In this interdisciplinary work that ranges from the ancients through the Renaissance to the present, Jonathan Hart examines systems, law, theatre, nature, stereotype, otherness, authority, new historicism, deconstruction, feminism, reading, interpretation, poetry, and poetics. The book considers crucial topics and controversies involving the field of Comparative Literature, including subjectivity, Bartolomé de Las Casas, and globalization. Regardless of the period, this towering study assumes that meaning, genre, character, language, and structure are principal matters for debate.