The Longman anthology of world literature / edited by David Damrosch [and six others]

Includes bibliographical references and index

List of Illustrations -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- About the Editors -- The Medieval Era -- Timeline -- CROSSCURRENTS: Contact, Conflict, Conversion -- Medieval China -- Women in Early China -- Poetry of the Tang Dynasty -- PERSPECTIVES: What Is Literature? -- The Song Lyric -- Japan -- PERSPECTIVES: Courtly Women -- Noh: Drama of Ghosts, Memories, and Salvation -- Classical Arabic and Islamic Literatures -- Pre-Islamic Poetry -- PERSPECTIVES: Poetry, Wine, and Love -- PERSPECTIVES: Asceticism, Sufism, and Wisdom -- Medieval Europe -- PERSPECTIVES: Iberia, The Meeting of Three Worlds -- PERSPECTIVES: The Art of Love -- PERSPECTIVES: Theology and Mysticism -- Bibliography -- Credits -- Index.

Our world today is both expanding and growing smaller at the same time. Expanding, through a tremendous increase in the range of cultures that actively engage with each other; and yet growing smaller as well as new kinds of tensions, miscommunications, and uncertainties. Both the opportunities and the uncertainties are amply illustrated in the changing shape of world literature. A generation ago, when the term "world literature" was used in North America, it largely meant masternetworks by European writers from Homer onward, together with a few favored North American writers, heirs to the Europeans. Today, however, it is generally recognized that Europe is only part of the story of the world's literatures, and only part of the story of North America's cultural heritage. An extraordinary range of exciting material is now in view, from the earliest Sumerian lyrics inscribed on clay tablets to the latest Kashmiri poetry circulated on the Internet. Many new worlds—and newly visible older worlds of classical traditions around the globe—await us today. -- Preface