The oldest U.S. journal in its field, Comparative Literature was "founded," according to the original 1949 masthead, "at a time when the strengthening of good international relations is of paramount importance."  The journal was initially envisioned as a replacement for the Revue de litterature comparée, which had been forced to suspend publication during the Second World War.  After several attempts to locate this new journal at universities in the eastern U.S. failed, Chandler Beall, a Professor of Romance languages at the University of Oregon, convinced its President, Harry K. Newburn, to finance Comparative Literature for a trial period of three years. Comparative Literature has remained the property, and been under the direction, of the University of Oregon since that time.

Chandler Beall became the first editor of Comparative Literature; Werner P. Friederich served as associate editor. The original editorial board had only five members: Helmut Hatzfeld, Victor Lange, Harry Levin, Austin Warren, and René Wellek. The inaugural issue opened with René Wellek's article, "The Concept of 'Romanticism' in Literary History," and closed with Ulrich Leo's admiring review of Erich Auerbach's Mimesis. ("One may see in Auerbach's beautiful book not only a seal on a philological past, but also a beacon to a philological future," he enthused.)  In between, readers encountered Ernst Robert Curtius, discussing "Antike Rhetorik und vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft," and Auerbach, himself, reviewing the work of a Leo Spitzer whose scholarship, Auerbach explained, sometimes succumbed to dangers--"overinterpretation, propensity to speculative combinations, and indiscriminate use of general terms"--characteristic of a "temperament more spontaneous and creative than self-critical."

Since that first issue Comparative Literature has of course evolved--expanded, really--in ways that have reflected changes in the field it represents: the advent of the "new criticism" in the early 1950s, the growing influence of literary theory in the late 60s and 70s, the "globalization" of comparative literary studies in the 80s and 90s, among them.   Comparative Literature is currently the official journal of the American Comparative Literature Association and has approximately 2000 subscribers, over 400 of whom reside outside the United States.  In 2009, it entered into partnership with Duke University Press.  The journal's editors and editorial board are sympathetic to a broad range of theoretical and critical approaches and are strongly committed to presenting the work of talented young scholars breaking new ground in the field. We welcome essays that explore intersections among national literatures, global literary trends, and theoretical discourse.

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