My Top 20, because I really disagree with some of the lists so far:
1. Hamlet, William Shakespeare (I know I'll get blasted for this, taking Shakespeare at the top again, but as I consider him THE greatest author and Hamlet to be his greatest work...and I think there's quite a bit of evidence, even if you disagree with me, that we all CAN agree on that may be used to justify that claim...so maybe he's not the best ever and maybe Hamlet's will miss out on being the king--pun intended--but I think he at least has a claim to the throne, nonetheless, and one I'll support.)
2. The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri (T.S. Eliot infamously said Shakespeare, Dante, adn then everyone else...and I take that line, to an extent--I ALMOST put the #3 author here, and only didn't because of the structure, ie, The Divine Comedy is one work with three parts, whereas the #3 author DID have two related but still seperate works, and so I need to split the glory amongst them...not a lot to say to defend this claim, again, Dante and Shakespeare are often held to be the best poets and/or writers, and as this is his masterpiece, and, indeed, arguably THE masterpiece amongst all the rest, this work stands out, and within it, of course, "The Inferno" burns all the brighter. I'll say this much--if I were to consider ANY other work for the #1 spot, it'd likely be this work...I think Shakespeare's play hits the notes perhaps not better but just in a more lasting way, ie, MANY lines from MULTIPLE Hamlet characters and scenes can be quoted and we can apply those meanings and dig and see so much in them; Dante's tying his work down to a religion and just the strucuture of the work makes it a bit less so--but no less a masterpiece.)
3. The Iliad, Homer (If The Odyssey were but a part of this work, Homer would overtake Dante, but it's not, and so, alas, The Iliad and The Odyssey split the vote and land Homer at #3--but no shame there. Indeed, if I disagree with Eliot's appraisal of Shakespeare and Dante as being kings at all it's only because I think he should have included Homer there as well to make it a sort of Holy Trinity of Author-dom...Homer, I believe, DOES belong with those other two titans. I have The Iliad here as I think the scope of the work makes it the superior of his two masterpiece epics...and that's really all I ahve to say here--one of if not the great foundational text from which so much of our Western Literature comes from or builds off of, and Homer deserves the spot.)
4. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo (Not a lot to say here, either...it's Les Mis, isn't that enough of a description and reason?)
5. Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes (Again, no great shock here...it's Don Quixote, probably THE greatest text in Spanish, and its often cited as one of the first great novels as well as helping to define the genre--and that's WITHOUT starting to deal with all the imagery and themes and character moods and even humor of the book...)
6. The Odyssey, Homer (Here he is again, and here we see how the two works splits his score--he gets two Top 10 nods, the only one on here with that honor, but as a result he misses a higher score he would surely have attained if the books were one work...the foundation for nearly all travel/sea/adventure-based texts--eat your heart our, Ancient Mariner...I kid, I kid...sort of, lol--and probably the greatest "sequel" text ever, its well worth a nod here.)
7. Paradise Lost, John Milton (Fair is fair, and so while I myself DON'T care for the text--it's beautiful, and yet, while I LOVE a text drenched in symbolism and extra-textual meaning, this is just too "wet" for even me, to stretch the metaphor--I must acknowledge it IS beautiful, IS an important text, and DOES deserve a spot here...I'll confess I might have placed it a bit higher if I actually cared for the text more--and if, again, Milton hadn't split his works and Paradise Regained was part of this--but subjectivity must play some part in this, and #7 all-time is nothing to cast me into hell for...) ;)
8. Moby Dick, Herman Melville (A no-brainer of a pick, it simply MUST be in the Top 10...why is it so low? Two reasons--VERY stiff competition ahead from authors with a bit more in their canon cannons (Shakespeare, Dante, Hugo and Homer all have a wee bit more than just their one great masterpiece, whereas Melville, with all due respect, doesn't have anything close quality-wise to this, which is also, I suppose, a sign of just how high up this texts hits) and the fact that I'm, admittedly, less familiar with it than the texts above...though next semester that's likely to change. I already don't care for Faulkner, Conrad, and Hawthorne for their LONG, EXCESSIVELY LONG, DRONING sentences--elegant, YES, overdone, in my opinion, YES...I'd say "Just like what I meant with the LONG, elegant, and overdone shots in 2001," but that'd be irresponsible, now, wouldn't it?--so we'll see with Melville, won't we? His work DID ionspire three Star Trek films I love, in Wrath of Khan, First Contact, and Star Trek 2009, so we'll see...:p Extra points given to the brilliance Melville displays in creating one of the most memorable fictional characters ever with Ahab, EVERYONE has heard of him, and doubly so for Moby Dick, a force that seems threatening and natural and so deep--all without a word of dialouge.
9. 1984, George Orwell (Alright, a MODERN work! FINALLY, you say! ;) Yes, it's a masterpiece...the only question is--why THIS low? I can't quite put it past Homer or Hugo, I'd rank Dante's Comedy and Shakespeare's Dane safely ahead, and then we get to the question of influence--Cervantes, Milton, and Melville have all shown their works have had and will ahve long staying power in terms of influence and just being read; I think 1984 will retain that, but I'd say it's a tad too early to call it for him just yet. Not to worry, however, Orwell WILL be seen again on this list...)
10. The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer (I will say this much for the Tales--of the works on my list this one is easily the most likely to climb in the rankings in the near futur...analyzing these for class hs been a BLAST, and I've become convinced that my Engllish teachers in high school, as great as they WERE--and I was lucky enough to have had good ones with actually minds about them--committed a rare sin by not teaching this work, and leaving me to discover it this late. If you've NOT read it...DO SO. I recommend it as much as I'd recommend seeing Shakespeare for a play or reading Plato or Nietzsche for philosophy...brilliant, funny, meaningful, and one of the foundational texts of the English language, so yes, I think Chaucer deserves a spot in the Top 10, and quite possibly will receive a higher one soon. Ah...the Miller WAS such a hilarious fool, wasn't he?!) :D
11. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (Until about a week ago this would have been #10, but Chaucer's taken the spot away from one of my favorite novels...of all the novels that claim to be "The Great American Novel"--this, Moby Dick, and The Great Gatsby are the three titans that come to mind--this is the one I feel comes closest to capturing the spirit of what America's good points are, what it's bad points are, actually TREATING those good points and bad points, and in general just giving an account of what it means to be American more so than any of those other two books; Moby Dick I've ranked higher as it still is a great novel and has many otehr aspects to play off of, and Gatsby, I'll admit right ehre, I feel is one of the most overrated texts taught today--not terrible, but not nearly the gem it's often made out to be. If you've never read it--READ. IT. NOW. Huck is forever waiting by the River...why, it IS the old Mississippi River! So it IS appopriate to say "Old Man River, That Old Man River, He must know somethin', But don't say nothin', He just keeps Rollin', He keeps on rolling along..."
12. Macbeth, William Shakespeare (The biggest question for me wasn't if another Shakesperae play would make my Top 20, but WHICH after Hamlet at #1, and where. The Henriad is FAR too split up to make the cut--I've already marked The Illiad and Odyssey lower for being split in half, in FOURTHS...no--and I don't think a comedy makes it in, so that leaves the tragedies, and after we sift through a bit, we come to the Big Four: Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear. The Dane's already made the cut, so who's next? Othello and Lear are both great, but I give the nod to Macbeth for permeating literature to follow more so than those two works, as otherwise it's really just a matter of which I like more--which, again, for me is personally Macbeth, so there we are. After "To be or not to be," "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" is one of if not the greatest monologues in all of theatre, and "It is a tale told by an idiot, Full of sound and fury, Signifying Nothing" is just incredible, and yes, that IS where Faulkner got the title "The Sound and the Fury" from. The other reason I've picked this is I always thought Macbeth, as a character and as a work, was a perfect "foil" of sorts for the character and play of Hamlet--think about it: what if the two heroes SWAPPED PLAYS? Macbeth was over-decisive and would surely have slain Cladius quickly, and so there wouldn't have been all of the tragedy of "Hamlet," and Hamlet was a thinker and a feeler and very introspective, he wouldn't have acted on that Prophecy quite as rashly...oddly enough, Shakesepeare's greatest tragic heroes greatest tragedy might be that they never met, or swapped plays...)
13. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles (WHY is this so low?! It's one of the greatest tragedies ever, and one of the first...so why so low? I feel guilty for saying this...but re-reading the play recently, I honestly think that some of the dialogue HAS aged some; all diaogue and works age, and we can tell that certain words or even ideas might not apply as heavily to us anymore, but just the manner in which the play unfolds...its brilliance is still there, its just lost some of the sparkle it had when some of those ideas--particularly on fate--were more relevant and/or a couple of millenia ago. It's had an enormous imact, though, and still deserves a spot.)
14. Waiting For Godot, Samuel Beckett (I would unashamedly make a case for THIS being the Greatest Work of the 20th Century...so why is it lower than Orwell? Mainly exposure, I think Orwell's been read a bit more, let's face it--not everyone wants to go to see an absurdist play, it's odd and confusing and sometimes just frustrating...and that's if you LIKE it, those things work out to the play's advantage and you want to solve the puzzles and debate, but it is an acquired taste. It's a great existentialist work, but, again, many ideas in it WERE expressed before hand in Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Plato, and Sartre, for starters, so I can't go overboard,,,but it does deserve a spot here.)
15. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dyostoyevsky (I have yet to read too much of this work, so it IS a bit low on this list, but it does deserve its reputation...he expresses some great ideas in existentialism BEFORE Nietzsche, and not too long after Kierkegaard, so he does have weight--a lot of deserving authors in front of him, but I'm sure he'll climb in my standings over time, and perhaps bring in The Brothers Karamazov or another such work with him.)
16. War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy (Pretty much...see Dyostoyevsky, same general rationale here.)
17. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (To those who think I'm far too biased in my rankings on just my personal tastes, I'd like to point out that not only do I have my favorite novelist just making the cut here, but with a work I'm not nearly as fond of as his other works. Nevertheless, it deserves its spot.)
18. Animal Farm, George Orwell (Here's Orwell again...and what can I say. Some authors are just their own explanation...it's ORWELL. Enough said.)
19. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo (Here's a work that's been bastardized over and over in popular media, to the point I'd bet the common man DOES think Quasimodo lives happily ever after with Esmerelda at the end, and the story really IS centered around the "it's not what's on the outside but the inside" slant that's sold countless movies "based on" this work. Nevertheless, the original remains a masterpiece, and a DARK one at that...and a LNG, DARK one at THAT. I will give one film adaptation commendation, and probably not one most folks would think I'd give, but I actually DO really give the animated Disney version two thumbs WAY up--it's NOT the original story, it IS bastardized all over the place, but on its own it's a masterful work of animation and, for a "children's/family" movie, pretty damn dark, with religious taboos, talk of damnation, attempted infanticide, murder, racism, invoking Biblical imagery and text, and, without spoiling it, one of the most dark and incredibly Gothic and satisfying death scenes at the climax of any Disney film, and I'd say the best villain. In the REAL work, of course, Frollo's not the villain, and, arguably, Esmerelda and Captain Phoebus are more morally suspect than he is, and Quasimodo isn't some heart-of-gold guy in a deformed body, but much more like a misunderstood monster, and that second word is played up far more than in most adaptations, he's deaf, can't speak that well or, perhaps, at all, and is possibly partially retarded...and Notre Dame ITSELF is of much more importance to the story. A DEEP work.)
20. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (It doesn't seem right to leave this ALL a men's club, and so I close it out with a classic Gothic story that, like the one above, has been bastardized to hell but, like the one above, has enough meaning--and DEEP meaning and ideas, some of which you really wouldn;t expect to find in the book if you went in with the modern-day conception of Frankenstein's Monster--to carry you through. Add that to one of the most memorable characters in the last couple centuries, and I think Shelley's earned the right to keep this from being an all-men monopoly.)
So those are my picks--Shakespeare, Homer, Orwell, and Hugo each have two picks each amongst my Top 20, if you were keeping score, and Homer is the only one with multiple placings in the Top 10.
NITPICK TO DEATH! :p
Rank the diplo territories in order of importance using Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)
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