World Literature

 

Australian Literature

 

               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

 

 

Belgian Literature

 

               Maurice Maeterlinck (1800s-1900s) - Pelleas et Melisandre (King Arkel's grandson Golaud

                              marries Melisandre but she loves his brother Pelleas; Golaud kills Pelleas)

 

 

Bulgarian Literature

 

               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

 

 

Canadian Literature

 

               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

 

 

Chinese Literature

 

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

 

 

Czech Literature

 

               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

 

 

Danish Literature

 

               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

 

 

Dutch Literature

 

               Louis Couperus (1900s) - The Book of the Small Souls (Van Lowes spend Sundays at Granny's)

 

 

Egyptian Literature

 

               Naguib Mahfouz (1900s) - The Cairo Trilogy, The Children of Gebelawi

 

 

Finnish Literature

 

               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

 

 

French Literature

 

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 fiancee 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 guardsman 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])

 

 

German Literature

 

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 Naive 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

 

 

Greek Literature

 

               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

 

 

Icelandic Literature

 

               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

 

 

Indian Literature

 

               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)

 

 

Israeli Literature

 

               Shmuel Yosef Agnon - The Bridal Canopy, Days of Awe, A Guest for the Night

 

 

Italian Literature

 

               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

 

 

Japanese Literature

 

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 Suicide

                                             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

 

 

Kenyan Literature

 

               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

 

 

Latin American Literature

 

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

 

 

New Zealand Literature

 

               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

 

 

Nigerian Literature

 

               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

 

 

Norwegian Literature

 

               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

 

 

Persian / Arabic Literature

 

               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)

 

 

Polish Literature

 

               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

 

 

Portuguese Literature

 

               Jose Saramago (1900s) - Baltasar and Blimunda, The Stone Raft, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

 

 

Romanian Literature

 

               Eugene Ionesco - The Bald Soprano (antiplay; nameless characters repeat empty gestures),

                              Rhinoceros (man fears remaining human as fellow citizens become rhinos), The Chairs

 

 

Russian Literature

 

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 fiancee 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

                                             is killed in a duel; other sister is Olga; all want to go to Moscow),

                              The Cherry Orchard (Ranevsky family estate sold at auction to Lopakhin who builds

                                             houses on it),

                              A Dreary Story (Prof. Nikolay Stepanovich and ward Katya review their aimless lives but

                                             cannot communicate to each other),

                              My Life (Poleznev becomes a laborer),

                              Peasants (long story about somber peasant life),

                              Ward No. 6 (mental hospital head Dr. Andrey Ragin withdraws into private study and

                                             alcohol, neglecting patients, except for conversations with Ivan Gromov, and is himself

                                             committed and experiences the maltreatment he allowed the patients to undergo)

Twentieth Century

               Maksim Gorki - The Lower Depths (Kostylev owns a flophouse for indigents, talks with wife

                              Vasillissa, thief Vaska Pepel, Natasha, truth-seer Satin, and tramp Luka), Mother (Pelageya Nilovna

                              becomes involved in Russian Revolution with son Pavel Vlasov), Klim Samgin

               Boris Pasternak - Doctor Zhivalgo (Russian Revolution: Doctor Yury Zhivalgo likes writing;

                              denounces Marxism to uncle Kolya, mistress Lara)

               Leonid Leonov - The Badgers, The Thief (civil war veteran Mitka Vekshin becomes thief during

                              time of New Economic Policy)

               Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn -

                              One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Ivan Denisovich survives a day in a Soviet labor camp),

                              The First Circle (Nerzhin [like Solzhenitsyn] is inmate in sharashka prison where educated people

                                             continue research; Lev Rubin [like Lev Kopelev] maintains faith in Communism),

                              Cancer Ward (Kostoglotov and others come to terms with death),

                              The Gulag Archipelago (acronym for Soviet Chief Administration of Corrective

                                             Labor Camps; literary investigation of prison camps 1918-1956)

               Ivan Bunin - The Village, Dry Valley, The Gentleman from San Francisco

               Mikhail Sholokhov - The Quiet Don (Cossack Gregor Melekhov is indecisive about Russian Revolution;

                              Ivan Bunchuk fights with Bolsheviks but is killed by Melekhov), Virgin Soil Upturned

               Joseph Brodsky - A Halt in the Wilderness, The End of a Lovely Era

 

 

South African Literature

 

               Alan Paton (1900s) - Cry the Beloved Country (black parson Stephen Kumalo searches for son

                              Absalom in Johannesburg slums)

               Nadine Gordimer (1900s) - The Soft Voice of the Serpent, The Conservationist, Burger's

                              Daughter, None to Accompany Me

 

 

Spanish Literature

 

Middle Ages

               Anonymous - Poem of the Cid (1140)

               Juan Ruiz - Book of Good Love (1330)

               Fernando de Rojas - La Celestina (1499)

               Unknown - Roderick (slain by Moors under Tarik 711; hermit makes him do penance in tomb of snakes)

Renaissance

               Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra - The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-errant Don

                              Quixote of the Mancha (Alonso Quijano reads chivalry romances and changes name to Don

                              Quixote de la Mancha; loves Aldonza Lorenzo, renamed Dulcinea del Toboso; acquires squire

                              Sancho Panza and horse Rocinante; thinks windmills are giants and sheep armies), Exemplarie

                              Novels, The Travels of Persiles and Sigismunda

               Lope de Vega -

                              Fuenteovejuna (townspeople put Com. Fernan Gomez lord of Fuenteovejuna to death for

                                             violating peasant Laurencia; king pardons village),

                              Peribanez y el comendador de Ocana (governor of Ocana sends Casilda's husband

                                             Peribanez away in army and tries to take her but he returns and kills him),

                              El mejor alcalde el rey (king orders Don Tello to release Elvira to Sancho, but he refuses

                                             so is forced to marry her and then be executed so she inherits property), La Dorotea

                                             (prose romance; Dorotea based on actress Elena Osorio)

               Pedro Calderon de la Barca -

                              El Alcalde de Zalamea (Pedro Crespo jails army captain Don Alvaro

                                             for violating Pedro's daughter; commander Don Lope demands his freedom but he is

                                             strangled in prison and King Philip II makes Pedro mayor of Zalamea),

                              El medico de su honra (Dona Mencia loves Prince Enrique but marries Don Gutierre,

                                             who has surgeon bleed her to death; king consents),

                              La vida es sueno (Polish prince Segismundo is kept in tower under Clotaldo's care

                                             because astrologers said he would hurt King Basilio; drugged and allowed to dinner

                                             once, thinking it a dream; people revolt and liberate prince) ,

                              El magico prodigioso (Cipriano makes pact with devil to get Justina to love him; she

                                             doesn't but he converts to Christianity and both are martyred by governor of Antioch),

                              El gran teatro del mundo (God presents performance but only he is eternal)

               Jose Ruiz de Alarcon (born in Mexico; hunchback) - The Truth Suspected (liar Don Garcia loses

                              the woman he loves), Proof of the Promises, The Walls Have Ears

Twentieth Century

               Esteban Echeverria - Elvira, El Matadero (denounces Juan Manuel de Rosas dictatorship)

               Jacinto Benavente - Bonds of Interest, The Passion Flower, Senora ama

               Juan Ramon Jimenez - Platero and I, Diary of a Recently Married Poet

               Vicente Aleixandre - Revista de Occidente, Ambito, Twenty Poems, A Longing for the Light

               Miguel de Unamuno - El Cristo de Velazquez, Cancionero

               Camillo Jose Cela - The Hive, Mrs. Caldwell Speaks to Her Son

 

 

Sumerian Literature

 

               Epic of Gilgamesh (Goddess Aruru made hairy wild man Enkidu out of clay to oppose oppressive

                              King Gilgamesh of Erech; Enkidu protected the beasts; Gilgamesh sent a woman to seduce him;

                              Enkidu defeated Gilgamesh in wrestling, and they became friends; Gilgamesh and Enkidu cut

                              down a cedar in the sacred woods and beheaded the one-eyed monster Humbaba with the help

                              of Gigamesh's mom Ninsun; Ishtar tried to seduce Gilgamesh but he knew how she had treated

                              others such as Tammuz and refused; Enkidu died because he killed the storm bull of heaven;

                              Gilgamesh consulted Utnapishtim, who had been warned of a flood by wisdom god Ea and

                              survived by building an arc; got herb of youth from bottom of sea but stolen by a snake),

               War of the Gods ("Enuma elish"; fresh water Apsu and salt water wife Tiamat had kids gods of

                              the deep Lahmu and Lahamu who had Anshar and Kishar, parents of sky Anu, father of wisdom

                              god Ea; Ea drugged and killed Apsu and dwarf counselor Mummu; Tiamat took Kingu as consort;

                              Ea and Damkina had storm god Marduk; Tiamat warred with principals gods who supported Marduk;

                              Marduk destroyed Tiamat and formed firmament and earth foundations from her body; Anu rules

                              area above firmament, Enlil between firmament and earth, and Ea waters below earth; Kingu killed to

                              make man puppet; gods built Babylon as shrine for Marduk)

 

 

Swedish Literature

 

               Selma Lagerlof (1800s-1900s) - Gosta Berlings Saga (impulsive young man marries divorced

                              Countess Elizabeth), Jerusalem (stories about Ingmar family and their farm at Ingmarson)

               Verner von Heidenstram (1800s-1900s) - Dikter, Nya Dikter

               Carl Spitteler (1800s-1900s) - Olympian Spring

               Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1900s)

               Par Lagerkvist (1900s) - Barabbas, Pilgrim at Sea, The Sibyl, The Dwarf, The Hangman, Guest of

                              Reality

               Eyvind Johnson (1900s) - Novels of Olof, Krilon (trilogy), Return to Ithaca

               Harry Martinson (1900s) - Cape Farewell, The Road, Aniara

 

 

Swiss Literature

 

               J.D. Wyss (1800s) - The Swiss Family Robinson (Swiss clergyman, wife, and 4 sons wrecked on a

                              South Sea island)

               Hermann Hesse (1900s) -

                              Demian (Max Demian tells young Emil Sinclair about devil-god Abraxas),

                              Siddhartha (Siddhartha, a Brahmin, searches for ultimate reality in India),

                              Steppenwolf (Harry Haller is torn between artistic idealism and inhuman reality; ends in

                                             magical theatre),

                              Magister Ludi The Glass Bead Game (Josef Knecht becomes master of 23rd Century glass

                                             bead game in utopian society)

 

 

Yugoslav Literature

 

               Ivo Andric (1900s) - The Bridge on the Drina (350 year history of bridge near Visegrad, Bosnia)

 

 

Children's Literature

 

               Charles Perrault's nursery tales (1697)

               Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, The Tale of Tom Kitten,

                              The Roly-Poly Pudding, Jemima Puddleduck

               AA Milne - Winne-the-Pooh (Christopher Robin, Eeyore, Tigger, Piglet, Kanga, Roo)

               Theodore Seuss Geisel - Horton Hatches the Egg, The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole

                              Christmas, and Oh, the Places You'll Go!

               Laura Ingalls Wilder - Little House on the Prairie books (move from Big Woods WI to Great Plains)

               Frances Hodgson Burnett - Little Lord Fauntleray (good Cedric Errol, raised in NYC and heir to

                              earl of Dorincourt in England, has conflict with mean grandfather), The Secret Garden (Mary

                              Lennox lives with cold uncle Lord Craven after her parents die in India; she, servant's son

                              Colin Craven, and supposed invalid Dickon discover a secret garden)

               T(erence) H(anbury) White - The Once and Future King

               Edward L. Stratemeyer - The Hardy Boys, The Rover Boys, Tom Sift, Nancy Drew (continued by

                              daughter Harriet Adams)

               Hugh Lofting - The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle (learns animal languages; Dab-Dab duck, Jip dog,

                              Gub-Gub pig)

               Eric P. Kelly - The Trumpeter of Krakow

               Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time

               William H. Armstrong - Sounder

               Robert C. O'Brien - Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

               Mildred D. Taylor - Roll of Thunder Here My Cry

               Beverly Cleary - Dear Mr. Henshaw

               Patricia MacLachlan - Sarah Plain and Tall

               Sid Fleischman- The Whipping Boy

               Jerry Spinelli- Maniac Magee