--- title: Literature description: This broad field encompasses the study of written works across genres, eras, and cultures. Learners will analyze poetry, prose, and drama to understand how language expresses human experience, historical contexts, and diverse cultural perspectives. category: social-sciences subcategory: literature difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/humanities-literature --- # Literature This broad field encompasses the study of written works across genres, eras, and cultures. Learners will analyze poetry, prose, and drama to understand how language expresses human experience, historical contexts, and diverse cultural perspectives. ## Available Resources 3 Books • 2 Courses • 5 Websites ## Websites ### 1. The Paris Review Long-running literary quarterly whose online archive holds the Writers at Work interviews with major twentieth- and twenty-first-century novelists and poets, alongside fiction and essays. Useful for understanding how modern authors think about craft, influence and revision. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.theparisreview.org **Tags:** modern-literature, author-interviews, fiction, poetry, literary-magazine ### 2. LitCharts Study guides covering plot, characters, themes, symbols and quotes for several thousand novels, plays and poems, plus a literary-terms glossary. Useful for checking your reading of a text against a structured summary and theme breakdown. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.litcharts.com/ **Tags:** study-guides, literary-analysis, close-reading, themes ### 3. gutenberg.org Project Gutenberg is a free digital library of public-domain literature with thousands of classic novels, poems, and essays available to read online or download in formats like EPUB, Kindle, or plain text, making it a great source for Introduction to Literature. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://gutenberg.org **Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, literature ### 4. standardebooks.org Standard Ebooks is a volunteer project that produces high-quality, freely available public-domain literary ebooks with standardized typography and clean formatting. The site offers downloadable, ready-to-read ePub and Kindle editions of classic novels, plays, and poetry. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://standardebooks.org **Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, humanities ### 5. jstor.org/subject/literature JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources. The Literature subject page curates literature-focused journals, scholarly articles, and book chapters across periods and regions for research and study. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://jstor.org/subject/literature **Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, literature ## Courses ### 1. Plagues, Witches, and War: The Worlds of Historical Fiction A unique and exciting introduction to the genre and craft of historical fiction, for curious students, aspiring authors--anyone with a passion for the past. Read classics of the genre, encounter bestselling writers of historical fiction, and discover your own historical archive while interacting with a global community of interested readers. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/historical-fiction **Tags:** historical-fiction, genre-fiction, creative-writing, literary-history ### 2. Introduction to Theory of Literature Explore literary theory with Yale's Paul Fry! This introductory course covers key concepts and critical approaches to literature. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300 **Tags:** literary-theory, literary-criticism, structuralism, open-courseware ## Podcasts ### 1. London Review of Books **Author:** The London Review of Books The LRB Podcast brings you weekly conversations from Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas, hosted by Thomas Jones and Malin Hay, and featuring our fortnightly 'On Politics' podcast hosted by James Butler. From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.lrb.co.uk/ **Tags:** book-reviews, literary-criticism, essays, author-interviews ### 2. Lit Century **Author:** Sandra Newman and Catherine Nichols Host Catherine Nichols and guests choose one book for each year of the twentieth century (Nella Larsen's Passing, 1936, Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, 1966; Mohandas Gandhi's Indian Home Rule, 1909) and talk about it in its historical and literary context. Tune in to find out what the 20th century was all about. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.lithub.com **Tags:** 20th-century-literature, book-discussion, literary-history, author-interviews ## Books ### 1. How to Read Literature Like a Professor **Author:** Thomas C. Foster Foster shows how experienced readers recognize recurring patterns in fiction and poetry — quests, meals, weather, seasons, biblical and Shakespearean allusion — so you can spot symbolic and intertextual signals in a novel rather than reading only for plot. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062301675?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, literature ### 2. The Norton Anthology of World Literature **Author:** Sarah Lawall Survey anthology of translated poetry, drama and prose from antiquity onward, with editorial introductions, maps and footnotes. Published in period volumes; this second-edition volume covers 1500 to 1650. Standard classroom text for undergraduate world-literature courses. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393924521?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, literature ### 3. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction **Author:** Jonathan Culler Culler introduces the main questions of modern theory — what literature is, how meaning works, identity, and the relation between text and reader — surveying structuralism, deconstruction, and cultural studies in about 150 pages rather than cataloging schools one by one. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/019285383X?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, literature --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. 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