The Experience of Literature

The Experience of Literature: A Reader with Commentaries is an anthology of drama, fiction, and poetry selected and edited by the American critic Lionel Trilling and published in 1967.^[1][2] The anthology is intended to provide a representative selection of works that Trilling considered to be great literature.^[3] It includes examples from the whole history of western literature, from Greek tragedy up to the 1960s, with each piece preceded by an introductory preface by Trilling.^[4] The selections reflect the literary canon of western universities at that time, with correspondingly low representation of women and writers of colour.^[5]