A very extensive literature overview and probably the best bang for your buck in this genre that Great Courses provides. However, with multiple lecturers the quality is not consistent - and some eras have better lecturers and coverage offered in other of their courses. ( )

Part I: Near Eastern and Mediterranean. Just excellent. Vandiver is a lecturer to stick with.
Part II: Literature of the Classical World. Just the same. So illuminating, Astonished to find out how much and how very little I know of these works.

This is also available as a 14 disk DVD set with accompanying book of 589 pages. The book does not have an ISBN.

I own the CD version of this, not the DVDs.

Fantastic, very well done overview of the history of western lit. Covered me to and from work for a month and a half! ( )

I thoroughly enjoyed this series of 84 lectures. Having already read most of the covered authors on my own, this provided the historical and literary context I had missed. The lecturers are outstanding in their combination of expertise and energy. I especially enjoyed the earlier sections that covered ancient, medieval, and romantic authors. The latter sections seemed to be more about the individual works rather than historical context, though I did find interest in the discussion about modernism in Part VII. ( )