Chinese Novels, Scholarly Errors and Goethe’s Concept of World Literature

Abstract

ABSTRACT Eckermann’s account of his conversation with Goethe on 31 January 1827, leading to the idea of world literature, refers to an unnamed Chinese novel. It has commonly been misidentified as Iu-Kiao-Li ou les Deux Cousines in Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat’s French translation or else as the novel known as the Fortunate Union. Building on the work of Günther Debon, Eric Blackall, and Heinz Hamm, and using translated Chinese novels now available in digital form, this study confirms Peter Perring Thoms’s 1824 translation, Chinese Courtship, as the correct referent. The reasons that such confusion has prevailed are analysed, as are the advantages of the right perspective. Importantly, Goethe’s famous statement on world literature concerns poetry, as Chinese Courtship is a novel in verse.