The role of world literature in promoting the cause of globalization in the cultural and human domains

Abstract EN

The age in which we live can be rightiy dubbed as an age of globalization in which the need for promoting humane cultural understanding among people of the world is greater than ever.

This objective can best be achieved through the study of world literature as an academic discipline embracing international literary works written in English or translated into this lingua franca .

The notion that world literature may serve as an effective medium for constructing cultural and intellectual bridges among nations was first conceived by Goethe.

In his famous conversations with his secretary Echermann, Goethe coined the term weltliteratur whrch is based on the assumption that literature is a universal rather than a national phenomenon.

Yet international works of art can be most adequately studied in both their national perspectives and in their international contexts.

The adoption of this approach of literary study will enable the reader to explore and consider both of the national cultural peculiarities of international iiterary works and their shared interest in common human heritage.

While this approcah stimulates the growth of the reader's humane understanding of other cultures , it also enhances his awareness of cultural relativity towards which education in general should be geared in the modern multicivilizational world which is witnessing the unyielding process of globalization