It is almost impossible to identify similar characteristics in all of world literature. By definition, the term describes any work that can be read as literature and which has succeeded in circulating beyond its culture of origin. Epics from antiquity, such as Homer's "The Odyssey" and Virgil's "The Aeneid," were translated into Latin and read by a European audience in the 15th century, years before Goethe, though now they fall under the category of world literature because they emerged from ancient Greek and Roman culture.
It is common for certain elements of a literary work to be lost whenever that work crosses over cultural lines, particularly works that are translated into English for a Western audience. Foreign works can be mistranslated initially or translated multiple times, losing meaning in the process. In addition to this, new meanings can be added, as readers that are unfamiliar with a work's culture of origin are likely to impose on that work the literary values prevalent in their own culture.
Ethnocentrism, the act of viewing the world with an assumed belief in the preeminence of one's own culture, is a universal problem faced by the world literary canon. English and American literature still dominate college curriculum, with European works like the Old English epic "Beowulf" and Dante Alighieri's "Inferno" taking precedence. Standardized testing also introduces an obstacle. ACT and SAT testers of high school English classes find world literature problematic, due to the broad nature of the canon and the difficulty in finding questions that the majority of students can answer.
Karl Marx states, in his "Communist Manifesto": "National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures there arises a world literature." Marx saw positivity in Goethe's description of a vast and expanding literary culture, believing it to be the quintessence of modern literature and an equal exchange of ideas. With the onslaught of globalization, world literature has grown far beyond what either Goethe or Marx could have imagined.