“Scale” is the core concept of human geography, which has both the vertical and horizontal level, the former refers to the scalar ladder of the local, national and global, and the latter refers to the world system of periphery-semiperiphery-center. The emergence of new phenomena such as globalization, global climate change and digitalization has challenged the human perception of scale and prompted human geography and environmental studies to rethink “scale.” A cluster of new terms such as rescaling, scale jump, scale shift and scale effect have been invented. By drawing upon this new conception of scale, literary studies initiate the “critique of scale” in the Anthropocene, conducts a cognitive mapping of world literature, and reveals the literary strategies to represent multi-scalar, poly-centered and multi-agency world. These scalar studies of literature have provided implications and inspirations for Chinese literary studies.