The Shifting Position of German Literature in the Estonian Canon of World Literature
The Shifting Position of German Literature in the Estonian Canon of World Literature

Summary/Abstract: “Nationalliteratur will jetzt nicht viel besagen, die Epoche der Weltliteratur ist an der Zeit” - declared Goethe, when writing to Eckermann on 31 January 1827 (Eckermann 1868: 224). Introducing the term ’world literature’ (Weltliteratur, also Weltpoesie), in the same breath, Goethe also thought about Weltbildung, Weltbürger and Weltkommunikation. For Goethe, a “canon of world literature” would have sounded as a paradox. Goethe saw world literature as a process of literary communication between literatures and their authors of different nations, aiming at cultural understanding. For him, the notion of world literature was not determined by the classicality of literary works but, rather, by their contemporaneity, their modernity. In Goethe’s sense, world literature can sooner be found in literary journals than in the canon of literary works.

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