general information on the lectures

Every week, in addition to the novels, stories, poems, etc. that you are assigned, you are required to read the lecture material for that week. I recommend you read it early, even before you read the fiction; it will often give you some ideas to look for as you are reading. But if you fear that reading about the works in advance will spoil the surprise, you are welcome to read them after reading the fiction.

Some weeks the lectures go beyond one page; in those cases you will find "continue" links at the bottoms of those lecture pages. Be sure to read all of the lecture pages for the week. They will give you some new perspectives, some possible insights, some clues that will help you in your discussions and essay assignments.

the links

Use the links below to get to the lecture you want.

Lecture 1: Introduction to World Literature

Lecture 2: Myths

Lecture 3: Heroes

Lecture 4: Greek Epics (i)

Lecture 5: Greek Epics (ii)

Lecture 6: Greek drama

Lecture 7: Greek comedy

Lecture 8: The Roman epic

Lecture 9: The Decline of Rome

Lecture 10: The Middle Ages (i)

Lecture 11: The Middle Ages (ii)

Lecture 12: The Renaissance

Lecture 13: The Modern Hero (i

Lecture 14: The Modern Hero (ii)

You can also get to each week's lecture(s) from the course schedule page.