Herbert Augustus Strong, The ‘Other’ World Literature and Ethnographic ‘Salvage’
Rezumat
Abstract: This article focuses on a Melbourne-based member of the Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum editorial board, the classicist and comparative philologist Herbert Augustus Strong (1841–1919). It explores Strong’s contribution to a project first announced by the Acta Comparationis in 1879: the compilation of an “Encyclopaedia of the Poetry of the World.” Challenging the predominant alignment of the term Weltliteratur with the notion of a transnational canon of prose masterpieces, the article argues that for the editors of the Acta Comparationis, Weltliteratur was also an ethnographic project aimed at assembling a record of the world’s diverse cultures. This undertaking was shaped by a scientistic theory of literary expression, according to which oral literatures were seen to represent the earliest and allegedly most ‘primitive’ stage of literary evolution. Adopting one of the prominent discourses of colonial anthropology—namely, that of ethnographic ‘salvage’—the Acta Comparationis embraced the view that it was essential to collect samples of the oral literatures of colonised populations before their anticipated extinction. The article reveals that an Indigenous Australian ‘folksong’ sent by Strong to Cluj/Kolozsvár/Klausenburg and published in the Acta Comparationis had been transcribed—likely with very questionable accuracy—by the colonial missionary John Bulmer (1833–1913). Viewed in this light, Strong’s collaboration with the Acta Comparationis serves as a case study highlighting the colonial and evolutionist origins of comparative literature.
Keywords: Herbert Augustus Strong, John Bulmer, world literature, evolutionism, ethnographic ‘salvage.’
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