Comparative analysis of literary text as a tendency in modern school education

Abstract

The article is devoted to the actual issue of studying literature at school through the prism of theory
and methods of comparative studies. The most important matter is the overall application of the comparative
method theory (comparatism) in literature lessons and its widespread use in practice. The authors
emphasize that literary comparative studies are one of the modern directions, which is focused on ensuring
the cultural identification of the student and the advancement of his or her critical independence. It
also focuses on ideas about the historical and literary process and the ways of development of literature.
The potential of such comparative methods as: comparing literary characters of same work, comparing
its episodes, employing comparative analysis to trace the influence of the landscape on the mindset or
spirits of the character, as well as comparing various authors belonging to the same era but coming from
different cultural and national backgrounds are considered that allows students to achieve a complete
understanding of the work’s ideas, and its interpretation, thus revealing the general laws of a unitary
literary and cultural process. We can identify a working classification of comparative study of different
kinds of literature. Recommendations for the types of exercises are given: speech exercises for teaching
written messages; written speech exercises for working with printed text; comparative tests after reading
the work; a test based on the character, work, author, literary direction; a proposal to interpret the work
or work of the author as a whole (photo, video- collage) to the work or presentation in the form of historical
and / or cultural commentary on the selected topic, etc.
Key words: comparative studies, teaching literature, text analysis, comparatism, comparative method.