René Wellek (August 22, 1903 – November 10, 1995) was a
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
-
American comparative
The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...
literary critic
A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...
. Like
Erich Auerbach, Wellek was a product of the Central European
philological
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...
tradition and was known as a "fair-minded critic of critics."
Biography
René Wellek was born and raised in
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
, speaking
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
and
German. He studied literature at the
Charles University
Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...
in Prague, and was active among the
Prague School
The Prague school or Prague linguistic circle is a language and literature society. It started in 1926 as a group of linguists, philologists and literary critics in Prague. Its proponents developed methods of structuralist literary analysis and ...
linguists there, before moving to teach at
School of Slavonic and East European Studies
The UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES ) is a University College London#Faculties and departments, school of University College London (UCL) specializing in Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and South-Easte ...
(now part of
University College London
University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...
) in 1935. His younger brother Albert Wellek (1904–1972) was one of the founders of musical psychology and lived in Germany. Before 1939, Wellek published some 60 items, all written in Czech.
From 1939, the beginning of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
in Europe, Wellek lived in America.
He taught first at the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...
for seven years until 1946, and then, beginning in that year, at
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
, where he established and chaired a department of comparative literature. In the United States, he was "widely regarded as a founder of the study of
comparative literature
Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...
."
With
Austin Warren, Wellek published a landmark volume entitled ''
Theory of Literature
''Theory of Literature'' is a book on literary scholarship by René Wellek, of the structuralist Prague school, and Austin Warren, a self-described "old New Critic". The two met at the University of Iowa in the late 1930s, and by 1940 had beg ...
'', one of the first works to systematize
literary theory
Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, m ...
.
Beginning in the 1960s, Wellek defended the
New Critics
New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned a ...
against the condemnation of their work in the name of a
structuralist-influenced literary theory, and is thus sometimes classed as a conservative critic. Wellek advocated a synthesized approach to literary criticism, one that included 1) literary theory, 2) a careful study of previous works of criticism, and 3) a thorough understanding of the surrounding history involved in an author's creation of a work, including the author's personal history and milieu. Any approach elevating one of these aspects above the other would be in error. Wellek said the best literary critic must "do what every scientist and scholar does: to isolate his object, in our case, the literary work of art, to contemplate it intently, to analyze, to interpret, and finally to evaluate it by criteria derived from, verified by, buttressed by, as wide a knowledge, as close an observation, as keen a sensibility, as honest a judgment as we can command." According to Wellek, bringing all of literary theory, criticism, and history into consideration allows a critic to achieve "victory over impermanence, relativity, and history."
Wellek was an elected member of both the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
and the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...
.
The crowning work of Wellek's career was an eight-volume ''magnum opus'' entitled ''A History of Modern Criticism: 1750-1950'', the last two volumes of which he dictated from his bed in a nursing home at age 92.
Bibliography
* ''Immanuel Kant in England 1793–1838,'' Princeton: Princeton UP, 1931.
issertation* ''The Rise of English Literary History,'' Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1941.
* ''Literature and Ideas,'' Charlottesville: The University of Virginia, 1948.
* ''Theory of Literature'' (with Austin Warren), New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1949.
* ''A History of Modern Criticism 1750–1950,'' New Haven: Yale UP, 1955–1992. (8 Volumes)
* ''Dostoevsky: A Collection of Critical Essays,'' Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1962. (Introduction pp. 1–15; Anthology)
* ''Concepts of Criticism,'' Ed. Stephen G. Nichols, Jr. New Haven: Yale UP, 1963. (Collection of Wellek's essays)
* ''Essays on Czech Literature,'' The Hague: Mouton and Co., 1963.
* ''Confrontations: Studies in the Intellectual and Literary Relations between Germany, England, and the United States during the Nineteenth Century,'' Princeton: Princeton UP, 1965.
* ''The Literary Theory and Aesthetics of the Prague School,'' Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1969.
* ''Discriminations: Further Concepts of Criticism,'' New Haven: Yale UP, 1971.
* ''Evidence in Literary Scholarship: Essays in Memory of James Marshall Osborn,'' (with Alvaro Ribeiro) Oxford: Oxford UP, 1979. (Anthology)
* ''Four Critics: Croce, Valéry, Lukács, and Ingarden,'' Seattle: Washington UP, 1981.
* ''Chekhov: New Perspectives'' (Twentieth Century Views), (with Nonna D. Wellek) Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1981. (Anthology)
* ''The Attack on Literature and Other Essays,'' Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1982. (Collection of Wellek's essays)
Journal articles
* "Prospect and Retrospect", ''Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics (JCLA)'', Vol. 1, No. 2, Winter 1978.
Notes
References
*
*
*
External links
Guide to the René Wellek Papers.Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
* http://easyliteraturenotes.blogspot.in/2012/08/the-name-and-nature-of-comparative.html
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wellek, Rene
1903 births
1995 deaths
Academics of University College London
American people of Czech descent
Austrian literary critics
Austrian people of Czech descent
Czech expatriates in Austria
Czech literary critics
New Criticism
Writers from Prague
People of the Prague linguistic circle
Charles University alumni
Recipients of the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk
Writers from Vienna
Corresponding fellows of the British Academy
Yale University faculty
Yale Sterling Professors
Czechoslovak expatriates in the United Kingdom
Czechoslovak emigrants to the United States
Members of the American Philosophical Society