Nine years ago, W. W. Norton changed the way world literature is taught by introducing The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, Expanded Edition.
Leading the field once again, Norton is proud to publish the anthology for the new century, The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Second Edition. Now published in six paperback volumes (packaged in two attractive slipcases), the new anthology boasts slimmer volumes, thicker paper, a bolder typeface, and dozens of newly included or newly translated works from around the world. The Norton Anthology of World Literature represents continuity as well as change. Like its predecessor, the anthology is a compact library of world literature, offering an astounding forty-three complete longer works, more than fifty prose works, over one hundred lyric poems, and twenty-three plays. More portable, more suitable for period courses, more pleasant to read, and more attuned to current teaching and research trends, The Norton Anthology of World Literature remains the most authoritative, comprehensive, and teachable anthology for the world literature survey.
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About the Author
Sarah Lawall, Ph.D. Yale, is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her publications include Critics of Consciousness: The Existential Structures of Literature and Reading World Literature: Theory, History, Practice.
Maynard Mack is Sterling Professor of English Emeritus at Yale University.
Jerome W. Clinton, Ph.D. Michigan, is Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. His publications include two book-length translations of two sections of the Persian national epic, the Shahnameh: The Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam and In the Dragon’s Claws: The Story of Rostam and Esfandiyar.
Francis Abiola Irele, formerly Professor of French, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, was for several years Professor of African, French, and Comparative Literature at the Ohio State University. After retiring from Ohio State in 2003, he became Visiting Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Among his many publications are The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature (edited with Simon Gikandi) and two collections of essays, The African Experience in Literature and Ideology and The African Imagination: Literature in Africa and the Black Diaspora. He is a contributing editor to The Norton Anthology of World Literature and General Editor of the Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature series.
Heather James, Ph.D. Berkeley, is Associate Professor of English at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Shakespeare’s Troy: Drama, Politics, and the Translation of Empire.
Stephen Owen, Ph.D. Yale, is James Bryant Conant Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. His books include The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang; Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics: An Omen of the World; Remembrances: The Experience of the Past in Classical Chinese Literature; and An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911.
Lee Patterson, Ph.D. Yale, is F. W. Hilles Professor of English at Yale University. He is the author of Chaucer and the Subject of History; Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380–1530; and Negotiating the Past: The Historical Understanding of Medieval Literature.
Indira Viswanathan Peterson, Ph.D. Harvard, is Professor of Asian Studies at Mount Holyoke College. Her publications include Poems to Siva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints.
Patricia Meyer Spacks, Ph.D. Berkeley, is Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English at the University of Virginia. Her publications include An Argument of Images: The Poetry of Alexander Pope; The Female Imagination; The Adolescent Idea: Myths of Youth and the Adult Imagination; Desire and Truth: Functions of Plot in Eighteenth-Century English Novels; and Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind.
William G. Thalmann, Ph.D. Yale, is Professor of Classics at the University of Southern California. His publications include The Swineherd and the Bow: Representations of Class in the Odyssey.
Maynard Mack is Sterling Professor of English Emeritus at Yale University.
Jerome W. Clinton, Ph.D. Michigan, is Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. His publications include two book-length translations of two sections of the Persian national epic, the Shahnameh: The Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam and In the Dragon’s Claws: The Story of Rostam and Esfandiyar.
Francis Abiola Irele, formerly Professor of French, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, was for several years Professor of African, French, and Comparative Literature at the Ohio State University. After retiring from Ohio State in 2003, he became Visiting Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Among his many publications are The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature (edited with Simon Gikandi) and two collections of essays, The African Experience in Literature and Ideology and The African Imagination: Literature in Africa and the Black Diaspora. He is a contributing editor to The Norton Anthology of World Literature and General Editor of the Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature series.
Heather James, Ph.D. Berkeley, is Associate Professor of English at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Shakespeare’s Troy: Drama, Politics, and the Translation of Empire.
Stephen Owen, Ph.D. Yale, is James Bryant Conant Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. His books include The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang; Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics: An Omen of the World; Remembrances: The Experience of the Past in Classical Chinese Literature; and An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911.
Lee Patterson, Ph.D. Yale, is F. W. Hilles Professor of English at Yale University. He is the author of Chaucer and the Subject of History; Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380–1530; and Negotiating the Past: The Historical Understanding of Medieval Literature.
Indira Viswanathan Peterson, Ph.D. Harvard, is Professor of Asian Studies at Mount Holyoke College. Her publications include Poems to Siva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints.
Patricia Meyer Spacks, Ph.D. Berkeley, is Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English at the University of Virginia. Her publications include An Argument of Images: The Poetry of Alexander Pope; The Female Imagination; The Adolescent Idea: Myths of Youth and the Adult Imagination; Desire and Truth: Functions of Plot in Eighteenth-Century English Novels; and Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind.
William G. Thalmann, Ph.D. Yale, is Professor of Classics at the University of Southern California. His publications include The Swineherd and the Bow: Representations of Class in the Odyssey.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great, but why not buy with other volumes?,
By
This review is from: The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Vol. A: Beginnings to A.D. 100, 2nd Edition (Paperback)
Norton's literary anthologies have long been the standard in every genre, and its World Literature collection is no exception. Their most ambitious offering, it proposes to cover no less than a representative sampling of the world's best and most important literature from the earliest writings to today. This is the first volume - one sixth of the total -, going up to 100 C. E. The range of material is truly incredible in terms of both time and place. The best way to make the sheer vastness clear is to list the sections: The Invention of Writing and the Earliest Literatures (Gilgamesh, Ancient Egyptian Poetry, The Old Testament), Ancient Greece and the Formation of the Western Mind, Poetry and Thought in Early China, India's Heroic Age, and The Roman Empire. This truly mind-boggling selection stretches over three thousand pages including dozens and dozens of pieces. The nature of anthologies of course favors poems and short prose, but a surprising number of longer works are here in full: The Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer's Odyssey, Aeschylus' Agamemnon and The Eumenides, Sophocles' Oedipus the King and Antigone, Euripides' Medea, and Aristophanes' Lysistrata. The collection would be well worth buying for these alone; one would be very hard-pressed to get them separately for less than the anthology costs - not to mention the numerous shorter works given in full and many longer ones in excerpt. It is particularly noteworthy for including many Asian - not to mention Native American and African - works virtually ignored in such collections until very recently while still giving a thorough overview of European classics.
Norton's anthologies are also notable for extensive supplemental material. Each author and work is introduced with several pages of biography, background, initial critical analysis, and further reading suggestions for both text and criticism. Individual sections also have Introductions with similar general information plus a timeline and map, and there is an overall Preface. In addition, there are substantial footnotes and glosses plus a closing essay on translation and an index. This helps make the works, all of which are remote in time and many of which are remote in culture and other ways, much more accessible. Many readers will appreciate this, especially as the editors are careful to give what is needed for basic understanding without forcing interpretations, while those who do not can easily skip them. The anthology is designed primarily as a text for college literature survey courses but is also ideal for general readers wanting to learn about world literature - not only the texts themselves but a substantial amount of secondary material. This brings up the central point that the collection is after all a primer. Purists and the dedicated may scoff at some of its attributes. World literature being so large, it is of course impossible for any collection to be even remotely comprehensive, and one can easily find important works or personal favorites that are excluded. However, there is no denying the awe-inspiring scope of what is here, including nearly everything that absolutely had to be. The excerpts can also be frustrating, especially as summaries and notes have frequent spoilers, though it is clearly better for the works in question to be here in part than not at all. As most of the pieces are translated, some will also take issue with the translations used. The editors wisely chose those the most accessible, but some will prefer more literary versions; for example, a prose Gilgamesh translation is used rather than a more artistic verse one. On the whole, though, the choices are hard to fault. Older translations are also updated to conform with current spelling, punctuation, etc; even English writers like Chaucer and Milton are dealt with thus. Purists will not like this, but nearly everyone interested in such a collection will appreciate it. All told, anyone wanting a world literature collection excellent in all respects can do no better. Separately buying all the works given here would cost many times the price of the collection; the value is near-unbelievable. Even reading regularly, it will take at least several months to finish - probably at least the better part of a year. More importantly, this is the kind of collection one can keep for a lifetime; it provides years of re-reading and reference. One can hardly even conceive of a better deal; such quantity and diversity in one collection is truly amazing. Anyone who enjoys the first three volumes is of course highly encouraged to go on to the next three as well as other Norton anthologies. As for how to buy them, anyone wanting half the set or the whole will be better off getting the two three-volume sets; it is cheaper and more convenient. Those wanting only one or a few volumes can purchase individually, but the quality is so high that they will almost certainly want them all anyway, so the sets are really the way to go. You will not be disappointed.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Collection of Stories,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Vol. A: Beginnings to A.D. 100, 2nd Edition (Paperback)
My university used the Norton Anthology World Lit books for our Literature Courses. I love reading, so I enjoyed these books. They have a great collection of stories from that specific time-period. I also liked that they had information about the works and authors either before or after the stories.
If I was just picking a book for casual reading, this wouldn't be it. But if you are needing it for a class or research, I would definitely recommend it.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great!!,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Vol. A: Beginnings to A.D. 100, 2nd Edition (Paperback)
This was the best deal I've every had.... other than getting a free book from my roomate...
It was on time and in great condition.
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