Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2009

I typed up the second half of the address for GFH and any other
interested person. Any opinions or comments are welcome.
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     This conference will serve a twofold purpose: comparing the
literature and, inevitably, comparing the comparatists, i.e. comparing
the American comparatists’ way or ways with the way or ways of their
Chinese opposite numbers. Thus, the conference itself may be
considered an object lesson in cultural diversity and contextual
relativism. There are proverbially many ways of skinning a cat or
dressing a calf’s head. Are there also many different way of comparing
the literature? At any rate, the meetings of scholars to discuss
literary problems are unlike the meetings of, say, diplomatists to
negotiate military pacts or commercial treaties. At meetings of our
sort, perfect agreement is not so essential, nor perhaps is it
entirely desirable. The participants need not be in unison and are
reasonably content with something like concordia discors. Unison,
after all, may very well be not only a synonym of, but also a
euphemism for, monotony.
     I started with a rather inflated claim for ourselves as makers
of history; In recent years, it seems to have been a fashion among
American and British critics to adopt the eschatological view o
history and harp on “the sense of ending”. I firmly believe, however,
that the present company all share a buoyant sense of beginning with a
long vista of many such Sino-American symposiums to come, symposiu7ms
which will progressively count more participants, range over wider
fields, and approach nearer the ideal meeting of true minds.