In this guide, the Masland Library provides links to the full text of each resource.
Assigned readings may only cover a portion of the resource.
Check your course's eLearning page for assigned excerpts.
Gilgamesh by
Vivid, enjoyable and comprehensible, the poet and pre-eminent translator Stephen Mitchell makes the oldest epic poem in the world accessible for the first time. Gilgamesh is a born leader, but in an attempt to control his growing arrogance, the Gods create Enkidu, a wild man, his equal in strength and courage. Enkidu is trapped by a temple prostitute, civilised through sexual experience and brought to Gilgamesh. They become best friends and battle evil together. After Enkidu's death the distraught Gilgamesh sets out on a journey to find Utnapishtim, the survivor of the Great Flood, made immortal by the Gods to ask him the secret of life and death. Gilgamesh is the first and remains one of the most important works of world literature. Written in ancient Mesopotamia in the second millennium B.C., it predates the Iliad by roughly 1,000 years. Gilgamesh is extraordinarily modern in its emotional power but also provides an insight into the values of an ancient culture and civilisation.
Gilgamesh by
A new verse rendering of the great epic of ancient Mesopotamia, one of the oldest works in Western Literature. Ferry makes Gilgamesh available in the kind of energetic and readable translation that Robert Fitzgerald and Richard Lattimore have provided for readers in their translations of Homer and Virgil.
The Qur'an by
The Qur'an is God's word. It was revealed to Prophet Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel 1,400 years ago and has been preserved in its original form ever since, guiding humankind to the Islamic creed and legislation, informing them of the stories of earlier prophets and their communities and calling people to believe in Allah, the One. Millions of people have learned its entirety by heart throughout every generation since it was first revealed. Nearly every Muslim memorises parts of it, and most recite a portion of it every day. No book, religious or otherwise, is read and recited or listened to as frequently as the Qur'an. Those who recite it in Arabic are always eager to do more, aware of its inimitable clarity, rhythm and brevity, yet modern English readers have had limited access to its meanings, with most reliant upon translations prepared in archaic English, unappealing to the contemporary reader. In this new translation the renowned author and scholar Adil Salahi has endeavoured to put the meanings of the Qur'anic verses and surahs in simple and straightforward form, so that the 21st century reader may find it concise easy to access, and yet full of expansive expression.
The Tale of Genji by 
The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri by 
The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri by 
Dante Alighieri - the Divine Comedy, Translated by Henry Francis Clay by 
Eclogues. Georgics. Aeneid: Books 1-6 by Li Bo
Du Fu
