Patrick White (1900s) -
Happy Valley (scathing analysis of Australian town),
The Tree of Man (dairy farming family),
Voss (man disappears into Australian interior),
The Eye of the Storm (heirs disrupt woman's death),
The Cockatoos,
A Frincge of Leaves,
The Twyborn Affair,
Flaws in the Glass,
Memoirs of Many in One
Maurice Maeterlinck (1800s-1900s) - Pelleas et Melisandre (King Arkel's grandson Golaud
marries Melisandre but she loves his brother Pelleas; Golaud kills Pelleas)
Elias Canetti (1900s) - The Tongue Set Free, The Torch in the Ear, The Tower of Babel
(sinologist Prof. Kien marries housekeeper and discovers horrors in world), Crowds and Power
Margaret Atwood - The Circle Game, The Edible Woman, Surfacing, Lady
Oracle, Life Before
Man,
Dancing Girls
Earle Birney - David and Other Poems, Now Is Time, Turvey, Down the
Long Table
Chou Dynasty 1027 BC - 256 BC
Compilation - Book of Odes (see Han Dynasty)
Ch'u Yuan - Elegies of Ch'u (songs about misfortunes at the court of Ch'u state)
Confucius (Kung Fu-tse; philosopher c. 500 BC; taught humanity, reverence for ancient sages, and
government by virtue)
Mencius (second most important Confucian philosopher, c. 300 BC)
Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching (81 paragraphs; advocates following the Way, or Tao; established Taoism)
Chuang Chou - Chuang Tzu (Taoist text; includes Butterfly Dream of Chuang Tzu)
Ch'in Dynasty 221 BC - 206 BC
Han Dynasty 206 BC - 220 AD
Ssu-ma Ch'ien - Shih chi (history)
Five Classics (Confucian canon established in Han dynasty)
Book of Odes (Shih ching; 305 songs)
Book of Changes (I ching; Changes of Chou; 64 hexagrams used for fortune-telling;
edited by Confucius)
Book of Rites (Li chi; texts about ritual and behavior)
Book of Documents (Shu ching; history dating to first half of Chou dynasty)
Spring and Autumn Annals (Ch'un ch'iu; chronicle of Lu feudal state 722-481 BC; dry)
Six Dynasties 222-589
T'ang Dynasty 618-907
Wang Wei (Buddhist poet)
Li Po (Turkic origin; poet; exiled for role in An Lu-shan Rebellion; may have died embracing
moon's reflection; exuberant and unconventional)
Tu Fu (Confucian scholar; wrote about An Lu-shan Rebellion)
Po Chu-i - The Lute Song, The Song of Everlasting Regret
Sung Dynasty 960-1279
Four Books (Chu Hsi established these as texts of education and basis for civil service exams)
Analects (collection of anecdotes and sayings of Confucius; translated by Arthur Waley)
Great Learning (originally a chapter from Book of Rites; emphasizes self-cultivation)
Mean (originally a chapter from Book of Rites; discusses moral concepts)
Mencius (The Book of Master Meng; teachings of Mencius [c. 300 BC])
Yuan Dynasty 1279-1368
Lo Kuan-chung - Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Outlaws of the Marsh (The Water Margin)
Wu Ch'eng-en - Journey to the West (Buddhist priest Hsuan-tsang, with 3 magic helpers including
a comic monkey, goes to India searching for holy scriptures)
Unknown - The Golden Lotus (story of Hsi-men Ch'ing and his six wives)
Ts'ao Hsueh-ch'in - The Dream of the Red Chamber (The Story of the Stone; autobiographical;
describes decline of Chia family)
Ming Dynasty 1368-1644
Ch'ing Dynasty 1644-1912
Communist 1912-
Hu Shih (started 1920s literary revolution; studied at Columbia) - China's Place in the Present
World Struggle, Collected Essays
Lu Hsun (doctor) - Selected Stories of Lu Hsun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction
Pa Chin - The Family
Lao She - Rickshaw Boy
Gao Xingjian - Soul Mountain, One Man's Bible, Fugitives
Franz Kafka (1900s) -
The Trial (bank assessor Joseph K is executed for an unknown crime by mysterious legal
authority),
The Castle (K is unable to enter a castle where he has been summoned to work as a land
surveyor; made school janitor instead),
Amerika (Karl Rossman, a social misfit),
Metamorphesis (Gregor Samsa awakens as a huge insect)
Karel Capek (1900s) - RUR = Rossum's Universal Robots (introduced word robots)
Jaroslav Seifert (1900s) - The Nightingale Sings Badly, Put Out the Lights (about Nazi threat in
Prague)
Jaroslav Hasek (1900s) - The Good Soldier (Schweik goes to military prison, goes to insane
asylum, interferes in superior's love life, is accused of spying, and goes to Russian front)
Vaclav Havel (1900s) - The Garden Party
Hans Christian Anderson (1800s) - The Improvisatore or Life in Italy, The Ugly Duckling, The
Emperor's New Clothes, Little Mermaid
Isak Denison (Karen Blixen, 1800s - 1900s) - Out of Africa, Seven Gothic Tales
Karl Gjellerup (1800s-1900s) - Richard Wagner in His Chief Work, The Pilgrim Kamanoto
Henrik Pontoppidan (1800s-1900s) - Emanuel or Children of the Soul, The Promised Land, Does Rige
Johannes Jensen (1900s) - The Long Journey (evolution of man), The Fall of the King
Louis Couperus (1900s) - The Book of the Small Souls (Van Lowes spend Sundays at Granny's)
Naguib Mahfouz (1900s) - The Cairo Trilogy, The Children of Gebelawi
Elias Lonnrott (1800s) - Kalevala (national epic; origin of world; adventures of Kaleva's sons
Wainamoinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkainen)
Frans Eemil Sillanpaa (1900s) - Meek Heritage, Fallen Asleep While
Young
Medieval
Chanson de Roland (Charlemagne follows Ganelon's advice to negotiate
with Saracen leader
Marsile about Saragossa; 400000 Saracens ambush 20000 rear guard under
Charlemagne's
nephew Roland [Hruotland of Brittany] at pass of Roncesvalles; despite
Olivier's pleas
Roland does not sound ivory horn to summon rest of army until only 60
remain; blessed by
Archbishop Turpin; Roland's fiancée Aude dies; Ganelon quartered; written
1100, part of the
Cycle de France)
Romance of the Rose (Lover tries to pick a rosebud)
Renaissance
1500s
Francois Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel (giant Gargantua's son
Pantagruel accompanies
Panurge on quest to decide if he should marry; eventually reach Oracle of
the Holy Bottle at
Cathay, where the oracle answers "Drink!", meaning all must
solve own problems)
Michael de Montaigne - (humanist, "invented" essays) Essais,
Apology for Raymond Sebond
(Spaniard's
attempt to prove God exists)
Classical Period
1600s
Pierre Corneille - Le Cid
Jean Baptiste Racine -
Berenice
(Emperor Titus doesn't marry Berenice of Palestine because the people object),
Phedre
(Theseus's wife Phaedra loves stepson Hippolyte who repulses her but nurse
Oenone says Hippolyte made advances and Theseus calls Neptune to destroy
his son;
Hippolyte loves Aricie),
Esther (Esther adopted by Mordecai and replaced Vashti as Ahasuerus's
wife; she saved
Israelites from Haman's plot, who was hanged on gallows he built for
Mordecai),
Mithridate (Mithridate loves Greek Monime but his son Pharnaces tries
to marry her, but
she loves his other son Xiphares; Pharnaces refuses to marry princess of
Parthia;
Xiphares defeats Romans under Pharnaces),
Bajazet (1638 Constantinople: sultana Roxane allows Bajazet to be executed
when she
learns
he loves Atalide; Roxane is executed and Atalide commits suicide),
Britannicus
(Nero poisons Britannicus, his half brother, because he loves Junia),
Les Plaideurs (magistrate Dandin locked up by son but hears cases from
attic windows;
condemns
his dog for eating a chicken),
Iphigenie in Aulide (Agamemnon plans to sacrifice daughter Iphigenia to
get good winds
in
harbor but slave-girl Eriphile sacrificed instead)
Moliere -
Les
precieuses ridicules,
Tartuffe
(religious hypocrite Tartuffe gets Orgon to deed him his home and give him his
daughter,
but Orgon's wife tricks him into seducing her while Orgon is watching, and
he
kicks him out, although Tartuffe owns house and king must intervene),
Le
misanthrope (Alceste vows to be honest; loves vain Celimene; loses court case
and
abandons
society),
The Bourgois Gentleman (France under Louis XIV: Monsieur Jourdain tries to
make
himself a gentleman, being fleeced by nobleman Dorannte, and forbids
daughter's
marriage to Cleonte),
The
Miser,
Les
Femmes savantes (Philaminte wants daughter Henriette to marry Trissotin but
she
loves
Clitandre; Armande likes science; Belise thinks all love her),
Le
Malade imaginaire (hypochondriac Argan victimized by doctors Purgon and
Difoirus;
wants
daughter to marry Diafoirus's son)
Blaise Pascal - Pensees
Age of
Enlightenment 1700s
Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet) -
English
or Philosophical Letters (attack church),
Candide (Candide's tutor Pangloss says "All is for the best in this
best of all possible
worlds"; Candide loves Cunegonde; the three have many disastrous
adventures,
including 1755 Lisbon earthquake, Inquisition, and pirates),
Brutus,
Zaire,
La Henriade (assassination of Henry III and struggle of Henry of Navarre
to obtain throne)
Jean Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract, Confessions, Emile, Julie
or the New Eloise
Charles de Montesquieu - The Spirit of the Laws (favors constitutional
monarchy)
Marquis de Sade - Justine The Misfortunes of Virtue (Justine vexes men
and suffers; her sister is
happy
prostitute)
Romantic Movement
early 1800s
Victor Hugo -
Hernani,
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Paris: gypsy dancer Esmeralda loves Captain
Phoebus;
evil archdeacon Claude Frollo denounces Esmeralda as a witch; deformed
bell ringer
Quasimodo saves Esmeralda but she is later executed and he kills Claude),
Les Miserable (Jean Valjean sentenced to 5 years for stealing bread and 19
for escaping;
released and becomes M. Madeleine but sent back to prison by Javert;
befriends
Fantine and rescues her daughter Cosette)
Alexandr Dumas the Elder -
The Three Musketeers (1625-1665 France: D'Artagnan, a Gascon, arrives in
Paris on
pony and wants to be a guradsman for Louis XIII; he duels Athos, Porthos,
and Aramis,
and is welcomed into fellowship of Three Muskateers; many exploits; battle
Cardinal
Richelieu; sequels Twenty Years After and The Viscount of Bragelonne),
The Count of Monte Cristo (Restoration France: Edmond Dantes falsely
accused and
imprisoned;
flees to Monte Cristo),
The Black Tulip (1600s Holland political rivalry)
Alexandr Dumas the Younger - Camilla (Paris: Marguerite Gautier, Armand
Duval)
Realist Period
mid 1800s
Honore de Balzac - The Human Comedy (includes The Wild Ass's Skin [Raphael
gets skin that
grants wishes but makes the owner grow smaller], Cousin Bette [Lisbeth
Fischer destroys her
niece's romance], The Country Doctor [kind Dr. Benassis], Le Pere Goriot [Pere
Goriot sacrifices
for ungrateful daughters Nucigen and Restaud])
Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary (Emma Bovary is unsatisfied with
stupid doctor husband; she
has affairs, incurs debts, and commits suicide), Salammbo (history of
Carthage), A Simple Heart
(portrays life of widow Mme Aubain's servant Felicite)
Naturalist Period
late 1800s
Emile Zola -
The
Dram Shop,
Earth,
Les Rougon-Macquart (20 novels about Rougon-Macquart family in Second
Empire;
includes Nana [Gervaise's daughter Nana becomes prostitute], Germinal
[coal workers
Etienne Lantier and the Meheu family strike in 1884], L'Assommoir, and La
Terre)
J'accuse (open letter to French President in Aurore denouncing Dreyfus
affair, who was
pardoned
by the Cour de Cassation when Major Esterhazy was found guilty)
Edmund Rostand - Cyrano de Bergerac (soldier Cyrano fears his long nose
will deter Roxane; he
confesses
his love for her before dying)
Jules Verne -
Around
the World in 80 Days (Phileas Fogg and Passepartout win bet),
20000
Leagues Under the Sea (Nautilus submarine, under Captain Nemo, picks up
shipwrecked Professor Aronnax, his servant Conseil, and harpoonist Ned
Land),
Journey
to the Center of the Earth,
Five
Weeks in a Balloon
Stendhal - The Red and the Black (Julien Sorel), The Charterhouse of Parma
(Fabrizio del Dongo)
Guy de Maupassant - The Necklace, The Umbrella, En Famille, Le
Rendezvous, Une Vie, Bel-Ami,
Pierre
et Jean
Twentieth Century
Sully Prudhomme - The Destinies, The Empty Endearments, Happiness
Anatole France (Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault) - The Crime of
Sylvester Bonnard, The
Mother-of-Pearl
Box, Penguin Island (Breton monk Saint Mael baptizes penguins and
tows island back to shore), Thais (Alexandrian monk Paphnutius converts
and loves Thais)
Albert Camus (French-Algerian) -
The
Fall (former Paris lawyer Jean-Baptiste Clamence owns bar in Amsterdam;
judge-penitent
regrets
not saving girl on bridge; speaks to Van Eyck's Adoration of the Lamb),
The
Plague (Algerian port Oran overcome by plague; Doctor Bernard Rieux does his
best),
The Stranger (Meursault has affair with Marie, kills an Arab, and is
executed),
The Myth of Sisyphus (essay on theory of the absurd),
Caligula,
The Rebel (essay on theory of the absurd)
Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex
Romain Rolland - Jean Christophe (novel series about German musician
Jean Christophe Kraft
who
travels and criticizes civilization)
Henri Bergson - Creative Evolution, The Creative Mind, Time and Free
Will, Matter and Memory, Laughter
Roger Martin du Gard - Les Thibaults (dutiful Antoine and rebellious
brother Jacques Thibault
die
in WWI), The Postman
Andre Gide -
The
Fruits of the Earth (poems),
The
Immoralist (Michel marries Marceline and gets TB in North Africa; he likes
young
Arab boys; friend Menalque tells him to follow passions; Marceline gets TB
and dies),
Strait
Is the Gate (Jerome woos cousin Alissa but she wants to sacrifice her
happiness to God),
Lafcadio's
Adventures (The Vatican Cellars; swindler extorts money by claiming pope
was
kidnapped; Lafcadio kills one of three brothers-in-law),
The
Counterfeiters (boys Bernard Profitendieu and Oliveier Molinier try to
befriend
novelist
Edouard),
The
Pastoral Symphony (Swiss pastor adopts and loves blind orphan Gertrude who
might
love
Jacques; her sight is restored and she commits suicide)
Francois Mauriac - Therese Desqueyroux (Therese Desqueyroux poisons
husband but is
acquitted), Genitrix, A Woman of the Pharisees, The Desert of Love,
Vipers' Tangle, The Kiss to
the Leper, Life of Jesus, The Son of Man, Asmodee
St.-John Perse - Seamarks, Exile, Rains, Winds
Claude Simon - The Wind, The Grass, The Flanders (3 soldiers recall
fall of France), The Palace
(Loyalist
Frenchman in Spanish Civil War), Historie
Marcel Proust - Remembrance of Things Past (contrasting Meseglise Way
and Guermantes Way
in Faubourg St. Germain; Swann's daughter marries a Guermantes; Swann's
Way, Within a
Budding Grove, The Guermantes Way, Cities of the Plain, The Captive, The
Sweet Cheat Gone,
The Past Recaptured), Jean Santeuil
Jean-Paul Sartre -
Being
and Nothingness ("an essay on phenomenological ontology";
existentialism),
No Exit (3 dead people locked in room),
Les Temps Modernes,
Dirty Hands (Proletarian Party sends Hugo to kill Hoederer, whom he sees
kissing his
wife
Jessica; Hugo kills him but then feels there was no reason),
The Respectful Prostitute (senator's son Fred gets Lizzie to testify
against innocent black
as
scapegoat for cousin Thomas),
Nausea (historian Roquentin and wife Anny feel there is no reason for
existing),
The Flies (based on Orestes),
The Wall (short stories, including The Wall [Spanish Civil War prisoner
lies about
location
of his leader, but leader moves and he is correct]),
The Roads to Freedom (3 novels: The Age of Reason [Mathieu], The Reprieve
[Sept.
1938
Munich Pact], Troubled Sleep [1940 fall of France])
Old High German
Period 800-1100
Lay of Hildebrand epic (Hildebrand, follower of Theodoric the Great,
tries to stop combat with
son
Hadubrand)
Middle High
German Period 1100-1370
King Rother epic
The Nibelungenlied (Hagen tells Burgundian kings about Siegfried, who
helps Gunther court
Iceland
Queen Brunhild in exchange for marrying his sister Kriemhild)
Wolfram von Eschenbach - Parzival (guileless fool Parzival leaves wife
Kondwiramur visits
castle
of Holy Grail , asks questions which cure Amfortas and becomes king of the
Grail)
Thomas a Kempis - Imitation of Christ
Gudrun (Hetel courts Irish King Hagen's daughter Hilde)
Reformation
1500-1700
Sebastian Brant - Ship of Fools
Eighteenth
Century
Johann Gottfried von Herder - philosopher of Sturm und Drang movement
Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger - Sturm und Drang play
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Gotz
von Berlichingen (1500s peasant revolt),
The
Sorrows of Young Werther (artistic, talented Werther loves Lotte who marries
steadier
man; Werther shoots himself),
Faust,
Iphigenia in Tauris (Orestes goes to Tauris to rescue statue of Artemis, which
Apollo said
would cure Orestes' madness; high priestess Iphigenia recognizes brother
and they
escape),
Reineke Fuchs (Reynard the Fox outwits Isengrim the wolf, King Noble the
lion, Sir
Bruin
the bear, Tibert the cat, Chanticleer the cock),
Torquato Tasso (based on 1500s Italian poet)
Friedrich von Schiller -
William Tell (William Tell is forced to shoot apple off son's head by
Gebler because he
had
not saluted Austrian hat on a pole),
Kabale und Liebe (love of musician's daughter Luise Miller and aristocrat
Ferdinand von
Walther
opposed by his dad),
Mary Stuart,
On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry,
The Robbers (brother cheats Karl Moor out of inheritance, and he forms
band of robbers
but
eventually turns himself in)
Immanuel Kant - (idealist classical philosopher) Critique of Pure
Reason, Critique of Practical
Reason,
Critique of Judgment
Early Nineteenth
Century
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm - Grimm's Fairy Tales (Rapunzel,
Hansel and Gretel, and
Rumpelstiltskin)
Nationalism
1871-1945
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil, The Will to Power,
Thus Spoke
Zarathustra
Twentieth Century
Rainer Maria Rilke - Dinggedichte, The Duino Elegies, The Sonnets to
Orpheus
Theodor Mommsen - Romische Geschichte (history of Rome)
Gerhart Hauptmann -
The
Weavers (based on 1844 Silesian weavers rebellion),
Drayman Henschel (man promises to be faithful to wife's memory but trapped
into
marrying
housekeeper),
The Sunken Bell (bell-maker Heinrich's bell falls into lake and he leaves
family for sprite
Rautendelein),
Rose Bernd (Rose is engaged to August Kiel but has child by town
magistrate and kills it
and
is arrested)
Thomas Mann -
The
Magic Mountain (Hans Castorp visits Joachim Ziemssen in Haus Berghof TB
sanatorium in Swiss Alps and decides to stay; active Dr. Behrens,
Settembrinin, and
Peeperkorn vs. decadent Leo Naphta and Dr. Krokowski; sees vision of
temple with
two hags; leaves in 1914 but WWI has begun),
Death
in Venice (aging writer Gustav von Aschenbach gazes on beauty of 14-year-old
Tadzio; choleric epidemic hits Venice),
Buddenbrooks
(Christian and Thomas fail to maintain the estate of their grandfather
Johann),
Mario and the Magician (waiter Mario shoots magician Cippla who
humiliated him in trance),
The Beloved Returns (Charlotte Buff visits Goethe),
Doktor Faustus (collapse of composer Adrian Leverkuhn parallels German
collapse in
WWII,
narrated by Serenus Zeitblom),
Joseph
and His Brothers (4-novel Bildungroman based on Joseph in Genesis),
Tonio
Kroger (Tonio Kroger is ridiculed by schoolmates; unrequited loves for Hans
Hansen
and Ingeborg Holm; becomes famous writer)
Bertolt Brecht -
Mother
Courage and Her Children (Mother Courage sells trifles to soldiers during
Thirty
Years War; her 3 kids die),
The Threepenny Opera (Polly Peachum marries robber Macheath; music by Kurt
Weill),
The Life of Galileo,
The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (city founded by
pleasure-seekers collapses)
Erich Maria Remarque (later moved to US) - All Quiet on the Western
Front (WWI German trenches)
Hans Sachs - The Nightingale of Wittenberg (about Martin Luther),
Epitaphium
Gunter Grass - The Tin Drum (hunchback Oskar Matzerath recollects
events in Danzig during
Hitler era; beats drum to relieve anger), The Flounder (4000 years of
women in history; narrator
married to cook Ilsebill), Cat and Mouse
Heinrich Boll - The Clown (Hans Schnier and Marie show audiences their
follies through
pantomimes; Marie leaves him), Traveller If You Come to Spa, Adam Where
Art Thou, Billiards
at Half-Past Nine
George Seferis (1900s) - Turning Point, In the Manner of GS, Helen, Against Whitethorns
Odysseus Elytis (1900s) - The Axion Esti of Odysseus Elytis, Six and One Regrets for the Sky
Halldor Kiljan Laxness (1900s) - Under the Holy Mountain, The Great Weaver from Kashmir,
The Book of the Pieople, Paradise Reclaimed, Christianity at the Glacier)
Seamus Heaney (1900s) - Death of a Naturalist, Door Into the Dark
Rabindranath Tagore - Ravindrasangeet (poems set to music), The Gardner, Fireflies, Red
Oleanders, Gitanjali, The Golden Boat
Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children (Shiva and Saleem, 2 of 1001 born in hour after independence
August 15 1947), Satanic Verses, Grimus (American Indian), Shame (based on Bhutto and Zia
in Pakistan), Gulliver's Travels Tristram Shandy and The Jaguar Smile (Nicaragua revolution)
Shmuel Yosef Agnon - The Bridal Canopy, Days of Awe, A Guest for the Night
Petrarch (1300s) - On Illustrious Men, Africa (hero Scipio Africanus; Masinissa loves
Sophonisba), Secretum (love for Laura), Rime, Trionfi, De remediis
Giovanni Boccaccio (1300s) - The Decameron (1348 Florence: 10 noblemen, 100 stories,
including Calandrino and the Heliotrope [Calandrino thinks he has found a stone that can make
him invisible]), Il Filocolo (travails of Florio and Biancofiore, including Thirteen Questions of
Love digression), Il Filostrato (Trojan Troliolo loves Criseida and is helped by Pandaro)
Dante Alighieri (1300s) - The Divine Comedy (Vergil takes Dante on tour of Hell on Good Friday
1300; Beatrice takes Dante from Purgatory to Paradise; Inferno: anteroom for those who
did no good or bad, 9 levels: Limbo for unbaptized but blameless, Paolo and Francesca carnal
sinners, City of Dis torments of heretics, worst for Brutus, Cassius, and Judas; Purgatorio: Vergil
guides Dante up mountain where people are cleansed from sins, Matilda conducts Dante to Edenlike
garden where Beatrice takes over as guide; Paradiso: 8 heaves of the planets, ninth heaven Primum
Mobile with 9 orders of angels, radiant Empyrean River, St. Bernard replaces Beatrice as guide)
Matteo Maria Boiardo (1400s) - Orlando Innamorato (Angelica sows discord among Charlemagne's paladins)
Lodovico Ariosto (1500s) - Orlando Furiosos (Charlemagne entrusts Angelica to Duke Namo;
rescued by Ruggiero)
Niccolo Machiavelli (1500s) - The Prince (model prince Cesare borgia, son of Alexander VI),
Collodi (Crlo Lorenzini, 1800s) - Pinocchio (puppet comes to life; nose grows when he lies)
Giosue Carducci (1800s) - The Hymn to Satan, Juvenilia
Grazia Deledda (1900s) - Elias Portulu, Ashes, The Mother
Salvatore Quasimodo (1900s) - To Give and to Have
Ignazio Silone (1900s) - Bread and Wine (Communist hero Pietro Spina disguises self as priest;
anti-Fascist; old priest Don Benedetto)
Eugenio Montale (1900s) - Cuttlefish Bones, The Butterfly of Dinard, Occasions
Luigi Pirandello (1900s) - Six Characters in Search of an Author (six persons demand they be
permitted to perform the drama implied in their lives)
Dario Fo (1900s) - Comic Mysteries, Accidental Death of an Anarchist
Nara Period 710-794
Compilation - Man' Yoshu (anthology of 4500 poems)
Heian Period 794-1185
Lady Murasaki - Tale of Genji (describes Prince Genji and the women he loves, including
Murasaki; translated by Arthur Waley)
Sei Shonagon - The Tosa Diary (The Pillow-Book of Sei Shonagon; diary of a lady-in-waiting in
late 900s empress's court)
Kamakura Period 1185-1333
Kamo no Chomei - An Account of My Hut (Buddhist; describes natural disasters at Kyoto)
The Tales of the Heike (epic about rise of Taira or Heike family in late 1100s and their defeat by
the rival Minamotos)
Muromachi Period 1333-1600
No drama (elaborate masks and costumes; Buddhist; deals with famous historical themes)
Zeami Motokiyo - Atsumori, The Robe of Feathers, Birds of Sorrow
Sengoku Period 1482-1588
Tokugawa Period 1616-1868
Ihara Saikaku - The Life of an Amorous Man, Five Women Who Loved Love, Worldly Mental Calculations
Bunraku theater (plays with 3-foot lifelike puppets)
Kabuki theater (all-male historical or domestic dramas; lines spoken by narrators not actors)
Chikamatsu Monzaemon - Love Suicides at Sonezaki, Battles of Coxinga, Love Suicde
at Amijima
Joruri songs (chanted narration of tales)
Haiku (3 lines 5-7-5 syllables; contrast with tanka, 5 lines 5-7-5-7-7 syllables)
Matsuo Basho - The Narrow Road to the Deep North, The Records of a Travel-Worn
Satchel
Kawabata Yasunari - The Izu Dancer, Snow Country, Thousand Cranes, The Sound of the
Mountain, Beauty and Sadness
Oe Kenzaburo - The Catch, Nip the Buds Shoot the Kids, Hiroshima Notes, The Silent Cry
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o - Weep Not Child (Njoroge Ngotho deals with Mau-Mau uprising), A Grain
of Wheat (Kenyan independence Mau-Mau uprising), The River Between
Sixteenth Century
Alfonso de Ercilla y Zuniga (Spanish/Chilean) - La Araucana (about
Spain's conquest of Chile)
Seventeenth
Century
Juana Ines de la Cruz (Mexico) - First Dream, A Woman of Genius
Nineteenth
Century
Jose Hernandez (Argentina) - Martin Fierro (Martin Fierro tells of life as
gaucho and flight with
friend Cruz into Indian territory)
Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi (Mexico) - El periquillo sarniento
Jorge Isaacs (Columbia) - Maria (romance novel)
Jose Marti (Cuba) - Free Verses, Whitman, Emerson, Our America,
Bolivar, Inside the Monster,
Our
Education
Julian del Casal (Cuba, Parnassian)
Jose Maria Heredia (Cuba/France) - Ode to Niagara
Twentieth Century
Ruben Dario (Nicaragua) - Azul, Prosas profanas, Cantos de vida y
esperanza
Pablo Neruda (Chile, 1971 Nobel) - Canto general, Twenty Love Poems, Residencia en la tierra,
Anillos, Alturas de Macchu Picchu, Elemental Odes
Gabriela Mistral (Chile, 1945 Nobel) - Sonnets of Death, Desolation, Tenderness, Destruction,
The Wine Press
Octavio Paz (Mexico) - The Labyrinth of Solitude (Spanish conquest made Mexico become
isolated and obscured by masks), Early Poems, Selected Poems
Ricardo Guiraldes (Argentina) - Don Segundo Sombra (boy goes on odyssey with ranch worker
Don Segundo Sombra and learns gaucho code of honor)
Miguel Angel Asturias (Guatemala, 1967 Nobel) - El senor presidente
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Columbia, 1982 Nobel) - One Hundred Years of Solitude (recounts
seven generations of Buendias family, which founded isolated Macondo [based on Aracataca]),
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Manuel Ugarte (Argentina, militant) - The Future of Latin America, The Destiny of a Continent
Federico Gamboa (Mexico) - Santa
Mariano Azuela (Mexico) - Los de abajo (about Mexican Revolution)
Manuel Puig (Argentina) - The Kiss of the Spider Woman
Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina, ultraismo) - Ficciones (stories, many including labyrinths; includes
El Aleph)
Isabel Allende (Chile)
Laura Esquivel (Mexico) - Like Water for Chocolate
Carlos Fuentes - The Death of Artemio Cruz (Mexican political boss), The Old Gringo,
Christopher Unborn, The Campaign
Derek Walcott (St. Lucia, 1992 Nobel) - Another Life, Dream on Monkey Mountain, Ti-Jean and
His Brothers, Odyssey
Katherine Mansfield (1900s) -
Bliss (Bertha Young is happy until she learns husband is unfaithful),
A Dill Pickle (woman meets former lover in restaurant; rediscovers his charm and then
his faults),
The Garden Party (Laura takes leftover cakes to family of poor worker killed setting up
for her family's party),
The Dove's Nest
R.A.K. Mason (1900s)
Hugh Walpole (1900s, moved to England) - Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill (at English boarding school,
Mr. Perrin tries to murder rival teacher Mr. Traill), The Herries Chronicle (novel series set in Lake
District; Rogue Herries, Juith Paris, The Fortress, Vanessa)
Frank Sargeson - That Summer, Conversation with My Uncle, A Man and His
Wife, Joy of the Worm
Cyprian Ekwensi (1900s) - People of the City (crime reporter and band leader Amusa Sango)
Wole Soyinka (1900s, 1986 Nobel) - (plays) The Swamp Dwellers, Death and the King's Horseman, A Play
of Giants, (poetry) Shuttle in the Crypt, (fiction) The Interpreters, Season of Anatomy, (memoirs)
Ake, Isara, The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal History of the Nigerian Crisis
Henrik Ibsen (1800s) -
A Doll's House (Nora Helmer commits forgery to save banker husband Torvald's life; she realizes
he views her as a doll and leaves him; contrasted with Krogstad and Kristine Linde),
Hedda Gabler (Hedda Gobler steals book from Eilert Lovberg, who had been reformed
by wife Thea Elvsted and became rival of Hedda's husband for professorship, and gives
him a gun to commit suicide; Judge Brack extorts Hedda and she commits suicide; selfless
Miss Juliana Tesman),
Ghosts (widow Helene Alving tells Paster Manders that she will open an orphanage in
memory of her late drunken husband; son Oswald is dying of hereditary syphilis),
Peer Gynt (Peer Gynt ships missionaries and idols to China, makes and loses money, saves his life
at expense of another in shipwreck; Button Molder tries to melt him in his ladle, but is
rescued by Soveig; Great Boyg tries to eat him; he marries Troll King's daughter),
Brand,
When We Dead Awaken (sculptor Rubek meets his model Irene; she says they have both
been dead for years; they go into wild mountains and are swallowed in storm),
Rosmersholm (Rebecca West gets Johannes Rosmer's wife Beata to commit suicide so he
can marry her; Johannes and Rebecca leap into millrace and die)
John Gabriel Borkman (Borkman broke engagement to Ella Rentheim because of Hinkel
whose help he needed; married Ella's sister; jailed for misuse of bank money),
An Enemy of the People (Dr. Stockman wants to close tourist spa for repairs),
The Master Builder (architect Halvard Soness, married to Aline, fears new generation of
architects; Hilde Wanger inspires him to try to build a castle in the sky but he dies),
The Wild Duck (schoolfriend idealist Gregers Werle tries to free photographer Hjalmar
Ekdal from illusions; Hjalmar rejects daughter Hedvig believing she is not his; Gregers
tells Hedvig her dad will accept her if she sacrifices her beloved wild duck but she shoots
self instead)
Bjornstjerne Bjornson (1800s-1900s) - Trust and Trial, Arne, A Happy Boy, Sigurd the Bastard
trilogy, The Editor, The Bankrupt, Beyond Our Power, In God's Way
Sigrid Undset (1800s-1900s) - Kristin Lavransdatter (about a woman's life in 1200s and 1300s
Catholic Norway), Saga of Saints, The Snake Pit, In the Wilderness
Knut Hamsun (1800s-1900s) - The Growth of the Soil, Hunger, Pan, Mysteries
Omar Khayyam (1100s) - The Rubaiyat (translated by Edward FitzGerald; 1200 quatrains)
Collected stories (1300s - 1500s, Persian/Indian/Arabic) - The Arabian Nights: The Thousand and
One Nights (King Schahriah marries and kills new woman each night, Scheherazade tells "to be
continued" story each night to keep king from killing her; includes
The History of Aladdin [Aladdin, son of Chinese tailor Mustafa, given lamp with two
genii by African magician who shuts him in cave; Aladdin gets wealth and marries
sultan's daughter Badroulboudour],
The History of Sinbad the Sailor [Baghdad merchant Sinbad describes 7 voyages to
porter Hindbad; mistakes whale for island; gets diamonds from Roc's eggs; meets
Cyclops; burned alive; kills Old Man of the Sea; visits Serendip; sold into slavery
and shoots elephants from trees],
The History of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves [woodcutter Ali Baba sees robbers open
cave by saying "Open Sesame" and gets treasure; thieves kill his brother Cassim
who forgets secret words; Ali's slave Morgiana kills band of thieves with boiling
oil]; English translation by
Sir Richard Burton 1888)
Henryk Sienkiewicz (1800s-1900s) Quo Vadis? (historical novel about
first Christians in ancient
Rome), With Fire and Sword
(history of Poland 1648-1699; war with Ukrain; King John III), The
Teutonic Knights, Portrait of
America
Wladyslaw Reymont (1900s) - The Peasants, The Comedienne, The Promised
Land, Rok
Czeslaw Milosz (1900s) - The
Captive Mind, Native Realm, The Usurpers, The Issa Valley, The
Witness
of Poetry, The Land of Ulro, Bells in Winter, History of Polish Literature
Wislawa Szymborska (1900s) - That's Why We're Alive, View with a Grain of
Sand
Jose Saramago (1900s) - Baltasar and Blimunda, The Stone Raft, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
Eugene Ionesco - The Bald Soprano (antiplay; nameless characters repeat empty gestures),
Rhinoceros (man fears remaining human as fellow citizens become rhinos), The Chairs
Twelfth Century
Unknown - The Igor Tale (Russian prince battles Polovtsy tribes in
1185)
Nineteenth
Century
Aleksandr Pushkin -
Boris Godunov (1598-1605 Russia: Czar Boris Godunov kills Dmitry, the crown prince),
Eugene Onegin,
The Captain's Daughter,
Tales of Belkin (includes The Stationmaster story),
The Bronze Horseman (flood kills fiancée of Yevgeny and he blames Peter the Great),
Little Tragedies (4 dramas: The Stone Guest, Mozart and Salieri, The Covetous Knight,
The Feast during the Plague Year)
Nikolay Gogol -
The Overcoat (St. Petersburg: civil servant Akaky Akakyevich Bashmachkin loves
copying documents; buys new coat and gains status but coat is stolen and he dies),
The Government Inspector (Russian town: Khlestakov impersonates inspector but
escapes before being discovered by postman),
Dead Souls (Pavel Chickhkov buys serfs who have died since last census and mortgages
them for land; landowners include Manilov, Sobakevich, Korobochka, and Plyushkin)
Ivan Turgenev -
Fathers and Sons (nihilist Bazarov opposes aristocrat Pavel Kirsanov),
A Month in the Country (Natalia and her ward Vera love her son's tutor),
A Nest of the Gentlefolk (Fyodor Lavretsky's presumed-dead wife returns as he is about
to marry Liza Kalitina),
On the Eve (Elena Stakhova scorns scholar Bersenev, sculptor Shubin, and civil servant
Kurnatovsky but loves Bulgarian revolutionary Insarov),
Rudin (Dmitry Rudin talks brilliantly but does not take action; frightened by love of
Natalya Alekseyevna; shot during 1848 Paris revolt),
Smoke (Litvinov loves Tanya but is distracted by old lover Irina),
A Sportsman's Sketches (short stories about life on feudal estates in Russia),
Virgin Soil (student Nezhdanov and Marianna join revolution but he realizes he is not
fitted for it and kills self; she marries Solomin who works for democratic Russia)
Count Leo Tolstoy -
War and Peace (1805-1820; Napoleon invades Russia 1812; Natasha Rostova is engaged
to Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, who struggles to find meaning of life through intellect and
calmly accepts death, but marries rake Anatol Kuragin; after war, Natasha marries Pierre
Bezukhov, who finds peace in living under wisdom of peasant Karatayev),
Anna Kerenina (Anna Kerenina leaves husband and child for Count Aleksei Vronsky,
then commits suicide by jumping under a train; Konstantin and Kitty Levin have a
happy marriage),
The Power of Darkness (Nikita seduces Marina, poisons Peter, marries his wife Anisya,
seduces Anisya's stepdaughter Akulina, and kills their baby),
Resurrection (Prince Nekhlyudov seduced Katyusha Maslova; she became prostitute and
poisoned a man; he serves on jury and marries her since he feels guilty but she refuses),
A Confession,
What Is Art? (should be simple enough for all to understand),
The Cossacks (Olenin tries to find happiness among wild Cossacks of the Caucasus;
Maryana and Eroshka),
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (man with cancer ponders death),
Sevastopol Stories (3 stories about Crimean War siege in December, May, and August 1855)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky -
Crime and Punishment (St. Petersburg: Raskolnikov murders old pawnbroker and her
sister; his motives are proven false by his conscience; turns to prostitute Sonya
Marmeladovna, who convinces him to confess to policeman Porfiry Petrovich;
Raskolnikov and Sonya go to Sibera),
The Idiot (Prince Mishkin pities Nastasya Filipovna, whom Rogozhin loves; Mishkin proposes
to Aglaya Epanchin; Rogozhin tries to murder Mishkin and does kill Natasya),
The Possessed (spiritual nihilist Nikolay Stavrogin commits crimes and infects Shatov
and Kirilov with ideas he does not believe; Lizaveta Nikolayevna loves Stavrogin
but he marries cripple Marya Lebyadkin; Pyotr Verkhoven tries to get Stavrogin to
join revolution; Verkhovensky murders Shatov),
The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and son Dmitri compete for Grushenka;
Fyodor is murdered; Dmitri [passionate] brought to trial; Ivan [intellectual] feels guilty,
Alyosha [mystical] introduces Zosima; Smerdyakov [bastard]; Ivan tells Alyosha The
Legend of the Grand Inquisitor parable [Jesus is arrested by Inquisition in Seville]),
The Double (government clerk Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin driven mad when another
Golyadkin appears and succeeds as he had yearned to; helped by servant Petrushka),
Notes from the Underground (recounts adventures of author's life),
A Diary of a Writer (includes The Meek One and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man stories),
The Raw Youth (Versilov's illegitimate son Arkady goes to St. Petersburg but learns his dad is
his rival for Katerina Akhmatovo; Arkady gets brain fever and is visited by pilgrim Makar
Dolgoruky; Arkady abandons plan to become Rothshild and make money to get power),
The Insulted and Injured (Vanya loves Natasha Ikhmeneva but helps her woo Alyosha Valkovsky;
Ivan and Prince Valkovsky debate philosophy; Dickens character Nelly appears),
The Friend of the Family (Foma Opsikin rules household by playing on master's guilt),
The Gambler (Aleksey Ivanovich has gambling weakness; Polina based on Dostoyevsky's lover),
Poor Folk (drunk clerk Makar Devushkin loves Varvara Dobroselova but she marries
wealthy landlord),
The Eternal Husband (Pavel Pavlovich Trusotsky torments wife's ex-lover Aleksey
Ivanovich Velchaninov and mistreats his girl)
Ivan Goncharov - Oblomov
Anton Chekhov -
The Sea Gull (writer Konstantin Trepliov loves actress Nina Zarechnaya; his play is a
failure and she takes interest in writer Trigorin, lover of Trepliov's mom Irina Arkadina;
Trepliov kills gull and places it at Nina's feet; Trigorin becomes good writer and Nina is
cast away by Trigorin; Trepliov kills self),
Uncle Vanya Scenes from Country Life in Four Acts (Ivan Voinitsky [Uncle Vanya]
manages estate of brother-in-law Prof. Aleksandr Serebryakov, who he learns is
somewhat a fraud; Vanya loves Serebryakov's second wife Elena Andreyevna;
Serebryakov agrees not to sell the estate Vanya has worked so hard for after he tries
to shoot him),
Three Sisters (Andrey Prozorov wants to be professor but wife Natalya Ivanovna
becomes despotic; sister Masha marries schoolmaster Kulygin but has affair with officer
Vershinin, who moves away; youngest sister Irina marries officer Baron Tuzenbakh who