A Companion to World Literature

2021 PROSE Finalist Single and Multivolume Reference, & Textbooks in the Humanities

A Companion to World Literature is a far-reaching and sustained study of key authors, texts, and topics from around the world and throughout history. Six comprehensive volumes present essays from over 300 prominent international scholars focusing on many aspects of this vast and burgeoning field of literature, from its ancient origins to the most modern narratives.

Almost by definition, the texts of world literature are unfamiliar; they stretch our hermeneutic circles, thrust us before unfamiliar genres, modes, forms, and themes. They require a greater degree of attention and focus, and in turn engage our imagination in new ways. This Companion explores texts within their particular cultural context, as well as their ability to speak to readers in other contexts, demonstrating the ways in which world literature can challenge parochial world views by identifying cultural commonalities.

Each unique volume includes introductory chapters on a variety of theoretical viewpoints that inform the field, followed by essays considering the ways in which authors and their books contribute to and engage with the many visions and variations of world literature as a genre.

Explores how texts, tropes, narratives, and genres reflect nations, languages, cultures, and periodsLinks world literary theory and texts in a clear, synoptic styleIdentifies how individual texts are influenced and affected by issues such as intertextuality, translation, and sociohistorical conditionsPresents a variety of methodologies to demonstrate how modern scholars approach the study of world literature A significant addition to the field, A Companion to World Literature provides advanced students, teachers, and researchers with cutting-edge scholarship in world literature and literary theory.