By engaging with this resource which presents texts by diverse world writers from 1650 to the present, learners will: (1) engage with diverse world writers in translation, including canonical and less canonical texts, and (2) identify literary conventions and trends across genres. The texts are in chronological order, but can be adapted by the faculty in whatever way they see fit. Each text is introduced with a brief discussion of author, original language and time period, and the literary conventions the students can expect to see in the text.

Table of Contents:
Moliere, Tartuffe
Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler
Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author
Rabinardranath Tagore, Punishment
Lu Xun, Diary of a Madman
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of the Forking Path
Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas Ladies and Gentlemen
Fayeza Hasanat, When Our Fathers Die
Matsuo Basho, from the Narrow Road to the Deep North
Anna Akhmatova, Requiem
Obi Nwakanma, Poems

Childhood is a source of fascination in most Western cultures. It is both a major inspiration for artistic creation and a political ideal, which aims at protecting future generations. Which role does it play in French society and in other francophone areas? Why is the French national anthem (La Marseillaise) addressed to its 'children'? This course will study the transformation of childhood since the 18th century and the development of sentimentality within the family. We will examine various representations of childhood in literature (e.g. Pagnol, Proust, Sarraute, Laye, Morgiĺvre), movies (e.g. Truffaut), and songs (e.g. Brel, Barbara). Course taught in French.

This course is an introduction to three of the major genres of traditional Chinese literature - poetry, fiction and drama, with a focus on vernacular fiction. We will read translations of a number of the "masterworks" of Chinese literature. We will also examine the intertextuality between these genres - how poetry blends into narrative, how fiction becomes drama, and drama inspires fiction. Through reading these selected works of traditional Chinese literature, we will examine some of the major features of traditional Chinese society: religious and philosophical beliefs, the imperial system and dynastic change, gender relations, notions of class and ethnicity, family, romance and sexuality. All works are read in translation; no language background is necessary.

The introductions in this anthology are meant to be just that: a basic overview of what students need to know before they begin reading, with topics that students can research further. An open access literature textbook cannot be a history book at the same time, but history is the great companion of literature: The more history students know, the easier it is for them to interpret literature.

Although the text is designed to look like an actual book, the Table of Contents is composed of hyperlinks that will take you to each introductory section and then to each text. The three parts of the text are organized into the following units:

Part 4—The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Unit I: The Age of Reason

Unit II: The Near East and Asia

Part 5—The Long Nineteenth Century

Unit I Romanticism

Unit II Realism

Part 6—The Twentieth Century and Contemporary Literature

Unit I Modernism

Unit II Postcolonial Literature

Unit III Contemporary Literature

Texts from a variety of genres and cultures are included in each unit. Additionally, each selection or collection includes a brief introduction about the author and text(s), and each includes 3 – 5 discussion questions. Texts in the public domain--those published or translated before 1923--are replicated here. Texts published or translated after 1923 are not yet available in the public domain. In those cases, we have provided a link to a stable site that includes the text. Thus, in Part 6, most of the texts are accessible in the form of links to outside sites. In every case, we have attempted to connect to the most stable links available.

This class continues our study of the foundational texts of human culture, focusing on early modernity until the recent past. In many ways, this includes several questions such as: Why did these works achieve the fame and influence they achieved? How do they present what it means to be a human being? How do they describe the role of a member of a family, community, tradition, social class, gender? How do they distinguish between proper and improper behavior? How do they characterize the members of other groups? However, in several ways, these texts are also iconoclastic, breaking with centuries of established tradition to shed light on previously unexplored subjects, such as the status of women in society or the legacy of the colonial expansion of European countries. They also question well-established social beliefs like religion, monarchical rule and human nature in general.

This course aims to introduce students to the rich diversity of human culture from antiquity to the early 17th century. In this course, we will explore human culture in its myriad expressions, focusing on the study of literary, religious and philosophical texts as ways of narrating, symbolizing, and commenting on all aspects of human social and material life. We will work comparatively, reading texts from various cultures: Mesopotamian, Greek, Judeo-Christian, Chinese, Indian, and Muslim. Throughout the semester, we will be asking questions like: How have different cultures imagined themselves? What are the rules that they draw up for human behavior? How do they represent the role of the individual in society? How do they imagine 'universal' concepts like love, family, duty? How have their writers and artists dealt with encounters with other cultures and other civilizations?

International Women's Voices has several objectives. It introduces students to a variety of works by contemporary women writers from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and North America. The emphasis is on non-western writers. The readings are chosen to encourage students to think about how each author's work reflects a distinct cultural heritage and to what extent, if any, we can identify a female voice that transcends national cultures. In lectures and readings distributed in class, students learn about the history and culture of each of the countries these authors represent. The way in which colonialism, religion, nation formation and language influence each writer is a major concern of this course. In addition, students examine the patterns of socialization of women in patriarchal cultures, and how, in the imaginary world, authors resolve or understand the relationship of the characters to love, work, identity, sex roles, marriage and politics.This class is a communication intensive course. In addition to becoming more thoughtful readers, students are expected to become a more able and more confident writers. Assignments are designed to allow for revision of each paper. The class will also offer opportunities for speaking and debating so that students can build oral presentation skills that are essential for success once they leave MIT. The class is limited to 25 students and there is substantial classroom discussion.

This book explores the role of traditional East Asian worldviews, ethical values, and common practices in the shaping of East Asian narratives in literature and film. It offers a specific method for this analysis. The interpretive goal is to arrive at interpretations that more accurately engage cultural information so that narratives are understood more closely in terms of their native cultural rather than that of the reader/interpreter. Current neuroscience related to processes of perception and the attribution of meaning form the basis for the theory of interpretation offered in the first half of the volume.

Table of Contents
I. About this book and this course
II. A Theory of Interpretation for Cross-Cultural Reading
III. Method - Elements of (Course) Interpretive Projects
IV. Method - Designing and Completing (Course) Interpretive Projects
V. Cultural Contexts - Traditional Thought Systems in East Asian Love Narratives
VI. Glossary of Key Terms and Concepts

The texts contained in this anthology each perform a particular purpose and represent an aspect of the rich cultures that populate our world. By attending to the cultural significance of literary texts from around the world and connecting them via a unifying theme, we can begin to identify cultural similarities that make the world a more dynamic and interesting place to live. This anthology seeks to show the unity of world literature through a form of radical familiarity, while at the same time preserving and admiring the different cultures from which the literature was produced.

Table of Contents:

Medea, Euripides
Lysistrata, Aristophanes
Bhagavad Gita
The Thousand and One Nights
From The Poem of the Cid
From The Divine Comedy Inferno, Dante Alighieri
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The Heptameron, Marguerite de Navarre
Gargantua and Pantagruel, François Rabelais
From Don Quixote de la Manacha, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Tempest, William Shakespeare

Adapted version of Compact Anthology of World Literature II: Volume 6

I. Part I: Modernism
II. Part 2: Postcolonial Literature
III. Part 3: Contemporary Literature

A collection of free and open primary texts in digital formats for the study of early world literature in English translation. Multiple English translations are provided for comparison and study, as well as open secondary and supplemental resources.

This is an anthology of world literature from the early 20th century. It might be a useful resource for discussing the evolution of the canon and the changing ideas of what should be included in a course like this.