Goethe's idea of world literature took the form neither of a command on his part that it should develop nor of a seer's vision that it was bound to do so. The idea evolved from his realisation that a world literature was in actual fact taking shape in his own time. It was only a new name for an actual historical process which Goethe was witnessing, and which presaged the dawning of a new literary age. For Goethe nothing had real existence unless he had himself experienced it. Therefore his idea of world literature developed out of his own feeling of in-debtedness to foreign literatures. The culture he had imbibed from them had helped to make him what he was, a power in the literary world of Europe. The rising generation in Europe hailed him as its leader and spiritual head. This experience indicated to Goethe that German literature was now no longer merely receptive, modelling itself on others which despised and neglected it. It now had something to contribute ; it played an active part in the development of European literatures, and in particular had a rejuvenating effect on the jaded spiritual life of Europe.
So, when Goethe speaks of world literature as something that is taking shape, we must ask the question whether it was really only beginning to develop in his time. In the Middle Ages and the Age of Humanism there existed a universal language, Latin, in which not only could the learned men of every nation exchange their thoughts but in which also an extra-national poetry grew up. Although Goethe himself refers expressly (when opposing linguistic "Purism ) to the beneficial influence which this had on the intellectual coherence of Europe, Latin literature cannot be claimed as world literature in Goethe's sense. For, in the first place, the circle which knew and used it was limited to scholars, and in the second place world literature ought to be not a colourless unity but a lively conversation. The nations ought not thereby to lose their special characteristics, but with one another's help should develop their common human qualities and learn tolerance for each other. Goethe saw in Ancient Greece a universal model for all literatures. When he developed his idea of world literature in conversation with Eckermann, and spoke of the need for aquainting oneself (as he did) with foreign literatures, he added that, however much one admired them, none could serve as a pattern. If we look for a model we must turn to the ancient Greeks, in whose works the perfection of human endeavour was represented. We must look at everything else from the historical point of view, appropriating, as far as we can, what is good in it. But Goethe certainly did not recognise as world literature merely any literature written in one universal language. On the other hand there had been, from classical times onwards, contacts between the peoples suggesting world literature in Goethe's sense. If we take German literature in particular, it has always been open to literary influences from abroad, has modelled itself on them, interested itself critically in them, and developed a vast activity in the work of translation. Through every age, German literature shows a tendency to look to the Romance literatures for guidance in form and proportion, purity and beauty. Middle High German literature took its formal and social education from France. Through the influence of Chancellor Johannes von Neumarkt (whose enthusiasm for Italy had almost the same origins as Goethe's) at the court of the Emperor Charles IV, famous writers of the Italian Renaisaance, Petrarch and Rienzi, became models for a Latin and also a German literary style. Translations from Boccaccio, Poggio and Æneas Silvius affected the incipient German Renaissance. French literature was used in the 16th century to help to overcome German crudity in art and society. Even the Baroque movement, consciously national in its ambition to raise German literature to the level of other European literatures, employed translation and imitation to show that what was possible in other languages was possible also in German. German classicism, superseding the Baroque style, copied the example of the French from whom it learned to endow German poetry with symmetry, clarity, good taste and reasonableness. And the German Rococo, the Anacreontic poetry of which Wieland's is the finest example, learned from French poetry charm, grace, and lightness, until finally both classicism and rococo were superseded by the foreign---though this time Germanic---help of England. Foreign literary influence on German literature assumed such proportions that German writers of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries had repeatedly to oppose it.
. . .The more German literature struggled by means of imitation to achieve significance, the farther it went astray. Even its efforts passed unnoticed or were regarded as barbarous eccentricities. This came to an end in the 18th century, when the nations, filled with the idea of one universal humanity, began to look beyond their frontiers and to attempt just criticism. But although Gottsched, Wieland, Gellert and other German writers now found acknowledgment and acceptance in French literature, we must remember that this happened only because these writers were themselves the product of the French school, and France was merely getting back what she had given. German literature had as yet nothing of its own to bestow. Even Lessing could hardly give anything to France which Diderot had not already expressed.
But there were signs which can be regarded as a beginning of world literature in Goethe's sense. In the first place there were the new journals which appeared in the course of the 18th century. The second half of the 17th century had of course its journals, such as the fournal des Savants (from 1665), the Nouvelles de la Républigue des Lettres (from 1684), the Bibliothegue Universelle (from 1685). They adopted a universal European tone and dealt with the German point of view, but their main concern was with scientific literature. Imaginative literature came only exceptionally within their purview. These journals were supranational in their desire to found a republic of the sciences. The 18th century, on the other hand, witnessed the founding of the Bibliotheque Anglaise (1717), the Bibliotheque Germanique (1720), the Bibliotheque Italique (1729), and these were conscious attempts to familiarise the nations of Europe, whose interests so far had been restricted to French literature, with English, German and Italian literature. While each of these journals had its specialised sphere of activity, the Bulletins litteraires of Fr. Melchior Grimm, the Journal étranger and the fournal littéraire (from 1754) and many other journals in France had real influence in the direction of world literature. This was especially the case with the Journal étranger, in the preface to which the hope was expressed that this journal would be popular in France, would find a wide circulation throughout Europe and would help to unite the individual literary republics in one single intellectual confederation, in a "réspublique des lettres". Every nation, the Journal goes on to say, will be enriched by the treasures of its rivals without losing any of its own, and so the whole of Europe will become better educated, more philosophical; and the Journal étranger hopes to have the good fortune to help in this task. Many voices were saying much the same thing. The most influential was of course Voltaire's. In a dedicatory letter for a French translation (by Antelmy) of Lessing's Fables he writes: French literature is very widely known in Germany, and journals publish reports of all our doings. There is also much just criticism. The .example that Germany gives ought to incite France to emulation, "que votre langue devînt plus commune parmi nous; que nous puissions nous intéresser à vos travaux littéraires, comme vous vous intéressez aux nôtres; qu'après avoir contribué avec deux de nos nations voisines à épurer votre goût, nous profitassions à notre tour de vos lumières (1764). These journals did justice to German literature by pointing out how far it was from being barbarous and rough. Soon, too, contributors began to mention their hopes for the wholesome and rejuvenating influence which German literature might have on French. This is particularly noticeable after France had become aware of Albrecht von Haller, Salomon Gessner and certain German writers who carried on their traditions. Huber's Choix de Poésies Allemandes, which appeared in 1766, was so successful that one can almost say there was a germanophil fashion in France in the sixties, and can trace Swiss and German influences in the works of the greatest French writers. Tacitus, in his Germania, had contrasted the simple moral and religious life among the German peoples with an over-civilised and decadent Rome. In the same way the idyllic poetry of a Haller or Gessner is contrasted as the ideal image of return to nature, to simplicity, to morality and religion. The Swiss and German writers make their entry into French literature with Rousseau. In the seventies and eighties the works of the younger German dramatists became known in France through the Thédtre Allemand, edited in 1772 by Junker and Liebault, and the Nouveau. Thédtre Allemand by Friedel and Bonneville (1782-85). Even the early dramas of Goethe and Schiller 'are included among them. There is no doubt that this paved the way for the tremendous influence of Werther, which swept across France.
In Goethe's early years, then, world literature in his sense had made a beginning. But this was all a prelude compared with what happened in Europe after the publication of Werther; the traffic in ideas between the peoples gained not only in scope and speed but in depth and productiveness.
