Abstract

This paper analyzes the processes of cross-lingual, transnational, and cross-cultural communication and interaction of world literary classics. The author argues that world literary classics are actually the result of the variation of the exchanges between various “ethnic” literatures. Comparative literature is essentially a discipline of scholarly study of the synchronic developments of literature and culture. Although scholars have long recognized the perspective of variation in diachronic development, there has been less attention to variation in synchronic development. The formation of world literary classics is also closely related to the synchronic development of literature. Thus, variation studies in comparative literature not only reveal the perspective of cultural innovation but also find creativity in the variation of cultural and literary communication as well as innovation in the variation of literary interpretation.