A work enters into world literature by a double process: first, by being read as Literature ; second by circulating out into a broader world beyond its linguistic and cultural point of origin. A given work can enter into world literature and then fall out of it again if it shifts beyond a threshold point along either axis, the literary or the worldly. Over the centuries, an unusually shifty work can come in and out of the sphere of world literature several different times: and at any given point, a work may function as world literature for some readers but not others,and for some kinds of reading but not others. .
A work enters into world literature by a double process: first, by being read as Literature ; second by circulating out into a broader world beyond its linguistic and cultural point of origin. A given work can enter into world literature and then fall out of it again if it shifts beyond a threshold point along either axis, the literary or the worldly. Over the centuries, an unusually shifty work can come in and out of the sphere of world literature several different times: and at any given point, a work may function as world literature for some readers but not others,and for some kinds of reading but not others. .