It will study all literature from an international perspective, with a consciousness of the unity of all literary creation and experience ... the study of literature independent of linguistic, ethnic, and political boundaries.
The method of comparison is not peculiar to comparative literature; it is ubiquitous in all literary study and in all sciences, social and natural. Nor does literary study, even in the practice of the most orthodox comparative scholar, proceed by the method of comparison alone. Any literary scholar will not only compare but reproduce, analyze, interpret, evoke, evaluate, generalize, etc. all on one page.
Van Tieghem confines "comparative literature" to "binary" relations, between two elements, while "general literature" concerns research into "the facts common to several literature."
But in a wider sense comparative literature includes general literature.
