Bibliographical and lexicographical information 353 it is not easy to translate “agnidharmī ”. It seems such omissions are his favourite tech- nique though without hampering the im- plicit meaning (cf. poems ‘Symbol’, ‘You...’ etc). For cultural communication Sinha, like Sharma, retains words like Sāvan / Bhādon (the months of the rainy season in the Hin- di Calendar), but I fail to justify his use of “buntings of mango leaves” instead of re- taining the Hindi bandanwār. He could have given its explanation in the Glossary / Appendix (p.167) where the explanatory notes for eleven culture-specific allusions / images / words are provided. In places Sinha’s translation lacks the natural English rhythm or the normal flow of English speech just as all of Bhatnagar’s Exuberance is not necessarily poetic. In fact I suspect Sinha must have lef out some of the best or representative poems of Bhatna- gar in his random selection of Hindi poems according to their ease of translation. I al- so have a hunch that like I.K.Sharma, Ra- vi Nandan Sinha largely trusts his intuition trying to mediate the communication gap between Hindi and English. On the whole, both translators are aware of the needs of the culturally different readers at home and abroad and try to com- municate sense and sensibility. Sharma ap- pears more effective than Sinha as his vers- es prove highly readable and sound original, like good Indian English poetry. Prof. R.K.Singh Dept. of Humanities & Social Sciences Indian School of Mines DHANBAD-826004 INDIA *** Steven Tötösy de ZEPETNEK, Compar- ative Literature: Theory, Method, Appli- cation, 1998. Editions Rodopi, B.V., Tijn- muiden 7, 1046 AK. Amsterdam: Te Netherlands. 297 pp. ISBN 90-420-0534-3. Studies in Comparative Literature 18. Price USD 47.00 Comparative Literature as a discipline and a method has always been in a precarious state because it has not been able to es- tablish a specific methodology and a dis- tinct subject matter. As early as 1958, René Wellek declared that the field was in a state of crisis (p. 282). In the late sixties, how- ever, Harry Levin, in a famous lecture de- livered in 1968 as the presidential address at the meeting of the American Compara- tive Association at Indiana University, com- plained of too much concern with theory and too little practice: We spend too much of our energy talking as I am now about comparative literature, and not enough of it comparing the litera- ture. We have too many programs and not enough performances, too many drum ma- jors and not enough instrumentalists, too many people telling us how to do things they have never done. We put too much stress on setting up, or knocking down, ap- paratus... Hours that might be better de- voted to reading and contemplation are expended, like this one, on meetings and conferences .... Te concern for method has led some schol- ars to go so far as to claim that comparative literature was “at risk,” as Wlad Godzich puts it (p.180). Te most devastating state- ment on comparative literature, however, came from Susan Bassnett’s declaration, “Today, comparative literature in one sense is dead” (p.47). Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek’s Compar- ative Literature: Theory, Method, Applica- tion is partially a reaction to these anxieties and claims. He proposes a new method- ology for the study of comparative litera- ture based on “Te Systemic and Empirical Approach to Literature and Culture.” Te