“But since any piece of literature could fit under its umbrella, ‘World Literature’ is not so much a genre as perspective.”

In 1827, the seminal German humanist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—noting that literature was being shared across national borders of Europe and beyond—wrote the now-famous line: “the era of World Literature is at hand, everyone must do what they can to hasten its approach.”

We consider this quote the start of a global literary consciousness that shifted the conception of literature from a reflection of national character to a global phenomenon reflecting the (purportedly universal) human spirit.

But since any piece of literature could fit under its umbrella, “World Literature” is not so much a genre as perspective. World Literature presumes that all works of literature, no matter where they are from, nor in what language they are written, can be viewed side by side, and can be compared and contrast. David Damrosch puts it best, saying that “world literature is not an infinite, ungraspable canon of works but rather a mode of circulation and of reading, a mode that is as applicable to individual works as to bodies of material, available for reading established classics and new discoveries alike.”

Goethe conceived of World Literature as the exchange of primarily Western European literatures. In the three hundred (or so) years since his letter, World Literature has expanded far beyond the Western Literary canon. But the distinct bias in global publishing,  favoring the languages of economically prosperous countries, persists.

The urgency for a more diversified literary landscape should resonate most with translators. Translators find themselves in service to the creation of a world where boundaries—both political and cultural—are permeable, porous. The demand for World Literature has never been higher, and translators, once considered an afterthought, are now being regarded as artists. During a panel for Asymptote‘s three-year anniversary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Karen Thornber, chair of Harvard’s Comparative Literature department, explained that when she was a student, translation was considered an inferior way of reading a novel, while today translation is a critical element of the comparative literary process. This is good news for all of us. More.

See: Asymptote

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