1/12/2019 World literature is both a market reality and a global ideal | Aeon Essays https://aeon.co/essays/world-literature-is-both-a-market-reality-and-a-global-ideal 1/12 Readers of the world unite How markets, Marx, and provincial elites created world literature to fight both empire and nationalism Martin Puchner On the afternoon of 31 January 1827, a new vision of literature was born. On that day, Johann Peter Eckermann, faithful secretary to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, went over to his master’s house, as he had done hundreds of times in the past three and a