Introduction

to World
Literature
KEY DISCUSSION
POINTS
Lesson
Objectives
Introduction to
World Literature
WHAT WE AIM TO BE
WHAT IS WORLD
LITERATURE?
The term “world literature” was
introduced by Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe. He used the word
“Weltliteratur” in 1827. Goethe
studied the characteristic
features and interrelationships of
different national literatures, the
tendencies of their development
and their achievements. He
studied the works of famous
writers which presented different
literary phenomena of different
historic periods.
What exactly do we
mean by "world
literature"?
What is self-contradictory
about “world literature”
as a concept?
It must be pointed out that a
literary text may cross borders
(i.e., it will be circulated across
countries) for a number of
reasons.
Some of these reasons include
the artistic merit of the literary
text (e.g., it wins an award), the
political situation surrounding
the text (e.g., the text comes
from an influential country), or
the popularity of the work (e.g.,
it has been made into a film),
among other reasons.
 CASE OF TWO LITERARY GIANTS
William Shakespeare Rabindranath Tagore

William Shakespeare "The Bard of Avon" Rabindranath Tagore FRAS was a Indian polymath
English Man. - poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher,
social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali
literature and music as well as Indian art with
Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early
20th centuries.

Romeo and Juliet Gitanjali

 COLUMN A COLUMN B COLUMN C
v
b
1 2. Classical Greek Literature A. Ramayana I. “Every tree a winner, & this one
most of all —and here I was splattered
with sin, impaled on my
imperfections.”
d iii
3. 4. Chinese Literature B. Oedipus Rex II. "Tell me what the virtues are, and I
will tell you the man who has them."
e i
5. 6. European Literature C. Africa III. “Learning without thinking is
useless. Thinking without learning is
dangerous.”
a ii
7 8. Indian Literature D. The Analects IV. “Your beautiful black blood that
irrigates the fields
The blood of your sweat
The sweat of your work
The work of your slavery”
iv
c
9. 10. African Literature E. Dream of the Rood V. “You are fated to couple with your
mother you will bring a breed of
children into the light no man can
bear to see—you will kill your father,
 History of World Literature

Classical Defined broadly as It reflected the

literature refers to any work written notion of
the great in Latin or the individualism and
The earliest masterpieces of vernacular between rejected more
The Early Modern traditional values.
written literature d Greek, Roman, and c. 476-1500 CE,
ates from about other ancient Medieval English period precedes the
2600 BCE civilizations. literature begins with development of
(classical Beowulf (7th-10th the modern novel in
Sumerian) century CE). the 18th century.
CLASSICAL ➢

GREEK
LITERATURE ➢

➢
CLASSICAL
➢
GREEK
LITERATURE
➢

➢
 Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

• • • •

•
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

• •
EUROPEAN
LITERATURE ➢

➢
The Dream of the Rood

• •
Inferno by Dante Alighieri

•
•
INDIAN
LITERATURE

➢
Ramayana

• •

•
CHINESE
LITERATURE ➢

➢
 FIVE CONFUCIAN CLASSICS

“Book of History” “Book of Songs” “Book of “ Book of Rites”

(“Book of (“Poetry," Changes” (“Li Chi”),
Documents”) “Shijing”) (“Yijing," “I
Ching”),

a collection of an anthology of a manual of a compendium of

documents ascribed early poems also divination and rituals;
to ancient Emperors known as Book of philosophical
and officials; Poem appendices
FIVE CONFUCIAN CLASSICS

“The Spring, Autumn •

Annals,“

a chronicle of the state of

Lu; and the attached Zuo
Commentary.
 FOUR BOOKS

The Great Learning Analects Mencius Doctrine of the

Mean
• • • • The Doctrine of
the Mean is
attributed to
Zisi, Kongzi's
grandson, and
• deals with how
to maintain
perfect balance
and harmony
. in one's life.
AFRICAN
LITERATURE
➢

➢
AFRICA by David Diop

• •
WORLDVIEW

KEY INSIGHTS AND

ACTION POINTS
WORLDVIEW
KEY INSIGHTS AND
ACTION POINTS
WORLDVIEW
KEY INSIGHTS AND
ACTION POINTS
WORLDVIEW
KEY INSIGHTS AND
ACTION POINTS
GLOBALIZATION
KEY INSIGHTS AND
ACTION POINTS
GLOBALIZATION
KEY INSIGHTS AND
ACTION POINTS
JEET THAYIL (ASIA)

Jeet Thayil (born 1959 in Kerala) is an Indian

poet, novelist, librettist and musician. He is best
known as a poet.

His first novel, Narcopolis, (Faber & Faber,

2012), was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker
Prize and the Hindu Literary Prize 2013
 NACROPOLIS

Narcopolis is a The novel itself is

novel of drugs and told in both first
crime that follows a and third-person, in
cast of characters a kind of stream-of-
over the course of consciousness that
30-some years in is often suddenly
their Bombay slum. interrupted by new
events and new
narrators.
Jonathan Safran Foer
(North America)
Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of two
bestselling, award-winning novels. He lives in
Brooklyn, New York.

Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud

and Incredibly Close”, and a bestselling work of
nonfiction, “Eating Animals”.
 EATING ANIMALS

Eating Animals is a Foer examines

journalistic account everything from
by Jonathan Safran the moral
Foer of the eating consideration of
of animals in the eating of
America, and the animals to the
good and bad actual raising
consequences of and
the practice slaughtering of
animals.
ZADIE SMITH (EUROPE)

Literary critic James Wood coined the term

"hysterical realism" in 2000 to describe Zadie
Smith's hugely successful debut novel. Her
works often deal with race and the immigrant's
postcolonial experience.

The British novelist and essayist's third novel,

"On Beauty," was shortlisted for the Booker
Prize and won the 2006 Orange Prize for
Fiction. Her 2012 novel "NW" was shortlisted
for the Ondaatje Prize and the Women's Prize
for Fiction.
ISABEL ALLENDE
(LATIN AMERICA)
A Chilean-American novelist. Allende,
who writes in the "magic realism"
tradition, is considered one of the first
successful women novelists in Latin
America.

Her best known works include the

novels “The House of the Spirits 11 and
City of the Beasts”. She has written
over 20 books that have been
translated into more than 35 languages
and sold more than 67 million copies.
GABRIEL GARCÍA
MÁRQUEZ (LATIN AMERICA)
Gabriel García Márquez (1927 to 2014)
was a Colombian writer, associated
with the Magical Realism genre of
narrative fiction and credited with
reinvigorating Latin American writing.

He won the Nobel prize for literature in

1982, for a body of work that included
novels such as "100 Years of Solitude"
and "Love in the Time of Cholera."
LOVE IN THE TIME OF
CHOLERA

The novel explores

the power that love
has over lives,
often comparing
the symptoms of
love to illness –
specifically, to
cholera.
NADINE GORDIMER
(AFRICA)

One of the apartheid era’s most prolific

writers, Nadine Gordimer’s works
powerfully explore social, moral, and
racial issues in a South Africa under
apartheid rule.

Her novel “Burger’s Daughter” follows

the struggles of a group of anti-
apartheid activists, and was read in
secret by Nelson Mandela during his
time on Robben Island.
BURGER’S DAUGHTER

It tells the story of a

group of white anti-
apartheid activists
in the country as
they attempt to
topple the South
African
government.
 WORDS OF INSPIRATION

The world of literature is a

world where there is no
reality except that of human
imagination.