Goethe's notion of world literature, therefore, is linked in an important way to the internationalization of culture that resulted from the emergence of capitalism as the dominant mode of production in modern Europe.

In 1827, fresh from his reading of a Chinese novel, Goethe pronounced to Eckermann that "national literature is now a rather unmeaning term; the epoch of world literature is at hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approach.

If cosmopolitanism and world literature are so closely related, to the point where one may wonder whether “cosmopolitan literature” is synonymous with “world literature” […] a question that needs to be answered is why the concept of cosmopolitanism plays such a minor role in world literature discussions.

World literature

Meaning

Noun