Exciting. Fresh. Innovative. More global than ever.
Help all students see the power and relevance of world literature—with the most inclusive anthology available. New translations, such as Emily Wilson’s the Iliad, a new feature called Translation Lab, and refreshed clusters ensure that diverse foundational texts will speak to today’s readers.
Our Editors on What’s New
Emily Wilson on the Fifth Edition
Complete this form to receive Digital Access
Vibrant new selections
make this the most global
anthology available
The Fifth Edition presents a more balanced, inclusive, and connected picture of world literatures, with added texts and fresh translations throughout. It expands the coverage of texts beyond the West.
Now fully available as an ebook for an enhanced—and affordable—reading experience
The ebooks contain all the selections found in the Full Edition of the anthology and, when accessed through the Norton Ebook Reader platform, are enhanced with embedded video, audio, and powerful annotation tools for students and instructors.
New to the Fifth Edition: Translation Labs
Each volume highlights translation as an interpretive process. Not only does this edition feature new translations throughout, but “Translation Labs,” new to this edition, also help students read closely and compare different translations of the same poetic texts.
About the Editors
Martin Puchner, a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Harvard University, is a prize-winning author, educator, public speaker, and institution-builder in the arts and humanities. His most recent book is Culture: The Story of Us. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Suzanne Conklin Akbari is a professor of medieval studies at the Institute for Advanced Study. Her books are on optics and allegory and European views of Islam and the Orient. Her most recent book is The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer (2020), co-edited with James Simpson.
Wiebke Denecke is Professor of East Asian Literatures at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Denecke is the inaugural General Editor of the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature, which features bilingual translations of East Asia’s literary heritage.
Barbara Fuchs is Distinguished Professor of Spanish and English at UCLA, where she also directs the Diversifying the Classics project. Her most recent books are Knowing Fictions (2021) and Theater of Lockdown (2021).
Caroline Levine is a professor of humanities and English at Cornell University. She is the author of The Serious Pleasures of Suspense (2003), Provoking Democracy (2007), Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network (2015), and The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis (2023).
Pericles Lewis is a professor of comparative literature and Dean of Yale College at Yale University. The author or editor of six books on modern literature, he also served as founding President of Yale-NUS College (now NUS College), a joint venture between Yale and the National University of Singapore.
Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, a MacArthur Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow. In addition to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, she has also published translations of Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca.
What Instructors Are Saying
I appreciate (very much) that Norton is expanding its reach. The changes in this new edition give me goosebumps, quite frankly. I celebrate the new voices for our learners.
—Lucas Shepherd,
Tyler Junior College
Image Credits: (Puchner) Johannes Marburg; (Akbari) Dan Komoda; (Denecke) Megan Zwilling; (Fuchs) Barbara Fuchs; (Levine) Cornell University; (Lewis) Jim Farnam; (Wilson) Daniel McGarrity
Copyright © W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2024