Download 55 Free Online Literature Courses: From Dante and Milton to Kerouac and Tolkien

Here at Open Cul­ture, we don’t just fea­ture edu­ca­tion in your rec­om­mend­ed dai­ly serv­ings of cul­tur­al­ly wide-rang­ing video, audio, text, and image — we also fea­ture it in a form that goes deep: whole cours­es you can down­load to your com­put­er or mobile device of choice and expe­ri­ence at your own pace. If you nev­er quite stud­ied all the lit­er­a­ture you want­ed to — or if you sim­ply can’t get enough study of the stuff — pay a vis­it to our col­lec­tion of over 50 free lit­er­a­ture cours­es online. Some of them may even cov­er the same tex­tu­al ground as the class­es you felt curi­ous about tak­ing in col­lege but could nev­er quite fit into your sched­ule: “Dante in Trans­la­tion” (Free Online Video — Free iTunes Audio - Free iTunes Video — Course Mate­ri­als), for instance, or “Intro­duc­tion to The­o­ry of Lit­er­a­ture” (Free Online Video — Free iTunes Audio – Free iTunes Video — Course Mate­ri­als), or “Intro­duc­tion to World Lit­er­a­ture (Free Online Video).

Our col­lec­tion offers cours­es with rel­a­tive­ly broad lit­er­ary sub­ject mat­ter, such as “Amer­i­can Pas­sages: A Lit­er­ary Sur­vey” (Free Online Video) and “Con­tem­po­rary Lit­er­a­ture” (Free Online Video – Free Video Down­load), and oth­ers spe­cif­ic to one peri­od or even one writer, like “Oscar Wilde” (Free Online Audio ). and the Allen Gins­berg-taught “Jack Ker­ouac” (Free Online Audio Part 1 and Part 2). Oth­er offer­ings in our col­lec­tion more close­ly resem­ble the cours­es you may have always want­ed to take, but nev­er found offered, like these from “Tolkien Pro­fes­sor” Corey Olsen:

• The Hob­bit – Free iTunes Video — Free Online Audio — More
• Lord of the Rings I: The Road Goes Ever On — Free iTunes Video & Audio
• Lord of the Rings II: The Two Tow­ers — Free Tunes Video & Audio — Free Online Video & Audio
• Lord of the Rings III: Return of the King — Free iTunes Video & Audio — Free Online Video & Audio

And yes, for those tru­ly intent on con­tin­u­ing their edu­ca­tion in Mid­dle-Earth, Olsen also offers a “Sil­mar­il­lion Sem­i­nar” (Free Online Video & Audio). If none of these appeal to your own intel­lec­tu­al curios­i­ty, how­ev­er, do vis­it the col­lec­tion’s page for more options from exis­ten­tial­ism to George Eliot to Shake­speare. (Nor should you miss our com­plete list, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties, which includes oth­er sub­jects like phi­los­o­phy, com­put­er sci­ence, psy­chol­o­gy, physics, reli­gion and more.) And if you feel like some­thing lighter, might I sug­gest John Green’s crash course on lit­er­a­ture?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 100 Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es & Start Liv­ing the Exam­ined Life

Crash Course on Lit­er­a­ture: Watch John Green’s Fun Intro­duc­tions to Gats­by, Catch­er in the Rye & Oth­er Clas­sics

800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.