The Really Long List of Great Literature (cont'd)

It wasn't called Beowulf until 1805 and was not printed till 1815, more than a millennium after its appearance in manuscript. But to early Anglo-Saxons, the slaying of the monster Grendel and Grendel's.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Translations • At the movies • Buy

Sometimes The Tale of Genji is called the world's first novel, though it can feel more like the world's first soap opera. To begin with, it never ends. It's very, very long and the plot never comes to a resolution. Various.... Critique • Quotes • Translations • Buy

Possibly Shakespeare's best-known play. Everyone knows the story of star-crossed lovers who defied their families—the feuding Capulets and Montagues—and ended their lives tragically. Romeo and Juliet is a play with.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

I once read all Shakespeare's historical plays in chronological order. Not in the order he wrote them, but in the order of the historical events they supposedly relate. Like many before me, I discovered that (1) the historical.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

Hamlet is such a famous play—so much the great drama, the one that everyone in the world can quote at least six words from—that we usually can't see how strange it is that this should be so. Look at the.... Critique • Quotes • At the movies • Buy

First, get refined ideas of "classic" out of your mind when you approach Don Quixote. For, as with many of the greatest works of prose literature, this is a lively, earthy story of flesh-and-blood people. Sure, the central.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy

A straightforward play really, about a dysfunctional family. People thinks it's cosmic because of that annoying storm in the middle. That's not my opinion but the summary of Jonathan Miller, given in a television interview.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy

Shakespeare's sonnets have been dissected and speculated upon for profound and hidden meanings for years, but I think the best way into them for a novice is to consider them as Shakespeare having good fun—entertaining himself.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

A favourite play. Not exactly sure why. It doesn't present many of the elements generally admired in drama. No great tragedy. Not much scintillating wit. Little realism. A fantastic plot and several fantasy characters, which.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy

It is hard to understand exactly why Tartuffe was once attacked by religious authorities. Molière's target is the title character who presents a pious outer appearance to hide his scheming for material gain. Shouldn't.... Critique • Quotes • Translations • Buy

The Misanthrope reads at first like one of those overheated old Russian novels in which everyone talks and talks, all very excitedly, while the action happens elsewhere. It's certainly Molière's most reflective play.... Critique • Quotes • Translations • Buy

There's so much to enjoy here, it's surprising this is not Molière's most popular play. After its initial run of twenty performances, it was hardly performed for several centuries until revived in the mid-1900s. And even now... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy

Your first go at The Country Wife may leave you mystified. Especially mixed up over all the criss-crossing plots involving characters who can scarcely be told apart. They're all randy, witticism-spouting, wealthy layabouts.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

Aphra Behn's most famous work might disappoint a reader who has heard it's a staunchly anti-slavery, anti-colonialist or feminist work. One may find Oroonoko is none of those things, at least by modern standards.... Critique • Quotes • Buy