Introduction
Translation of Chinese Literature in the Context of World
Literature: the “Going Global” of Chinese Literature
What is World Literature? The German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe is often credited as the first person to use the term Weltliteratur (world
literature) in his essays to describe the dissemination and reception of literature
in Europe. He shared with his student Johann Peter Eckermann his excitement of
reading Chinese novels and Persian poems and predicted the exciting prospect of
world literature in the future with these words.
I am more and more convinced that poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing
itself everywhere and at all times in hundreds and hundreds of men. ... I therefore like to
look about me in foreign nations, and advise everyone to do the same. National literature is
now a rather unmeaning term; the epoch of world literature is at hand, and everyone must
strive to hasten its approach. (Eckermann 1951: 165)