The Holy Bible, Authorized King James Version

[At a minimum, the books of Genesis, Exodus, Job, Psalms, from the Old Testament; Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Apocalypse from the New.] Whether or not you are Christian is irrelevant. The civilization in which we live is based on and permeated by the ideas and values expressed in this book. Understanding our civilization, the world in which we live, is probably impossible without having read -- and thought about -- at least the most famous books in the Bible. Historically, the King James Version is considered the most artistic, and thus has probably had the most literary influence.

Perhaps the first book of human character and war.
 

The archetype of the human quest, (i.e., our dissatisfaction with being who and what we are?)
 

Sophocles, Antigone

Plato, The Republic, especially "The Myth of the Cave"

The Republic is a study of society and government; the "Myth," also known as "The Allegory of the Cave" presents a fundamental theory of humans' ability to understand and to communicate.

This book is a collection of short, readable stories about the ancient gods. But since the ancient gods were personifications of humans' hopes and fears, the stories are also excellent explorations of what it means to be human.

Augustine, one of the foremost Saints of the Middle Ages, explores his struggles with good and evil, faith and doubt. Which of us has not dealt with these problems?

Among other things, Dante is an early comprehensive organizer. All possible sins, all possible virtues are represented here, as Dante places their practicioners in the appropriate (according to him) spot in Hell, Purgatory, or Paradise. Lots of interesting little stories of sinners and saints.

An early collection of short stories, Boccaccio explores human character as it confronts life. Ribald and moral at the same time. [See Chaucer.]

Machiavelli was one of the first consultants to those with political power, and his book is an attempt to help them keep and expand that power. If you want to improve your ability to fight back, read this book.

Science, as we know it, is a relatively new phenomenon for humans. Vico's book was instrumental in developing it.

"Quixotic" is part of our vocabulary, thanks to Cervantes. Don Quixote is the archetype of the active idealist. Watch him tilt at windmills, always attempting to do good, but almost always losing. How does one do good in the extremely complex world in which we live?

In many ways, Chaucer is the English Boccaccio. Pilgrims on their way to Canterbury tell tales to past the time, and the tales reveal their morality, ribaldry, etc. The most famous of these tales are those of the Wife of Bath and of the Pardoner.

Few believers in the Canon fail to put Shakespeare either at the top or the center of the Canon (depending on their preference in visual metaphors). Certainly more people, in more languages, have read and appreciated Shakespeare than any other author. High school teachers often have students read Romeo and Juliet, apparently on two assumptions: 1) high school students will be attracted by the love story, and 2) high school students are incapable of understanding the more significant plays. Almost all of Shakespeare is well-worth reading, but there is not enough time. (Marvell's "Had we but world enough and time....").  Among the best plays are:
     Hamlet -- This may be the greatest play ever written. It's subject matter shifts slightly every time I read it, but basically it is about the person (man or woman) of thought -- thought which paralyzes action. Hamlet is the opposite of Don Quixote, and it is fascinating that they were written in the same historical era.
     King Lear -- Who hasn't had trouble understanding parents, children, or both? Lear, a tragic study in the relationship of the King and his three daughters, explores not only the relationship of parental love, but also greed, selfishness, and death.
 Othello -- Far too complex to be summarized in a few sentences, Othello is a play about jealousy -- of a man about his wife. But it is also about the "outsider" -- Othello is a black general in a white Italian society. These two themes, as embodied by Shakespeare, would merit the inclusion of this play in the Canon, but the play also includes Iago, a character who may be the "best" embodiment of villany and deception in all of literature. [Harold Bloom considers Iago to be a better embodiment of evil than is Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost (The Western Canon, 180-182).]
     Macbeth -- For some reason, I have never been enchanted by Macbeth, but it is often considered one of Shakespeare's best. It is a study in the desire for power, by husband and wife, and between husband and wife.

Shakespeare's Sonnets. Perhaps the best way to approach Shakespeare's sonnets is to look in an anthology of poetry and read what you find there. Obviously, different people have different favorites, but you should probably read (and think about): "Shall I Compare Thee," "When in Disgrace with Fortune," "That Time of Year," "Not Marble, nor the Gilded Monuments," "The Marriage of True Minds," "My Mistress' Eyes," and "Poor Soul, the Centre."

"Holy Sonnet XIV" ("Batter my heart") - a tortured plea for help from God

"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" - probably the greatest poem that any man has ever written to his wife. [Working on your own, you will need to do some background reading to understand what is going on in this poem.]

Perhaps not to his wife, and certainly more ribald than Donne's "Valediction," "Coy Mistress" is one of the most famous -- and funny --  love poems in the Canon.

Milton has always given me trouble -- in the sense that I don't "get" him, but many readers have. Like Dante, but without Dante's breadth, Milton deals with hell and heaven. Whereas Dante envisions the center of hell as cold and icy, Milton gives us fire and brimstone. Robert Frost, one of the greatest American poets, plays on this difference in his 1923 poem, "Fire and Ice":
 
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
 
Frost's equation of "desire" with "fire" and of "hate" with "ice" reverses, at least to me, the ideas of Dante and Milton. Sexuality ("desire"?) underlies Dante's Divine Comedy in a variety of ways, not the least of which is the overriding image of Beatrice, Dante's ideal woman and guide. And Dante's world is generally organized on the continuum from heat and light (God and Love) to their absence -- the ice and darkness that surround Satan in Hell. Milton's world, on the other hand, is more about power, pride and hate.

Gulliver's Travels -- an extended satire on the pride of man.
 
"A Modest Proposal" -- hilarious -- and socially serious, but, before you read it, be sure that you understand the meaning of "irony."

On one level, this is a "Young Adult" book of adventure. But it is also a study in the nature of human beings.

I have been told (I'm not a big fan) that the popularity of Seinfeld (yes, the TV series) resulted from its focus on the everyday problems of all of us. Sterne's Shandy is a big book, and it has to be read slowly to be appreciated, but it penetrates deeply into the everyday problems of all of us. From the sexual habits of Tristram's parents (once a month, wind the clock, have sex) to their problems in finding a name for their son, to Uncle Toby's obsession with war fortifications, Sterne explores, in a very gentle and caring way, how we deal with the people and world immediately around us. The book is also an artistic triumph, as Tristram attempts to tell his own story and falls further and further behind.

Montaigne is, as far as I know, the originator of the introspective essay. The essays include "Of Idleness," "Of the Education of Children," "Of Friendship," "Of the Inconsistency of our Actions," and "Of Vanity." One of my personal favorites is "Of Cannibals."

Not for the prudish, Rabelais exhults in the fecundity of life. Can anyone read this hilarious, and at times scatological book without gaining a new perspective on what it means to be human?

The title means "The Hater of Mankind." Most humans, at one time or another, share the sentiment; some people get stuck in it. All of us can use this play -- to see others, and to see ourselves?

Although Harold Bloom claims that Pascal stole most of his ideas from Montaigne (Western Canon, 149-151), Pascal's aphorisms, being shorter, are often more poignant and fertile. It is difficult to stop and consider a brilliant idea in Montaigne because the essay goes on; a self-contained sentence or two from Pascal leaves one time to meditate.

Rousseau is also famous for The Confessions and La Nouvelle Heloise, but Emile provides a good introduction of his basic theories, especially on education and on the importance of nature (woods, trees, etc.)

Candide is born into "the best of all possible worlds," a world in which we cheat, main, and kill each other over questions of philosophy and religion. Separated from his lovely Cunegonde, Candide adventures even into the new world (South America) in search of her. There he finds El Dorado, the ideal city of health, wealth, and happiness, but even it cannot make him happy without Cunegonde. Returning to Europe, he finally finds her, withered and mutilated. Unable to realize his ideal, Candide and Cunegonde settle down to "tend their own garden." Working on your own, it would be a good idea to use, for example, the Norton Critical edition, which provides essays on the historical and philosophical background of this "philosophical tale." But even without the background, the story should present an interesting exploration of the questions "Where and how do humans find happiness?"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Parts One & Two

This play is the most famous story of a man who sells his soul to the devil in return for happiness here on earth.

Stendhal, The Red and the Black

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

A country girl marries the wrong man, moves to the city, sees what the world has to offer, and suffers as the world shrinks around her.

French Naturalism was a literary movement whose members believed that man is basically powerless against the forces of nature, society, and economics. Germinal is a classic study in how people, especially the working classes, are crushed.

William Blake

William Wordsworth

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Lord Byron, Don Juan

John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess"

Charles Dickens

Dickens is now often considered a "light-weight," but he was not only the major novelist of his time, but also an important critic of the Industrial Revolution. His characters are well-developed and his plots interesting, thereby making reading enjoyable. I would suggest starting with Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, and Hard Times.

This is a relatively short poem about a religious man who has lost his faith. [Reading about Arnold's time and background will add tremendously to the meaning of this poem.]

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

This book was on my list for decades before I finally read it, but it is well worth reading. Carroll presents a highly imaginative, difference perspective, on what it means to grow up.

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

Francis Thompson, "The Hound of Heaven"

This is a very famous, widely loved, religious poem.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

George Eliot

Silas Marner

Middlemarch

Among other things, this novel is a study in split personality.

The Birth of Tragedy
Beyond Good and Evil
On the Genealogy of Morals
The Will to Power

Eugene Onegin -- Pushkin is the center of the Russian literary canon, for his poetry, his prose, and his plays. Onegin is a prototype of what became known as the "superfluous man," a well-educated person who could find no serious function in society.

"The Bronze Horseman" -- In this narrative poem, a lowly civil clerk confronts the statue of Peter the Great (the Bronze Horseman), and loses his sanity. The work raises numerous questions, not the least of which is the effect of the acts of the powerful (Peter) on the weak (the clerk).

"The Overcoat" -- A poor civil servant saves for ever to buy a warm winter overcoat. Soon after he gets it, it is stolen, and he loses his sanity. Dostoevsky, one of the most famous Russian novelists, claimed that all Russian literature came out of Gogol's "Overcoat."

Dead Souls -- Most critics doubt that Gogol understood the moral and social implications of this novel. At the time it was written, Russian peasants legally belonged to landowners. As such, they could be bought and sold. The novel's hero, Chichikov, comes up with the brilliant idea of buying dead peasants (dead souls) from landowners. Legally, he could then mortgage these peasants and set himself up as a landowner. The novel presents his adventures. Gogol is famous for his fecund -- and weird -- physical descriptions of people and things.

This novel, a collection of five stories, pursues the Pushkinian theme of the "superflous man," but develops it in more psychological and moral depth in stories such as "The Fatalist."

The conflict of generations is a universal theme, and Turgenev here explores it in a compassionate way that includes not just personal, but also social and religious values.

Doestoevsky and Tolstoy (See below.) are probably the greatest universal novelists, universal in the sense that they can be understood by and appeal to people of all nations and cultures. Both writers, in other words, essentially deal, not with what it means to be Russian, but what it means to be human. What is important in life, and how should we live the short life that we have been given?

Notes from the Underground -- This short novel appeals to many high school seniors and college Freshmen because it explores the psychology and morality of a man who cannot seem to agree with, or fit into, the society in which he lives.

Crime and Punishment -- The hero's name, "Raskolnikov," means "split off," and Raskolnikov splits himself off from society and commits murder to see if he is a Nietzchean "superman." Most of the novel explores the effects of the crime on the hero. Critics disagree about the appropriateness of Raskolnikov's conversion to Christianity at the end of the novel. Critics also disagree about the appropriateness of a prostitute (Sonya) as a heroine. Although he differs significantly from Shakespeare's Iago (in Othello), Dostoevsky's Svidrigailov in this novel is another fascinating study in pure evil.

The Death of Ivan Ilych -- Ivan Ilych has an accident while hanging curtains in his new home. The accident leads to illness and eventual death, and the novella explores Ilych's life and death as his values shift from the materialistic to the spiritual.

War and Peace -- Although the characters are from upper class Russian society, this long novel explores wide ranges of human experience -- from what it is like for a woman to go to her first formal dance, to what it is like to be wounded in war. As in most Russian literature, the authors are male, but the strongest characters are female. Although War and Peace is Tolstoy's most famous novel, many critics agree that Anna Karenina, which deals with similar themes, is a better novel.

Russian literature bloomed in the Nineteenth Century. Pushkin and Gogol, at the beginning, saw social and moral problems, but met them with a fundamentally optimistic tone. A note of pessimism sets in with Lermontov, and then Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, two Titans, battle with the society and values around them. Near the end of the century, a tone of quiet resignation sets in. Chekhov, in plays such as The Cherry Orchard,  is probably the master of this tone.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays

Emily Dickinson

It has taken me a long time to come to even modest terms with Emily Dickinson. Her use of pronouns throws me, and it takes a lot of mental work to see what is going on in one of her poems. Many readers, however, love her. Prerequisites are patience and an understanding of how imagery works in poetry. The best way to approach her is through her selections in general anthologies of poetry. Don't, however, miss "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" (1890).
     Harold Bloom says of her, "Except for Shakespeare, Dickinson manifests more cognitive originality than any other Western poet since Dante." (291) He likes "There's a certain Slant of Light," and "The Tint I cannot take ...."

Not an expert on American poetry, I defer to Harold Bloom, who considers Whitman the "Center of the American Canon" and claims that the following six poems are "what matter most in Whitman":
"Song of Myself."
"The Sleepers,"
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,"
"As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life,"
"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,"
"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd."
Bloom considers the last of these to be "the American elegy that sustains comparison with 'Lycidas' and 'Adonais,' the great lament for the martyred Abraham Lincoln: 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd'." (265) Personally, I find "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" to be the best of these poems.  "Song of Myself" is a complex presentation, the best I have ever read, of the American psyche.

"Young Goodman Brown" -- What is good? What is evil? Does evil exist outside of us, or is it within us? To what extent is evil simply the product of the human mind? What is Faith? Can Faith save us? These are just some of the questions explored in this classic of U.S. literature.

The Scarlet Letter -- I am not a specialist in U.S. literature, but I believe that this is the most famous U.S. presentation of the theme of the outsider. But whereas European outsiders usually choose to cut themselves off from society, here we have a case of society shunning the individual. Whether or not this is a difference in national character would be an interesting question to explore. Like all explorations of the outsider, Hawthorne's explores moral, social, and psychological questions.

Melville is the closest U.S. novelist (that I have found) to Doestoevsky and Tolstoy. Like them, he grapples with major moral, psychological, and social problems. He never, in my opinion, reaches their univeral status, for two reasons. First, his characters are too firmly set in the Puritanism of early New England. This makes it difficult even for current Americans to follow all of the ramifications of his themes. [The Christianity of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, on the other hand, is so generalized that even non-Christians have little trouble following the twists and turns of the moral and social problems they explore.] Second, Melville is highly allegorical -- although they are personified in characters and in the whale,  his "good" and "evil" remain abstractions. As such, they lose many readers. Melville is, however, close to the center of the U.S. literary canon, and Moby-Dick is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand U.S. literature.

"The Raven" -- one of the most famous -- and most enchanting -- poems in U.S. literature.

"The Cask of Amontilllado"

Kate Chopin

"The Story of an Hour"

The Awakening

Henry James

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Remember that I am not a specialist in U.S. literature. I suggest, however, that if Huck Finn is not at the center of the U.S. literary canon, it certainly should be. It is THE novel of the U.S. experience. Young Huck escapes civilization  (The Widow Douglas = Europe) and travels down the Mississippi to adulthood. Those who would ban the book because of its language miss the fact that Jim becomes, not only Huck's closest friend, but also his mentor! If any group should want this book banned, it should be the white supremacists.

Federico Garcia Lorca, Blood Wedding

Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit

Sartre was an Existentialist, and Existentialists believe that there is no God -- there is simply existence. In this play, however, Sartre presents his version of Hell -- three people stuck in a room together -- forever.

Like Sartre, a French Existentialist, Camus' short novels focus on the feelings and actions of people in a world without God. The Stranger is his most famous book, but equally interesting are The Plague, The Fall, and The Rebel.

William Butler Yeats

George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native

Joseph Conrad

D.H. Lawrence

Virginia Woolf

James Joyce

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

W. H. Auden

George Orwell, 1984

Franz Kafka

"The Metamorphoses"

The Trial

Thomas Mann

Andrei Bely, Petersburg

Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Robert Frost

Edith Wharton

Willa Cather

Gertrude Stein

Wallace Stevens, "Sunday Morning"

Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie

Sherwood Anderson

T.S. Eliot

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

"The Hollow Men"

"The Journey of the Magi"

Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

William Faulkner

"A Rose for Emily"

The Sound and the Fury

The Old Man and the Sea

A Farewell to Arms

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

Eudora Welty

Flannery O'Connor

Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Tennessee Williams

The Glass Menagerie

A Streetcar Named Desire

Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

Joyce Carol Oates

Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint

John Updike

"A & P"

The Witches of Eastwick