again underway, after a periodof narrowly Eurocentric research in the field.