"Literature: A World History is intended as a history of literature spanning the world's cultures from the beginnings of recorded history to the present day. In this introduction, we explain how the work is organized and why. We also offer the elements of an understanding of what we mean by literature and its history. What works from these many centuries and cultures should come under the rubric of "literature"? How can we best understand their life in their place and time and their ongoing life thereafter? What kind of history does literature have, and with what relation to broader social history? How should these literary histories be mapped across the world, with its hundreds of past and present polities and its thousands of languages? Literature: A World History proceeds in chronological fashion from antiquity onward, but it is written in awareness that in a very real sense literary history begins in the present - the present of those who deem certain facts to be literary and historical. In this sense, literary history is as revealing of the present as of the past"--
LITERATURE A WORLD HISTORY
An exploration of the history of the worlds literatures and the many varieties of literary expression
Literature: A World Historyencompasses all the worlds major literary traditions, emphasizing the interrelationship of local and national cultures over time. Spanning global literature from the beginnings of recorded history to the present day, this expansive four-volume set examines the many varieties of the worlds literatures in their social and intellectual contexts. Its four volumes are devoted to literature before 200 CE, from 200 to 1500, from 1500 to 1800, and from 1800 to 2000, with four dozen contributors providing new insights into the art of literature, and addressing the situation of literature in the world today.
Organized throughout in six broad regionsAfrica, the Americas, East Asia, Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, and West and Central AsiaLiterature: A World History offers readers a clear and consistent treatment of diverse forms of literary expression across time and place. Throughout the text, particular emphasis is placed on literary institutions within different regional and linguistic cultures and on the relations between literature and a spectrum of social, political, and religious contexts.
- Features work by an international panel of leading scholars from around the globe, in Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, and the United States
- Provides a balanced overview of national and global literature from all major regions of the world from antiquity to the present
- Highlights the specificity of regional and local cultures throughout much of literary history, together with cross-cutting essays on topics such as different writing systems, court cultures, and utopias
Literature: A World History is an invaluable reference work for undergraduate and graduate students as well as scholars looking for a wide-ranging overview of global literary history.
Contents
Full Table of Contents vii
Timeline xi
Contributors to Volume 1 lix
General Introduction: Literature, History, World lxiii
Anders Pettersson and David Damrosch, with the collective of editors
Reflections on the Idea of Literaturelxiii
About Literature: A World Historylxxviii
Introduction to Volume 1: The World before 200 ce 1
Anders Pettersson
1 East Asia7
Zhang Longxi, Bruce Fulton, and Gunilla Lindberg-Wada
Introduction: East Asia as a Region7
Chinese Literature9
Poetry in Pre-Qin China9
Prose Works in Pre-Qin China17
The Literature of the Han Dynasty20
The Literature of the Jian-an Period (196220)27
2 South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania30
Harish Trivedi, Harry Aveling, Teri Yamada, and Susan Najita
Introduction30
South Asia31
The Vedas, Brahmanas, and Upanishads 31
The Great Epics44
Collections of Tales48
Early Tamil Literature54
Southeast Asia57
Oceania58
3 Worlds Apart: Comparing Literary Traditions before the Global Age62
Wiebke Denecke
4 West and Central Asia 79
Asad E. Khairallah, David Damrosch, and Bo Utas
Introduction79
The Ancient Near East82
The Invention of Writing82
What Was Literature?87
The First Patron of Literature95
The Bible as Literature? 98
Iran101
5 Africa107
Karin Barber, Biodun Jeyifo, Eileen Julien, and Steve Vinson
Introduction107
Ancient Egypt 108
Language, Script, and Literature108
Ancient Egyptian Genres110
Orality 123
6 Writing Systems and Cultural Memory128
David Damrosch
7 Europe141
Anders Pettersson
Introduction141
Ancient Greece146
Greek Epic and Lyric Poetry146
Classical Greek Drama 157
Classical Greek Prose167
Literature in Greek, 300 bce200 ce 174
Ancient Rome180
Latin Literature before 100 bce 180
First-century bce Latin Poetry and Prose184
Latin Literature during the First Two Centuries ce 201
Writing, Reading, and Literary Thought in Greco-Roman Culture206
Concluding Remarks: Greco-Roman Literary Culture in a Wider Perspective209
8 The Americas214
Djelal Kadir, Quentin Youngberg, Albert Braz, and Donatella Izzo
9 Literatures before 200 ce: Concluding Remarks222
Anders Pettersson
Full Table of Contents
Volume 1: Before 200 ce
Timeline xi
Contributors to Volume 1 lix
General Introduction: Literature, History, World lxiii
Introduction to Volume 1: The World before 200 ce 1
1 East Asia 7
2 South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania30
3 Worlds Apart: Comparing Literary Traditions before the Global Age62
4 West and Central Asia 79
5 Africa 107
6 Writing Systems and Cultural Memory 128
7 Europe 141
8 The Americas 214
9 Literatures before 200 ce: Concluding Remarks222
VOLUME 2: 2001500
Contributors to Volume 2 ix
Introduction to Volume 2: Peoples, Languages, and Literatures between 200
and 1500 ce 229
1 East Asia 235
2 Court Literature in East Asia and Europe 345
3 South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania 355
4 Animal Stories in South Asia and Europe 426
5 West and Central Asia 433
6 Alexander the Great in Medieval Literature 527
7 Africa 542
8 The Circum-Mediterranean Scene in the First Centuries of the Second
Millennium Mirrored in the Works of Ramon Llull 589
9 Europe 596
10 Christian and Islamic Mysticism 670
11 The Americas 683
VOLUME 3: 15001800
Contributors to Volume 3 ix
Introduction to Volume 3: Literature of the World between 1500 and 1800 697
1 East Asia 705
2 South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania 754
3 West and Central Asia 813
4 Africa 862
5 Europe 892
6 The Americas 977
7 Utopia and Anti-Utopia in the Literary World 1016
VOLUME 4: 18002000
Contributors to Volume 4 ix
Introduction to Volume 4: Literature of the World between 1800 and 2000
1029
1 East Asia 1034
2 South and Southeast Asia 1091
3 Oceania, Australia, and New Zealand 1179
4 West and Central Asia 1221
5 Africa 1322
6 Europe 1413
7 The Americas 1517
Index 1547
General Editor
David Damrosch, Harvard University Gunilla Lindberg-Wada, Stockholm University
Volume Editor Anders Pettersson, Umeå University
Regional Editors
Africa: Eileen Julien, Indiana University Bloomington The Americas: Djelal Kadir, Pennsylvania State University East Asia: Zhang Longxi, City University of Hong Kong Europe: Anders Pettersson, Umeå University South and Southeast Asia and Oceania: Harish Trivedi, University of Delhi West and Central Asia: Asad E. Khairallah, The American University of Beirut
More info about Wiley Online