/lit/ - Literature

>>5883010
Heart of darkness
Ulysses
The Dark Knight Rises novelization

Steins;Gate
YU-NO
The infinity series.

Gender Trouble

>>5883010
I remember the Odyssey, it was pretty good

>>5883010
That is a very odd list you've begun to compile, OP. I'm glad you feel like starting with the Greeks, and as a classicist and a history student I'm happy to see Herodotus and Thucydides on the list, but unless "the essentials" is going to be a list of at least 1000 works, I'm not sure if I'd put them on there.
I feel the similarly about Jack London.

If I were to seriously try and compile "the essentials," I think it'd look something like (very loosely chronological):

Plato's Apology, Crito, and Republic
The Odyssey and the Iliad
Euripides' Bacchae
Aescheles' Oresteia
Aristotle's Ethics, Politics, and Poetics
Seneca/Epicurus/Zeno/Diogenes (I don't put specifics because I am not yet familiar enough with any of these philosophers)

The Analects of Confuscius
Complete Writings of Zhuangzi

Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Samuel I, Kings I, Psalms, The Gospels, Romans, and Galatians

The Aeneid
Tacitus' Annales
Augustine's Confessions (Maybe City of God? Don't know, haven't read City of God)
Aquinas' On Kingship, Summa Theologiae, maybe Summa contra Gentiles

The Inferno (maybe the entire trilogy? can't say, haven't read)
Boccaccio's Decameron
Don Quixote
Machiavelli's The Prince & Discourses on Livy
Shakespeare (as much as you can get)
Montaigne's essays

Enlightenment thinkers
Decartes/Locke/Hobbes/Rousseau/Diderot/Kant/Mill

The "big 4" that created modernism:
Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Darwin

tbc

>>5883838
This guy's got it
>>5883525
>The Dark Knight Rises novelization
Found the pleb

>>5883010
None of these are from the 2st century, that's just a list for everycentury man.

>>5883010
How about something that came out within the last 10 years?

I've browsed fit for some years now and i still don't know ANYTHING about literature that came out after 2000. Ask me to mention a book thats been released during the last 15 years and I can't mention a single one. Where the fuck is our times version of those books? Where da classics of the modern man at?

>>5883010
> Machismo nonsense
No!

Phenomenology of Spirit and Anti-Oedipus are the most important works.

>>5883838

Why would anyone read Darwin?

>>5883838
>no Petronius
>no Catullus

Come on man, where's the fun in this list?

Simulacra and Simulation
The Society of the Spectacle
The Book of Disquiet
Paradise Lost
Hamlet
The Tempest
The Divine Comedy
The New Life (La Vita Nuova)
Phaedrus
Phaedo
Tao De Ching

>>5885197
and Hymn to the Night (Novalis)

>>5883838
Wow you actually listed the best parts of the Bible. Most people just pick Job

>>5885197
>>5885212
The best thing would be to read nothing at all though.

>>5883838
>The "big 4" that created modernism:
>Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Darwin
Um modernism was invented by the French symbolists and Scandinavian dramatists anon

>>5885241

I think anon meant "modernity."

Why are The Iliad and Odyssey considered essential? The Iliad was the most boring book I've read this year and the Odyssey I've just given up part the way through. I know they're important because they're early literature but they're both a pretty unrewarding reading experience.

>>5885252
when a classic book is boring for you it means its above your power level

>>5885247
Then that started in France in the 18th century

>>5885119
>Where da classics of the modern man at?
You're setting yourself up for disappointment anon...

>>5885252
>The Iliad was the most boring book I've read this year

because you read a modern prose translation instead of Alexander Pope's verse.

>>5885265
You mean because Anon didn't read the Greek

>>5885265
more like because it's a shit old book that doesn't have anything to say to a modern reader

The Aenied
Plutarch's Lives
The Stranger
The Plague
Wind, Sand, and Stars
Old Man and the Sea
1984

>>5885262
BUT SURELY THERE MOST BE SOMETHING THAT CATCHES THE ZEITGEIST OF OUR TIMES!

>>5885273
Its a war story, it's timeless and still resonant now.

>>5885302
People only read it because it's a classic, it doesn't have anything interesting to say in the 21st century, all the characters are one dimensional. Who wants to read a list of fucking ships? I read a lot this year, and that was the worst, despite being so highly regarded.

>>5885311
You read a shit translation. The characters aren't one dimensional at all . . . Homer as a poet has impressed me more than any other poet. His powers of imagination are unmatched as are his powers of portraying human passions.

>>5885311
Achilles and Odysseus aren't one-dimensional, but they're probably Homer's only "great" characters, which is fine as they're the protagonists. Also you can skip the ships if you want to

>>5885342
We come now to the Characters of his persons; and here we shall find no author has ever drawn so many, with so visible and surprising a variety, or given us such lively and affecting impressions of them. Every one has something so singularly his own, that no painter could have distinguished them more by their features, than the poet has by their manners. Nothing can be more exact than the distinctions he has observed in the different degrees of virtues and vices. The single quality of Courage is wonderfully diversified in the several characters of The Iliad. That of Achilles is furious and untractable; that of Diomed forward, yet listening to advice, and subject to command; that of Ajax is heavy, and self-confiding; of Hector, active and vigilant: the courage of Agamemnon is inspirited by love of empire and ambition; that of Menelaus mixed with softness and tenderness for his people: we find in Idomeneus a plain direct soldier, in Sarpedon a gallant and generous one. Nor is this judicious and astonishing diversity to be found only in the principal quality which constitutes the main of each character, but even in the under-parts of it, to which he takes care to give a tincture of that principal one. For example, the main characters of Ulysses and Nestor consist in Wisdom; and they are distinct in this, that the wisdom of one is artificial and various, of the other natural, open, and regular. But they have, besides, characters of Courage; and this quality also takes a different turn in each from the difference of his prudence; for one in the war depends still upon Caution, the other upon Experience. It would be endless to produce instances of these kinds. The characters of Virgil are far from striking us in this open manner; they lie in a great degree hidden and undistinguished, and where they are marked most evidently, affect us not in proportion to those of Homer. His characters of valour are much alike; even that of Turnus seems no way peculiar, but as it is in a superior degree; and we see nothing that differences the courage of Mnestheus from that of Sergestus, Cloanthus, or the rest. In like manner it may be remarked of Statius’s heroes, that an air of impetuosity runs through them all; the same horrid and savage courage appears in his Capaneus, Tydeus, Hippomedon, &c. They have a parity of character, which makes them seem brothers of one family. I believe when the reader is led into this track of reflection, if he will pursue it through the Epic and Tragic writers, he will be convinced how infinitely superior in this point the invention of Homer was to that of all others.

http://www.bartleby.com/203/167.html

>>5885342
Hector is just as great as Achilles and Odysseus.

>>5885403
He certainly gets credit for being the only particularly admirable character in the Iliad

>>5885366
This is probably true if we're only talking about the classical epics, yes

>>5883010
Why are any of those books essential?

Shouldn't a book be essential to the extent that it compensates for something lacking in the modern age, or a flaw which is aggravated by it?

How do any of those do that? I'm not saying they aren't I'm saying I don't know.

>>5885412
No, Homer's characters are every bit as fully formed as Shakespeare's and the characters in modern realist novels.

listen to this description of Ulysses' dog Argus seeing Ulysses for the first time after over a decade

Thus, near the gates conferring as they drew,
Argus, the dog, his ancient master knew:
He not unconscious of the voice and tread,
Lifts to the sound his ear, and rears his head;
Bred by Ulysses, nourish'd at his board,
But, ah! not fated long to please his lord;
To him, his swiftness and his strength were vain;
The voice of glory call'd him o'er the main.
Till then in every sylvan chase renown'd,
With Argus, Argus, rung the woods around;
With him the youth pursued the goat or fawn,
Or traced the mazy leveret o'er the lawn.
Now left to man's ingratitude he lay,
Unhoused, neglected in the public way;
And where on heaps the rich manure was spread,
Obscene with reptiles, took his sordid bed.

He knew his lord; he knew, and strove to meet;
In vain he strove to crawl and kiss his feet;
Yet (all he could) his tail, his tears, his eyes,
Salute his master, and confess his joys.
Soft pity touch'd the mighty master's soul;
Adown his cheek a tear unbidden stole,
Stole unperceived: he turn'd his head and dried
The drop humane: then thus impassion'd cried:

"What noble beast in this abandon'd state
Lies here all helpless at Ulysses' gate?
His bulk and beauty speak no vulgar praise:
If, as he seems, he was in better days,
Some care his age deserves; or was he prized
For worthless beauty? therefore now despised;
Such dogs and men there are, mere things of state;
And always cherish'd by their friends, the great."

"Not Argus so, (Eumaeus thus rejoin'd,)
But served a master of a nobler kind,
Who, never, never shall behold him more!
Long, long since perish'd on a distant shore!
Oh had you seen him, vigorous, bold, and young,
Swift as a stag, and as a lion strong:
Him no fell savage on the plain withstood,
None 'scaped him bosom'd in the gloomy wood;
His eye how piercing, and his scent how true,
To wind the vapour on the tainted dew!
Such, when Ulysses left his natal coast:
Now years unnerve him, and his lord is lost!
The women keep the generous creature bare,
A sleek and idle race is all their care:
The master gone, the servants what restrains?
Or dwells humanity where riot reigns?
Jove fix'd it certain, that whatever day
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away."

This said, the honest herdsman strode before;
The musing monarch pauses at the door:
The dog, whom Fate had granted to behold
His lord, when twenty tedious years had roll'd,
Takes a last look, and having seen him, dies;
So closed for ever faithful Argus' eyes!

>>5885439
Yes, Pope is indeed one of the greatest poets in the English language.

>>5885439
and him meeting his father Laertes after many years

But all alone the hoary king he found;
His habit course, but warmly wrapp'd around;
His head, that bow'd with many a pensive care,
Fenced with a double cap of goatskin hair:
His buskins old, in former service torn,
But swell repair'd; and gloves against the thorn.
In this array the kingly gardener stood,
And clear'd a plant, encumber'd with its wood.

Beneath a neighbouring tree, the chief divine
Gazed o'er his sire, retracing every line,
The ruins of himself, now worn away
With age, yet still majestic in decay!
Sudden his eyes released their watery store;
The much-enduring man could bear no more.
Doubtful he stood, if instant to embrace
His aged limbs, to kiss his reverend face,
With eager transport to disclose the whole,
And pour at once the torrent of his soul.—
Not so: his judgment takes the winding way
Of question distant, and of soft essay;
More gentle methods on weak age employs:
And moves the sorrows to enhance the joys.
Then, to his sire with beating heart he moves,
And with a tender pleasantry reproves;
Who digging round the plant still hangs his bead,
Nor aught remits the work, while thus he said:

"Great is thy skill, O father! great thy toil,
Thy careful hand is stamp'd on all the soil,
Thy squadron'd vineyards well thy art declare,
The olive green, blue fig, and pendent pear;
And not one empty spot escapes thy care.
On every plant and tree thy cares are shown,
Nothing neglected, but thyself alone.
Forgive me, father, if this fault I blame;
Age so advanced, may some indulgence claim.
Not for thy sloth, I deem thy lord unkind:
Nor speaks thy form a mean or servile mind;
I read a monarch in that princely air,
The same thy aspect, if the same thy care;
Soft sleep, fair garments, and the joys of wine,
These are the rights of age, and should be thine.
Who then thy master, say? and whose the land
So dress'd and managed by thy skilful hand?
But chief, oh tell me! (what I question most)
Is this the far-famed Ithacensian coast?
For so reported the first man I view'd
(Some surly islander, of manners rude),
Nor farther conference vouchsafed to stay;
Heedless he whistled, and pursued his way.
But thou whom years have taught to understand,
Humanely hear, and answer my demand:
A friend I seek, a wise one and a brave:
Say, lives he yet, or moulders in the grave?
Time was (my fortunes then were at the best)
When at my house I lodged this foreign guest;
He said, from Ithaca's fair isle he came,
And old Laertes was his father's name.
To him, whatever to a guest is owed
I paid, and hospitable gifts bestow'd:
To him seven talents of pure ore I told,
Twelve cloaks, twelve vests, twelve tunics stiff with gold:
A bowl, that rich with polish'd silver flames,
And skill'd in female works, four lovely dames."

>>5885455
At this the father, with a father's fears
(His venerable eyes bedimm'd with tears):
"This is the land; but ah! thy gifts are lost,
For godless men, and rude possess the coast:
Sunk is the glory of this once-famed shore!
Thy ancient friend, O stranger, is no more!
Full recompense thy bounty else had borne:
For every good man yields a just return:
So civil rights demand; and who begins
The track of friendship, not pursuing, sins.
But tell me, stranger, be the truth confess'd,
What years have circled since thou saw'st that guest?
That hapless guest, alas! for ever gone!
Wretch that he was! and that I am! my son!
If ever man to misery was born,
'Twas his to suffer, and 'tis mine to mourn!
Far from his friends, and from his native reign,
He lies a prey to monsters of the main;
Or savage beasts his mangled relics tear,
Or screaming vultures scatter through the air:
Nor could his mother funeral unguents shed;
Nor wail'd his father o'er the untimely dead:
Nor his sad consort, on the mournful bier,
Seal'd his cold eyes, or dropp'd a tender tear!

"But, tell me who thou art? and what thy race?
Thy town, thy parents, and thy native place?
Or, if a merchant in pursuit of gain,
What port received thy vessel from the main?
Or comest thou single, or attend thy train?"

Then thus the son: "From Alybas I came,
My palace there; Eperitus my name
Not vulgar born: from Aphidas, the king
Of Polyphemon's royal line, I spring.
Some adverse demon from Sicania bore
Our wandering course, and drove us on your shore;
Far from the town, an unfrequented bay
Relieved our wearied vessel from the sea.
Five years have circled since these eyes pursued
Ulysses parting through the sable flood:
Prosperous he sail'd, with dexter auguries,
And all the wing'd good omens of the skies.
Well hoped we then to meet on this fair shore,
Whom Heaven, alas! decreed to meet no more."

Quick through the father's heart these accents ran;
Grief seized at once, and wrapp'd up all the man:
Deep from his soul lie sigh'd, and sorrowing spread
A cloud of ashes on his hoary head.
Trembling with agonies of strong delight
Stood the great son, heart-wounded with the sight:
He ran, he seized him with a strict embrace,
With thousand kisses wander'd o'er his face:
"I, I am he; O father, rise! behold
Thy son, with twenty winters now grown old;
Thy son, so long desired, so long detain'd,
Restored, and breathing in his native land:
These floods of sorrow, O my sire, restrain!
The vengeance is complete; the suitor train,
Stretch'd in our palace, by these hands lie slain."

Amazed, Laertes: "Give some certain sign
(If such thou art) to manifest thee mine."

>>5885455
"Lo here the wound (he cries) received of yore,
The scar indented by the tusky boar,
When, by thyself, and by Anticlea sent,
To old Autolycus' realms I went.
Yet by another sign thy offspring know;
The several trees you gave me long ago,
While yet a child, these fields I loved to trace,
And trod thy footsteps with unequal pace;
To every plant in order as we came,
Well-pleased, you told its nature and its name,
Whate'er my childish fancy ask'd, bestow'd:
Twelve pear-trees, bowing with their pendent load,
And ten, that red with blushing apples glow'd;
Full fifty purple figs; and many a row
Of various vines that then began to blow,
A future vintage! when the Hours produce
Their latent buds, and Sol exalts the juice."

Smit with the signs which all his doubts explain,
His heart within him melt; his knees sustain
Their feeble weight no more: his arms alone
Support him, round the loved Ulysses thrown;
He faints, he sinks, with mighty joys oppress'd:
Ulysses clasps him to his eager breast.
Soon as returning life regains its seat,
And his breath lengthens, and his pulses beat:
"Yes, I believe (he cries) almighty Jove!
Heaven rules us yet, and gods there are above.
. . .

Hector's challenge to the Greeks:

Great Hector first amidst both armies broke
The solemn silence, and their powers bespoke:

"Hear, all ye Trojan, all ye Grecian bands,
What my soul prompts, and what some god commands.
Great Jove, averse our warfare to compose,
O'erwhelms the nations with new toils and woes;
War with a fiercer tide once more returns,
Till Ilion falls, or till yon navy burns.
You then, O princes of the Greeks! appear;
'Tis Hector speaks, and calls the gods to hear:
From all your troops select the boldest knight,
And him, the boldest, Hector dares to fight.
Here if I fall, by chance of battle slain,
Be his my spoil, and his these arms remain;
But let my body, to my friends return'd,
By Trojan hands and Trojan flames be burn'd.
And if Apollo, in whose aid I trust,
Shall stretch your daring champion in the dust;
If mine the glory to despoil the foe;
On Phoebus' temple I'll his arms bestow:
The breathless carcase to your navy sent,
Greece on the shore shall raise a monument;
Which when some future mariner surveys,
Wash'd by broad Hellespont's resounding seas,
Thus shall he say, 'A valiant Greek lies there,
By Hector slain, the mighty man of war,'
The stone shall tell your vanquish'd hero's name.
And distant ages learn the victor's fame."

This fierce defiance Greece astonish'd heard,
Blush'd to refuse, and to accept it fear'd.

>>5885464
The wife of Hector's lament at his death:

First to the corse the weeping consort flew;
Around his neck her milk-white arms she threw,
"And oh, my Hector! Oh, my lord! (she cries)
Snatch'd in thy bloom from these desiring eyes!
Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone!
And I abandon'd, desolate, alone!
An only son, once comfort of our pains,
Sad product now of hapless love, remains!
Never to manly age that son shall rise,
Or with increasing graces glad my eyes:
For Ilion now (her great defender slain)
Shall sink a smoking ruin on the plain.
Who now protects her wives with guardian care?
Who saves her infants from the rage of war?
Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o'er
(Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore:
Thou too, my son, to barbarous climes shall go,
The sad companion of thy mother's woe;
Driven hence a slave before the victor's sword
Condemn'd to toil for some inhuman lord:
Or else some Greek whose father press'd the plain,
Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain,
In Hector's blood his vengeance shall enjoy,
And hurl thee headlong from the towers of Troy.297
For thy stern father never spared a foe:
Thence all these tears, and all this scene of woe!
Thence many evils his sad parents bore,
His parents many, but his consort more.
Why gav'st thou not to me thy dying hand?
And why received not I thy last command?
Some word thou would'st have spoke, which, sadly dear,
My soul might keep, or utter with a tear;
Which never, never could be lost in air,
Fix'd in my heart, and oft repeated there!"

Thus to her weeping maids she makes her moan,
Her weeping handmaids echo groan for groan.

>>5885469
The last lines of the Iliad:

He spoke, and, at his word, the Trojan train
Their mules and oxen harness to the wain,
Pour through the gates, and fell'd from Ida's crown,
Roll back the gather'd forests to the town.
These toils continue nine succeeding days,
And high in air a sylvan structure raise.
But when the tenth fair morn began to shine,
Forth to the pile was borne the man divine,
And placed aloft; while all, with streaming eyes,
Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise.
Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
With rosy lustre streak'd the dewy lawn,
Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre,
And quench with wine the yet remaining fire.
The snowy bones his friends and brothers place
(With tears collected) in a golden vase;
The golden vase in purple palls they roll'd,
Of softest texture, and inwrought with gold.
Last o'er the urn the sacred earth they spread,
And raised the tomb, memorial of the dead.
(Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done,
Watch'd from the rising to the setting sun.)
All Troy then moves to Priam's court again,
A solemn, silent, melancholy train:
Assembled there, from pious toil they rest,
And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast.
Such honours Ilion to her hero paid,
And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade.

******

This is poetic genius. The expression of human passions is exemplary.

>>5885472
Yes, Pope is a genius, but that's not to Homer's credit, as much as Homer may have captured Pope's imagination.

>>5885469
And this is the last time Hector and his wife (Andromache) meet before they die.

It's notable that in the Iliad Homer has no bias whatsoever for the Greeks. His only bias is towards virtue/excellence, and he his just as happy to find it among the Trojans as among the Greeks.

He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain;
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had hence retired; and with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion's towery height,
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore,
Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore.

But he who found not whom his soul desired,
Whose virtue charm'd him as her beauty fired,
Stood in the gates, and ask'd "what way she bent
Her parting step? If to the fane she went,
Where late the mourning matrons made resort;
Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court?"
"Not to the court, (replied the attendant train,)
Nor mix'd with matrons to Minerva's fane:
To Ilion's steepy tower she bent her way,
To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day.
Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword;
She heard, and trembled for her absent lord:
Distracted with surprise, she seem'd to fly,
Fear on her cheek, and sorrow m her eye.
The nurse attended with her infant boy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy."

Hector this heard, return'd without delay;
Swift through the town he trod his former way,
Through streets of palaces, and walks of state;
And met the mourner at the Scaean gate.
With haste to meet him sprung the joyful fair.
His blameless wife, Aetion's wealthy heir:
(Cilician Thebe great Aetion sway'd,
And Hippoplacus' wide extended shade:)
The nurse stood near, in whose embraces press'd,
His only hope hung smiling at her breast,
Whom each soft charm and early grace adorn,
Fair as the new-born star that gilds the morn.
To this loved infant Hector gave the name
Scamandrius, from Scamander's honour'd stream;
Astyanax the Trojans call'd the boy,
From his great father, the defence of Troy.
Silent the warrior smiled, and pleased resign'd
To tender passions all his mighty mind;
His beauteous princess cast a mournful look,
Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke;
Her bosom laboured with a boding sigh,
And the big tear stood trembling in her eye.

>>5883838

Plato's Apology, Crito, and Republic
The Odyssey and the Iliad
Euripides' Bacchae
Aescheles' Oresteia
Aristotle's Ethics, Politics, and Poetics
Seneca/Epicurus/Zeno/Diogenes (I don't put specifics because I am not yet familiar enough with any of these philosophers)
>Anabasis by Xenophon, the first Greek impressions of Persia

The Analects of Confuscius
Complete Writings of Zhuangzi

Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Samuel I, Kings I, Psalms, The Gospels, Romans, and Galatians

The Aeneid
Tacitus' Annales
Augustine's Confessions
City of God
Aquinas' On Kingship, Summa Theologiae, maybe Summa contra Gentiles

>The Travels of Marco Polo

The Divine Comedy
Boccaccio's Decameron
>The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Don Quixote
>Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Machiavelli's The Prince & Discourses on Livy
Shakespeare
Montaigne's essays

Enlightenment thinkers
Decartes, Locke, Hobbes, Diderot, Kant, Mill
>Rousseau's First and Second Dialogues and maybe Emile
>Candide by Voltaire

'Modernity'
Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Darwin

'Modernism'
>Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen
>August Strindberg (I can personally recommend The Dance of Death and the Great Highway)

>>5885493
"Too daring prince! ah, whither dost thou run?
Ah, too forgetful of thy wife and son!
And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be,
A widow I, a helpless orphan he?
For sure such courage length of life denies,
And thou must fall, thy virtue's sacrifice.
Greece in her single heroes strove in vain;
Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain.
O grant me, gods, ere Hector meets his doom,
All I can ask of heaven, an early tomb!
So shall my days in one sad tenor run,
And end with sorrows as they first begun.
No parent now remains my griefs to share,
No father's aid, no mother's tender care.
The fierce Achilles wrapt our walls in fire,
Laid Thebe waste, and slew my warlike sire!
His fate compassion in the victor bred;
Stern as he was, he yet revered the dead,
His radiant arms preserved from hostile spoil,
And laid him decent on the funeral pile;
Then raised a mountain where his bones were burn'd,
The mountain-nymphs the rural tomb adorn'd,
Jove's sylvan daughters bade their elms bestow
A barren shade, and in his honour grow.

"By the same arm my seven brave brothers fell;
In one sad day beheld the gates of hell;
While the fat herds and snowy flocks they fed,
Amid their fields the hapless heroes bled!
My mother lived to wear the victor's bands,
The queen of Hippoplacia's sylvan lands:
Redeem'd too late, she scarce beheld again
Her pleasing empire and her native plain,
When ah! oppress'd by life-consuming woe,
She fell a victim to Diana's bow.

"Yet while my Hector still survives, I see
My father, mother, brethren, all, in thee:
Alas! my parents, brothers, kindred, all
Once more will perish, if my Hector fall,
Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger share:
Oh, prove a husband's and a father's care!
That quarter most the skilful Greeks annoy,
Where yon wild fig-trees join the wall of Troy;
Thou, from this tower defend the important post;
There Agamemnon points his dreadful host,
That pass Tydides, Ajax, strive to gain,
And there the vengeful Spartan fires his train.
Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have given,
Or led by hopes, or dictated from heaven.
Let others in the field their arms employ,
But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy."

The chief replied: "That post shall be my care,
Not that alone, but all the works of war.
How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown'd,
And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground
Attaint the lustre of my former name,
Should Hector basely quit the field of fame?
My early youth was bred to martial pains,
My soul impels me to the embattled plains!
Let me be foremost to defend the throne,
And guard my father's glories, and my own.

>>5885501
"Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates!
(How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!)
The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend,
And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end.
And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind,
My mother's death, the ruin of my kind,
Not Priam's hoary hairs defiled with gore,
Not all my brothers gasping on the shore;
As thine, Andromache! Thy griefs I dread:
I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led!
In Argive looms our battles to design,
And woes, of which so large a part was thine!
To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring
The weight of waters from Hyperia's spring.
There while you groan beneath the load of life,
They cry, 'Behold the mighty Hector's wife!'
Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see,
Imbitters all thy woes, by naming me.
The thoughts of glory past, and present shame,
A thousand griefs shall waken at the name!
May I lie cold before that dreadful day,
Press'd with a load of monumental clay!
Thy Hector, wrapt in everlasting sleep,
Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep."

Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy
Stretch'd his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy.
The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast,
Scared at the dazzling helm, and nodding crest.
With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled,
And Hector hasted to relieve his child,
The glittering terrors from his brows unbound,
And placed the beaming helmet on the ground;
Then kiss'd the child, and, lifting high in air,
Thus to the gods preferr'd a father's prayer:

"O thou! whose glory fills the ethereal throne,
And all ye deathless powers! protect my son!
Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown,
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown,
Against his country's foes the war to wage,
And rise the Hector of the future age!
So when triumphant from successful toils
Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils,
Whole hosts may hail him with deserved acclaim,
And say, 'This chief transcends his father's fame:'
While pleased amidst the general shouts of Troy,
His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy."

He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms,
Restored the pleasing burden to her arms;
Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid,
Hush'd to repose, and with a smile survey'd.
The troubled pleasure soon chastised by fear,
She mingled with a smile a tender tear.
The soften'd chief with kind compassion view'd,
And dried the falling drops, and thus pursued:

>>5885119
Pressfields gates of fire comes to mind

>>5885507
"Andromache! my soul's far better part,
Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart?
No hostile hand can antedate my doom,
Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb.
Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth;
And such the hard condition of our birth:
No force can then resist, no flight can save,
All sink alike, the fearful and the brave.
No more—but hasten to thy tasks at home,
There guide the spindle, and direct the loom:
Me glory summons to the martial scene,
The field of combat is the sphere for men.
Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim,
The first in danger as the first in fame."
Thus having said, the glorious chief resumes
His towery helmet, black with shading plumes.
His princess parts with a prophetic sigh,
Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye
That stream'd at every look; then, moving slow,
Sought her own palace, and indulged her woe.
There, while her tears deplored the godlike man,
Through all her train the soft infection ran;
The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed,
And mourn the living Hector, as the dead.

****

>>5885485
Well, I don't know, maybe Homer is even better in the original; I do not know.

>>5885494
Plato's Apology, Crito, and Republic
The Odyssey and the Iliad
Euripides' Bacchae
Aescheles' Oresteia
>Sophokles - Ajax and Oedipus Tyrannus
Aristotle's Ethics, Politics, and Poetics
Seneca/Epicurus/Zeno/Diogenes (I don't put specifics because I am not yet familiar enough with any of these philosophers)
>Anabasis by Xenophon, the first Greek impressions of Persia
>Plutarch - Life of Aristides, Themistocles, Pericles, Alexander, Cato the Elder, Pompey, Caesar

The Analects of Confuscius
Complete Writings of Zhuangzi

Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Samuel I, Kings I, Psalms, The Gospels, Romans, and Galatians
>Read all of Samuel, in the Hebrew it is not a divided book
>Proverbs and Ecclesiastes as well as the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon are all essential

The Aeneid
Tacitus' Annales
>Read the Agricola and Germania as well
Augustine's Confessions
City of God
Aquinas' On Kingship, Summa Theologiae, maybe Summa contra Gentiles

>The Travels of Marco Polo

The Divine Comedy
Boccaccio's Decameron
>The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
>The Faerie Queene - "To fashion a gentleman"
Don Quixote
>Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Machiavelli's The Prince & Discourses on Livy
Shakespeare
Montaigne's essays

Enlightenment thinkers
Decartes, Locke, Hobbes, Diderot, Kant, Mill
>Rousseau's First and Second Dialogues and maybe Emile
>Candide by Voltaire

'Modernity'
Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Darwin

'Modernism'
>Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen
>August Strindberg (I can personally recommend The Dance of Death and the Great Highway)
>"The Dead" and Portrait of the Artist by James Joyce
>The Great Gatsby - for the bullshit of the American Dream, futility of romance.

>>5885516
>>5885507
A thing to note about Hector's prayer concerning his son as that it goes unfulfilled, as Astyanax is thrown from the walls of Troy by the conquering Greeks after Hector's death at the hand of Achilles.

I want to post one more excerpt, and it's one of the most touching encounters in all of literature. Achilles spend the entirety of the Iliad in a rage. He spends the vast majority of it watching his fellow Greeks get slaughtered as he refuses to fight for them, knowing full well that he's the spear of the Greek's army and essential to their campaign. Eventually the situation becomes so dire that Patroclus, the friend of Achilles who remained at Achilles' side during his sulking, decides he must intervene and fight for the Greeks. He manages to get Achilles' permission to wear his armour in order to terrify the Trojans. Seeing Patroclus in Achilles' armour the Trojans are terrified and begin to flee, which allows Patroclus and his crew to slaughter many of them. Eventually they get all the way to Troy, but Hector challenges Patroclus to fight and slays him. Hector takes Achilles' armour, and eventually dies in it as Achilles kills him. After he hears of the death of Patroclus Achilles throws a fit and at last decides to enter the war in order to avenge Patroclus. He does kill Hector, and drags his corpse around the city walls with his chariot, and refuses to give the Trojans the body of their greatest hero in order to give it a proper burial. Eventually the gods decide enough is enough as Hector deserves proper funeral rites, and so Mercury guides Priam (king of Troy, father of Hector) to Achilles' camp where he begs Achilles to return the body of his son:

Unseen by these, the king his entry made:
And, prostrate now before Achilles laid,
Sudden (a venerable sight!) appears;
Embraced his knees, and bathed his hands in tears;
Those direful hands his kisses press'd, embrued
Even with the best, the dearest of his blood!

As when a wretch (who, conscious of his crime,
Pursued for murder, flies his native clime)
Just gains some frontier, breathless, pale, amazed,
All gaze, all wonder: thus Achilles gazed:
Thus stood the attendants stupid with surprise:
All mute, yet seem'd to question with their eyes:
Each look'd on other, none the silence broke,
Till thus at last the kingly suppliant spoke:

>>5885577
"Ah think, thou favour'd of the powers divine!295
Think of thy father's age, and pity mine!
In me that father's reverend image trace,
Those silver hairs, that venerable face;
His trembling limbs, his helpless person, see!
In all my equal, but in misery!
Yet now, perhaps, some turn of human fate
Expels him helpless from his peaceful state;
Think, from some powerful foe thou seest him fly,
And beg protection with a feeble cry.
Yet still one comfort in his soul may rise;
He hears his son still lives to glad his eyes,
And, hearing, still may hope a better day
May send him thee, to chase that foe away.
No comfort to my griefs, no hopes remain,
The best, the bravest, of my sons are slain!
Yet what a race! ere Greece to Ilion came,
The pledge of many a loved and loving dame:
Nineteen one mother bore—Dead, all are dead!
How oft, alas! has wretched Priam bled!
Still one was left their loss to recompense;
His father's hope, his country's last defence.
Him too thy rage has slain! beneath thy steel,
Unhappy in his country's cause he fell!

"For him through hostile camps I bent my way,
For him thus prostrate at thy feet I lay;
Large gifts proportion'd to thy wrath I bear;
O hear the wretched, and the gods revere!

"Think of thy father, and this face behold!
See him in me, as helpless and as old!
Though not so wretched: there he yields to me,
The first of men in sovereign misery!
Thus forced to kneel, thus grovelling to embrace
The scourge and ruin of my realm and race;
Suppliant my children's murderer to implore,
And kiss those hands yet reeking with their gore!"

These words soft pity in the chief inspire,
Touch'd with the dear remembrance of his sire.
Then with his hand (as prostrate still he lay)
The old man's cheek he gently turn'd away.
Now each by turns indulged the gush of woe;
And now the mingled tides together flow:
This low on earth, that gently bending o'er;
A father one, and one a son deplore:
But great Achilles different passions rend,
And now his sire he mourns, and now his friend.
The infectious softness through the heroes ran;
One universal solemn shower began;
They bore as heroes, but they felt as man.

>>5885167
pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo

>inb4 it's in plural you pleb
sry

>>5885542
Strindbers The Father is also great

>>5885102
Thanks mate.

>>5885155
The most photographed barn in the world. We owe it to ourselves to read what he had to say, seeing as he's a figure that so much of modern thought is based off of. We need to see where political Darwinism comes from in his own words, we need to see the Descent of Man (I think.)

>>5885167
I'm showing my ignorance here. I haven't read enough of either to really call them "essential," but that very well could be my own flaw. What do you suggest I read by either? Just grab some "collected writings?" More importantly, why are they so important?

>>5885216
Thanks. Do you think Job should be added as well? Again, I'll admit I haven't really studied it, but I don't want my studies to get in the way of making a better list.

>>5885241
I'm sorry. I've mixed modernity with modern with modernism. See Paul Ricoeur's Masters of Suspicion to understand what I'm getting at here.

>>5885416
I'd argue for "essentiality" based upon books that will help the "21st century man" better understand what it means to be a "21st century man." Any books that strongly heighten awareness of his time and place in the world, as well as develop a definition of "the world," while being beautiful to read in their own right, make my list. A book that challenges the reader to reinterpret his life.

>>5885494
I like these additions.
>>5885542
These too. I don't know "the Faerie Queene" though.

Also, I said tbc but there didn't seem to be much interest. Shall I continue?

>>5885663
Please continue

>>5885663
Job isn't the best display of philosophy out there, but, at same time, it is the oldest registered human attempt to understand the aporia of human suffering. The thinking is so alien. It is not the Job and his companions are dumb or primitive, it is more likely that their mind worked in particular way that human modern thinking can't properly understand. It's terribly interesting.

Ecclesiastes is a lot more accessible. This is not proven, but i do think this book has strong hellenistic influence.

None of the prophet books are essential imo. Maybe Daniel, because of the lion's fable and the revelations. And Jonah, because is short and funny.

>>5885747
Well, I'm particular to Daniel (but only because it's my given name. Which is not a very good criteria to be included on our list). We'll leave the Bible section untouched and continue with our attempt:
>>5885693
So. The reason I originally stopped with Marx/Neet/Fre/Dar (other than the character limit), is that the written world after them grows phenomenally. There became so much great literature that it is a daunting task to create an essential list, and it is impossible to create one without disagreement. I'll write up a word doc to save and try and make a sensible list. Give me a little

Maybe link a google doc and make it no edit or something

>>5885663
go for it brah. Also, I'd like to know if you think that any particular post-modern work would actually contribute to the 21st century man (Don't turn this into a Pynchon shitposting pls).

>>5883010
I do think there are two categories of "must reads".

The first one is composed bu works of proven importance, legacy and quality. These would be called "Great books", using Adler's terminology. There'd would be around 100 authors, but this list could be shrunk to 30 even if you're gonna throw some really good stuff like Tuchydides, Aristophanes, Cicero etc.
Then, you have the other category of recent influential books. Books that aren't proven by time, and some of them are even bad, but they are brought up a lot of time in discussions. The gist of this category is that would be the same size of the other one even if the covered time is a lot smaller. There would be stuff like Joyce, Camus, Sartre, Garcia Marquez that really doesn't have controversy around, but at same would have stuff like Orwell, Rand, DFW, Dawnkins not because they're good, but because they're at the core of current debates and are quoted very frequently.

>>5885542
>>5885645

Plato (Apology, Crito, and Republic)
Homer - The Odyssey and the Iliad
Euripides - Bacchae
Aescheles - Oresteia
Sophocles - Ajax and Oedipus Tyrannus
Aristotle (Ethics, Politics, and Poetics)
Epicurus, Zeno, Diogenes, Seneca
Anabasis by Xenophon, the first Greek impressions of Persia
Plutarch (Life of Aristides, Themistocles, Pericles, Alexander, Cato the Elder, Pompey, Caesar)

The Analects of Confuscius
Complete Writings of Zhuangzi

Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Samuel I, Kings I, Psalms, The Gospels, Romans, and Galatians
>All of Samuel, in the Hebrew it is not a divided book
>Proverbs and Ecclesiastes as well as the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon are all essential

The Aeneid
Tacitus - Annales, Agricola and Germania
Augustine's Confessions
City of God
Thomas Aquinas - On Kingship, Summa Theologiae, Summa contra Gentiles

The Travels of Marco Polo

The Divine Comedy
Boccaccio's Decameron
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
The Faerie Queene
Don Quixote
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Machiavelli's The Prince & Discourses on Livy
Shakespeare
Montaigne's essays

Enlightenment thinkers
Decartes, Locke, Hobbes, Diderot, Kant, Mill
Rousseau's First and Second Dialogues and maybe Emile
Candide by Voltaire

Modern science and philosophy
Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Darwin

European Modernism
Henrik Ibsen (Ghosts)
August Strindberg (The Dance of Death, The Father, The Great Highway)
The Dead and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
George Orwell (Burmese Days, Down and Out in Paris and London, 1984, The Road to Wigan Pier)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

American Modernism
The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (and whatever else by John Steinbeck)
>Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
>On the Road and The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

Post-modernism
>Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hell's Angels)
>Kurt Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five)
>David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest, Consider the Lobster)

Contemporary
>Houellebecq
>Murakami
>Zadie Smith
>Tao Lin

>>5883010
Meditations
The way and its power; Confucius' conversations (yes westaboos, those are important reads)
Seneca's On the brevity of life

the 21st century man should try to read Zarathustra but if he never finishes it no one can really hold it against him

>>5885833
Plato (Apology, Crito, and Republic)
Homer - The Odyssey and the Iliad
Euripides - Bacchae
Aescheles - Oresteia
Sophocles - Ajax and Oedipus Tyrannus
Aristotle (Ethics, Politics, and Poetics)
Epicurus, Diogenes, Seneca
Anabasis by Xenophon, the first Greek impressions of Persia
Plutarch (Life of Aristides, Themistocles, Pericles, Alexander, Cato the Elder, Pompey, Caesar)

>Heraclitus
>Parmenides
>Zeno of Citium
>Zeno of Elea

The Analects of Confuscius
Complete Writings of Zhuangzi

Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Samuel I, Kings I, Psalms, The Gospels, Romans, and Galatians
>All of Samuel, in the Hebrew it is not a divided book
Proverbs and Ecclesiastes as well as the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon are all essential

The Aeneid
Tacitus - Annales, Agricola and Germania
Augustine's Confessions
City of God
Thomas Aquinas - On Kingship, Summa Theologiae, Summa contra Gentiles

The Travels of Marco Polo

The Divine Comedy
Boccaccio's Decameron
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
The Faerie Queene
Don Quixote
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Machiavelli's The Prince & Discourses on Livy
Shakespeare
Montaigne's essays

Enlightenment thinkers
Decartes, Locke, Hobbes, Diderot, Kant, Mill
>Hume
>Hegel
>Bentham

Rousseau's First and Second Dialogues and maybe Emile
Candide by Voltaire

Modern science and philosophy
Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Darwin

>Schopenhauer
>Wittgenstein
>Kierkegaard
>Sartre
>Camus

European Modernism
Henrik Ibsen (Ghosts)
August Strindberg (The Dance of Death, The Father, The Great Highway)
The Dead and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
George Orwell (Burmese Days, Down and Out in Paris and London, 1984, The Road to Wigan Pier)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

American Modernism
The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (and whatever else by John Steinbeck)
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
On the Road and The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

Post-modernism
Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hell's Angels)
Kurt Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five)
David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest, Consider the Lobster)

Contemporary
Houellebecq
Murakami
Zadie Smith
Tao Lin

>>5885900
>Camus
>Sartre

shouldn't they be under european modernism instead of philosophy? sartre was really more of a social critic than a philosopher

Like >>5885827 said, this may be a futile project, but I can assure you that this list would be a great way to start.

>>5885818
Here's what I've got. I absolutely think that DFW and Pynchon deserve the fame that the get on this board, even if they are "meme authors" here.

>>5885693
>>5885747
>>5885766
>>5885818
>>5885833
>>5885900

I don't know how to make an anonymous Google Doc (damn newfangled technology and all that), but I think that would be a good idea instead of just the image I made. Can any of you type one up? I don't want to use any of my google accounts with my name on them.

>>5885973
See how this works

so, the sticky ('recommended reading') is divided into these categories: "literature by type,' 'literature by origin,' 'genre fiction' and 'non-fiction'

for the essentials list, I generally agree with the post-ww2 / decolonialization narrative but by that logic, we'd have different sub-categories for individual greco-roman civil war, you know? so, i propose these categories, chronologically -- and we should partition but not separate works of literature and philosophy

>classical antiquity
>middle ages
>enlightenment
>modern
>post-modern
>contemporary

and 'contemporary' can arguably be struck from a somewhat-objective list of 'essentials'

>>5886003
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zwqPZ5-Qc65Zq1ujSHcoht7D8OlOa9o4hGSf8Ubkstc/edit?usp=sharing
forgot the link

>>5885439
>>5885455
>>5885459
>>5885462
>>5885464
>>5885469
>>5885472
>>5885493
>>5885501
>>5885507
>>5885516
>>5885577
>>5885580
First fucking time I see an English poet using proper meter+rhymes and not the pleb blank verse

>>5885900
>no Classicism
>no Romanticism
>no Parnasse
>no Symbolism
Is this a sort of bait?

>>5886027
blank verse is so much better

>>5885216
>best parts of the Bible
>no Ecclesiastes

Erm

>>5886035
Dude just make suggestions to add to the list and critique what you don't think should be on it.
Don't be a dickhead
>>5886150
Ecclesiastes was added. See the larger list:
>>5885949

>>5886150
The best parts are the Jahwist material and the Deuteronomistic history, which also happen to contain, for that reason, the most famous and important stories.

>>5885949
Republic should be made essential

Why not just use Bloom's list

>>5886275

Where can I get that?

>>5886287
http://home.comcast.net/~dwtaylor1/theocraticcanon.html

>>5886291
That's just the first part covering ancient literature. Here's the whole thing on one page: http://interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtbloom.html

>>5886287
the sticky, google

>>5886297
Even if it's very Anglo-centered, it's better than any of the lists ITT

>>5886316
It comes from a work titled the WESTERN canon, his goal was to make it anglo-centric

>>5886321
Still emphasizes England and esp. United States over other countries, but he's American so it shouldn't be surprising

>>5886316
It's too long, our collaborative list is an exercise in the essentials.

>>5886524
It is a good start

>>5886524
>an exercise in regurgitating the other lists
ftfy

not one of you sons of bitches has mentioned Blood Meridian, and it makes me sick

>>5885119
>I've browsed fit for some years now and i still don't know ANYTHING about literature that came out after 2000

Bet you've got some sweet abs though.

>>5886591
Dude, I just made up this list of stuff that I studied as an undergraduate that I'd say changed my life.

We aren't trying to be pretensions or imply that it is an end-all be-all, just listing what we'd call "essentials."

What's here that doesn't deserve to be? What should be added?

Again, no reason to be a dick, just help compile a list with us.

John Micheal Greer is for me, the modern Socrates

>>5883010
>21st Century Man
>No Scientific Literature
It's like you dont wanna be 21st century

>>5883010
Whose quote is that?

>>5883010
>essential reading list for a 21st century man
>books aren't from the 21st century

>>5885949
You should put East of Eden as the third Steinbeck essential. Also where's Tolstoy, Balzac, Dumas and Proust?

Tao Lin
Tao Lin
Tao Lin

>>5888663
tao plz go

>>5885900
Why is Shishkin, one of Russia's greatest living writers always overlooked in these /lit/ lists of modern writers? It could be indicative of a userbase centred in America because I am certain he is far less obscure and ignored in Europe.

>>5885102
> Not understanding sarcasm.

>>5883838
>no sophocles
But why?

>>5890430
>>5890430
I added Sophokles - Ajax and Oedipus Tyrannus in a later draft of the list. He's still on there. I could argue that all of his plays should be there but I would be clouded with my own Classical bias.

>>5890652
Antigone and Electra should also belong on there.
They're fairly short, so its not like it takes up much space, and fairly important for giving a reader a basis in Greek Culture, considering how important that is for understanding the Greek Philosophy.