ABSTRACT

Thomas Carlyle’s activity as a translator and promoter of German literature in nineteenth-century Britain was among the chief signs the ageing Goethe read as inaugurating ‘the epoch of world literature’. American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, who became Carlyle’s transatlantic friend and ally soon after Goethe’s death, shared the impression that their contemporary moment witnessed global contact and exchange on an unprecedented scale. Reconsidering the Goethe–Carlyle–Emerson nexus through the lens of the concrete materiality of their transnational interactions, this essay demonstrates that Weltliteratur to the three of them was something discursive as well as material, textual as well as social, and theoretical as well as practical.

摘要

托马斯·卡莱尔（Thomas Carlyle）在19世纪的英国担任德国文学翻译和促进者的活动是歌德衰老的主要标志之一，被视为开启了“世界文学的时代”。美国作文家拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生（Ralph Waldo Emerson）成为凯雷（Carlyle）的跨大西洋朋友并在歌德死后不久成为盟友，给人的印象是，他们的当代时刻见证了前所未有的全球接触与交流。通过他们的跨国互动的具体重要性的角度重新审视歌德-凯雷-艾默生之间的联系，这篇文章表明，对他们三个而言，世界文学既是论断的，又是物质的，文本的，社会的，理论的和实践的。