Many of you, myself included, observed that the reading list put out by the BBC was lacking in depth. I, too, noticed this. Mostly, it seemed they had left out Classical literature (Classical, not be confused with Classic) and the list seemed to have several juvenile classics, which although they may provide good reading for children, it seems strange to see them on a supposed 'well read' persons list.
I am putting forth another list here which I think covers most of what the BBC list left out. I imagine that not many have read all of these. This is a compilation of several classical literature reading lists. I have read quite a few but not all, and I do hope to read them all eventually.
Classical reading List
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Bible
The Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer
Aesop's Fables .
The Oresteia by Aeschylus
Euripidies, especially The Bacchae, Electra and Medea
The Theban Plays of Sophocles:
Oedipus the King/Oedipus at Colonus/Antigone
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Plato's Republic and Other Works .
The Aeneid by Virgil
. Horace's Poetry
Ovid's Metamorphoses
Beowulf
The Dream of the Rood
The Song of Roland
Chretien de Troyes's Arthurian Romances
The Romance of the Rose
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
William Langland's Piers Plowman
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy
Boccaccio's Decameron
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde
Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur
Thomas More's Utopia
Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel
Shakespeare's Collected Works, esp. Hamlet
Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queen
Cervantes' Don Quixote
17th and 18th Centuries Reading List
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe
Marlowe's Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
Jonson's The Alchemist
Bacon's New Atlantis
Cavendish's The Blazing World
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress
Behn's Oroonoko
Swift's Gulliver's Travels
Stern's Tristram Shandy
Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho
Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther
I think this list is much better, although there is quite a lot of good history that should be read as well. So what do you think?
6 comments:
I cannot say that I have read a very good % of these titles, (outside of excerpts in Lit class) but it seems like a much better list than the other one!! Thanks, I plan to print this out and put it in my "to read" to-do list!
I would add the Koran on that list too. If only to know your enemy better.
A good listing. I have read most of these too.
Now someone tell me why my generation is better read than todays? Why is it that we have read most of the classical literature and our children have not? Why is it that I had to hand many of these books to my girls so they would get an understanding of what good literature is.
Oh another author that should be on any list is James Joyce. He was required reading for me in High School. So was Pearl S. Buck.
Great post - keep up the excellent work!
Steve
COMMON CENTS
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com
Much better... :-)
FJ, that's a great site you linked to! Thanks for sharing!
Well, I've only read a few of these, so I guess I'd better get busy! :) It's hard to put down the books I like to read though....
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