Review: The World of Literature

The World of Literature
by James W. Earl

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The World of Literature / 0-13-439159-4

This is a fantastic anthology, and a wonderful addition to any private library. Many of the works included here are distinctly non-Western/European and, instead, the authors have taken the time and effort to include literature from the parts of the world most frequently neglected by literature courses. Indian literature, Chinese literature, even Mayan literature is included here, with translations that are fluid and easy to read and understand, and treated with the respect and awe that these works deserve. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

ANCIENT LITERATURE: ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA AND EGYPT
- Descent of Inanna
- Epic of Gilgamesh
- Egyptian Poetry
- Hebrew Bible

ANCIENT LITERATURE: ANCIENT INDIA
- Asvaghosha
- Bhagavad-Gita
- Mahabharata
- Ramayana of Valmiki
- Rig Veda
- Upanishads
- Vimalakirti Sutra

ANCIENT LITERATURE: ANCIENT CHINA
- Book of Songs
- Confucius
- Han Dynasty Poetry
- Laozi
- Mozi
- Qu Yuan
- Sima Qian
- Zhuangzi

ANCIENT LITERATURE: ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME
- Catullus
- Euripides
- Greek Bible
- Hesiod
- Homer
- Horace
- Ovid
- Pindar
- Plato
- Sappho
- Thucydides
- Virgil

MIDDLE PERIOD LITERATURE: MIDDLE EAST
- Abol-Qasem Ferdowsi
- Abu Abdallah Ibn Battutah
- Arabic Poetry
- Book of Dede Korkut
- Farid Al-Din Attar
- Muhammad Ibn Ishaq
- Persian Poetry
- Qasidahs
- Quran
- Thousand and One Night
- Usamah Ibn Munqidh

MIDDLE PERIOD LITERATURE: INDIA
- Bhakti Poetry
- Kalidasa
- Vidyakara

MIDDLE PERIOD LITERATURE: CHINA
- Gan Bao
- Lotus Sutra
- Song Poetry
- Tang Poetry
- Tao Qian
- Wu Cheng'en
- Yuan Zhen

MIDDLE PERIOD LITERATURE: JAPAN
- Court Poetry
- Izumi Shikibu
- Kamo No Chomei
- Kojiki
- Manyoshu
- Murasaki Shikinu
- No Theatre
- Tales of the Heiki

MIDDLE PERIOD LITERATURE: KOREA
- Cho'oe Ch'i-Won
- Ho Nansorhon
- Hwang Chin-i
- Hyangga
- Songs of Flying Dragons

MIDDLE PERIOD LITERATURE: EUROPE
- Abelard
- Alighieri, Dante
- Augustine
- Bede
- Chaucer, Geoffrey
- de Cervantes, Miguel
- de France, Marie
- de Montaigne, Michel
- de Pizan, Christine
- More, Thomas
- Norse Literature
- Petrarch, Francis
- Polo, Marco
- Shakespeare, William

MODERN LITERATURE: MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
- Achebe, Chinua (Nigeria)
- Amichai, Yehuda (Israel)
- Bakr, Salwz (Egypt)
- Mahfouz, Naguib (Egypt)
- Ogot, Grace (Kenya)
- Senghor, Leopold Sedar (Senegal)
- Soyinka, Wole (Nigeria)
- Tuqan, Fadwa (Palestine)

MODERN LITERATURE: INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
- Kalayaanaphong, Angkarn (Thailand)
- Nguyen, Huy Thiep (Vietnam)
- Rushdie, Salman (India)
- Seth, Rajee (India)
- Tagore, Rabindranath (India)

MODERN LITERATURE: CHINA
- Cao Xueqin
- Ding Ling
- Lu Xun
- Shen Fu

MODERN LITERATURE: JAPAN
- Abe Kobo
- Kawabata Yasunari
- Matsuo Basho
- Natsume Soseki
- Oba Minako

MODERN LITERATURE: KOREA
- Suno Hwi

MODERN LITERATURE: EUROPE
- Akhmatova, Anna (Russia)
- Austen, Jane (England and Ireland)
- Beckett, Samuel (England and Ireland)
- Baudelaire, Charles (France)
- de Sevigne, Madame (France)
- Dostoyevsky, Fyodor (Russia)
- Holderlin, Friedrich (Germany and Czechoslovakia)
- Joyce, James (England and Ireland)
- Kafka, Franz (Germany and Czechoslovakia)
- Milton, John (England and Ireland)
- Pope, Alexander (England and Ireland)
- Proust, Marcel (France)
- Rilke, Rainer Maria (Germany and Czechoslovakia)
- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (France)
- Szymborska, Wislawa (Poland)
- Woolf, Virginia (England and Ireland)

THE AMERICAS
- Bishop, Elizabeth (United States)
- Borges, Jorge Luis (Argentina)
- Dickenson, Emily (United States)
- Eliot, T.S. (United States)
- Erdrich, Louise (United States)
- Faulkner, William (United States)
- Hernandez, Angela (Dominican Republic)
- Klepfisz, Irena (United States)
- Marquez, Gabriel Garcia (Colombia)
- Morrison, Toni (United States)
- Neruda, Pablo (Chile)
- Popul Vuh (Maya)
- Pound, Ezra (United States)
- Whitman, Walt (United States)

~ Ana Mardoll

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