World literature from and in China

Wolfgang Kubin

pp. 301-310

in: Weigui Fang (ed), Tensions in world literature, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

Chinese literature is the oldest living literature. Its classics belong to world literature from the very beginning. Its worldwide importance could only be recognized very late, both in and outside China. From the angle of Europe, Chinese "literature," first in the sense of philosophy and then as poetry and so on, was received from the sixteenth century on. But not before Goethe did Chinese written culture display its power as a stronghold of the human mind in the eyes of German-speaking thinkers. "Germany" has been translating almost "everything" in Chinese for 200 years, thus creating a canon of Chinese writings as part of world literature. As German is a "tiny" language, this contribution of German sinology is not well known, so it seems to be forgotten under the impact of English-speaking countries.

Cited authors

Goethe Johann Wolfgang