Examines "the greatest works of world literature, from the Iliad to Don Quixote to The Great Gatsby. Around 100 ... articles explore landmark novels, short stories, plays, and poetry that reinvented the art of writing in their time, whether Ancient Greece, post-classical Europe, or modern-day Korea"--Amazon.com.

The 700-year history of the novel in English defies straightforward telling. Geographically and culturally diverse, with contributions from Great Britain, Ireland, America, Canada, Australia, India, the Caribbean, and Southern Africa, influenced by great novelists working in other languages, and encompassing a range of genres, the story of the novel in English unfolds like a richly varied landscape that invites exploration rather than a linear journey....

Heaney's ten lectures as Professor of Poetry at Oxford, collected here in “The Redress of Poetry”, explore the poetry of a wide range of writers, from Christopher Marlowe to John Clare to Oscar Wilde. Whether he concentrates on moments in the works under discussion, or is concerned to advance his general subject, Heaney's insight and eloquence are themselves of poetic order.

What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey?. Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface -- a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or

In this mischievous book, a #3 bestseller in France that's racking up press coverage and rights sales around the world, literature professor Bayard contends that in this age of infinite publication, the truly cultivated person is not the one who has read a book, but the one who understands the book's place in our culture