This article treats the relationship between world literature and what Edward Said calls “worldliness.” Starting with the question of philology in the Vichian sense employed by Said, through which he designated the process of extracting hidden social and historical meanings, the article then addresses Erich Auerbach’s essay, “Philologie der Weltliteratur,” which Said had co-translated in his youth and which remained a key component in his later thinking and writing. Finally, the article deals with the dynamics of worldliness and world literature through the notion of democratic criticism as exemplified by Said’s later work.