/lit/ - Literature

What you probably ought to do is get a copy of The Western Canon by Bloom, because it has a great list at the back. But, if you just want a list of books, here's a couple:

>Gilgamesh

>The Bible

>Iliad

>Odyssey

>The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles

>Herodotus & Thucydides (& Xenophon)

>Some Plato and Aristotle, at least the Republic

>Plutarch's Lives

>The Aeneid

>Some Cicero

>Ovid's Metamorphoses

>Some Seneca

>City of God

>The Quran

>Beowulf

>Divine Comedy by Dante

>The Prince by Machiavelli

Some of those are a lot more important than others. For instance, if you haven't read Homer or Virgil, then you should definitely read them. In comparison, Plutarch is important, but not nearly as important. Also, that list only goes to the Renaissance (and doesn't even cover everything), so there's a lot more.

>>6601

Thank you very much, if you don't mind listing some books after the renaissance that would be great.

The reason I'm asking for this its because so far all I have read it's popular books and novels and I want to get more in depth with literature

>>6604

No problem. Here are some other ones to look at:

>Paradise Lost

>Shakespeare, especially Macbeth, Hamlet, Lear and Othello

>Goethe's Faust

>John Locke & Thomas Hobbes

>John Donne's poetry

>Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur

>Dostoevsky

>Tolstoy

>Melville

>Mark Twain

>Joyce (start with Dubliners)

>Jane Austen

>Heart of Darkness

One of the things to keep in mind is that as you get to more recent works, being literate is as much about being familiar with as having read. For example, Henrik Ibsen is an important playwright, and you should read some of his plays. However, you don't necessarily need to read all of his plays to have some idea about how he writes and what he writes about. Also, you might check out halfchan's /lit/. While its mostly filled with Stirner and Zizek memes, they have a pretty good list of literature worth reading on the wiki.

http://4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading

>inb4 cuckchan

>>6606

>>6601

would you suggest those books to someone that is trying to get into reading, though?

not saying it's OP's case.

also

>the quran

no.

>>6611

I wont lie that the first time I tried reading Dante I couldn't get past Purgatorio without gettig confused

>>6611

I would recommend most of them to someone trying to get into reading literature, if only because a number of the works are so unlike what a reader would encounter otherwise. In particular, unless someone gets assigned an epic for class, they probably won't have read anything like Homer before, in which case I think they should try reading some because it might turn out that they really like it. Worst case scenario, they can put it down and try again later. Also:

>Not reading the quran.

Why do you hate the shitskins?

>>6616

matter of fact i'm reading the quran.

but i'm still stuck in the preface.

usually i carefully avoid prefaces, but given the kind of book, i think it's quite unavoidable…

>>6615

you cannot read dante without good footnotes.

>>6618

You mean you don't recognize every random Italian dude who Dante felt like sprinkling in Hell?

>>6620

Was Dante just a mad little teenager writing about how much he hated everyone in the neighbourhood?

>>6621

no he wasn't.

matter of fact he's one of the few poets that was recognized as a genius pretty early on.

>>6620

not only that.

i'm italian and not reading a translation sometimes you need a little help with the language.

but yeah, sometimes you need to know who a certain person was and a little explaination of the italian politics of the time.

A list of books to read… to be literate…?

Jesus christ man, just read what you want.

>>6629

there is a difference between reading any of those books and fifty shades of grey.

not only that, but also, reading, understanding, and appreciating those works are like mountain tops, you require a certain amount of culture and certain previous reads to do that.

which is why i really don't like that kind of list. tackling those head on can take the joy out of reading forever.

in the end you are right, following one's interests is probably always the best choice.

>>6631

A person who reads those books because he wants to will satisfy his curiosity and broaden his perspective. This is an enjoyable experience. A person who reads those books because he feels it's required, with no interest or curiosity, will gain at most a false sense of superiority. The experience will not be enjoyable, but at least you'll be able to brag when it's over.

The question for OP is: do you want to read Tolstoy, or do you want to say you've read Tolstoy?

>>6632

I think once a person has read some of the "great books" then that distinction becomes important, but there's also something to be said for a person's desire to appear literate to be an introduction into actual literature. Hopefully someone like OP decides that they actually like literature after an introduction, and will start to read out of interest rather than obligation.

I associate this sort of list more with haflchan. The counter opinions are, in sum, read what you like but try to challenge yourself now and then. I agree with this assessment.

The most valuable thread we have here is the "ITT the last book you read" one. I think this gives a good idea what people in our own subculture are in to.

Maybe we should do a top recommendations thread of what people liked best, not what they think someone else should be reading.

If I were to go for a list of this sort I'd lean to recommendations of what is considered classic and meets these criteria:

1. Exclude works commonly pushed in high school settings. Not that these works are bad, it's just that, being taught to a tedium, everybody hates them. No point in recommending what will be pushed down one's throat anyway.

2. Works that are no older than the twentieth century.

Students of literature properly laugh at these exclusions. I don't exactly use this as a guide to my own reading either. My thinking here is in asking what could more regular folks be tempted to try, and that would be culturally, or educationally beneficial while remaining engaging.

>>6634

I like the idea of an "8chan lit recommends" thread, although I think the exclusions are pretty silly. As I tried to make the point here >>6633,

I think its good to recommend books that are unfamiliar (or in a very different style, like the classical epics) in the hope that the reader might decide they like it.

>>6608

>cuckchan

I strongly doubt that you have to read all classic literature in historical order. It is great to have common base with many notable representatives of Western culture, but the problem is that people in different eras thought differently and you have to have enough flexibility of perception to see the poetry in strange and simple texts.

To read Dante, you really have to imagine yourself a medieval person, one of believers in society guided by faith, and learn some ideas about mechanics of universe of top thinkers at the time to see them reflected beautifully in verse. Listing Dante's personal enemies is a lot easier.

>>6634

I would say no older than the late 19th century or so. Lots of good Russian, English and American books from that time are still very readable.