The Literature of Pilgrimage

Travel is another theme that seems particularly fruitful for world literature classes at any point in the academic spectrum. One could pose significant cross-cultural questions by prefacing study of the pilgrimage texts richly represented in The Norton Anthology of World Literature, second edition, with these two studies of the topic: Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives (1978), and Anthony Yu, "Two Literary Examples of Religious Pilgrimage: The Commedia and The Journey to the West," History of Religions 22, no. 3 (Feb. 1983): 202–30.

Homer, The Odyssey
Han-shan, Cold Mountain poems
Attar, The Conference of the Birds
Dante, The Divine Comedy
Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
Kanze, Dōjōji
Wu Ch‘eng-en, Monkey
Saikaku, The Barrelmaker Brimful of Love
Bashō, The Narrow Road of the Interior
Kawabata, Snow Country
Mahfouz, Zaabalawi
Césaire, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land
World Literature Courses for Different Programs

Many undergraduates now major in consortial programs rather than in one traditional disciplinary area. Here are a number of focuses for world literature courses that would be effective offerings within this educational configuration.