Introduction

to World
Literature
KEY DISCUSSION
POINTS
Lesson
Objectives
articulate a more nuanced
understanding of a
multicultural, globalized world
 Introduction to
World Literature
The category “world literature” is rather flimsy
and difficult to define and build on. For one,
the range and reach of the term “world” are as
massive as the geographic entity itself. We are
talking about an umbrella term for hundreds of
countries, dozens of major religions, and
thousands of different languages. In the case of
“world literature,” the vagueness can be seen in
selecting representative material for the
discussion of the subject.
 Introduction to
World Literature
What exactly do we mean by "world
literature"? It carries with it two possible
meanings. First, it may refer to thevast
literary production across
the world; second, it might only
contain what is deemed "the best of
what the world's literature can
offer.
WHAT IS WORLD
LITERATURE?
The term “world literature” was introduced
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He used the
word “Weltliteratur” in 1827. Goethe studied
the characteristic features and interrelationships of
different national literatures, the
tendencies of their development and their
achievements. He studied the works of famous
writers which presented different literary
phenomena of different historic periods.
 WHAT IS WORLD
LITERATURE?
David Damrosch in What Is World
Literature? (2003) states that "world
literature is not an infinite,
ungraspable canon of works but
rather a mode of circulation and
reading, a mode that is as applicable to
individual works as to bodies of material,
available for reading established classics
and discoveries alike" (5).
How to Identify literary
works?
1. It must be pointed out that a literary text may cross
borders (i.e., it will be circulated across
countries) for several reasons. Some of these reasons
2. include the artistic merit of the literary text (e.g., it
wins an award),
3. the political situation surrounding the text (e.g., the
text comes from an influential country), or
4. the popularity of the work (e.g., it has been made
into a film), among other reasons.
Case of Two
Literary
Giants
William Shakespeare Rabindranath Tagore
 William Shakespeare
Can you identify at least one play by William Shakespeare? You can perhaps

identify at least one title of the thirty-seven plays attributed to Shakespeare.

The ability of Filipino students to identify a work by Shakespeare is

something that we tend to take for granted, but this requires more

pondering. Why do the playwright Shakespeare and his dramatic works

remain in the collective consciousness of Filipinos some four centuries after

the "Bard of Avon" died? Why are Filipinos interested in Shakespeare and his

works when he wrote for his contemporaries, the Elizabethans, and had no

notion of our islands during the playwright's lifetime?

William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's works endure in our collective consciousness because Shakespeare has always

been a staple in our education, in English and literature subjects.

There are even many translations of Shakespeare's plays into Filipino by scholars such as

National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera, Rolando Tinio, and Ron Capinding.
Rabindranath Tagore
Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore, a contemporary of Jose Rizal. Tagore is a multi-talented

artist who wrote an array of novels, poems, plays, and stories in his native Bengali language.

He acted in theater and composed music. Ian Jack described Tagore as "a fine essayist; an

educationist who founded a university; an opponent of terrorism that then plagued Bengal; a

secularist amid religious divisions; an agricultural improver and ecologist; a critical

nationalist." For someone who was a literary trailblazer in his country, in Asia and the World,

it appears that some 150 years after Tagore's death, not many people outside of his ethnic

group are reading him.

"Rabindranath Tagore was a global
phenomenon, so why is he
neglected?" Why indeed?
 History of World Literature

Classical Defined broadly as It reflected the

literature refers to any work written notion of
the great in Latin or the individualism and
The earliest masterpieces of vernacular between rejected more
The Early Modern traditional values.
written literature d Greek, Roman, and c. 476-1500 CE,
ates from about other ancient Medieval English period precedes the
2600 BCE civilizations. literature begins with development of
(classical Beowulf (7th-10th the modern novel in
Sumerian) century CE). the 18th century.
 Four Historical Periods
Classical (900 to Hellenistic (323 B.C. – 146 Greco-Roman (146 B.C. – Byzantine Period (395-

323B.C.) B.C.) 395 A.D.) 1453 A.D.)

• • • •

• •

•
CLASSICAL ➢

GREEK
LITERATURE ➢

➢
CLASSICAL
➢
GREEK
LITERATURE
➢

➢
 Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

• • • •

•
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

•
EUROPEAN
LITERATURE ➢

➢
The Dream of the Rood

•
Inferno by Dante Alighieri

•
INDIAN
LITERATURE

➢
Ramayana

•
CHINESE
LITERATURE ➢

➢
 FIVE CONFUCIAN CLASSICS

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

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

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

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

“The Spring, Autumn

Annals,“

a chronicle of the state of

Lu; and the attached Zuo
Commentary.
 FOUR BOOKS

The Great Learning Analects Mencius Doctrine of the

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

➢
AFRICA by David Diop

•
 WORDS OF INSPIRATION

The world of literature is a

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