A History of World Literature is a fully revised and expanded edition of The Routledge Concise History of World Literature (2012). This remarkably broad and informative book offers an introduction to “world literature.”
Tracing the term from its earliest roots and situating it within a number of relevant contexts from postcolonialism, decoloniality, ecocriticism, and book circulation, Theo D’haen in ten tightly-argued but richly-detailed chapters examines:
- the return of the term “world literature” and its changing meaning;
- Goethe’s concept of Weltliteratur and how this relates to current debates;
- theories and theorists who have had an impact on world literature; and
- how world literature is taught around the world.
By examining how world literature is studied around the globe, this book is the ideal guide to an increasingly popular and important term in literary studies. It is accessible and engaging and will be invaluable to students of world literature, comparative literature, translation, postcolonial and decoloniality studies, and materialist approaches, and to anyone with an interest in these or related topics.
Acknowledgements
Introduction: The (Re)Turn of World Literature
Chapter 1. Naming World Literature
Chapter 2. Goethe’s Weltliteratur and The Humanist Ideal
Chapter 3. World Literature and Comparative Literature
Chapter 4. World Literature as an American Pedagogical Construct
Chapter 5. World Literature in European Academe
Chapter 6. World Literature as System
Chapter 7. World Literature and Translation
Chapter 8. World Literature, (Post)Modernism, (Post)Colonialism, Littérature-Monde, Decoloniality
Chapter 9. Asian, African, and Oceanian Perspectives on World Literature
Chapter 10. World Literature and Planetary Materialities
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Theo D’haen is Emeritus Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Leuven University and Emeritus Professor of English and American Literature at Leiden University. He has published widely on (post)modernism, (post)colonialism, and world literature. His publications include World Literature in an Age of Geopolitics (2021) and The Routledge Companion to World Literature, Second Edition (co-edited with David Damrosch and Djelal Kadir; Routledge, 2022).
