Published online at UNESCO's Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, at www.eolss.net. All rights reserved. Text revised 100209. The Notion of Comparing and the Meeting of Fragments John T. Kirby University of Miami Keywords: academy, analysis, binary, ternary, canon, classical, classicizing, comparative, comparing, fragment, fragmentation, synthesis, totalitarianism, unity Contents: Summary 1. The One and the Many 2. The Ages of the Verbal Arts 2.1 The Three Ages 2.2 Classics and Classicizing 3. Unity and Fragmentation 4. Toward a Semiotics of Number 4.1 One, Two, Three 4.2 Questions to Ponder Glossary Bibliography Biographical Sketch Summary: Comparative Literature as an academic discipline has historically been a site for the meeting of fragments of various kinds. Comparative Studies, as it may in its broader conception be called, offers the opportunity of comparing individual instantiations of literature, music, dance, architecture, and other cultural productions, but also the opportunity of comparing these genres one to another. Such comparing in turn offers the opportunity of comparing one culture with another, across space and time. This essay delves into the process of comparing as a human activity, locating its origins in the anatomy and physiology of the human body itself. The act of comparison is discussed as an aspect of the binarism that seems innate and almost essential to humanity. In connection with this, the semiotics of the numbers One, Two, and Three are also discussed with a view toward their significance and their societal implications. Further, the history of the West is here broadly mapped out from ancient times to the postmodern era, to show how the arc of time brings both fragmentation and critical perspective. The inevitable scholarly tendency toward analysis is here balanced against the potential of synthesis as one possible scenario whereby comparative studies might find a viable future in the academy. 1. The One and the Many Singularity is the ultimate irreducible, always excepting nothingness itself. When we recognize the cohesiveness and integrity of singularity, we tend to appraise this trait positively, and to give it the name 'unity.' Historically, unity has been highly prized as an aesthetic quality: although there have been notable exceptions, since ancient times unity has been zealously sought, in the verbal arts as much as in the plastic. When we consider the notion of comparing, on the other hand, we must begin with multiplicity, or duality at least. Utter unity -- oneness in the grandest, most extreme metaphysical sense -- neither requires nor indeed admits of comparison. But much of our daily life, in an ordinary