21st century

• World literature


  Too wide and difficult to explore and build on
• The range of the term "world" is as huge as the geographic entity itself
• Worldview


  A way of comprehending reality
• African literature


  The literary works of African writers in English
• Chinua Achebe


  Nigerian writer known for his novel "Things Fall Apart"
• "Things Fall Apart" (1958) is considered as the best-known African novel of the 20th Century
• Things Fall Apart


  The life of Okonkwo. His struggle with his father's reputation, the standards of masculinity, and the cultural practices of his clan all mirror the hardships and eventual destruction of his clan. Chinua Achebe provides a broad view of Igbo culture.
• Wole Soyinka


  Nigerian writer who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, becoming the first black African to receive such award
• Wole Soyinka wrote the satire "A Dance of the Forests" (1963), his first important play that depicts the tradition of his people, the Yoruba
• Nadine Gordimer was known for her works that dealt with the effects of apartheid on her country
• Apartheid


  A system in which people of color had less political and economic rights than that of the white people, so the former was forced to live separately from the latter
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie


  Nigerian writer known for her widely-acclaimed novels "Purple Hibiscus" (2003), "Half of a Yellow Sun" (2006), and "Americanah" (2013), all of which won awards
• Purple Hibiscus


  A novel about two teenagers, Kambili and Jaja Achike, growing up in a household under the rule of their devoutly Christian father and against the backdrop of political and social unrest in Nigeria
• Chinese literature


  This body of works is in Chinese. It has more than 50,000 published works in a wide range of topics
• Du Fu


  Chinese poet and politician during the Tang dynasty, considered as China's greatest poet, known for his works of lushi
• Lushi


  A form of Chinese poetry with eight lines, each of which has five or seven syllables following a strict tonal pattern, widely popular during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE)
• Li Bai


  Also called Li Po, rivaled Du Fu for the title of China's greatest poet, wrote less formal verse forms, frequently celebrated drinking in his poetry
• The Tang Dynasty was lauded as China's "golden age", epitomized by its economic, social, and political stability, a flourishing artistic and literary culture, and increasing interaction with the outside world
• Japanese literature


  This body of works is mostly in Japanese, except the early writings which were written in Chinese
• Kakinomoto Hitomaro


  Japan's first literary figure, known for his works of tanka and choka
• Tanka


  The basic form of Japanese poetry, has five lines in a five-seven-five seven-seven syllable pattern
• Choka


  A form of Japanese poetry with alternating lines of five and seven syllables and ends with an extra line of seven syllables, has no definite length and can have from seven lines to 150
• Matsuo Basho


  Regarded as the supreme haiku poet, emerged from the early Tokugawa period (1603-1770), the haiku is composed of three lines of a renga, a poem usually with a hundred linked verses
• Basho's verses appear with his travel accounts like The Narrow Road to the Deep North (1694)
• Mahabharata


  An Indian epic written in Sanskrit, the longest poem in history with about 100,000 couplets, traditionally ascribed to an Indian sage named Vyasa, regarded by Hindus as both a text about dharna (the Hindu moral law) and a history
• Bhagavadgita


  The most celebrated episode of the Mahabharata, gives spiritual guidance
• Sanskrit


  A standardized dialect of Old Indo-Aryan, originating as Vedic Sanskrit as early as 1700-1200 BCE
• Ramayana


  Another Indian epic in Sanskrit, shorter than Mahabharata with some 24,000 couplets, traditionally regarded as authored by the sage Valmiki
• Panchatantra


  A collection of Indian animal fables, originally written in Sanskrit, a mixture of prose and verse, the stories are attributed to Vishnusharman, a learned Brahmin
• English literature is one of the richest, most developed, and most important bodies of literature in the world. It encompasses both written and spoken works by writers from the United Kingdom.
• Old English Literature (600-1100)

  The earliest form of English language, spoken by the Anglo-Saxons, a Germanic tribe living in Britain during the fifth century
• One significant work written in Old English

  • Beowulf, the longest epic poem in Old English
• Beowulf


  • It tells the story of the Scandinavian hero Beowulf, who gains fame as a young man by vanquishing the monster Grendel and Grendel's mother; later, as an aging king, he kills a dragon but dies soon after, honoured and lamented
• Kennings


  Phrases or compound words used to name persons, places, and things indirectly
• Middle English Literature (1100-1500)


  A blend of Old English and Norman French (the French dialect spoken by Normans – people from Normandy)
• Elizabeth Literature (1558-1603)


  The golden age of English Literature and the golden age of drama
• The Romantic Period (1800 – 1837)


  The golden age of lyric poetry, where poetry became the expression of poet's personal feelings and emotions
• The Victorian Period (1837 – 1900)


  The period when the rise of novel was noticed
• Charles Dickens' Great Expectations


  • A rich and lively novel, centering on the life of Pip, an orphan who, thanks to a generous patron, is given 'great expectations' of becoming a gentleman
• Bildungsroman


  A novel dealing with one person's formative years or spiritual education