Best works of literature ever?

[Nightingale]

This is a tough question to answer but excluding all religious writings, what are the best works of literature?

I'd say the epics of Homer and the novels of Dostoevsky are certainly on the list.

[Adrift]

i'll let you know when I'm done reading them all.

[Kelp]

Hmm. This is tough. I would add the novels of James Joyce to the list because of his masterful use of language and allusion. From what I've seen of them, Chekhov's short stories deserve a spot for their characterization and plots.

[Manwë Súlimo]

My answer should come as no surprise, but...the works of JRR Tolkien :smug:

[Adrift]

My answer should come as no surprise, but...the works of JRR Tolkien :smug:

Never heard of him....


:wink:

[Manwë Súlimo]

Never heard of him....


:wink:

Do you prefer your death swift and painless or slow and heroic?

[Adrift]

Do you prefer your death swift and painless or slow and heroic?

Someone once wrote:

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

Sounds a bit dramatic... I prefer this:

"I intend to live forever, or die trying."

:teeth:

[Pilgrim]

Beowulf would have to be in there. Don Quxote, the Canterbury Tales and The Morte d'Arthur as well.

[Pilgrim]

Although I was just thinking, are we talking "best" works or "most important." There is a difference.

[The Curtmudgeon]

Yeah, good question. Anyway, I'd certainly add Shakespeare's tragedies (in general) to the list, and maybe The Tempest from his comedies. The best of Elizabethan/Jacobean drama in general (Marlowe, Kyd, Webster, et al.) could go on the list.

And Twain. Certainly Twain. Everything, of course.

The (American literature starts with Twain) Curtmudgeon

[Pilgrim]

Things Fall Apart by by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe

[Pilgrim]

Yeah, good question. Anyway, I'd certainly add Shakespeare's tragedies (in general) to the list, and maybe The Tempest from his comedies. The best of Elizabethan/Jacobean drama in general (Marlowe, Kyd, Webster, et al.) could go on the list.

And Twain. Certainly Twain. Everything, of course.

The (American literature starts with Twain) Curtmudgeon

Gonna have to disagree. I think it begins with: The Simple Cobbler of Aggawamm in America by Nathaniel Ward. Even though published in London.

[timspong]

This is a tough question to answer but excluding all religious writings, what are the best works of literature?

I'd say the epics of Homer and the novels of Dostoevsky are certainly on the list.

I second Dostoevsky and happen to be reading "crime and punishment" as we speak. It is the first electronic book I have ever read on my computer. Great stuff, he really forces you into the frame of mind & emotions of the protagonist. I am also reading a collection of Tolstoy short stories.

[timspong]

Things Fall Apart by by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe

If you like him you might want to look at Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and her book half a yellow sun.

[Nightingale]

I certainly would agree on Twain, he's great. Beowulf and Canterbury Tales and King Arthur can also hop on the boat. Shakespeare's tragedies definitely and as for comedies, the The Tempest is good but The Merchant of Venice is even better, almost at tragedy level at points. I've heard many suggest Tolkien in the past. Maybe, just maybe...

[The Curtmudgeon]

...and as for comedies, the The Tempest is good but The Merchant of Venice is even better, almost at tragedy level at points.

That's really my main problem with MoV -- it's supposed to be a comedy, and yet I cannot really accept it on that level. Yes, I'm letting modern-day attitudes about racism affect my viewpoint, but that's me and how I read it. :shrug:

The (but it certainly should be read more widely than it generally is today, for that very reason) Curtmudgeon

[Pilgrim]

Of course our idea of what comedy is in this culture do not necessarily reflect the academic definition of comedy.

[NeilUnreal]

Some of my favorites for top novel of all time:

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

-Neil

[Manwë Súlimo]

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Ewww.

[NeilUnreal]

Ewww.

Somebody, I forget who, once said something like:

"If you understand what Fitzgerald was trying to do on the last page of Gatsby, you'll understand all you ever need to know about writing."

I agree in once sense: without Gatsby and that ending, it is impossible to imagine much of what came later in American literature and film. Gatsby, without being popular, somehow changed everything.

-Neul

[Sir-Think-A-Lot]

This is a tough question to answer but excluding all religious writings, what are the best works of literature?

I'd say the epics of Homer and the novels of Dostoevsky are certainly on the list.

Just for fun I'm gonna do this by catagory.

Poetry-Dante's Divine Comedy(the entire thing, the Inferno is excellent, but your missing a lot if you dont read Purgataro/Paridiso).

Plays-Anything by Sophocles's(Shakesphere had NOTHING on this guy, Antognie is pure genius).

Prose-A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens(MUCH better than any of the movie adeptations).

non-fiction- Sun Tsu's Art of War(a must read for anybody even remotely interested in military tactacis/history).

This is just my opinion, so it may need to be taken with a grain of salt.

[Rushing Jaws]

This is a tough question to answer but excluding all religious writings, what are the best works of literature?

I'd say the epics of Homer and the novels of Dostoevsky are certainly on the list.##


The Divine Comedy of Dante
The two Homeric epics
Paradise Lost
Euripides' plays
the Arthurian cycle as told by Sir Thomas Malory
Tolkien's story - somewhere
The Gilgamesh Epic & the Aeneid come high up, I think. The narrative part of the OT should qualify, even though it used for religious purposes too.

[CommanderVimes]

Tales of a fourth grade nothing.

[Pilgrim]

It's interesting how euro-centric these lists all are. With the exception, of course of the Russians. Still western though.

[Sir-Think-A-Lot]

It's interesting how euro-centric these lists all are. With the exception, of course of the Russians. Still western though.

I put Sun Tsu's Art of War. I was hoping to put The Tale of Genjii up on my list too. But I put a Christmas Carol instead.

[Pilgrim]

Yes, you did. I didn't say there were no no western choices just that the lists were by and large euro centric.

[NeilUnreal]

It's interesting how euro-centric these lists all are. With the exception, of course of the Russians. Still western though.

I suspect it's mostly the "lost in translation" effect. Even a great work of literature will sustain a lot of damage passing through the filters of culture and translation. (For the classical literature , our culture itself "grew up" with it, so the translation effect is less important.)

-Neil

[Pilgrim]

True enough

[Rushing Jaws]

It's interesting how euro-centric these lists all are. With the exception, of course of the Russians. Still western though.## The Epic of Gilgamesh, European :ahem: ?

If I had read Journey to the West (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West) or the Ramayana, & liked them, they would be "in contention" (unless the Ramayana is too religious for inclusion).

It doesn't matter though - if the greatest literature has been written by DWEMs, so be it. Literature by non-DWEMs does not become great by virtue of its freedom from being by a DWEM. When a Maori, Eskimo, Polynesian or Tutsi writes an outstanding masterpiece, it can be considered: but let's not confuse literary merit with not being biassed against this or that group.

Thank God for the Classics (& the classics) - that they can be read means that we need not be overwhelmed by modern "cataract[s] of nonsense".

[Pilgrim]

Sheesh. Again, I said the lists were very western centric not that they were only western. You can't reasonably argue that they're not very slanted to a western point of view. A single example or two of non western literature still fit that description. :shrug: It's not a good or a bad thing, just an observation.

[Thersites]

Brave New World and 1984 were good.

[CommanderVimes]

Yes, you did. I didn't say there were no no western choices just that the lists were by and large euro centric.

How about 1001 arabian nights? That was a good read I thought. I liked how they made stories inside stories inside stories.

[Manwë Súlimo]

Whenever my world domination is complete, I'll make sure that everyone that didn't say Tolkien will be put to death :smug:

[Nightingale]

I've read parts of the Ramayana and if it weren't so huge I'd read it all as it is very interesting. I'd say it's about as religious as the Iliad and the Odyssey though the Mahabharata is another story (it contains the Bhagavad Gita, a bit more religious). Animal Farm is definitely up there. I've also found that I have a special love for the short stories of Flannery O'Connor. Her and Graham Greene are the only authors I really enjoy from the last century or so.

Whoever eww'd Great Gatsby has my agreement. I don't understand why that book is great. I've had many discussions with my Lit teacher but no agreement.