Greatest works of literature in the English language

[Anonymous No.1163144]

I'll start

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Everything ever written by Shakespeare
The Canterbury Tales
Poems by Lord Byron


(DO NOT DARE POST ANYTHING BY DICKENS, HE WAS A HACK)

[Anonymous No.1163149]

[Anonymous No.1163182]

Paradise Lost by John Milton
The Rainbow by DH Lawrence

[Anonymous No.1163184]

the divinci code

[Anonymous No.1163190]

You never see this one posted, but it's up there

[Anonymous No.1163193]

>Dickens
>hack
faggot

[Anonymous No.1163197]

Ulysses by James Joyce

[Anonymous No.1163204]

I can't pick a book or collection, so just everything Shelley ever wrote.

[None !WvWWh.l.CE No.1163210]

[Anonymous No.1163222]

Beowulf

[Anonymous No.1163357]

Great Gatsby
Short Stories by Hemingway

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!NU1qDw5ZF2C No.1163373]

As someone who has read the UNABRIDGED Decline and Fall, it is NOT one of the greatest works of literature in the English Language.

One of the greatest HISTORY books? Yes.

[Anonymous No.1163382]

Shogun by James Clavell

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

[Anonymous No.1163386]

>>1163373
>hurrrr

[Anonymous No.1163390]

>>1163373

...

[Anonymous No.1164474]

bumpin
need some recc's

[Anonymous No.1164488]

Pinheads and Patriots

[Anonymous No.1164513]

The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
The Adventures of Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby - Charles Dickens
The Old Curiosity Shop - Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
Hard Times - Charles Dickens
Little Dorrit - Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens

[Anonymous No.1164583]

>>1163182
>>1163222
Paradise Lost and Beowulf. I read the former so many years ago, and yet I could describe scenes from it as though I just read it; the imagery is so powerful.

[Anonymous No.1164587]

>>1164583
Beowulf is like fucking German. Saxon or some shit. Not English idiot

[Anonymous No.1164593]

>>1163144
Is Gibbon REALLY that good? I've seen him tossed around on /lit/, have known about him for a while, and have read almost review of it on Amazon. The consensus: it apparently rocks.

Give me one reason why I should order all six unabridged volumes of this work--the Everyman's Library editions.

[Anonymous No.1164600]

>>1164593
Gibbon is one of the best prose writers in the English language, and a very sharply critical historian. He's imminently readable and the period he covers is vital for understanding the origin of the modern West.

I own the Everyman's Library set. Currently re-reading for like the fourth time.

[Anonymous No.1164601]

>>1164587
You obviously don't know the synonym for Anglo-Saxon literature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_literature

[Anonymous No.1164602]

Lyrical Ballads up in this bitch, by my niggaz Wordsworth and Coleridge. This be some real gangsta ass romanticism, ya feel me?

[Anonymous No.1164609]

>>1164601
Sorry but Anglo-Saxon =/= English, Middle English, or Early English. Different languages

[Anonymous No.1164611]

>>1164600
>the period he covers is vital for understanding the origin of the modern West.
Good thing I'm not a math major, otherwise I'd not care to understand that important fact. Can you give me another? That's pretty much the reason I'm in Liberal Arts. What are some tidbits you remember most from the work.

[Anonymous No.1164627]

>>1164609
Oh, well will you look at that: OP neglected to specify how mature the English language needed to be at publication. Please rim my shitty, flatulent asshole and choke.

[Anonymous No.1164628]

>>1164609

Beowulf is in old english you fucking retard

[Anonymous No.1164637]

>>1164611
well, to name a few
-How the collapse of the Roman government gave birth to the Medieval Europe
-How Rome went from being ruled by decent emperors to idiots and tyrants and ultimately the Praetorian guard
-Origin of the Roman Christianity and how it developed into the Catholic
-Development and evolution of the Catholic church and the spread of the Christian faith (conversion of the Barbarians)
-Origin and spread of Islam and how it affected the West

As you may have heard, he provides from pretty scathing criticisms of the Catholic church.

Let me stress again that he's very very readable. His work isn't a dry history text. It's really literature

[Anonymous No.1164640]

>>1164628
>>1164627
Anglo-Saxon was pre-English. It was fucking German they were speaking the same language in Germany you idiots. And the story was written in Germany, not England

[Anonymous No.1164643]

>>1164611
well, to name a few
-How Rome went from being ruled by decent emperors to idiots and tyrants and ultimately the Praetorian guard
-How the collapse of the Roman government gave birth to the Medieval Europe
-Origin of the Roman Christianity and how it developed into the early Catholic church
-Development and evolution of the Catholic church and the spread of the Christian faith (conversion of the Barbarians)
-Origin and spread of Islam and how it affected the West

As you may have heard, he provides from pretty scathing criticisms of the Catholic church.

Let me stress again that he's very very readable. His work isn't a dry history text. It's really literature

[Anonymous No.1164648]

>>1164611
well, to name a few
-How Rome went from being ruled by decent emperors to idiots and tyrants and ultimately the Praetorian guard
-How the collapse of the Roman government gave birth to the Medieval Europe
-Origin of the Roman Christianity and how it developed into the early Catholic church
-Development and evolution of the Catholic church and the spread of the Christian faith (conversion of the Barbarians)
-Origin and spread of Islam and how it affected the West

As you may already know, Gibbon provides from pretty scathing criticisms of the Catholic church.

Let me stress again that he's very very readable. His work isn't a dry history text. It's really literature

[Anonymous No.1164649]

>>1164640

>Anglo-Saxon was pre-English

Nope

>It was fucking German they were speaking the same language in Germany you idiots.

Nope

>And the story was written in Germany, not England

Nope

[STLFag !IeX.oK0HUk No.1164660]

1) Not everything Shakespeare wrote was that good.
2) How are we defining "great" for this discussion?

[Anonymous No.1164662]

>>1164640

You're an obvious troll, so just read this Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_literature
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_literature

Oh, wait--they both lead to the same page.

>And the story was written in Germany, not England
Hemingway wrote some of his stories in France and Spain; I suppose that precludes their admission as works belonging to the English language.

[Anonymous No.1164670]

>>1164648
Gibbons is certainly literature, but I would hardly call him "extremely readable". His prose style is incredibly labored and opaque. It's a good prose style, but it's not as clear as day.

[Anonymous No.1164678]

>>1164670
well we disagree then. It takes some getting used to his style, but once you do it just flows. A real pleasure to read

[Anonymous No.1164682]

>>1164648
Thanks, man, I appreciate it. I'm just so damn busy, and I keep buying more books. Perhaps I'll just make this my last book purchase until I read everything I have left.

By the way, if you really like his work, and moreover love collecting books, I recommend you look at the Easton Press publishing house. They make the most beautiful books available today. Unfortunately it's all very expensive, but I can attest that the quality of their books are unmatched anywhere. Check out Gibbon's work: http://www.eastonpressbooks.com/leather/product.asp?code=0094

Unfortunately they do not give many previews for their books. Nevertheless, take my word: they are gorgeous to hold, and just as readable.

[Anonymous No.1164704]

>>1164662
Well no. Hemingway was writing in modern English and was AMERICAN. Where he was at when he wrote his stories obviously does not matter

[Anonymous No.1164708]

>>1164704
>Where he was at when he wrote his stories obviously does not matter
Yeah, that's the point.

[Anonymous No.1164712]

>>1164708
ANGLO SAXON IS ANGLO SAXON. IT WASN'T ENGLISH YET. CALLING IT ENGLISH IS LIKE SAYING THAT LATIN IS FRENCH

[Anonymous No.1164719]

>>1164712
Just leave this thread already; your presence is irritating.

[Anonymous No.1164725]

>>1164719
I've proven you wrong and you tell me to leave?

[Anonymous No.1164739]

>>1164712
>ANGLO SAXON IS ANGLO SAXON. IT WASN'T ENGLISH YET.
Did you know that the Byzantine Empire was not called the Byzantine Empire by its inhabitants? It was simply the Roman Empire. Calling it the Byzantine Empire is a modern term. Does that mean that the Byzantine Empire is not in fact the Byzantine Empire?

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire

It doesn't matter if Anglo-Saxon-speaking people didn't think to say they were writing Old English. The fact is, we call it Old English. Do you speak English or modern English? I bet a thousand years from now, my English will no longer be referred to plainly as English.

It's not like saying Latin is French.

Just read the Wikipedia entries, as well as their sources, and be done with it. You're wrong; big deal. I don't think you're an idiot, ok?

[Anonymous No.1164749]

>>1164739
No, let me break it down for you. They were speaking this language in Germany called Saxon. Some of these Saxons migrate to England where they develop a DIALECT of the Saxon language. It's at this time still Saxon, and not English. It then later develops into English

[Anonymous No.1164768]

>>1164749
"Old English literature (or Anglo-Saxon literature) encompasses literature written in Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon), during the 600-year Anglo-Saxon period of England, from the mid-5th century to the Norman Conquest of 1066."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_literature

>It's at this time still Saxon, and not English. It then later develops into English
To be clear, we're talking about Anglo-Saxon, not Saxon. When does it develop into English? Who determined that they were speaking English? You seem to miss the point of my last argument, so I'll make it very clear: 1000 years from now someone will, hypothetically, call what I refer to as English as "Farts Second Millennium." I may call it English, but the historians and bookkeepers will have to call it something else, because they in fact speak English proper.

I don't know what teacher emphasized these points for you, but it's just not cute anymore.

[Anonymous No.1164780]

>>1164768
>When does it develop into English?

Sometime after the Norman conquest, varying depending on the region of course

[Anonymous No.1164783]

Twilight Saga

[Anonymous No.1164785]

>>1164780
Nope. Assuming the Wikipedia entry is accurate and written by people who study the subject of Old English/Anglo-Saxon literature, I'm going to stick with Wikipedia. As much as I want to believe in your misconstrued ad verbatim from your English 101 professor, I just don't have the required faith.

In case you neglected to read it, I'll paste it here again. It's a good read; I suggest you update your knowledge:

>Old English literature (or Anglo-Saxon literature) encompasses literature written in Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon), during the 600-year Anglo-Saxon period of England, from the mid-5th century to the Norman Conquest of 1066.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_literature

[Anonymous No.1164787]

>>1164785
Then I guess the original Saxon language and whatever preceded it and whatever preceded that were all English as well

[Anonymous No.1164804]

>>1164787

Lol, what a poor argument. Don't be loony. You're absolutely right: defining the date for English's origin is arbitrary, and really just a musing for old historians, but it does not refute the fact that our history books state that English's origins are much sooner than your mind thinks it should be. I make an appeal to authority in a case like this; you make an appeal to your gut.

I don't know what world you live in, but there are rarely clear black and white distinctions in any study. A spectrum or range would more accurately describe the origin of English. Where historians decide to draw a line in the spectrum and say English starts here is not a radical notion. Arbitrary limitations are placed on everything. There's a reason we don't start the history of the Industrial Revolution in the Late Triassic period: it's just unreasonable and absurd. Guess what, though? We certainly could.

[Anonymous No.1164827]

>>1164804
You call me loony and then you agree with me. I'm genuinely confused as to what your point is.

[Anonymous No.1164846]

>>1164827
Just so you know, it's the early afternoon where I live; in other words: I don't sleep for another twelve hours, I don't have anything better to do today, and I'm mind-numbingly anal.

Anyway, you never once wrote that the arbitrariness of English's date of origin is what you were perturbed with. That's just me understanding your position better than you do, and clearly expressing it for lack of your ability. Regardless, arbitrary or not, I'm still right: Old English is synonymous with Anglo-Saxon.

/thread

[Turbo !!hoM+BnO/aUl No.1164851]

>>1164846
This thread is about what works are some of the greatest of the English language. I hope your ramblings aren't the conclusion of the thread

[Anonymous No.1164861]

>>1164846
Well I guess you don't understand my position then. I'm saying is that Anglo-Saxon is a totally different language from English. It's a dialect of the Saxon language, and was the precursor to English. There's nothing arbitrary about it, they're just different languages

[Anonymous No.1164862]

>>1164851
/debate

Beowulf thus belongs here.

[Anonymous No.1164880]

>>1164861

You make claims, but I see no proof or references. Because you seem to deny the hard facts that Anglo-Saxon is a synonym for Old English and vice versa, thus making Beowulf a fit for this thread, and instead want to argue the same invalidated point in a seemingly perpetual circle, I'll just paste the same excerpt from Wikipedia that has refuted your point several times already:

>Old English literature (or Anglo-Saxon literature) encompasses literature written in Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon), during the 600-year Anglo-Saxon period of England, from the mid-5th century to the Norman Conquest of 1066.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_literature

And, well, just for good measure, because I'm reveling in my proven and correct assertion that Beowulf is Old English and belongs in this thread, as you quaintly started the argument here >>1164587 by saying it did not, I'll post what Wikipedia has to say about Beowulf as well:
>Beowulf (/ˈbeɪ.ɵwʊlf/; in Old English [ˈbeːo̯wʊlf] or [ˈbeːəwʊlf])[1] is the conventional title of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf

Anything you say after this post in regard to this debate, is just plain trolling. I'm right and you're wrong. It's simple.

[Anonymous No.1164887]

>>1163144

>Dickens, Hack
>Implying Shakespeare's works were not stolen or just plain shit

Shakespeare was a complete hack.

[Anonymous No.1164891]

>>1164880
Alright, I've been playing devil's advocate this whole time. I agree that Anglo-Saxon is Early English. I just wanted to explore the idea that it's not through debate. It was fun. But, I'd like to point out an error you made earlier. In saying that the Germanic languages that preceded Anglo-Saxon are not English, you are wrong. They are English, they're called Proto-English.

[The Sound and the Fury !!KlYr/MIPjaz No.1164896]

I'm not in agreement with them, but Ulysses is praised by a lot of critics to be one of the greatest literary work in the English language.

Me? I'd say The Sound and the Fury.

[Nick Adams !!2DX69aLUKLV No.1164902]

>>1164896
Well, the problem here being that Faulkner was a mediocre writer of slop

[Anonymous No.1164910]

>>1164902
>implying hemingway was better than faulker
>implying faulkner sucked

oh lawd

[Nick Adams !!2DX69aLUKLV No.1164917]

>>1164910
If you want a book that's a non-nonsensical run on sentence, Faulkner's for you. Hemingway on the other hand wrote stories

[Anonymous No.1164924]

>>1164917
If you want to read entry-level shit for dummies, Hemingway's for you. If you want to use your brain and figure the story out yourself, Faulkner's better.

I don't hate Hemingway. Faulkner's just better.

[Anonymous No.1164925]

>>1164891
>They are English, they're called Proto-English.
Meh, I have no issue with that... good to know...

>I just wanted to explore the idea that it's not through debate.
A property of good debate is that it concludes with someone learning something meaningful, or the discovery of new knowledge. I learned that Proto-English precedes Old English: hardly worth the time.

I'm out now. It's time to explore the idea of cumming without physical stimulation.

[Anonymous No.1164928]

fight club

/thread

[Anonymous No.1164934]

>>1164925
>The greatest intellectual of /lit/

We're so lucky to have you

[Anonymous No.1164935]

Paradise Lost
Ulysses
Gravity's Rainbow

[Anonymous No.1164954]

Everything written by her. And I'm not even trolling; I bet Shakespeare was critiziced by assholes like you in his time as well.

[Anonymous No.1165112]

>>1164954
I agree with you. There are no "objective" patterns for art and taste is subjective. I felt so moved and touched while reading her books... for a week I felt like walking on clauds and she made me believe in love again. If that isnt the consumated effect of a work of art I don't know what is. As for what you say about Shakespeare, I can certainly think that Romeo and Juliet received a similar reception as the twilight saga; I bet there was people who loved the play but were considered naive or ignorant by the "literary experts".

[Anonymous No.1165124]

>>1165112

hahahahha

[Anonymous No.1165763]

bump

[Anonymous No.1165771]

>>1164954
I lol'd pretty hard.

[Anonymous No.1165797]

Eh?
EH?

[Anonymous No.1165896]

>>1165797
Why not, eh?

[Anonymous No.1165946]

>>1165797
what's this?

[Anonymous No.1165966]

>>1165797
I never really enjoyed it, found it to be a bit solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

[Anonymous No.1165978]

>>1165966
I see what you did there.

[Anonymous No.1166000]

Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce.

Oh wait. English language. Sorry guys

[Anonymous No.1166056]

>>1165946
Hobbes' Leviathan--political philosophy. Good shit. People still argue the shit out of his ideas.

[Anonymous No.1166075]

>>1166056
yea well people still argue about shit from the Old Testament. Doesn't mean it's any good

[Anonymous No.1166079]

>>1166056
it's terribly written and not actually literature, but i will grant you that the ideas in it are pretty important

[Anonymous No.1166080]

>>1163373
It's not a great history book even as it's largely inaccurate.

[Anonymous No.1166098]

>>1164917
Faulkner is the better writer, this isn't even debatable.

[Anonymous No.1166102]

Required:

Moby-Dick
The Sound and The Fury

[Anonymous No.1166126]

The Age of Innocence
Blood Meridian
Winesburg,Ohio
The Maltese Falcon
The Remains of the Day
The Razor's Edge
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

[Anonymous No.1166137]

>>1166075
The Old Testament is badass. You just need to get past the inane genealogies. It would be pretty shit and long-forgotten if people _didn't_ argue about it.

[Anonymous No.1166140]

hitchhikers guide - douglas adams
everyone else sit down

[Anonymous No.1166144]

Lolita, The Sound and the Fury, and the Grapes of Wrath would be the top English language novels IMO, and A Clockwork Orange would get my vote for most entertaining novel, but, seriously, the best literature in the world is French and Russian.

[Anonymous No.1166146]

surprised no one's posted this yet

[Anonymous No.1166150]

not sure if troll

[Anonymous No.1166152]

>Bible
>English

[Crimson !CoijTZkBUc No.1166154]

Another damned, thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?

[Anonymous No.1166903]

>>1166146
>>1166152
The KJV was a gigantic undertaking. The translation itself is what makes it a great English work. Anyone who knows a bit of history knows of course that it was not originally composed in English. Though, the importance of the KJV is irrefutable.

[Anonymous No.1166917]

>>1166903
yea but it's not English literature fucktard

[Anonymous No.1167094]

>>ctr+f Middlemarch
>>no results

FUCK Y'ALL NIGGERS

[Anonymous No.1167100]

Lord of the Rings.

No seriously. Look past the movie, the hype, and all the trappings, and see a decent effort by a 1940's philologist to create a mythological epic for the English people.

[Anonymous No.1167113]

>>1167100
please be a troll

[Anonymous No.1167360]

>>1166903
You obviously don't understand just how important it is. The translation occupies a life of its own--separate from its theological purpose; it's a work of art and has effectively been rendered as a classic English work.

[Anonymous No.1167441]

>>1167113
>>implying I'm trolling

[Anonymous No.1169304]

I just saved you from page 16 oblivion.

[Anonymous No.1169330]

>>1167100
Not even joking, I agree.

[Anonymous No.1169388]

good point sir

[Anonymous No.1169392]

>>1169330
i'll second that...no good

[Anonymous No.1169396]

>>1166098
faulkner was way better. no contest

[Anonymous No.1169401]

mary poppins by p.l. traveres book series it's magical. julie andrews ruined the book with her damn movie. i mean whats up with all that singing?

[Anonymous No.1169407]

anyone like the james bond series? odd job is probably one of the best characters from the movies

[Anonymous No.1169415]

r.l Stein was pretty good. i read all of his books

[Anonymous No.1169421]

bump

[Anonymous No.1169425]

little house on the prairie was a fav

[Anonymous No.1169432]

ben johnson is almost as good as shakespeare in my opinion

[Anonymous No.1169930]

HOLY FLYING BALLS

no love for Steinbeck, Twain, Hemmingway, London, Irving?

[Anonymous No.1171002]

>>1169930
gonna have to agree with this. Wtf guys?

[Anonymous No.1171739]

Poems by Robert Frost