Norton anthology of world literature online text

Those parameters have expanded in recent decades, but the incorporation of multiple origins and influences has often been tied to older conceptual frameworks that make it difficult to think of modernism globally. Providing alternative approaches, A New Vocabulary for Global Modernism introduces pathways through global archives and new frameworks that offer a richer, more representative set of concepts for the analysis of literary and cultural works.

In separate essays each inspired by a critical term, this collection explores what happens to the foundational concepts of modernism and the methods we bring to modernist studies when we approach the field as a global phenomenon. Their work transforms the intellectual paradigms we have long associated with modernism, such as tradition, antiquity, style, and translation.

New paradigms, such as context, slum, copy, pantomime, and puppets emerge as the archive extends beyond its European center. In bringing together and reexamining the familiar as well as the emergent, the contributors to this volume offer an invaluable and original approach to studying the intersection of world literature and modernist studies.

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You do have control over what and how your child learns. The Cursed Carolers in Context explores the interplay between the forms and contexts in which the tale of the cursed carolers circulated and the meanings it had for medieval and early modern authors and audiences.

The story of the cursed carolers has circulated in Europe since the eleventh century. In this story, a group of people in a village in Saxony skip Christmas mass to perform a circle dance in the cemetery, only to be cursed and forced to keep dancing for a whole year.

By approaching the story in specific historical contexts, this book shows how the story of the cursed carolers became a space in which medieval readers, writers, and listeners could debate the meaning and significance of a surprising variety of questions, including ecclesiastical authority, gender roles, pastoral responsibility, and even the conduct of crusades.

This consideration of the interplay between text and context sheds new light on how and why the story of the dancers achieved such popularity in the Middle Ages, and how its meanings developed and changed throughout the period.

This book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval European history, literature, and dance, as well as those interested in cultural history. Countering the perception that the humanities are unessential, this volume contends that their well-being has not only academic but also cultural, political, and existential ramifications.

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This newly revised edition contains completely updated ordering information for all curricula and books, new and expanded curricula recommendations, new material on using computers and distance-learning resources, answers to common questions about home education, information about educational support groups, and advice on practical matters such as working with your local school board, preparing a high school transcript, and applying to colleges.

Although this format makes for slow navigability, it has the virtue of being free of interface problems. The text is a survey of world literature, and thus is inclusive of a variety of races, ethnicities, and cultures. In my perusal of the text, I encountered nothing insensitive. This book comprehensively covers ancient literature to with key works. This book draws from high quality translations. The authors combine translations and make improvements when needed.

This book will maintain longevity for some time; these works will not fade in terms of importance. This text combines the best free texts available to date. There are more accessible, fresh versions of many of these stories, but they are unlikely to be able to provided for free. The book is consistent with a reliable structure: effective introductions and reading questions are present at each new section. However, because the texts are provided in their entirety, they are quite long.

This could make it difficult to create shorter thematic sections around topics. This text is clearly organized around geographical locations, and there are excellent introductions to each chapter. Textual notes on the part of the authors help to provide context. The interface is not significantly flawed, but there is some room for improvement. For example, adding document links that hop from the table of contents TOC to the page where the selection begins and links that hop from the end of a selection back to the TOC would help the reader navigate more quickly when searching for something, since this.

Additionally, adding subsections to the TOC would help the reader navigate more quickly. This edition reflects ample diversity.

However, there is an opportunity to add even more sources; for example, poetry of Sappho and the Book of the Dead might be nice additions. I'm grateful that this book has been created and provided for students' and instructors' use.

It is extremely convenient to have these sources combined for use in literature, humanities, and history courses. Thank you!

For a compact anthology, this title is comprehensive in in coverage of world literature—from Ancient Greece and Rome, to Asia and India, to medieval and Renaissance Europe, to Native American texts of the New World. Unfortunately, it does not Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less.

Unfortunately, it does not include any women writers, which is beyond unfortunate given that they work acknowledges in its introduction the importance of some of these works in examining the roles of women. If I used any one of the texts three sections, I would need to supplement, especially for Part 3.

The content is accurate, error-free, and unbiased to the best of my knowledge given the anthology's historical scope. The authors successfully situate the literary works within the broader culture, history, and geopolitics of the ancient world through the Renaissance in a way that is informative and unbiased. Thus, subsequent research on these areas would not render the work obsolete, and any changes to the framework for the anthology of texts would be minimal.

The lack of women writers, however, may make this text seem outdated to some potential adopters. The introductory sections are written clearly, and will be easily accessible to undergraduate students.

The text is low in jargon, and the tone seems geared toward sophomore or less experienced students—maybe even non-majors. I think the text is successful in this regard, keeping in my that this is not a textbook conveying information but rather an anthology of literary works.

For that reason, there are large blocks of text without subheadings, but there's really no way to avoid that. The text is culturally relevant with regards to nation and ethnicity, but excludes women writers, which will make this book less competitive than the conventionally published anthologies which have been addressing this issue for decades. I found the student engagement questions included in each part very helpful and relevant. I also appreciate that the text is set up to be used thematically and comparatively—again, the writers have offered something that the instructor usually has to work out herself.

Creating a text such as this one could be daunting. Including more introductory notes on form might be helpful. Those already Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less. Those already provided are strongly composed and quite helpful. However, the note, if longer, could address the beauty of the original poems, especially since the translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey are in a prose-like form. At the same time, thought, the poetic translation of The Aeneid, which is included, does provide counterpoint lessons not only on approaches to epic storytelling but also on approaches to translation work itself.

Also, perhaps including more Dante and even just a few samples of Boethius and Petrarch could enliven the European portion of the second book, particularly inasmuch as they could further exemplify the shift from medieval European to the Renaissance European cultural mindsets.

The pictures accompanying the Canterbury Tales are great; including some introductory notes on illuminated manuscripts and the craft of writing could enliven that portion of the text while also positioning a great comparison with how that craft developed and evolved in other key cultures featured in the text.

The third book ably crosses the Atlantic, with the inclusion of various Native American pieces. They deliver wonderful examples for demonstrating both a contrast of cultural perspectives as well as a commentary on the universal human experience. Including some Francis Bacon in the third book could prove a meaningful addition, as well, especially given the rise of the essay.

Translations comprise the bulk of the textbook. The translators include both recent quality translations as well as those long-revered such as Samuel Butler. Editorial acumen seems exhaustive and precise. Both the texts themselves and the introductory sections are relevant, particularly for a world literature or an ancient literature course. The works included in this book are timeless classics that comment on universal literary themes. In addition, the works provide great grounding for students who need to develop their ability to recognize Classical allusions in other literary works.

The translations and unit introductions are clear. For instance, the introduction to The Aeneid includes a helpful chart that helps students to understand the comparisons of the Greek versus the Roman forms of the ancient gods.

The three books demonstrate an effort to balance both the cultures and the genres represented in the given time period.

The flow is logical, and the text is organized in a manner that allows professors to assign readings in any way that seems more appropriate for the given course. The interface is user friendly. The unit introductions generally include engaging images and photographs.

They enliven the screen, which is especially helpful as this book is quite sizeable. Headers are used with consistency throughout the text. Images and charts are in high resolution and clear. I tried multiple browsers and settings, and the text adjusted appropriately.

I opened the textbook on a smart phone and a tablet without issue. I saw no grammatical errors in the introductions to the texts that I read. I also reviewed several of the readings, which were taken from open source documents available in other areas of the internet. I did not see any errors.

My only question in terms of cultural relevance would be the decision to avoid coverage of South America and Africa. I expected to see a note in the introduction to the anthology justifying this decision, but I did not.

I would be interested in a revision that also treated South America, perhaps in conjunction with Native American literature, along with African literature and mythology. This three volume text would be particularly useful in a course on the origins of Western culture and the canon, as well as a comparative course on early Eastern and Western literature in its infancy.

The book provides an impressive and truly global breadth of translations of major texts from what it calls "The Ancient World" and "The Middle Ages. Part One "The Ancient World" includes the four chapters, but there is also a Part Two entitled "The Middle Ages" that includes an additional five chapters of translations. There appears to be no index, and the side toggle bar is difficult to navigate.

Such a breadth of material is bound to feature errors and inaccuracies, and this text is no exception. For example, in the "Ancient World" section on Indian literature, features of Hinduism are misrepresented. The schematic of relationship of the early abstract divine principle of Brahman and its relationship to later anthropomorphic manifestations of the divine Brahman, Vishnu, and Shiva is not quite accurate.

I suppose there are contemporary Hindus who would give this explanation as a way to retroactively explain the relationships between ideas about divinity that were developed at different historical moments, but this text's explanation unnecessarily collapses chronological development of these ideas in a way that does an injustice to their complex individual histories, and that does not allow the reader access to the religious worlds of the texts presented in this volume.

Another example is the authors' collapse of the two distinct but intertwining categories of varna class and jati caste into one, which is inaccurate. In fact, author never defines the term "jati" or explain how it is distinct from varna. Because of the breadth of the selection of translations, all of which had to be open-access, the editors largely rely on accurate but extremely dated translations.

For example, in the case of the Asian texts, most of the translations are from Victorian-era Christian missionaries. While sometimes inaccurate, the editors provide introductions to basic concepts needed to understand the cultural worlds of the translated texts provided in the book. Again, it seems a Herculean task for two academics to accurately provide contextual material for such a breadth of texts. Perhaps the addition of more editors, with training specific to these different regions and languages of the world, would improve the work.

Part of the challenge of dealing with texts in translation is the variety of transliteration systems used over time to render said texts into English. This volume does not standardize the transliteration systems used for each language featured; the result is a single person, such as the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi for instance, will be spelled Zhuangzi in one paragraph, and Chuang Tzu in the next.

For undergraduates who have a difficult time grasping non-English names and terminology, this added layer of complexity could potentially be very confusing. The text is nicely broken down into small units.

See comments above about the difficult navigability of the present electronic format. The texts are grouped by chronology and cultural region, which is an easy-to-understand method of organization. Please see comments above about the difficult and confusing interface for the text, which makes it difficult to move about within the PDF document. A cursory glance over the translations of Asian texts provided by Victorian-era Christian missionaries did not reveal any culturally or religiously offensive language, but I would certainly scrutinize these translations much more carefully before assigning this book to a class.

Given the breadth of the project and the dearth of high quality open access translations of primary texts, the text represents an admirable collection of an impressive array of significant texts from different cultures and historical periods. This is a huge subject indeed! The authors gamely attempt to cover literature from all different time periods and many parts of the world.

I find much that will be useful to me in teaching classes in both Greco-Roman Mythology and World Mythology I find much that will be useful to me in teaching classes in both Greco-Roman Mythology and World Mythology. The biggest obstacle to using this text is the lack of an effective index and glossary. As another reviewer has already pointed out, the organization is hard to understand. Simply inserting the whole Table of Contents for all parts of the book would be an easy way to address this.

Perhaps having a separate PDF for each section would be useful. Part Two: The Middle Ages, which features the same Introduction as Part One, deals with literature from some of the same parts of the world, but is arranged in a somewhat different sequence.

For my purposes, the latter subject seems to be rather short. One wonders how the selections were chosen. The Appendices, containing many links to original works, are a great feature. Why not use the Torah for one of these comparisons?

In Part Three p. As to the Incas, their manner of literacy is a matter of ongoing scholarly debate. The introductory comments to this section appear twice. The works included are going to live forever. Quite a number of them already have. The relevance is beyond question. A glossary would be useful. Not sure what to say here. Consistent in terms of temporal sequence? There is much that is really useful here, but I had to work to find it. I am not sure that I understand the organization of the text.

It would seem that the authors intended a chronological sequence, given the titles of Parts One, Two, and Three. But in Part One, the versions of Genesis and Exodus do not come from the Torah, which predates the sources utilized, and the Gilgamesh story should properly start the section as it predates the biblical material.

In general, I remain very curious as to how the selections were chosen. The images are great, and provide a much needed visual break from rather long chunks of text. The obvious comment is that more would be better. The book is culturally relevant. Many readers have favorite geographical or cultural areas, as do I.

So, fairly or not, I would prefer more attention to be given to the literature of the Americas, more specifically to that of Mesoamerica and the Maya culture which has been literate for a very long time. Especially since the authors mention the Popol Vuh in the introduction to Part Three.

Where are the Russians? I am least familiar with the literature from Korea, India, and Persia, and believe that the inclusion of works from these areas of the world is a valuable contribution.

The text covers all areas and ideas--especially focusing on some of the lesser-represented literature from non-Anglo locales. The index is confusing because on the Open Textbook webpage, it indicates that this text is just the four chapters of This was quite confusing at first.

There is no glossary of terms. Topics are treated without bias. When appropriate, pictures, charts, maps and graphs are included to add to background knowledge of the topic. Because this book focuses on the theme of heroes and heroism, as well as the Epic, the longevity of the book is great in the world of academia. The literature used could be modified in multiple ways because the focus is on the timelessness of themes instead of specific works. The organization of the text is laborious--both for student and instructor.

The texts are included in their entirety with no breaks for questions, clarifications, etc. This makes the educator using this text responsible for breaking up the texts into digestible chunks, and, for struggling readers, include explanations and definitions, etc.

The text could be easily broken up by sections, chapters, etc. I would anticipate including questions or writing prompts to be included when I use this text so that the students wouldn't feel overwhelmed with the volume of reading before analyzing, etc.

The topics are logically ordered, but presentation on the page is sometimes overwhelming with single-spacing and few graphics, photos, etc. I appreciated the inclusion of non-Anglo texts. Most anthologies consider Greek, European and possibly Chinese texts as "classical".

This has much more depth of culture by including text from India as well. In most anthologies I've used, this is sorely lacking. I would be very interested in using sections of this text for a high school-level World Literature course.

It would need to include more assistance for students than it contains, but the content is a comprehensive starting point. Editors Kyounghye Kwon and Laura Getty do a fine job in introducing each reading or set of readings with concise and unbiased headnotes.

I like the layout here insofar as my college, like many, is on the quarter system. Most textbooks, as instructors know, are designed for the semester system. The text is definitely free of display issues—I found it very coherent and easy to navigate as would, I suspect any student would do who perused it. Again, this is a matter of preference. I plan to use this excellent OER version of world literature and am grateful for its affordability i. My students will love it. A world literature class may be the first place that some students have encountered European works, let alone non-Western texts.

The emphasis in this anthology, therefore, is on non-Western and European works, with only the British authors who were the most influential to European and non-Western authors such as Shakespeare, whose works have influenced authors around the world to the present day. In a world literature class, there is no way that a student can be equally familiar with all of the societies, contexts, time periods, cultures, religions, and languages that they will encounter; even though the works presented here are translated, students will face issues such as unfamiliar names and parts of the story such as puns that may not translate well or at all.

Since these stories are rooted in their cultures and time periods, it is necessary to know the basic context of each work to understand the expectations of the original audience. The introductions in this anthology are meant to be just that: a basic overview of what students need to know before they begin reading, with topics that students can research further.

An open access literature textbook cannot be a history book at the same time, but history is the great companion of literature: The more history students know, the easier it is for them to interpret literature.

These works can help students understand the present, as well. In an electronic age, with this text available to anyone with computer access around the world, it has never been more necessary to recognize and understand differences among nationalities and cultures.

The literature in this anthology is foundational, in the sense that these works influenced the authors who followed them. A word to the instructor: The texts have been chosen with the idea that they can be compared and contrasted, using common themes. Rather than numerous and therefore often random choices of texts from various periods, these selected works are meant to make both teaching and learning easier.

While cultural expectations are not universal, many of the themes found in these works are. Kyounghye Kwon is an assistant professor in the English department at the University of North Georgia. Content Accuracy rating: 3 I did not find any content errors in the many introductions to sections and to individual authors and works that I read. Clarity rating: 5 I found the introductions work are clear and accessible.

Modularity rating: 4 I have found it easy to assign individual selections from the text. Interface rating: 4 The anthology provides links to some works not in the public domain. Grammatical Errors rating: 4 I found no major issues in the text.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3 Revising the anthology to represent writers from around the whole world and of all genders is necessary. Content Accuracy rating: 5 I assume the content is accurate. Clarity rating: 5 The text is in standard written English without any confusing jargon or technical language. Consistency rating: 3 There seems to be some inconsistency in the editors' use of the term "world literature.

Modularity rating: 4 Excerpts from the Bible's Old Testament sometimes seem arbitrary: all 40 chapter of Exodus are included, but only 9 chapters of the 50 chapters of Genesis appear. Interface rating: 4 In the PDF version of the text, navigating to Parts 4, 5, and 6 was particularly complicated, requiring apps called Readium, Lithium, and iBooks depending on the particular device in use.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5 The text appears virtually free of grammatical flaws, but I couldn't resist questioning the use of a colon in the following passage from the Introduction to Part I: "It is a nice addition to the experience if the students like the works, but we can read and analyze texts that we do not enjoy just as effectively as the ones we do: In some cases, it is actually easier.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4 The absence of African contributions might be perceived as a slight. Comments I believe the Western World contains literature that reflects a diversity of cultural backgrounds and warrants a place in a world literature anthology. Content Accuracy rating: 5 The introduction is very good and accurate. Clarity rating: 5 The introductions are well written and will be helpful to students new to this subject.

Consistency rating: 5 The text is internally consistent. Modularity rating: 5 The modularity makes this book easy to include in an online course. This make is easy to select the pieces that work best, Interface rating: 5 I see no problems with the interface. Grammatical Errors rating: 5 I see few problems with grammar.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5 The text is not offensive, but, again, I wish it included some other texts. Comments I plan to use this book. Content Accuracy rating: 5 The content is accurate, and the introduction is succinct. Clarity rating: 5 The introduction to the text is written clearly. Consistency rating: 5 The terminology used in this anthology is consistent. Modularity rating: 4 The text can be easily divided into smaller reading sections.

Interface rating: 5 I think the interface of this anthology is good. Grammatical Errors rating: 5 I did not notice grammatical errors. Cultural Relevance rating: 5 I think the editors did a good job to cover a variety of cultural traditions, both Western and non-Western.

Comments Overall, this is a successful open textbook for a world literature survey class. Clarity rating: 5 The text is clear and lucid. Consistency rating: 5 The introductions and theme are consistent across works and sections of the book.

I noticed no inconsistencies Modularity rating: 4 It is easily divided into three sections that could be used individually.

Interface rating: 5 I noticed no interface issues Grammatical Errors rating: 5 I noticed no grammar errors. The writing was polished and the style was professional Cultural Relevance rating: 5 I noticed no cultural insensitivities. Content Accuracy rating: 5 Yes, the content is accurate and the introductions are unbiased though the authors offer some unique ideas used in their own courses on comparative literature.

Clarity rating: 5 The authors write clearly and have good explanations of how to approach the readings. Consistency rating: 5 Yes, the text is consistent. I did not find any issues or inconsistencies. Modularity rating: 4 There are huge blocks of text which will definitely be problematic especially for students with reading disabilities.

Interface rating: 5 The photos and charts are well-placed and I found the selections relevant to the text included.