Reading List for Majors

Note: All lists are political. The political statement of this list is not really one we care to make. The list is insufficiently inclusive of women and non-Europeans. The works presented here are, however, ones that have been highly influential in English literary history. They are those most likely to be expected of aspiring graduate students . We think they are wonderful books — but so are many others not listed here.

Homer:

• The Iliad
• The Odyssey

Sappho:

• Poems

Aeschylus:

• Oresteia

Sophocles:

• Oedipus Rex

Euripides:

• The Trojan Women

Vergil:

• The Aeneid

Dante:

• The Divine Comedy

Murasaki:

• The Tale of Genji

Boccaccio:

• The Decameron

Rabelais:

• Gargantua and Pantagruel

Cervantes:

• Don Quixote

Racine:

• Phedre

Moliere:

• Tartuffe

De Lafayette:

• The Princess of Cleves

Voltaire:

• Candide

Goethe:

• Faust

Stendahl:

• The Red and the Black

Flaubert:

• Madame Bovary

Tolstoy:

• War and Peace
• Anna Karenina

Dostoyevsky:

• The Brothers Karamazov
• Crime and Punishment

Ibsen:

• A Doll's House

Chekhov:

• The Cherry Orchard

Kafka:

• The Trial

Proust:

• Swann's Way

Mann:

• The Magic Mountain