Literary works are much more than mere illustrations of societal conditions. Literature is the setting in which society discusses itself. In this volume, international scholars of Literary Studies as well as specialists in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Turkish Studies explore the dimensions and ways of how writers, from the classical period to modernity, tackled the values of their societies. From the contents: Religious Norms Advocating / Domesticating Literary Freedom - Literary Norms and the Travelling of Genres - Linguistic Norms: Writing in the 'Stepmother Tongue' - Gender Norms, Inverted and Subverted - Societal Norms I: The Poet Involved - Societal Norms II: Imagining Communities, Debating the Collective.