Volume A. I.

Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern literature. Great hymn to the Aten -- Babylonian creation epic (Enuma Elish) -- Hesiod from theogony and works and days -- Early Greek philosophy -- Lucretius, from On the Nature of Things -- Ancient Egyptian literature. Tale of Sinuhe -- Egyptian love poems -- Setne Khamwas and Naneferkaptah (Setne 1) -- Stela of Taimhotep -- Epic of Gilgamesh -- Hebrew Bible -- Homer -- Aesop -- Sappho -- Ancient Athenian drama. Agamemnon / Aeschylus -- Oedipus the king ; Antigone / Sophocles -- Medea / Euripides -- Lysistrata / Aristophanes -- Symposium / Plato -- Poems / Catullus -- Aeneid / Virgil --

Metamorphoses /

Ovid --

II.

India's ancient epics and tales. Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki -- Mahabharata -- Bhagavad-Gītā -- Jātaka -- Early Chinese literature and thought. Classic of poetry --

from

Analects / Confucius -- Daodejing / Laozi -- Songs of the South -- Zhuangzi

Volume B. I.

Circling the Mediterranean : Europe and the Islamic world. Christian Bible : the New Testament Gospels -- Golden ass / Apuleius -- Confessions / Augustine -- Qur'an -- Beowulf -- Shahnameh (Book of Kings) / Abolqasem Ferdowsi --

from

Song of Roland -- Scholar's guide / Petrus Alfonsi -- Marie de France --

from

Conference of the birds / Farid Ud-Din Attar -- Jalal Ad-Din Muhammad Rumi -- Dante Alighieri -- Glory of kings / Kebra Nagast -- Thousand and one nights --

from

Decameron / Giovanni Boccaccio --

from

Canterbury Tales / Geoffrey Chaucer -- Sir Gawain and the green knight -- Book of the city of ladies / Christine de Pizan --

II.

India's classic age. Pañcatantra / Viṣṇuśarman -- Śakuntalā and the ring of recollection / Kālidāsa -- Classical Sanskrit lyric --

from

Kathāsaristsāgara / Somadeva --

III.

Medieval China. Tao Qian -- Hanshan -- Tang poetry -- Story of Yingying / Yuan Zhen --

from

Records on metal and stone ; Song lyrics / Li Qingzhao --

IV.

Japan's classical age. Man'yōshū (Collection of myriad leaves) -- Poetry of the Heian court --

from

Tosa diary / Ki No Tsurayuki --

from

Pillow book / Sei Shōnagon --

from

Tale of Genji / Murasaki Shikibu -- An account of a ten-foot-square hut / Kamo No Chōmei -- Tales of the Heike

Volume C. I.

Encounters with Islam. Sunjata : a West African epic of the Mande peoples -- Book of Dede Korkut --

from

Book of travels / Evliya C̦elebi -- Indian poetry after Islam --

II.

Europe and the new world. Humanism and the rediscovery of the classical past -- Petrarch and the love lyric -- Prince / Niccolo Machiavelli -- Orlando Furioso / Ludovico Ariosto -- Utopia / Thomas More -- Heptameron / Marguerite de Navarre -- Abencerraje / Anonymous -- Essays / Michel de Montaigne -- Don Quixote / Miguel de Cervantes -- Popol Vuh -- Encounter of Europe and the new world -- Fuenteovejuna / Lope de Vega -- Hamlet, Prince of Denmark / William Shakespeare -- God, Church, and self -- Paradise lost / John Milton

Volume D. I.

East Asian drama. Atsumori / Zeami Motokiyo --

from

Peach blossom fan / Kong Shangren --

from

Love suicides at Amijima / Chikamatsu Monzaemon --

from

Song of Ch'un-Hyang --

II.

Enlightenment in Europe and the Americas. What is enlightenment? -- Tartuffe / Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) -- Oroonoko; or, The royal slave / Aphra Behn --

from

Response of the poet to the very eminent Sor Filotea de la Cruz ; Sonnets ; Redondilla / Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz --

from

Gulliver's travels ; A modest proposal / Jonathan Swift --

The rape of the lock ;

An essay on man / Alexander Pope -- Candide, or Optimism / Voltaire --

III.

Literatures of early modern East Asia.

from

Journey to the West / Wu Cheng'en --

from

Story of the stone / Cao Xueqin -- Tale of Hon Kiltong / Hŏ Kyun -- Lady Hyegyŏng --

from

Life of a sensuous woman / Ihara Saikaku -- World of haiku

Volume E. I.

An age of revolutions in Europe and the Americas. Revolutionary contexts -- Confessions / Jean-Jacques Rosseau --

from

Interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, written by himself / Olaudah Equiano -- Faust / Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -- Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass / Frederick Douglass -- Romantic poets and their successors --

II.

At the crossroads of empire.

from

Tale of Kiêu / Nguyên Du -- Ghalib --

from

Travels of Lao Can / Liu E -- Married life ; Legal rights / Pandita Ramabai -- Letter to Major von Wissmann / Machemba --

from

King Leopold's soliloquy / Mark Twain -- Poetry and politics --

III.

Realism across the world. Notes from underground / Fyodor Dostoyevsky -- A simple heart / Gustave Flaubert -- Death of Ivan Ilyich / Leo Tolstoy -- Hedda Gabler / Henrik Ibsen -- Cane / Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis -- Unclaimed watch / José López Portillo y Rojas -- Cherry orchard ; Lady with the dog / Anton Chekhov -- Punishment ; Kabuliwala / Rabindranath Tagore -- Separate ways / Higuchi Ichiyō -- Orature

Volume F. I.

Modernity and modernism, 1900-1945. Heart of darkness / Joseph Conrad -- Death in Venice / Thomas Mann -- Swann's way / Marcel Proust -- Dead / James Joyce -- Metamorphosis / Franz Kafka -- Diary of a madman ; Ah Q - the real story / Lu Xun -- Six characters in search of an author / Luigi Pirandello -- In a bamboo grove / Akutagawa Ryūnosuke -- Dancing girl of Izu / Kawabata Yasunari --

from

A room of one's own / Virginia Woolf -- Barn burning ; Spotted horses / William Faulkner -- Memoirs of a declining Ryukyuan woman ; In defense of "Memoirs of a declining Ryukyuan woman" / Kushi Fusako -- An old and established name / Lao She -- My innocent uncle / Ch'ae Man-Sik -- Garden of forking paths ; Library of Babel / Jorge Luis Borges -- Good woman of Setzuan / Bertolt Brecht -- Sealed off / Zhang Ailing -- Modern poetry -- Manifestos --

II.

Postwar and postcolonial literature, 1945-1968. House taken over / Julio Cortázar -- This way for the gas, ladies and gentlemen / Tadeusz Borowski -- Deathfugue ; Zurich, at the stork / Paul Celan -- Old chief Mshlanga / Doris Lessing -- Notes of a native son / James Baldwin -- Guest / Albert Camus -- Endgame / Samuel Beckett -- Vane sisters / Vladimir Nabokov -- Daydreams of a drunk woman / Clarice Lispector -- Chike's school days / Chinua Achebe -- Aura / Carlos Fuentes -- Matryona's home / Alexander Solzhenitsyn -- Zaabalawi / Naguib Mahfouz --

III.

Contemporary world literature.

Yehuda Amichai --

Derek Walcott -- Seamus Heaney -- Death constant beyond love / Gabriel García Márquez -- Two sisters / Ama Ata Aidoo -- Yellow woman / Leslie Marmon Silko -- Wedding at the cross / Ngugi Wa Thiong'o -- Death and the king's horseman / Wole Soyinka -- Deep river / Bessie Head -- In camera / Nawal el Saadawi -- Clever rain tree / Ōe Kenzaburō -- Perforated sheet / Salman Rushdie -- Girl / Jamaica Kincaid --

from

Mother's hitching post / Park Wansuh -- Women's swimming pool / Hanan Al-Shaykh -- Recitatif / Toni Morrison -- Old gun / Mo Yan -- On the road at eighteen / Yu Hua -- General retires / Nguyen Huy Thiep -- And of clay are we created / Isabelle Allende -- Man of La Mancha / Chu T'ien-Hsin -- Drown / Junot Díaz -- Sensini / Roberto Bolaño -- To look out the window / Orhan Pamuk -- Headstrong historian / Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie