The World Literature future

Different scholars view the future of the World Literature in different ways. It is all due to the changes that took place with literature in the course of the 20th century (the World Literature changed more during the past century than during two thousand years). There are two main trends that are characteristic of the current and future position of the World Literature:

- transformation of the World Literature (in general cultural context) into an instrument of massive influence. It is already now that literature is largely used for definite political and ideological purposes;

- universal availability of the World Literature through appropriateness of information that may be easily reached by means of mass media.

Both processes are interconnected as one is impossible without another one. Even now, there exists electronic paper that is of a pocket-size, comfortable in use and comprises volume of information which may be held by several thousand books only.

The way we see it, literature will become an "industrialized" process whose creation will not require a lot of time and mental efforts. On the other hand, literature may disappear as an art form at all.