Macon State College • ENGL 2111
World Literature 1, explores various forms of non-English “literary” discourse since the first epic, through the mid-seventeenth century. We will focus on textual studies of the major genres of this period, epic and tragedy, how those genres influenced later literary works, and how they portray “humanist” issues throughout the history of several national literary traditions.
World Literature 1 will show the continued relevance of just why ancient works are still paramount to knowing ourselves as “humans.” Major works covered could include the epics Gilgamesh, the Iliad, and the Odyssey; tragedies by Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, and Aristophanes; rhetoric by Aristotle, Plato, and Cicero; poetry by Ovid and Dante; and works by Machiavelli. Since any survey course has much more literature than one semester-long class can cover, we will attempt to cover only a couple works in detail, rather than many works only cursorily.
