World literature is on the rise both as an answer to the needs of revitalizing literary studies and as a necessary result of global connectedness of cultures and literatures in today’s world. Despite the new excitement of a rising tide in literary studies, the question still remains to be asked: What is world literature? What should it include? Is circulation beyond its culture of origin the sufficient criterion for a work to become part of world literature? What is the function of literary criticism in the formation of a world literature canon? What is the relationship between world literature and Chinese literature? These are some of the crucial questions to be explored in this discussion of world literature as a most exciting new phenomenon in literary and humanistic studies today.

世界文學正在歐美和世界各地成為文學研究一股新的潮流，這既是文學研究本身發展趨勢使然，也是當今世界各國文學和文化傳統在全球範圍內聯繫日益密切的結果。不過儘管這是文學研究中方興未艾的浪潮，我們仍須提出最基本的定義問題：什麼是世界文學？這個概念應當包含什麼內容？一部文學作品超出本身語言文化的環境，在全球範圍內流通，是否就是這部作品成為世界文學充足的條件？在世界文學經典之形成當中，文學批評起怎樣的作用？世界文學與中國文學關係如何？在此演講中，我們須要在目前文學研究和人文研究這一極有活力的領域，對這些問題作深入思考和探討。