ABSTRACT
World literature got its start as a field of scholarly discourse in the years after the Napoleonic wars. The discourse persisted thereafter, though it became marginal with the relentless growth of nationalistic outlooks, and some of its debates were taken up within the study of comparative literature. Moments of great conflict stimulated attention to world history–thus Hegel's reflections on world history can be seen as responding to the Napoleonic wars. Alexander Beecroft's Ecology of World Literature begins with typology to distinguish six levels of literary production, from village level to the global, analysing the characteristics of each. Elements of world-historical theory began to appear in the 1990s, beginning with the debate over Eurocentrism in world history–debate that, while sometimes rancorous, opened up a space for world-historical studies to thrive. Distinctive civilisations reflect differences in language, culture, political tradition–and perhaps also in the fundamental logic of existence.
