Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages

President/Président
ORCiD logo with linkFlorian Mussgnug | University College London

This book series is peer reviewed and indexed in: Book Citation Index (BCI )*

Sponsored by the International Comparative Literature Association. A series of volumes of literary history combining related and comparable phenomena from an international point of view. It covers literature of European languages from all over the world and in time spans the period from the Renaissance till the present day.

The series incorporates various subseries, please click the relevant buttons below for more details.

ISSN: 0238-0668
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/chlel
Subseries

A History of Literature in the Caribbean

A History of Literature in the Caribbean presents, in three volumes, the only comparative study yet attempted of the Caribbean as a literary region including all four major European languages (Dutch, English, French and Spanish).
Volumes
1.
Arnold, A. James, Julio Rodriguez-Luis and J. Michael Dash (eds.)
1994. xviii, 579 pp.
2.
Arnold, A. James (ed.)
2001. x, 672 pp.
3.
Arnold, A. James (ed.)
1997. xviii, 399 pp.

Buy The History of Literature in the Caribbean series: 3 vols. set at a 30% discount!

Comparative History of Literatures in the Iberian Peninsula

A Comparative History of Literatures in the Iberian Peninsula presents, in two volumes, the first comparative and transnational approach yet attempted of the Iberian Peninsula as a literary region beyond Spanish-Castilian and Portuguese literatures.
Volumes
1.
Cabo Aseguinolaza, Fernando, Anxo Abuín González and César Domínguez (eds.)
2010. xiv, 750 pp.
2.
Domínguez, César, Anxo Abuín González and Ellen Sapega (eds.)
2016. xiii, 765 pp.

Buy The Comparative History of Literatures in the Iberian Peninsula series: 2 vols. set at a 30% discount!

L'Époque de la Renaissance

Les quatre volumes de l' « Époque de la Renaissance » décrivent les transformations qui se font jour aux XVe et XVIe siècles en Europe, et graduellement à travers le monde, reliant passé antique et innovation dans le domaine de la création littéraire, de la pensée, de l'art, des sciences, de la spiritualité.
Volumes
1.
Klaniczay, Tibor, Eva Kushner et André Stegmann (dir.)
1988. 594 pp.
2.
Kushner, Eva (dir.)
2017. viii, 544 pp.
3.
Kushner, Eva (dir.)
2011. ix, 636 pp.
4.
Klaniczay, Tibor, Eva Kushner et Paul Chavy (dir.)
2000. xiv, 817 pp.

Buy L'Époque de la Renaissance (1400–1600): 4 vols. set at a 30% discount!

Landscapes of Realism

Few literary phenomena are as elusive and yet as persistent as realism. While it responds to the perennial impulse to use literature to reflect on experience, it also designates a specific set of literary and artistic practices that emerged in response to Western modernity. Landscapes of Realism is a two-volume collaborative interdisciplinary exploration of this vast territory, bringing together leading-edge new criticism on the realist paradigms that were first articulated in nineteenth-century Europe but have since gone on globally to transform the literary landscape. More than fifty scholars trace the manifold ways in which these paradigms are developed, discussed and contested across time, space, cultures and media from precursors in the late eighteenth century through to the present.
Volumes
1.
Göttsche, Dirk, Rosa Mucignat and Robert Weninger (eds.)
2021. xvii, 814 pp.
2.
Larsen, Svend Erik, Steen Bille Jørgensen and Margaret R. Higonnet (eds.)
2022. xv, 780 pp.

Buy Landscapes of Realism: Rethinking literary realism in comparative perspectives. 2 vols.set at a 30% discount!

Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Century

The four-volume History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe is the first transnational study of a complex region that is conceived here as a strip of land between the German and Russian hegemonic cultures, stretching from the Baltic Countries to Bulgaria and Albania and from the Ukraine and Moldova in the East to the Czech Republic in the West. This joint work of 150 contributors from Europe, United States, Canada, and Australia, sponsored by the International Comparative Literature Association, is not a chronological narrative of the period 1800-1989, but an experiment in writing literary histories that acknowledges ruptures as well as transnational nodal conjunctions. Hence the subtitle Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Century. 

Volumes
1.
Cornis-Pope, Marcel and John Neubauer (eds.)
2004. xx, 647 pp.
2.
Cornis-Pope, Marcel and John Neubauer (eds.)
2006. xiv, 512 pp.
3.
Cornis-Pope, Marcel and John Neubauer (eds.)
2007. xiv, 522 pp.
4.
Cornis-Pope, Marcel and John Neubauer (eds.)
2010. xi, 714 pp.

Buy The Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe series: 4 vols. set at a 30% discount!

Nordic Literature: A comparative history

Nordic Literature: A comparative history is a two-volume comparative analysis of the literature of the Nordic region from medieval to contemporary times. Bringing together the literature of Finland, continental Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Sápmi), and the insular region (Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands), each volume of this two-volume project adopts a new frame through which one can recognize and analyze significant historical nodes of literary practice. Stretching existing notions of temporally linear, nationally centered literary history, the essayistic approach of this project tests a range of internal regional similarities and differences by using the idea of the “Nordic” heuristically. The first volume, Spatial nodes, devotes its attention to the changing figurations of space and place in Nordic-language literature from both within and outside the Nordic countries. Organized around the tension between depictions of place (landscapes, waterscapes, cityscapes, lightscapes, and milleniumscapes) and the actions performed on places (settling, dwelling, exploring, sacralizing, and worlding), this volume examines the literary history of the North in spatial terms. The second volume, Figural nodes, devotes its attention to the prominent figural clusters in literature by Nordic writers. Organized around various figurations of affect, need, detachment, and embodiment, this volume examines the productive historical contingency of the “North” as a literary space through nationally juxtaposed and synthetic analysis. Together, the two volumes suggest alternative ways of organizing comparative historical knowledge of the literary cultures of the North. Appearing in the ICLA series featuring histories of literature written in European languages, these volumes continue the multi-decade interest in supranational regionally comparative literary histories.

Volumes
1.
Sondrup, Steven P., Mark B. Sandberg, Thomas A. DuBois and Dan Ringgaard (eds.)
2017. xvi, 747 pp.
2.
Sondrup, Steven P., Mark B. Sandberg, Nathaniel Kramer, Christopher Oscarson, Linda Haverty Rugg and Karin Sanders (eds.)
2026. xix, 914 pp. + index

Buy Nordic Literature: A comparative history: 2 vols set at a 30% discount!

Romanticism

The Romanticism series in the Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages is the result of a remarkable international collaboration. The editorial team coordinated the efforts of over 100 experts from more than two dozen countries to produce five independently conceived, yet interrelated volumes that show not only how Romanticism developed and spread in its principal European homelands and throughout the New World, but also the ways in which the affected literatures in reaction to Romanticism have redefined themselves on into Modernism. A glance at the index of each volume quickly reveals the extraordinary richness of the series’ total contents.
Volumes
1.
Garber, Frederick (ed.)
1988. 395 pp.
2.
Gillespie, Gerald (ed.)
1993. xvi, 516 pp.
3.
Esterhammer, Angela (ed.)
2002. xii, 537 pp.
4.
Sondrup, Steven P. and Virgil Nemoianu (eds.)
2004. viii, 477 pp.
5.
Gillespie, Gerald, Manfred Engel and Bernard Dieterle (eds.)
2008. xxi, 733 pp.

Buy The Romanticism series: 5 vols. set at a 30% discount!

Volumes
XXXVIII
Edited by Steven P. Sondrup, Mark B. Sandberg, Nathaniel Kramer, Christopher Oscarson, Linda Haverty Rugg and Karin Sanders
Expected December 2026. xix, 914 pp. + index
XXXVII
Edited by Karen-Margrethe Simonsen, Madeleine Dobie and Mads Anders Baggesgaard
2025. vii, 420 pp.
XXXVI
Edited by Madeleine Dobie, Mads Anders Baggesgaard and Karen-Margrethe Simonsen
2024. xxiv, 334 pp.
XXXV
Edited by Olga Beloborodova and Dirk Van Hulle
2024. xiv, 550 pp.
XXXIV
Edited by Francesco Stella
2024. xviii, 706 pp.
XXXIII
Edited by Svend Erik Larsen, Steen Bille Jørgensen and Margaret R. Higonnet
2022. xv, 780 pp.
XXXII
Edited by Dirk Göttsche, Rosa Mucignat and Robert Weninger
2021. xvii, 814 pp.
XXXI
Edited by Steven P. Sondrup, Mark B. Sandberg, Thomas A. DuBois and Dan Ringgaard
2017. xvi, 747 pp.
XXX
Sous la direction de Eva Kushner
2017. viii, 544 pp.
XXIX
Edited by César Domínguez, Anxo Abuín González and Ellen Sapega
2016. xiii, 765 pp.
XXVIII
Edited by Daniel F. Chamberlain and J. Edward Chamberlin
2016. vi, 317 pp.
XXVII
Edited by Marcel Cornis-Pope
2014. vii, 455 pp.
XXVI
Sous la direction de Eva Kushner
2011. ix, 636 pp.
XXV
Edited by Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer
2010. xi, 714 pp.
XXIV
Edited by Fernando Cabo Aseguinolaza, Anxo Abuín González and César Domínguez
2010. xiv, 750 pp.
XXIII
Edited by Gerald Gillespie, Manfred Engel and Bernard Dieterle
2008. xxi, 733 pp.
XXII
Edited by Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer
2007. xiv, 522 pp.
XXI
Edited by Astradur Eysteinsson and Vivian Liska
2007. xii, 1043 pp. (2 vols.)
XX
Edited by Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer
2006. xiv, 512 pp.
XIX
Edited by Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer
2004. xx, 647 pp.
XVIII
Edited by Steven P. Sondrup and Virgil Nemoianu
2004. viii, 477 pp.
XVII
Edited by Angela Esterhammer
2002. xii, 537 pp.
XVI
Sous la direction de Peter-Eckhard Knabe, Roland Mortier et François Moureau
2002. viii, 554 pp.
XV
Edited by A. James Arnold
2001. x, 672 pp.
XIV
Herausgegeben von Horst Albert Glaser und György M. Vajda †
2001. x, 760 pp.
XIII
Sous la direction de Tibor Klaniczay, Eva Kushner et Paul Chavy
2000. xiv, 817 pp.
XII
Edited by A. James Arnold
1997. xviii, 399 pp.
XI
Edited by Hans Bertens and Douwe W. Fokkema †
1997. xvi, 581 pp.
X
Edited by A. James Arnold, Julio Rodriguez-Luis and J. Michael Dash
1994. xviii, 579 pp.
IX
Edited by Gerald Gillespie
1993. xvi, 516 pp.
VIII
Edited by Frederick Garber
1988. 395 pp.
VII
Sous la direction de Tibor Klaniczay, Eva Kushner et André Stegmann
1988. 594 pp.
VI
Edited by Albert S. Gérard
1986. 1288 pp. 2 volumes
V
Sous la direction de Jean Weisgerber †
1986. 704 pp.
IV-V
Sous la direction de Jean Weisgerber †
1986. 622, 704 pp.
IV
Sous la direction de Jean Weisgerber †
1986. 622 pp.
III
Sous la direction de György M. Vajda †
1982. 684 pp.
II
Edited by Anna Balakian
1984. 732 pp.
I
Edited by Ulrich Weisstein
1973. 360 pp.
EdR:SET
Sous la direction de Eva Kushner
2017. 2622 pp. (4 vols. set)
Land:SET
2022. 1628 pp.
CHLIPS:SET
2016. 1514 pp.
HIST:SET
2001.
LIT:SET
2010.
ROM:SET
2008. 5 vols.
Editorial info
President/Président
ORCiD logo with linkFlorian Mussgnug | University College London
Vice-President/Vice-Président
ORCiD logo with linkStefan Helgesson | Stockholm University
Secretary Treasurer/Secrétaire Trésorier
ORCiD logo with linkAnne Fastrup | University of Copenhagen
Acting Treasurer/Trésorier par intérim
Members/Membres assesseurs
ORCiD logo with linkSusana Araújo | University of Coimbra
ORCiD logo with linkMateusz Chmurski | University of Prague & Sorbonne Université
ORCiD logo with linkSantanu Das | University of Oxford
Ibrahima Diagne | University Cheikh Anta Diop
Jeanne E. Glesener | University of Luxembourg
Petra James | Université Libre de Bruxelles
Christina Kullberg | Uppsala University
Allessandro Metlica | University of Padova
Gesine Müller | University of Cologne
Juliane Prade-Weiss | Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Arvi Sepp | Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Past Presidents
Marcel Cornis-Pope | Virginia Commonwealth University
Helga Mitterbauer | Université libre de Bruxelles
Past Secretaries
Daniel F. Chamberlain | Queen's University, Kingston
Milan V. Dimić | Edmonton
ORCiD logo with linkCésar Domínguez | University of Santiago de Compostela & Sichuan University
Helga Mitterbauer | Université Libre de Bruxelles
Author info

When you are instructed to prepare your manuscript for production, please follow the Guidelines for Manuscript Submission.

Special offer

Special offers

30% discount on the Comparative History of Literatures in the Iberian Peninsula series.

30% discount on the L'Époque de la Renaissance (1400–1600) series.

30% discount on the History of Literature in the Carribean series.

30% discount on the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe series.

30% discount on the Realism series.

30% discount on the Romanticism series.

Subjects

Literature & Literary Studies

Comparative literature & literary studies
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-dark jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-light jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold prag Twitter_Logo_Blue