近十多年來，歌德提出的「世界文學」問題又再度成為文學研究的當前議題，尤其是在比較文學領域之中。但今日歷史的、地緣政治的及經濟的語境，顯然和歐洲十八、十九世紀之交的語境大不相同。我們所生活的是後殖民、多元文化、多極政治及經濟全球化的語境，而這和持歐洲中心觀點的歌德所處在的世界顯然不同。就此而言，大部份有關普世文學的當代思考是具爭論性的。本文針對歌德的世界文學意念以及其浪漫主義近親、普世文學（Universalliteratur）的意念進行辯護。本文將著重於其中隱含的的世界主義及人類學元素，並嘗試指出它們並不像我們所曾以為地那樣單純。

Since some decades the goethean question of ＂Weltliteratur＂ is again on the agenda of literary studies and especially comparative literature. But the historical, geo-political and economical contexts of today have apparently nothing in common with the European context characterizing the turn of the XVIIIth to the XIXth century. We are living in a post-colonial, multicultural, politically multi-centered and economically globalized context which seems very different from the « eurocentric » view of the goethean world. So most of contemporary reflections about Universal Literature are polemical. I would like to say some words in defense of the goethean notion of ＂Weltliteratur＂ as well as of its romantic cousin of ＂Universalliteratur＂: I shall foreground their cosmopolitical and anthropological components and try to show that they were much less naive than we believe them to have been.