Can we establish a Canon of Brief Texts?
It takes a long time to read the Western literary canon so to get up to speed with one's literary education, it's nice to read the brief books first. I'm looking to compile a list of short texts that are essential reads. Here's what I have so far:
# Various
- The Epic of Gilgamesh
- Qur'an
- Satyricon (originally longer but only fragments remain)
- The Tempest by Shakespeare
# Eastern
## Indian
- Bhagavad Gita
- Dhammapada
- Heart Sutra (should probably be read with commentary)
## Chinese
- Dao de Djing
- The Art of War
- The Analects of Confucius
- The Secret of the Golden Flower
## Japanese
- Essays in Idleness
- The Book of Five Rings
- Hojoki
# Greek
- Hesiod: Theogony; Works and Days.
- Plato: Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Gorgias.
- Enchiridion by Epictetus
- Plays in general (selection to be made later)
# Selections from the Bible
## Old Testament
- Genesis
- Exodus
- Job
- Ecclesiastes
- Jonah
- Malachi (an important early expression of Messianism)
## New Testament
- Romans
- 1 Corinthians
- Galatians
- Ephesians
- Colossians
- 1 Thessalonians
- James
- Revelations
# Modern Philosophy
- Meditations on First Philosophy by Descartes
- Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard
- Self-Reliance by Emerson
- Monadology by Leibniz
- Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals by Kant
- Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by Hume
No Nietzsche on this list because his important works aren't brief enough. Ecce Homo points to his other works but has limited value by itself.
# Modern Literary Fiction
- Notes from the Underground by Dostojevski
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy
- The Metamorphosis by Kafka
- Camus: The Stranger, The Fall
- Animal Farm by Orwell
- A Clockwork Orange by Burgess
- Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck
I've tried to be selective as I'm not just trying to compile a list of all brief texts that are on some literature list or another, but really trying to stick to essential readings. If the list becomes too long then it in turn becomes a long undertaking.
So what would you add to this?
# Various
- The Epic of Gilgamesh
- Qur'an
- Satyricon (originally longer but only fragments remain)
- The Tempest by Shakespeare
# Eastern
## Indian
- Bhagavad Gita
- Dhammapada
- Heart Sutra (should probably be read with commentary)
## Chinese
- Dao de Djing
- The Art of War
- The Analects of Confucius
- The Secret of the Golden Flower
## Japanese
- Essays in Idleness
- The Book of Five Rings
- Hojoki
# Greek
- Hesiod: Theogony; Works and Days.
- Plato: Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Gorgias.
- Enchiridion by Epictetus
- Plays in general (selection to be made later)
# Selections from the Bible
## Old Testament
- Genesis
- Exodus
- Job
- Ecclesiastes
- Jonah
- Malachi (an important early expression of Messianism)
## New Testament
- Romans
- 1 Corinthians
- Galatians
- Ephesians
- Colossians
- 1 Thessalonians
- James
- Revelations
# Modern Philosophy
- Meditations on First Philosophy by Descartes
- Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard
- Self-Reliance by Emerson
- Monadology by Leibniz
- Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals by Kant
- Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by Hume
No Nietzsche on this list because his important works aren't brief enough. Ecce Homo points to his other works but has limited value by itself.
# Modern Literary Fiction
- Notes from the Underground by Dostojevski
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy
- The Metamorphosis by Kafka
- Camus: The Stranger, The Fall
- Animal Farm by Orwell
- A Clockwork Orange by Burgess
- Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck
I've tried to be selective as I'm not just trying to compile a list of all brief texts that are on some literature list or another, but really trying to stick to essential readings. If the list becomes too long then it in turn becomes a long undertaking.
So what would you add to this?
Then for essential insight to how rulers rule I'd suggest the short Discourse on Voluntary servitude by Étienne de La Boétie.
For short 'modern' fiction i nominate 'The Machine Stops' by E.M. Forster.
I'd nominate Aristophanes Lysistrata, teaches about the danger of feminism.
I do feel weird about having it for different reasons, namely because it's originally a longer work. But that still doesn't disqualify it. If it's noteworthy and short, then it's worth reading.
From Wikipedia:
> It is the second most fully preserved Roman novel, after the fully extant The Golden Ass by Apuleius, which has significant differences in style and plot. Satyricon is also regarded as useful evidence for the reconstruction of how lower classes lived during the early Roman Empire.
So it provides a rare insight into the nature of daily life in Ancient Rome. It's worth reading for that reason alone. The goal with this canon is to help people develop breadth of knowledge in a reasonable frame of time.
Yes, Lysistrata is one of the plays I want to include.