In some instances of comparative literature research, it is not precisely possible to accredit a literary work to a specific nation or ethnic group. The reason, it seems, lies in the lack of a precise definitions of national literature which in turn is due to the imprecision of the standards set for national literature. Whereas one camp, mainly the disciples of the French school of comparative literature, view language the sole, or at least the strongest criterion for setting the domain of international and national literature, the other camp, mainly the proponents of the American school of comparative literature, casting doubts upon the validity and the efficacy of the linguistic criterion, go for a political identity criterion. Of course, along these two criteria, sometimes other criteria such as historical continuity, shared cultural identity, religious and theological borders, political ideologies and even geographical (co-territorial) borders are also posed.   

To investigate this problem more profoundly, the present authors, criticizing the above-mentioned standards and criteria and displaying their inadequacy and imprecision, have made an attempt to propose cultural components and the cultural discourse dominating the work as a promising standard.