The Growth of Literature: Volume II

Book excerpt: The Growth of Literature is a key work for all scholars and students of comparative literature, and will also interest those involved with other fields of literary studies as well as sociology, anthropology and related disciplines. The three volumes, hailed as classics when they first appeared between 1932 and 1940, were last reprinted in 1968. Now available for the first time in paperback, they remain the definitive study of their subject. The work contains an examination of comparative literatures in various countries and at various times, with a view to demonstrating what literature (oral and written) consists of at different stages of its growth and what, if any, general principles can be applied to its development under diverse conditions. In the first volume Professor and Mrs Chadwick establish the categories of literature which are used throughout as a means of classification, and discuss the heroic age in Europe, focusing on Classical, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic cultures. In the second volume they deal with Russian oral literature, Yugoslav oral poetry, early Indian literature and early Hebrew literature. Volume III examines the oral literature of the Tatars, of Polynesia, and of Africa, concluding with a general survey which makes use of the categories developed in the first volume.