The essay concentrates on the problem of the self-critical discourse of the discipline. First of all, the word crisis, introduced by R. Wellek in 1958 to describe the situation of comparative literature in the USA, is redefined to explain the immediate success of this term all over the world. Moreover, the research embraces other situations in which comparative literature is defined through negative metaphors. Their presence is discussed as a paradox of the succesful discipline which has reigned in humanistic research for more than two centuries. As it results from the research, the purpose of negative figures in self−critical discourse of comparative literature is chiefly rhetorical, but they express the necessity of development and progress, accordingly to the antique concept of crisis meaning capacity of judgement', criticism.