Here is a list of the 50 essential books you need to read to be comfortably acquainted with human culture as it has developed. This 'canon' I have decided ends pretty much with Dante to avoid the list becoming too heavily 'English' or leaning too much toward any other nation that would stop it being universal which is my goal. It is my opinion that any student of literature would be extremely well served by reading at least most of these titles, and it would instill a grounding in and appriciation for some of the best quality/most important literature mankind has ever produced. *Please note: this started as an attempt to chronicle the entire tradition of 'great books'* The Canon 1)The Epic of Gilgamesh by ? (Date unknown, standardized version: between the 13th and 10th centuries BC) – Epic poetry - Summerian - first known written epic poem.2)The Classic Chinese Poetry - (11th-7th centuries BC) -poetry- Chinese 3)Pre-Socratic Philosophers – various authors (635 BC(?) To 470 BC) - Non-fiction – Ancient Greek – Possible first written philosophical thought. 4)The Illiad by Homer(?) (Date unknown, usually attributed to 8th century BC) – Epic poetry – Ancient Greek 5)The Odyssey by Homer(?) (Date unknown, usually attributed to 8th century BC) – Epic poetry - Ancient Greek 6)The works of Hesiod (Date unknown, usually thought between 750 BC and 650 BC) - Poetry - Ancient Greek Theogony (Unknown, around 700 BC) - Epic poem Works and Days (Unknown, around 700 BC) - Epic poem7)The poems of Theognis (approximately 6th century) – Poetry – Ancient Greek 8)The Torah (Date composed 7th BC century, compiled 5th century BC) – Religious text – Rabbinnic 9)The Art of War by Sun Tzu - (6th century BC) -Non fiction, Philosophy- Chinese 10)The poems of Sappho (630 BC to 570 BC) - Poetry - Ancient Greek) 11)Fables of Aesop (Date 620 BC to 560 BC) - Fiction - Ancient Greek 12)The works of Pindar (522 BC to 443 BC) - Poetry - Ancient Greek 13) Mahabharata (4th century BC) - Epic poetry, religious text - Sanskrit 14) Ramayana (4th century BC) - Epic poetry, religious text - Sanskrit 15)The Oresteia by Aeschylus (Date 458 BC) - Drama, Tragedy - Ancient Greek Agamemnon The Libation Bearers Eumenides16)The Three Thebian Plays of Sophocles - Drama, Tragedy - Ancient Greek Antigone (Date 441) Oedipus Tyrannus (Date 429 BC) Oedipus at Colonus (Date 401 BC)17)Histories by Herodotus (Date 450 BC and 420 BC) – Non-fiction, history - Ancient Greek 18)The Frogs by Aristophanes (Date 405 BC) – Drama, Comedy - Ancient Greek 19)The work of Plato (428 BC to 347BC) - Non-fiction, philosophy - Ancient Greek The Republic (Date attributed to around 380 BC) Symposium (and other dialogues), (Date between 385 and 380 BC)20)The work of Aristotle (384 BC to 322 BC) - Non-fiction, philosophy - Ancient Greek Politics by Aristotle (Date 350 BC) - Philosophy, Political theory Poetics by Aristotle (Date 335 BC) - Non-fiction, Literary theory21)History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides (Date ?) - Non-fiction, history (possible bias identified by scholars) – Ancient Greek 22)The Classic of Changes - (approx. 3rd-2nd centuries BC) -religious- Chinese 23)Idylls/Bacolics by Theocritus (Date around 3rd Century BC) - Poetry - Ancient Greek 24)The Analects of Confucius - (221 BC) -philosophy- Chinese 25)Work of Cicero (106 BC to 43 BC) - Non-Fiction, various - Latin 26)The poems of Catullus (84 BC to 54 BC) - Poetry - Latin 27)Lives by Plutarch (Date 1st century) - Non-fiction, history - Ancient Greek 28)On the Nature of Things by Lucretius (Date ? - possibly 1st Century BC) – Epic poetry - Latin 29)The Works of Virgil - Latin The Eclogues/Bucolics (Date between 42 BC and 37 BC(?)) - Poetry The Georgics (Date between 37 BC and 31 BC)- Poetry The Aeneid (Date 19 BC) - Epic poetry30)The poems of Horace (65 BC to 8 BC) - Poetry - Latin 31)Metamorphosis by Ovid (8 BC) - Epic Poetry - Latin 32)On the Sublime by Longinus (?) (Date unknown, between 3rd and 1st Century AD) – Non-fiction, Literary Criticism – Ancient Greek 33)The Bible (Compiled using Jewish and ‘New Testament’ material, Date of ‘definitive’ Latin compilation by 400 AD) - Religious text - Various 34)Confessions by St Augustine (Between 397 AD and 398 AD) - - Non-fiction, religious philosophy – Latin 35)City of God by St Augustine (5th Century AD) - Non-fiction, religious philosophy – Latin 36)Poems of Du Fu (712-770) - Poetry - Chinese 37)Poems of Li Po (701-762) - Poetry - Chinese 38)The Qur’an (Compiled approximately 7th century AD) – Religious text – Arabic 39)Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong (early 1300's AD) - Prose, History/fiction - Chinese 40)The Poetic Edda (Unknown and various, before 13th century AD) – Poetry/Epic poetry – Norse 41)The Prose Edda (Unknown and various, before 13th century AD) – Prose, mythological – Norse 42)Beowulf by unknown (date unknown, between 8th Century AD and 12th Century AD) – Epic poetry – Angle-Saxon 43)Poems of Rumi (1207-1273) - Poetry - Persian 44)The works of Dante Alighieri – Rime The New Life/La Vita Nuova (Date 1295) - Poetry & non-fiction, autobiography – Italian The Divine Comedy/La Commedia (Date 1321) – Epic poetry – Italian De Monarchia (1313 - 1314) – Non-fiction, Political Theory - Latin45)Decamerone by Giovanni Boccaccio (circa 1353) - Fiction, Short Stories - Italian 46)The Canzone of Petrarch (1304 to 1374) – Poetry – Italian 47)The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (Date 1400 – unfinished) – Epic poetry - Middle English 48)The plays and narrative poems of William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) Drama and Poetry – English 49)The King James Bible (completed 1611) – Religious Text – English 50)The works of John Milton (1608 – 1674) – English English Minor poems – Poetry Lycidas (1638) – Poetry Areopagitica (1644) – Non-fiction, political theory Paradise Lost (1664)– Epic poetry Paradise Regained (1671) – Epic poetry Samson Agonistes (1671) – Drama, tragedy _______________________________________________________________________________________ Updated: 13/04/14 - 18:13 - entry numbers and Du Fu, Li Po, and Rumi added. Updated: 13/04/14 - 20:52 - Some itallics added, 'Hesiod' entry broken up. Minor textual corrections. Updated: 14/04/14 - 12:49 - Added entry: 'Aphra Behn' and minor textual corrections. Updated: 15/05/14 - 10:25: Added entries Sun Tzu and First Chinese poetry, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Decamerone, also removed Tom Jones and expanded to 1808 with Faust. Minor textual corrections. Updated: 10/07/14 - 21:06: list expanded to 1910 AD. Updated: 50 titles remain, after heavy consideration. Remaining is a list of essentual human literature
The first thing I realized when I read this thread is that you have way too much time on your hands. I'll gladly join in, though I'll have to think about what books I would include and get back to you. If you want to include Eastern literature, I will gladly suggest a few books/names to add. That way, we'll have a World Canon.
To be honest, a world canon is what I'm looking to build here. And yeah, it's a Sunday, nothing better to do, and it'll keep this rascal off the streets for a bit.
Here are some Eastern literature names/works I could think of: Poems of Du Fu (712-770) - Poetry - Chinese Poems of Li Po (701-762) - Poetry - Chinese Poems of Rumi (1207-1273) - Poetry - Persian Yoga Vasistha by Sage Valmiki - Spiritual Text - Sanskrit Mahabharata by Vyasa - Epic Poetry - Sanskrit
Sorry, I should have included the dates. The oldest parts of the text of the Mahabharata date back to 400 BC, though the origins are somewhere between the 8th and 9th centuries BC. It's a little harder to find the date for the Yoga Vasistha because the earliest manuscript is from the 10th century AD but the author, Valmiki, lived somewhere between 500 BC and 100 BC. Haha.
I'll admit I based this list off of Harold Bloom's, so how would you define 'canonical'? Admittedly I don't have a great definition of it myself. I guess the entries I have are pretty typical and popular, and that's one quantifier I guess.
Yeah, I am. Sorry I've not been up dating recently, have a lot to do. My teacher training course is quickly coming to an end.
Isn't it Samson Agonistes and not Simon Agonistes? And I thought Le Morte D'Arthur was a prose work - at least, my copy is in prose. Am I missing something?
I didn't catch a couple of important ones (well, they are all ouside of English canon, but if we are talking about the World "canon"...): Giovanni Boccaccio, Decamerone, circa 1353 Erasmus of Rotterdam, In Praise of Folly, 1511 François Rabelais, La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel, circa 1564 the works of Pedro Calderón, especially La vida es sueño, 1635 the works of Lope de Vega the works of François Villon
I'm also wondering whether a list such as this should, beside The King James Bible, include other influental translations of the Holy Word - I think at least the Luther Bible (1522), which made the crucial contribution to what is modern German (as well as the history of Reformation) and the 9th century Old Church Slavonic translation by Cyril and Methodius, which made the late Byzantine "commonwealth" possible (as well as introducing literacy to Slavic peoples).
The Classic of Poetry - (11th-7th centuries BC) -poetry- Chinese The Classic of Changes - (approx. 3rd-2nd centuries BC) -religious- Chinese The Classic of Rites - (?) - Chinese The Classic of History - (?) - Chinese Spring and Autumn Annals - (722 - 481 BC) - Chinese The Analects of Confucius - (221 BC) -philosophy- Chinese Mencius - (?) -philosophy- Chinese The Doctrine of The Mean - (?) -philosophy- Chinese The Great Learning - (?) -philosophy- Chinese The Art of War - (6th century BC) -Sun Tzu- Chinese Outlaws of The Marsh - (1200's) -Luo Guanzhong- Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms - (early 1300's) Luo Guanzhong - Chinese Journey to the West - (1600's) - Wu Cheng'en - Chinese Dream of Red Mansions - (1740-91) - Cao Xueqin and Gao E - Chinese The Story of The Western Wing - (Yuan dynasty) - Wang Shifu - drama - Chinese The Peony Pavillion - (Ming dynasty) Tang Xianzu - drama - Chinese Hope that was in any way useful.
Wow! A big thank you goes out to @Burlbird and @Xueqin-II for helping with those! As soon as I get an afternoon free I'm adding them.
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, 11th century Japanese. Very important, as it is the very first novel. I will certainly contribute more later. I am only too busy reading.
To me a literary canon seems to be an agreed upon reading list decided by a group of educated people who have a read a lot of books. Through this list a certain culture or time period is represented. Reading the list should give the reader a sense of what literature from that culture and/or time was like. At uni I had to read some of the Norton Anthology of English Literature which content's page could be taken to be a canon of sorts. It also does an anthology on world literature. I found a PDF of its contents page here: http://media.wwnorton.com/cms/contents/NAWOL_TOC_new.pdf It's a pretty extensive list, I don't know if anyone would have the time and patience to read it all but it may be interesting to see how it compares to your list so far.
Thanks again for the help everyone. I've been spending my morning updating this, adding a few entries. More should come over the weekend.
No, I only had to read some of the anthology. I think I had this for my Seventeenth Century module. I probably should go back and read the classical pieces but I've never been a fan of poetry. Very uncouth of me
