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History of World Literature

Grant L. Voth, Ph.D. Professor, Monterey Peninsula College

Course No. 2300

4.8
(88)88 reviews
96% would recommend
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Grant L. Voth, Ph.D.

No idea of any single culture will ever capture the entire human sense of god, or creation, or the hero; and to get a more complete human picture, we have to look at the myths of many cultures.

InstitutionMonterey Peninsula College

Alma materPurdue University

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Course Overview

In The History of World Literature, you'll sample brilliant masterpieces that reflect humanity's deep need for self-expression. It's a journey that will take you through time and around the world-from the enormous auditoriums of Ancient Greece, to the dazzling courts of Classical China and Japan, to the prison camps of...

48 Lectures

Average 31 minutes each

Humankind has always sought to understand its existence through stories. In this opening lecture, Professor Voth provides a preview of the literary journey to come, and begins to define the relationship between history and literature.
In this lecture, we examine one of the world's oldest literary works. This ancient poem combines a heroic story of a legendary king with a spiritual quest about coming to terms with the inevitability of mortality.
Blending literature, history, and theology, the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh) is perhaps one of the most important books ever written. We explore some of the unique elements of this sacred literary text, including its introduction of the concept of monotheism.
Through a consideration of Homer's classic poem about the fall of Troy, Professor Voth defines the key elements of the epic and examines how the poem expresses ancient Greek views of heroism and individual honor.
Our consideration of the epic continues with the Odyssey, which follows the 10-year journey of the warrior Odysseus after the end of the Trojan War.
This lecture features a lyric poem and two prose works that demonstrate how early Chinese literature differed from contemporary works from Mesopotamia, Israel, and Greece.
By the 5th century B.C.E., Greek theater had entered a golden age, producing plays that would set a standard of excellence for centuries to come. In this lecture, we explore the three greatest Greek playwrights: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
When Virgil (70–19 B.C.E.) set out to write a national Roman epic poem, he took as his model the classic epics of Ancient Greece. Professor Voth illuminates the ways that Virgil both imitated and adapted the epic to express the values of his own culture.
At seven times the combined length of the Iliad and Odyssey, the Mahabharata may be the longest epic poem in the world. In this lecture, we examine one episode of this enormous work, the Bhagavad Gita, which offers a Hindu meditation on the meaning of life.
Like the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament can be read as history, literature, and theology. This lecture examines how the various parts of this seminal text reflect the goals of their different authors and the needs of their particular audiences.
In this lecture, Professor Voth compares the Germanic saga Beowulf with the other heroic epics studied in the course thus far. The poem also provides an opportunity to explore the variety of interpretations that can be made about a single literary work.
We move from epic poetry to prose as we explore the rich narrative strategies of Indian stories in three collections: Jataka (Story of a Birth) , the Pañcatantra (The Five Books or the Five Strategies) , and the Kathasaritsagara (Ocean of the Rivers of Story) .
China achieved one of its Golden Ages during the T'ang period (618–907 C.E.), which included a rich tradition of poetry. This lecture examines three T'ang poets to illustrate the deeply personal aesthetic of Chinese poetics.
While Japanese poetry is indebted to Chinese models, it also boasts some unique features. Using several examples, Professor Voth outlines the key features of the Japanese aesthetic, which include irregular verse styles, simplicity, and the theme of transience.
Written by a Japanese lady-in-waiting during the 11th century C.E., The Tale of Genji is believed to be the first novel in literary history. This complex tale presents a new kind of hero, for whom taste and sensitivity count for more than prowess on the battlefield.
Considered the greatest poem in the Western world, Dante's Divine Comedy traces the allegorical journey of a pilgrim from the depths of hell through purgatory and into heaven. We examine key features and interpretations of the first part of Dante's masterwork: Inferno.
Borrowing techniques from Boccaccio's Decameron, Geoffrey Chaucer narrates a variety of tales through a frame story about 30 travelers who tell stories during a pilgrimage to England's Canterbury Cathedral.
In this lecture, we again consider the narrative technique of the "frame story": a work which includes within it many recounted tales. Complex and encyclopedic, 1001 Nights serves as a crossroads where stories from many different cultures meet.
Based in history and enhanced by legend and folklore, Monkey tells the story of a Chinese monk on a journey to India, accompanied by fabulous creatures, the most important of which is Monkey, one of the great creations in literature.
Based in history and enhanced by legend and folklore, Monkey tells the story of a Chinese monk on a journey to India, accompanied by fabulous creatures, the most important of which is Monkey, one of the great creations in literature.
After a brief account of drama in other cultures, Professor Voth considers Shakespeare's place in English drama, focusing on his use of language. A closer look at a famous speech from Macbeth serves to illustrate the Bard's mastery of poetic language.
While not the first novel in history, Don Quixote is one of the first in the Western world and has been by far the most influential. This lecture explores Cervantes' revolutionary use of prose to present a realistic view of life that contrasted to the popular romances of his day.
This lecture opens with a consideration of the values and dramatic style of the Neoclassical Age (c.1660–1770) in Western literature. A master of theatrical comedy, French playwright Molière used the drama to point out society's foibles.
Why does suffering exist? Why are people prey to human cruelty and natural disasters? In Candide, Voltaire seeks to answer these questions.
Recounting the story of an aristocratic family in decline, The Story of the Stone is simultaneously a Buddhist-Taoist meditation on the illusory nature of existence and a gripping and detailed novel of personal relationships.
Goethe's Faust is a new version of a story dating back to the 16th century, when the historical Faustus lived. In Goethe's version, Faust becomes the ultimate Romantic hero—one who strives to express his own will and experience all life has to offer.
Brontë's story about the passionate love between Catherine and Heathcliff is perhaps one of the best loved 19th-century novels. In this lecture, we explore the relationship of the novel to Romanticism and discuss Brontë's use of competing narrative perspectives.
Alexander Pushkin is usually considered Russia's national poet—the equivalent of Shakespeare in England. In Eugene Onegin, he employed a complicated poetic form to create a witty novel-in-verse that satirizes Romantic excesses.
An ordinary story about ordinary people told with detachment and objectivity, Flaubert's tale of a bored housewife living in a French provincial town marks a turning point in literature: the rise of Realism.
Unappreciated in its own day, Notes from Underground serves as an excellent introduction to Dostoevsky's later novels. Through his unnamed narrator, the Russian novelist voiced the desire to rebel against the increasingly mass-produced culture of modern life.
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain allowed a vernacular, regional character to tell his own story. In this lecture, we explore Twain's narrative achievement and the societal questions raised by his classic travel tale.
After a brief consideration of Emily Dickinson's solitary life and writing career, we turn to the techniques that characterize her remarkable poetry: the use of common meter stanza form, unconventional punctuation, and grammatical density.
In this lecture, we examine the works of two very different Realist playwrights. For Ibsen, Realism entailed bringing to the stage contemporary people and social concerns. For Chekhov, it required discarding the standard forms of the "well-made play" for a more realistic imitation of life.
Absorbing the influence of Realist authors, Tagore adapted this literary style to reflect life in his native India. Through his short stories and poems, he criticized those who exploited the caste system, suppressed women, and benefited from the sufferings of the poor.
Although she had no exposure to Western Realism, Ichiyo pioneered a Japanese version of this literary movement in "Child's Play," her novella about children living in and around the pleasure district of Edo (modern-day Tokyo).
In this elegiac novel, Proust sought to reject Realism and recreate the novel as an exploration of personal impressions. Influential to later writers, Proust's novel took a revolutionary approach by attempting to capture life as it is experienced.
In a context of experimentation in all of the arts, we consider the contribution of James Joyce's Dubliners to the modern short story, focusing on Joyce's device of the epiphany, or revelation.
In this lecture, we consider the bleak, darkly comic work of Franz Kafka. In "The Metamorphosis," a man wakes up to find that he has been transformed into a gigantic insect—an absurd premise that reflects the alienation of modern life.
This lecture discusses the rebellion against Realism in drama exemplified in the work of Luigi Pirandello. In Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello created a world in which fictional characters argue that they are more "real" than living human beings.
Bertolt Brecht continued the rebellion against Realism by using theatrical techniques to create a critical distance between audience and play. An examination of The Good Woman demonstrates how Brecht used this technique to critique capitalist society.
Written in response to Russia's Yezhov Terror of 1937 and 1938, the poem Requiem describes a sick society in which the poet must speak for voiceless victims everywhere. Professor Voth explores the aesthetic and historical contexts that helped shape this poem.
Adapting Western techniques to suit Japanese sensibilities, Yasunari created a Modernist work, using such techniques as a disciplined point of view and stream-of-consciousness in his story of a detached man and his love for two women.
Using the short stories "A Rose for Emily" and "Wash," in addition to the novel As I Lay Dying, Professor Voth examines the literary achievements of William Faulkner, an author who sought to capture the "whole truth" of life in all its comedic, grotesque, and heroic glory.
The Arabs did not really have a novel tradition until the 20th century. In his career, Arab writer Naguib Mahfouz encompassed all of the novelistic traditions, from historical romances to Realist novels to experimental narratives.
Achebe's novel is a reaction against Western novelistic depictions of Africans, exemplified in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. In this lecture, we examine this tale of a native people, the Igbo, and their heroic but flawed leader Okonkwo.
In this lecture, we take up our first Postmodernist writer, Samuel Beckett. His works, including Endgame, Waiting for Godot, and Happy Days, illustrate Beckett's view that humankind lives in an absurd world which provides no clear definition of life's meaning.
Our examination of Postmodernism continues with Jorge Luis Borges, whose comic, often magical stories attempt to express the untranslatable gap between reality and the human constructions of logic and language.
The final lecture considers Salman Rushdie's children's book about the importance of stories in our lives, and it closes with William Faulkner's idea that stories are one of the ways in which humans can not only endure, but may even prevail.

What's Included?

Instant Audio

$299.95$44.95

  • Download 48 audio lectures to your computer or mobile app
  • Downloadable PDF of the course guidebook
  • FREE audio streaming of the course from our website and mobile apps

DVD

$599.95$89.95

  • 48 lectures on 8 DVDs
  • 304-page printed course guidebook
  • Downloadable PDF of the course guidebook

Reviews

88 Reviews This action will navigate to reviews.
96% of reviewers recommend

Reviews

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  1. 2 out of 5 stars.

    Narration is Monotonous and Boring

    I'm quite sure this course would be good in transcript form, but Voth's voice is excruciating. It just drones on and on with no inflection or cadence. I cannot believe no one seems to have mentioned this in any of the reviews. I'm guessing Voth isn't a big hit at parties. Is there a transcript for this course?

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  2. 5 out of 5 stars.

    Excellent Plus

    Excellent Plus. For a STEM-oriented reader of mostly non-fiction works, this course was a revelation. Favorite lectures: #11 Beowulf; #16 Inferno, from Dante’s Devine Comedy; #22 Cervantes’s Don Quixote; # 23 Molière’s Plays; #24 Voltaire’s Candide; #28 Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin; #29 Flaubert’s Madam Bovary; and #43 Faulkner –Two Stories and a Novel. As lecturers go, Prof. Voth is first-class: insightful and well organized. This course is definitely worth one’s time. HWF & ISF, Mesa AZ.

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  3. 5 out of 5 stars.

    one of the best

    this guy has a exceptional talent to be entertaining and come to the point. wonderful!

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  4. 5 out of 5 stars.

    Great Course, I also got in DVD format

    I listened to the audio version of this first since I didn't get the DVD format till later, and just finished the audio version recently. I loved the literary topics he spoke about, from some of the first stories about Gilgamesh and the Bible to the 20th Century with Rushdie. I think I've not given the Classics a chance and may have to go back and add them to my to-be-read list. If for no other reason, this Professor has inspired me by his obvious delight and enthusiasm for the books he breathes new life into and made them sound interesting enough to give them a go. I'm definitely going to be watching the DVD version of this course because it's worth re-listening/watching again.

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  5. 5 out of 5 stars.

    I have purchased over 200 courses in the past 20 years and this ranks in the top ten!

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  6. 5 out of 5 stars.

    Fabulous course

    If I could give it 10, I would have. It is a very mesmerizing course. At times it becomes heavy; needs a lot of concentration at times, specially if one listens to it while biking or in the gym.

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  7. 5 out of 5 stars.

    Very interesting!

    Professor Voth is very informative and a fine presenter. I learned a lot from this course,
    about books I had read, books I had heard of, and books entirely new to me. Professor Voth notes at the end that the books are like a Whitman's sampler. Pick one out and try it.
    The Course Guidebook is comprehensive and excellent. After finishing the course, I am only getting started with Voth's sampler.

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  8. 5 out of 5 stars.

    What an accomplishment !

    This course is simply marvelous. Prof Voth is engaging and well spoken, and each lecture is a joy to listen to. He brings the stories in these books to life, and his vignettes of the authors' lives and situations enrich the tales and encourage the listener to read the whole book. I will be looking for additional courses by Prof Voth. If I could rate the course a "10", I would do so.

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1–8 of 88 Reviews  

Questions & Answers

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Questions

1–10 of 13 Questions  

  1. Is this course available for video streaming?  DVD is rapidly becoming obsolete.

    1 answer

    1. Hello,

      Thank you for your question.

      No, this course is not available for video streaming. It is available for audio streaming, however, with the Instant Audio format.

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  2. Is this available on You Tube?

    1 answer

    1. Hello,

      Thank you for your question.

      No, this course is not available on YouTube.

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  3. Does this course have closed captions or subtitles?

    1 answer

    1. Hello!

      Thank you for your question.

      No, this course does not have closed captions.

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  4. Would this be appropriate for a 9th grade high school freshman ? (Homeschool) 

    1 answer

    1. Our courses are produced for adults, but can be enjoyed by learners of all ages. Professor Voth offers a guide to appreciating the diversity of forms literature has taken around the world, while also focusing on transcendent themes that appear across cultures. This course is a great primer for someone who is knowledgeable about Western literature and wants to branch out, or someone looking for an overall literary introduction. Please compare the lecture list to your specific curriculum requirements.

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  5. If I buy the Instant Audio of a course, can I listen to it again and again or does it have a limited number of times I can listen to it??

    1 answer

    1. I apologize for the delay in answering. You can listen to the course as many times and you like, forever! No time limits.

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  6. Would watching the entire course spoil the works of literature covered if you eventually plan to read them?

    1 answer

    1. No, it will help you understand them better.

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  7. hello, I would like to buy this lecture /History of World literature/ I will listen to the audio file and reading together. Is it the same?

    1 answer

    1. The Guidebook contains a summary of each lecture, not a word-for-word transcription of each lecture. We do not have a Transcript Book for this course.

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  8. I had Dr. Voth in my Freshman year at NIU Dekalb in the 70s. He worked with a Dr. Johnson. Great team. I have enjoyed viewing Dr. Voth once more. He has a universal mind and delivers great lectures I would like to talk with him? aomilligan@dmacc.edu

    1 answer

    1. Please write an email to him, forward it to customerservice@teachco.com and ask them to forward it to Dr. Voth.

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  9. Does the video format have worthwhile images to justify the visual premuium, or is it just the professor standing at the lectern talking?

    1 answer

    1. You are primarily watching the professor lecture, but the course has hundreds of images such as illustrations, images of people and events and on-screen text to enhance the learning experience. However, none of the images are necessary to understand the material, so if you prefer the lower-priced audio, you will be fine.

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  10. Is this available on Great Courses Plus?

    1 answer

    1. No, it is not. We do not have the rights to show the 3rd party intellectual property (illustrations, portraits, images, etc.)shown in the course in a paid video streaming service like TGCPlus.

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