Literature

Odyssey by Homer The adventures of Odysseus, with a fantastic array of monsters, temptresses, gods, and goddesses.

The Epic of Gilgamesh One of the oldest stories in the world, about friendship, fame, courage, happiness.

The Journey to the West by Anthony C. Yu (Editor) Written in the sixteenth century. Tells the story of the fourteen-year pilgrimage of the monk Xuanzang, one of China's most famous religious heroes, and his three supernatural disciples, in search of Buddhist scriptures.

Routledge Handbook of African Literature by Moradewun Adejunmobi (Editor); Carli Coetzee (Editor) The turn of the twenty-first century has witnessed an expansion of critical approaches to African literature. The Routledge Handbook of African Literature is a one-stop publication bringing together studies of African literary texts that embody an array of newer approaches applied to a wide range of works. This includes frameworks derived from food studies, utopian studies, network theory, eco-criticism, and examinations of the human/animal interface alongside more familiar discussions of postcolonial politics. Every chapter is an original research essay written by a broad spectrum of scholars with expertise in the subject, providing an application of the most recent insights into analysis of particular topics or application of particular critical frameworks to one or more African literary works. The handbook will be a valuable interdisciplinary resource for scholars and students of African literature, African culture, postcolonial literature and literary analysis. Chapter 4 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138713864_oachapter4.pdf

The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature by Cynthia Sugars

The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature by James H. Cox (Editor); Daniel Heath Justice (Editor) Over the course of the last twenty years, Native American and Indigenous American literary studies has experienced a dramatic shift from a critical focus on identity and authenticity to the intellectual, cultural, political, historical, and tribal nation contexts from which these Indigenous literatures emerge. The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature reflects on these changes and provides a complete overview of the current state of the field. The Handbook's forty-three essays, organized into four sections, cover oral traditions, poetry, drama, non-fiction, fiction, and other forms of Indigenous American writing from the seventeenth through the twenty-first century. Part I attends to literary histories across a range of communities, providing, for example, analyses of Inuit, Chicana/o, Anishinaabe, and Métis literary practices. Part II draws on earlier disciplinary and historical contexts to focus on specific genres, as authors discuss Indigenous non-fiction, emergent trans-Indigenous autobiography, Mexicanoh and Spanish poetry, Native drama in the U.S. and Canada, and even a new Indigenous children's literature canon. The third section delves into contemporary modes of critical inquiry to expound on politics of place, comparative Indigenism, trans-Indigenism, Native rhetoric, and the power of Indigenous writing to communities of readers. A final section thoroughly explores the geographical breadth and expanded definition of Indigenous American through detailed accounts of literature from Indian Territory, the Red Atlantic, the far North, Yucatán, Amerika Samoa, and Francophone Quebec. Together, the volume is the most comprehensive and expansive critical handbook of Indigenous American literatures published to date. It is the first to fully take into account the last twenty years of recovery and scholarship, and the first to most significantly address the diverse range of texts, secondary archives, writing traditions, literary histories, geographic and political contexts, and critical discourses in the field.

Handbook of Latin American Literature by David Foster (Editor)

An Introduction to Arabic Literature by Roger Allen Roger Allen provides a comprehensive introductory survey of literary texts in Arabic, from their unknown beginnings in the fifth century AD to the present. The volume focuses on the major genres of Arabic literature, dealing with Islam's sacred text, the Qur'an, and a wealth of poetry, narrative prose, drama and criticism. Allen reveals the continuities that link the creative output of the present day to the illustrious literary heritage of the past and incorporates an enormously rich body of popular literature typified most famously by The Arabian Nights. The volume is informed by Western critical approaches, but within each chapter the emphasis is on the texts themselves, with extensive quotations in English translation. Reference features include a chronology and a guide to further reading. A revised and abridged version of Allen's acclaimed study, The Arabic Literary Heritage, this book provides an invaluable student introduction to a major non-Western literary tradition.

History of Korean Literature by Peter H. Lee (Editor) This is a comprehensive narrative history of Korean literature from its inception and the establishment of a royal Confucian academy in the seventh century, through a period during which most literature in Korea was written in Chinese and the subsequent invention of the Korean alphabet in 1443-4, to the present day. It provides a wealth of information for scholars, students and lovers of literature. Combining both history and criticism, the study reflects the latest scholarship and offers a systematic account of the development of all genres. Consisting of 25 chapters, it covers twentieth-century poetry, fiction by women, and the literature of North Korea. Other topics include the canon, ideology, and further critical issues central to an understanding of Korean literary history. This is a major contribution to the field and a study that will stand for many years as the primary resource for studying Korean literature.

Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature by Ming Dong Gu (Editor) The Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature presents a comprehensive overview of Chinese literature from the 1910s to the present day. Featuring detailed studies of selected masterpieces, it adopts a thematic-comparative approach. By developing an innovative conceptual framework predicated on a new theory of periodization, it thus situates Chinese literature in the context of world literature, and the forces of globalization. Each section consists of a series of contributions examining the major literary genres, including fiction, poetry, essay drama and film. Offering an exciting account of the century-long process of literary modernization in China, the handbook¿s themes include: Modernization of people and writing Realism, rmanticism and mdernist asthetics Chinese literature on the stage and screen Patriotism, war and revolution Feminism, liberalism and socialism Literature of reform, reflection and experimentation Literature of Taiwan, Hong Kong and new media This handbook provides an integration of biographical narrative with textual analysis, maintaining a subtle balance between comprehensive overview and in-depth examination. As such, it is an essential reference guide for all students and scholars of Chinese literature.

The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature by Elizabeth Webby (Editor) This book introduces in a lively and succinct way the major writers, literary movements, styles and genres that, at the beginning of a new century, are seen as constituting the field of 'Australian literature'. The book consciously takes a perspective that sees literary works not as aesthetic objects created in isolation by unique individuals, but as cultural products influenced and constrained by the social, political and economic circumstances of their times, as well as by geographical and environmental factors. It covers indigenous texts, colonial writing and reading, poetry, fiction and theatre throughout two centuries, biography and autobiography, and literary criticism in Australia. Other features of the companion are a chronology listing significant historical and literary events, and suggestions for further reading.

Landmarks in European Literature by Philip Gaskell This book introduces thirty-two key works of European literature in translation to ordinary readers. Ranging from Dante's Divine Comedyto Brecht's Threepenny Opera, Philip Gaskell takes a canon of recognised literary classics and introduces each work, setting it in the literary and historical contexts of its times. The selection of works cover the main genres of poetry, prose and drama, and the other authors included are Petrarch, Villon, Ronsard, Montaigne, Cervantes, Moliere, Voltaire, Rousseau, Goethe, Schiller, Pushkin, Lermontov, Balzac, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoievsky, Ibsen, Strindberg, Hamsun, Chekhov, Gorky, Zola, Fontane, Proust, Mann, Kafka, and Pirandello. The author's skills as critic and bibliographer are demonstrated in the practical guide to translations in and out of print, and the recommendations for further reading. There are four appendices to the book that examine issues and problems of translation giving examples side-by-side of different translations for comparison; provide quotations from texts in their original languages; advise on the form and pronunciation of Russian names; and describe the value of money in the mid-to-late-nineteenth century. Aimed at those who want to explore European literature for themselves, this is an extremely readable and entertaining introductory guide. * Evaluates thirty-two of the greatest works of European literature* Clear explanation of critical terms and modern literary developments* Includes short biographies of each author* The literary and historical contexts are expertly summarised* Suggests the best available paperback translations

Russian Literature by Catriona Kelly This book is intended to capture the interest of anyone who has been attracted to Russian culture through the greats of Russian literature, either through the texts themselves, or encountering them in the cinema, or opera. Rather than a conventional chronology of Russian literature, the book will explore the place and importance of literature of all sorts in Russian culture. How and when did a Russian national literature come into being? What shaped its creation? How have the Russians regarded their literary language? The book uses the figure of Pushkin, 'the Russian Shakespeare' as a recurring example, as his work influenced every Russian writer who came after him, whether poets or novelists. It will look at such questions as why Russian writers are venerated, how they've been interpreted inside Russia and beyond, and the influences of such things as the folk tale tradition, orthodox religion, and the West.