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Goethe’S World Literature, Universal Particularism, And European Imperialism, Dongho Cha

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Goethe's World Literature, Universal Particularism, and European Imperialism" Dongho Cha tracks the ideology in Goethe's concept of "world literature." Early comparatists claim to stand for the universalism of this concept by understanding it to totalize all literatures across linguistic, territorial, and national boundaries and intended to go beyond European nationalism. Cha argues that Goethe's idea of world literature is not a universal category that includes all of the world nliteratures, but a limited category that includes European literatures only and posits that world literature's and comparative literature's universalism is related to nineteenth-century European imperialism. Contrary to the …