This volume samples a broad range of literature from the ancient world. It offers extensive selections from The Bible, The Book of Songs, The Mahabharata, The Ramayana, and Virgil's Aenid, as well as seven longer works in their entirety, including The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey .

This volume samples a broad range of literature from the ancient world. It offers extensive selections from The Bible , The Book of Songs , The Mahabharata , The Ramayana , and Virgil's Aenid , as well as seven longer works in their entirety, including The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey . Editorial essays address such topics as the culture of Rome and the definition of "literature." Throughout the volume, the editors identify both what is most distinctive and what is commonly shared among the world's literatures. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

The goal of this anthology is to present a wealth of poetry, prose, and drama from the full sweep of the literary history of the British Isles, and to do so in ways that will bring out both the works' original cultural contexts and their lasting aesthetic power.-

"The Longman Anthology of World Literature, Compact Edition, "presents a fresh and diverse range of the world's great literature in a single volume that links past and present, East and West, and literary and cultural contexts. Featuring major works by literary masters from the ancient world through the twentieth century, this concise anthology combines comprehensive coverage of key works of the Western literary tradition and the best core, enduring works of the literatures of China, Japan, India, the Middle East, Africa, and native Americas. The anthology includes epic and lyric poetry, drama, and prose narrative, with many complete works and a focus on the most influential pieces and authors from each region and time period. The texts are supplemented by contextual materials that help students understand the literary and historical eras from which these texts arose. Engaging introductions, scholarly annotations, maps, pronunciation guides, and illustrations developed by a distinguished editorial team provide a wealth of teachable materials that support and illuminate the selections.

The Longman Anthology of World Literature, Volume I, offers a fresh and highly teachable presentation of the varieties of world literature from the ancient world through the early modern period. The editors of the anthology have sought to find economical ways to place texts within their cultural contexts and have selected and grouped materials in ways intended to foster connections and conversations across the anthology, between eras as well as regions. The anthology includes epic and lyric poetry, drama, and prose narrative, with many works in their entirety. Classic major authors are presented alongside more recently recovered voices as the editors seek to suggest something of the full literary dialogue of each region and timeline. Engaging introductions, scholarly annotations, regional maps, pronunciation guides, and illustrations provide a supportive editorial setting. An accompanying Instructor's Manual written by the editors offers practical suggestions for the classroom.

World literature was long defined in North America as an established canon of European masterpieces, but an emerging global perspective has challenged both this European focus and the very category of "the masterpiece." The first book to look broadly at the contemporary scope and purposes of world literature, What Is World Literature? probes the uses and abuses of world literature in a rapidly changing world. In case studies ranging from the Sumerians to the Aztecs and from medieval mysticism to postmodern metafiction, David Damrosch looks at the ways works change as they move from national to global contexts. Presenting world literature not as a canon of texts but as a mode of circulation and of reading, Damrosch argues that world literature is work that gains in translation. When it is effectively presented, a work of world literature moves into an elliptical space created between the source and receiving cultures, shaped by both but circumscribed by neither alone. Established classics and new discoveries alike participate in this mode of circulation, but they can be seriously mishandled in the process. From the rediscovered Epic of Gilgamesh in the nineteenth century to Rigoberta Menchú's writing today, foreign works have often been distorted by the immediate needs of their own editors and translators. Eloquently written, argued largely by example, and replete with insightful close readings, this book is both an essay in definition and a series of cautionary tales.