This is a yearbook sponsored by the British Comparative Literature Association in the belief that at the present time, when English studies are being redefined, comparative literary studies represent a major direction forwards. The Yearbook will address itself to questions of literary theory and criticism; to comparative studies in terms of theme, genre, movement and influence; and to interdisciplinary questions. It will include translations of literary, scholarly, and critical works; substantial reviews of major books in the field; and the first bibliographies of comparative literature in Britain. The first volume considers the changing attitudes to what constitutes the canon of literature. A number of scholars and critics examine a wide range of salient topics. The role of translation in the poetical canon of W. H. Auden is discussed. Some outstanding examples of his translator's art are published for the first time here, together with the first translation of the major poem A Molna Elegy by Gunnar EMU, perhaps Sweden's greatest modern poet.

Table of Contents:
List of contributors; Acknowledgements; Editor's note: comparative literature in Britain; Part I. The Literary Canon: 1. Living in the metaphor of fiction (opening address) J. P. Stern; 2. The critical realism of Francesco De Sanctis René Wellek; 3. Tragic ends of lovers: medieval Islam and the Latin West M. A. Manzalaoui; 4. The encyclopaedic tradition, the cosmological epic, and the validation of the medieval romance Peter W. Hurst; 5. Of diamonds and dunghills: Voltaire's defence of the French classical canon (a bicentennial essay) David Williams; 6. The German Bildungsroman and 'The Great Tradition' Martin Swales; 7. French and American sources of Victorian realism Christopher Heywood; Part II. Translation in the Canon of W. H. Auden: 1. A translation of 'The Sun Song' W. H. Auden; 2. Englishing the Edda Peter H. Salus; 3. A translation of three poems by Erik Lindgren W. H. Auden and Leif Sjöberg; 4. The canon of literary modernism: a note on abstraction in the poetry of Erik Lindegren Göran Printz-Påhlson; 5. W. H. Auden: 'In Memory of Ernst Toller' Harald H. Ohlendorf; 6. Translating with W. H. Auden: Gunnar Ekelöf's last poems Leif Sjöberg; Part III. Essay Reviews: 1. Goethe in English. On recent translations: Randall Jarrell, Faust and David Luke, The Roman Elegies Michael Hamburger; 2. Reason and ritual in Greek tragedy: on René Girard, Violence and the Sacred and Marcel Detienne, The Garden of Adonis Richard Gordon; 3. The longest way with the dissenters: a review of Donald Davie's Clark Lectures Elinor Shaffer; Books received; Bibliography of comparative literature in Britain: 1975 and 1976.