ABSTRACT
This chapter argues the notion of estrangement introduces a more complex view of the relations between comparative and world literature, as one recognizes that comparative literature also deals with varied factors of estrangement. It argues that world literature is perhaps mainly constituted by the awareness and the practice of dissonance and non-conformity as these are played out within a given literary system. A world literature that does not include such paradoxical and messy practices misses part of what happens in a truly comparative view of literatures in the world. The comparative approach of a world literature scope permanently deals with estrangements that are the very basis of any reading people may do and of every work of art everyone may confront. The fortuitous event that seems to be part of the whole process does not erase the historicity of the texts that are changed or the alterity of the cultures and literatures that they represent or signal.
