Goethe's Statement on Weltliteratur

Goethe had already used the concept of world literature in several essays in the early decades of the nineteenth century to describe the international circulation and reception of literary works in Europe, including works of non-Western origin. In January 1827 he made a famous statement predicting that world literature would replace national literature as the major mode of literary creativity in the future. The statement is known as a recorded conversation, not a letter, and reached wide currency when Eckermann published the conversations in 1835. The passages do not name the exact setting of the utterance; Weimar, Goethe's lifelong residence, is offered as a qualified locality.