In the continuing debates about the cultural dimensions of globalization the question of "literature" has been something of a poor relation. This volume seeks to redress the balance, with a starting point of Goethe's idea of Weltliteratur, from which it travels out to various parts of the globe at different historical junctures. The book's concerns include the legacy of Goethe's idea; variable understandings of the term "literature" itself; cross-cultural encounters (the contact of the oral and...