World Literature Course: Your Guide to Becoming Very Well Read

Do you really love to read? Do you want to be very widely read and understand key texts, literary movements and historical contexts in World Literature? Then this is the course for you.

This World Literature course is from a historicist perspective, it examines texts from across the world and from ancient times to the present day in their historical, political, philosophical and cultural contexts. After the course you will have a thorough knowledge of world literature and be able to discuss literature with the literati.

I am Eve Williams, a lecturer at the C.S. Lewis Literary Festival in Belfast. I hold a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from the Queen's University of Belfast (a Russell International Excellence Group University) and have taught at the Institute of Lifelong Learning at Queen's University, as well as being a writer and professional lyricist. I'm looking forward to being your guide through World Literature.

We will learn about:

• Greek and Roman mythology, history and epic poetry which still influences literature and popular culture today.
• The influence of the Bible on texts ranging from Dryden's Absalom and Achiptophel to Steinbeck's East of Eden to Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
• The growth of the Arthurian myths
• Fairy tales (they weren't always for children)
• Key authors from different time periods in Europe, North and Latin America, Australia, Africa, the Far East and Asia.
  

Writers include Homer, Virgil, Malory, Dryden, Steinbeck, Cervantes, Dante, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Harper Lee, L.M. Montgomery, Margaret Atwood, Jeannie Gunn, Machado de Assis, Juana Inés de la Cruz, José Martí, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Kofi Anoonor, Confucius, Kim Young-ha, Roma Tearne, Monica Ali, Rabindranath Tagore and many more.

This course is an epic journey with alot to discover on the way.