World literature is the body of works created by different peoples in different ages that have become the heritage of all humanity. This section covers the most famous works, their authors, main characters and ideas. Knowing world literature helps you understand Uzbek literature more deeply: Navoiy entered into creative competition with Nizami and Amir Khusrau, Cho‘lpon translated Shakespeare and Erkin Vohidov translated Goethe into Uzbek. Exams often ask you to match "work — author" and "character — work", to identify the country and period, and to state a work’s idea.
§1. Antiquity and the classical literature of the East
The oldest layer of world literature consists of epics and myths. They preserve a people’s history, its dream of heroism and its world view.
Homer (ancient Greece) — the epics the «Iliad» (the Trojan War; Achilles, Hector) and the «Odyssey» (Odysseus’s adventures on his way home; his faithful wife Penelope).
«The Thousand and One Nights» — a collection of Arabic folk tales: Scheherazade tells the king a story every night and so postpones her execution; a "story within a story" structure.
Abulqosim Firdausi — the «Shahnameh»: the history and legends of the Iranian peoples; its best-known episode is the tragedy of Rustam and Sohrab (a father kills his son in combat without recognising him).
Nizami Ganjavi — author of the first «Khamsa» (in Persian): «The Treasury of Mysteries», «Khusrav and Shirin», «Layla and Majnun», «The Seven Beauties», «The Book of Alexander».
Omar Khayyam — philosophical rubaiyat (quatrains); also a famous mathematician and astronomer.
Saadi of Shiraz — the «Gulistan» (wise stories in mixed prose and verse) and the «Bustan».
Hafez of Shiraz — a divan of ghazals; Abdurahmon Jomiy (Jami) — Navoiy’s teacher and friend, author of «Haft avrang» ("Seven Thrones").
The «Khamsa» tradition: Nizami (Persian, the first) → Amir Khusrau → Jami → Navoiy (the first in Turkic).
§2. Western literature of the Renaissance
In the Renaissance (14th–16th centuries) literature placed the human being, with reason and feelings, at its centre; this outlook is called humanism.
Dante Alighieri (Italy) — the «Divine Comedy», in three parts: «Inferno», «Purgatorio», «Paradiso»; the guide is first the poet Virgil, then Beatrice. Abdulla Oripov translated the «Inferno» into Uzbek.
William Shakespeare (England, 1564–1616) — «Hamlet» (the Danish prince hesitates to avenge his father’s murder; his famous soliloquy begins "To be, or not to be"), «Romeo and Juliet», «Othello», «King Lear». Cho‘lpon translated «Hamlet» into Uzbek.
Miguel de Cervantes (Spain) — «Don Quixote»: a minor nobleman who reads chivalric romances, believes himself a knight and sets out with his simple squire Sancho Panza. The book is both comic and tragic: a clash between dream and reality.
Worked example
What is the main conflict of the tragedy «Hamlet»?
Situation: Hamlet’s father, the King of Denmark, has been murdered; his uncle Claudius has taken the throne and married Hamlet’s mother.
The Ghost reveals the truth to Hamlet and demands revenge.
Hamlet hesitates: he looks for proof and reflects on justice, life and death.
Answer: the conflict lies between the need to fight evil and the hero’s own conscience and doubts; the external conflict (against Claudius) merges with the internal one.
§3. The 18th and 19th centuries: from classicism to realism
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Germany) — «Faust»: the scholar Faust, searching for knowledge and the meaning of life, makes a pact with Mephistopheles; translated into Uzbek by Erkin Vohidov.
Alexander Pushkin (Russia) — «Eugene Onegin» (a novel in verse), «The Captain’s Daughter».
Leo Tolstoy — «War and Peace» (the era of the war of 1812), «Anna Karenina».
Fyodor Dostoevsky — «Crime and Punishment»: Raskolnikov’s theory, his crime and the torment of conscience; Sonya Marmeladova leads him to repentance.
Victor Hugo (France) — «Les Misérables» (Jean Valjean), «The Hunchback of Notre-Dame» (Quasimodo, Esmeralda).
Abai Kunanbayev (Kazakhstan) — poet and thinker, author of «The Book of Words» (prose reflections).
The main trend of 19th-century literature was realism: writers sought to portray society, its vices and the inner world of the ordinary person truthfully.
§4. World literature of the 20th century
Ernest Hemingway (USA) — «The Old Man and the Sea»: the old fisherman Santiago and his struggle with a huge fish; idea: a man can be destroyed but not defeated; Nobel Prize (1954).
Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia) — «One Hundred Years of Solitude»: the town of Macondo and seven generations of the Buendía family; magical realism; Nobel Prize (1982).
Chingiz Aitmatov (Kyrgyzstan) — «Jamila» (the love of Jamila and Daniyar, narrated by the teenage Seit), «The White Ship» (a boy, old Momun, the legend of the Horned Mother Deer), «The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years» (Burannyi Edigei; the mankurt, a slave robbed of his memory who kills his own mother without recognising her), «The Place of the Skull».
Rabindranath Tagore (India) — lyric poet, the first Asian Nobel laureate (1913).
Nazim Hikmet (Turkey) — a poet of freedom and humanity.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (France) — «The Little Prince»: simple truths that adults forget — friendship, responsibility, love.
Paulo Coelho (Brazil) — «The Alchemist»: the shepherd Santiago searches for his "Personal Legend".
Nobel Prize: Tagore — 1913, Hemingway — 1954, García Márquez — 1982.
Worked example
In which work does the mankurt appear, and what does it symbolise?
The image comes from a legend in Chingiz Aitmatov’s novel «The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years».
In the legend captives have raw camel hide bound onto their heads and their memory is erased; the mankurt fails to recognise his mother, Naiman-Ana, and kills her with an arrow.
Symbolic meaning: a person who has forgotten their history, roots and mother tongue and has lost their own self.
Answer: the mankurt is a symbol of a person without memory who has lost their identity; the novel calls on us to preserve a people’s memory.
§5. How to analyse a work of world literature
Period and country — when the work was written and about which people.
Conflict — what the hero struggles against (fate, society, themselves).
Idea and its universal significance — what it means for us today.
Links with Uzbek literature (for example, Nizami and Navoiy’s «Khamsa», Goethe and Vohidov’s translation, Shakespeare and Cho‘lpon’s translation).
Why does this order matter? Characters with the same name (two Santiagos) or shared plots («Layla and Majnun» in both Nizami and Navoiy) cause confusion; fixing the period and country prevents mistakes.
Worked example
State the idea of «The Old Man and the Sea».
The hero is old Santiago, a fisherman who has had no luck for a long time.
He catches a huge fish, but on the way back sharks eat it — outwardly a defeat.
Yet the old man never gives up — a moral victory.
Answer: human will and dignity are stronger than any defeat.
Worked example
Which of these belongs to the Renaissance: «Faust», «Don Quixote», «Les Misérables»?
«Faust» — Goethe, late 18th to early 19th century, Germany.
«Les Misérables» — Hugo, 19th century, France, the age of realism.
«Don Quixote» — Cervantes, early 17th century, Spain — the late stage of the Renaissance.
Answer: «Don Quixote».
Check yourself
Who wrote the «Divine Comedy»?
Which poet, famous for his rubaiyat, was also a mathematician?
Who translated «Faust» into Uzbek?
In which work is the town of Macondo depicted?
Raskolnikov is the hero of which novel?
Whom does Jamila love in the novella «Jamila»?
Who wrote the first «Khamsa»?
In which year did Tagore receive the Nobel Prize?
Common mistakes
Naming Navoiy as the author of the first «Khamsa» (it was Nizami; Navoiy’s was the first in Turkic).
Attributing «Faust» to Shakespeare (it is Goethe’s).
Naming Vohidov as the translator of «Hamlet» (it was Cho‘lpon).
Confusing Santiago of «The Old Man and the Sea» with Santiago of «The Alchemist».
Attributing the «Shahnameh» to Nizami (it is Firdausi’s).
Mixing up the characters of «The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years» and «The White Ship» (Edigei and the mankurt belong to the first; the boy and old Momun to the second).