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Kenneth Rexroth, Classics Revisited [1965-69]

146 entries: 116 monographical, 30 otherwise

Unranked—arranged topically

This book began as a series of essays, nearly all of which were originally published in the Saturday Review, 1965-69. They constitute one of the finer lists in this project. As with Dirda's or Kanigel's, the selection of texts is not the listmaker's choice of the greatest books; unlike those two projects, though, Rexroth for the most part addresses works commonly placed in literary canons and similar lists. The original Saturday Review pieces are not easy to come by: they do not seem to have been digitized so one must resort to library bound copies, beautiful large volumes that hopefully have not been moved to off-site storage of your nearest university library. The 85 essays ran from March 20th, 1965 to April 26th, 1969. Fifty-eight of the essays were republished in a book, also entitled Classics Revisited, in 1968 as the series was ongoing; it also featured new essays on Thucydides and Baudelaire. The other 27 essays were collected in The Elastic Retort, then in More Classics Revisited with the addition of Aquinas and H. G. Wells. Further studies (regarding Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Records of the Grand Historian of China, Heike Monogatari, Moll Flanders, Alexander Berkman, W. B. Yeats, Franz Kafka's The Trial, Herbert Read's The Green Child, and William Carlos Williams) were included only in More Classics, which was put together after Rexroth's death. While the four essays Rexroth added (Thucydides, Baudelaire, Aquinas, Wells) obviously warrant being part of the project, according to Ken Knabb (editor of the Kenneth Rexroth Archive at his web site, the Bureau of Public Secrets) the later additions were made by the editor of More Classics. I am only including the 89 essays Rexroth himself designated as part of the 'Classics Revisisted' series. Knabb has constructed a larger version of the list, incorporating the More Classics additions as well as works, authors, and topics noted in Rexroth's personal papers as potential topics for future 'Classics' essays. The numbering of works below follows the order in which the essays were published in the Saturday Review, not the subsequent books, followed by the two additions each from the books Classics Revisited and The Elastic Retort.

  1. Sha Naqba Imuru

    2. The Epic of Gilgamesh; He Who Saw the Deep
    Eighteenth-Tenth centuries B C—Sumerian; Akkadian

    Homer
  2. Iliad

    3. ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek

  3. Odýsseia

    4. The Odyssey
    ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek

    --
  4. Beowulf

    5. ca. Eighth-Eleventh centuries—English

    --
  5. Njáls Saga

    6. ca. Thirteenth Century—Norse

  6. Miguel de Cervantes

    7. El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha
    Don Quixote
    originally published in two volumes, 1605 and 1615—Spanish

  7. Livy (Titus Livius)

    8. Ab Urbe Condita Libri
    History of Rome
    First Century B C—Latin

  8. Petronius

    9. Satyricon
    late First Century—Latin

  9. Plutarch

    10. Bìoi Paràllēloi
    Parallel Lives; Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans
    First Century—Greek

    Cornelius Tacitus
  10. De Origine et Situ Germanorum

    11. Germania
    written ca. 98—Latin

  11. De Vita et Moribus Iulii Agricolae

    12. Agricola
    written ca. 98—Latin

  12. Dialogus de Oratoribus

    13. written ca. 102—Latin

  13. Historiae

    14. written ca. 100-10—Latin

  14. Annales

    15. written First Century—Latin

  15. Thomas Malory

    16. Le Morte d'Arthur
    1485; revised through sixth edition, 1634—English

  16. Aeschylus

    17. Oresteia
    The House of Atreus
    458 B C—Greek

  17. François Rabelais

    18. La Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel
    originally published in five volumes: Les Horribles et Épouvantables Faits et Prouesses du Très Renommé Pantagruel Roi des Dipsodes, Fils du Grand Géant Gargantua, 1532; La Vie Très Horrifique du Grand Gargantua, Père de Pantagruel, 1534; Le Tiers Livre des Faicts et Dicts Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel, 1546; Le Quart Livre des Faicts et Dicts Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel, 1552; Le Cinquiesme et Dernier Livre des Faicts et Dicts Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel, 1564—French

    Plato
  18. Euthyphro

    19. early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  19. Apologia Socratis

    20. The Apology
    early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  20. Crito

    21. early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  21. Phaedo
    early Fourth Century B C—Greek

    • Euripides

    22. Plays
    late Fifth Century B C—Greek

    Niccolò Machiavelli
  22. Il Principe

    23. The Prince
    1532—Italian

  23. Discorsi Sopra la Prima Deca di Tito Livio

    24. 1531—Italian

    Sophocles
  24. Antigone

    25. ca. 441 B C—Greek

  25. Oidipous epi Kolōnō

    26. Oedipus at Colonus
    401 B C—Greek

  26. Oidipous Tyrannos
    Oedipus Rex; Oedipus the King
    ca. 429 B C—Greek

    • Sappho

    27. Poems
    late Seventh-early Sixth centuries B C—Greek

  27. Murasaki Shikibu

    28. Genji Monogatari
    The Tale of Genji
    ca. early Eleventh Century—Japanese

    Geoffrey Chaucer
  28. Canterbury Tales

    29. 1478—English

  29. Troilus and Criseyde

    30. written ca. 1380s—English

  30. Cáo Xuěqín (Mengruan) (Ts'ao Hsueh-ch'in)

    31. Hóng Lóu Mèng
    The Dream of the Red Chamber; The Story of the Stone
    1791—Chinese

  31. Marcus Aurelius

    32. Ta Eis Heauton
    Meditations
    written 161-80—Greek

  32. Plato

    33. Politeia
    The Republic
    early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  33. Michel de Montaigne

    34. Les Essais
    Essays
    originally published in three volumes: 1580, 1588, and 1595—French

  34. Nicolas-Edme Rétif (Rétif de la Bretonne)

    35. Monsieur Nicolas
    originally published in 16 volumes, 1794-7—French

  35. Giacomo Casanova
    Histoire de Ma Vie Jusqu'à l'An 1797
    The Story of My Life
    German translation published in part, 1822-4; abridged and censored version of the original French published 1826-38; original French published in its entirety, 1960-2—French

    --
    • The Book of Job

    36. part of the Bible—Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek

  36. Thomas More

    37. Libellus Uere Aureus, nec Minus Salutaris Quam Festivus, de Optimo rei Publicae Statu Deque Nova Insula Utopia
    Utopia
    1516—Latin

  37. Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation

    38. written ca. 1534—English

  38. William Roper

    39. The Life of Sir Thomas More
    1626—English

  39. Stendhal

    40. Le Rouge et le Noir, Chronique du XIXe Siècle
    The Red and the Black
    1830—French

  40. William Shakespeare

    41. Macbeth
    ca. 1607—English

  41. Apuleius

    42. Metamorphoseon
    Asinus Aureus; The Golden Ass
    Second Century—Latin

    Caius Julius Caesar
  42. Commentarii de Bello Gallico

    43. ca. 40 B C—Latin

  43. Commentarii de Bello Civili

    44. ca. 40 B C—Latin

  44. John Bunyan

    45. The Pilgrim's Progress From This World to That Which Is to Come
    1678—English

  45. Marco Polo and Rustichello da Pisa

    46. Livre des Merveilles du Monde
    ca. 1300—French

  46. Walt Whitman

    47. Leaves of Grass
    1855; expanded and revised through ninth edition, 1892—English

  47. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

    48. Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei
    The Communist Manifesto
    1848—German

    Karl Marx
  48. Das Kapital, Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie

    49. originally published in three volumes: 1867, 1885, and 1894—German

  49. Ökonomisch-Philosophische Manuskripte aus dem Jahre 1844

    50. written 1844—German

  50. William Shakespeare

    51. The Tempest
    1611—English

  51. Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt

    52. Journal des Goncourt: Memoires de la Vie Litteraire
    1887-96—French

  52. Fyodor Dostoevsky

    53. Brat'â Karamazovy
    The Brothers Karamazov
    originally published serially 1880 in Rússkij Véstnik—Russian

    Ben Jonson
  53. Volpone

    54. 1606—English

  54. The Alchemist

    55. 1610—English

  55. Bartholomew Fayre

    56. 1614—English

  56. Gustave Flaubert
    L'Éducation Sentimentale
    1869—French

    Arthur Rimbaud
    • Poems

    late Nineteenth Century—French

    • Lettres du Voyant

    two letters written May 1871—French

    • Dù Fǔ (Tu Fu)

    57. Poems
    Eighth Century—Chinese

  57. John Webster
    The Duchess of Malfi
    ca. 1613-14—English

    --
    • Medieval Latin Lyrics

    1952; English translations by Helen Waddell—Latin

    --
    • Carmina Burana

    Eleventh-Twelfth centuries; some works in German and French—Latin

    --
    • 'Stabat Mater'

    58. hymn attributed to either Jacopone da Todi or Innocent III; Thirteenth Century—Latin

  58. Mark Twain

    59. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    1884—English

  59. Henry Fielding
    The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
    1749—English

    • Anton Chekhov

    Plays
    late Nineteenth-early Twentieth centuries—Russian

    --
    • The Greek Anthology

    60. Greek

    --
  60. Kalevala
    compiled by Elias Lönnrot; 1835; revised 1849—Finnish

    --
    • "Classical Japanese Poetry"

    —Japanese

    • Kakinomoto no Hitomaro

    61. Poems
    late Seventh-early Eighth centuries—Japanese

  61. Izaak Walton

    62. The Compleat Angler
    1653; revised through sixth edition, 1676—English

  62. Vyasa

    63. Mahabharata
    includes Bhagavad Gita; ca. Ninth Century B C-Fourth Century—Sanskrit

  63. Leo Tolstoy

    64. Voyna i Mir"
    War and Peace
    originally entitled 1805, published in part, 1865 and 1867; retitled and published in its entirety, 1869—Russian

  64. Herodotus

    65. Historiē
    History
    Fifth Century B C—Greek

  65. Titus Lucretius Carus

    66. De Rerum Natura
    On the Nature of Things
    First Century B C—Latin

  66. Edward Gibbon

    67. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
    originally published in six volumes: first, 1776; second-third, 1781; fourth-sixth, 1788—English

  67. Laurence Sterne

    68. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
    originally published in nine volumes, 1759-67—English

  68. Catullus

    69. Poems
    First Century B C—Latin

    Pierre Abélard
  69. Historia Calamitatum
    written ca. 1132; includes the letters of Abélard and Héloïse d'Argenteuil—Latin

    • Hymns

    70. Twelfth Century—Latin

  70. Francis Parkman

    71. France and England in North America
    originally published in seven volumes: Pioneers of France in the New World, 1865; The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century, 1867; The Discovery of the Great West, 1869; The Old Regime in Canada, 1874; Count Frontenac and New France Under Louis XIV, 1877; Montcalm and Wolfe, 1884; A Half-Century of Conflict, 1892—English

  71. Ford Madox Ford

    72. Parade's End
    originally published in four volumes: Some Do Not..., 1924; No More Parades, 1925; A Man Could Stand Up, 1926; Last Post, 1928—English

    William Blake
  72. Tiriel

    73. written ca. 1789; originally published 1874 as part of The Poetical Works of William Blake—English

  73. Songs of Innocence and Experience Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul

    74. published in part, 1789, as Songs of Innocence; in its entirety, 1794—English

  74. The Book of Thel

    75. ca. 1789-90—English

  75. America a Prophecy

    76. 1793—English

  76. Visions of the Daughters of Albion

    77. 1793—English

  77. Europe a Prophecy

    78. 1794—English

  78. The Book of Urizen

    79. originally entitled The First Book of Urizen, published 1794—English

  79. The Book of Ahania

    80. 1795—English

  80. The Book of Los

    81. 1795—English

  81. The Song of Los

    82. 1795—English

  82. Vala, or The Four Zoas

    83. written ca. 1797-1807—English

  83. Milton

    84. ca. 1811—English

  84. Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion
    1820—English

    • Arthur Conan Doyle

    85. "Sherlock Holmes"
    Unspecified selection—English

  85. Gilbert White

    86. The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne
    1789—English

  86. Euripides

    87. Hippolytos
    428 B C—Greek

  87. Jean Racine

    88. Phèdre
    1677—French

  88. Lǎozǐ (Lao-tzu) (Laocius)

    89. Dàodéjīng
    Tao te Ching
    ca. Sixth Century B C—Chinese

  89. Choderlos de Laclos
    Les Liaisons Dangereuses
    The Dangerous Liaisons
    1782—French

    • Honoré de Balzac

    90. La Comédie Humaine
    collective name for 91 finished and 46 unfinished works; Nineteenth Century—French

  90. Ivan Turgenev

    91. Otcy i Deti
    Fathers and Children; Fathers and Sons
    originally published Feb. 1862 in Rússkij Véstnik—Russian

  91. Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro)
    Aeneid
    First Century B C—Latin

    • Vyasa

    92. Bhagavad Gita
    part of the Mahabharata; ca. Ninth Century B C-Fourth Century—Sanskrit

  92. Daniel Defoe

    93. The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner
    originally anonymously published 1719—English

  93. John Woolman
    The Journal of John Woolman
    1774—English

    --
    • The Ulster Cycle

    94. written ca. Seventh-Fifteenth centuries—Irish

  94. Charles Dickens
    The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
    The Pickwick Papers
    originally published serially Apr. 1836-Nov. 1837 under the pseudonym, Boz—English

    --
    • Reliques of Ancient English Poetry

    compiled by Thomas Percy; 1765—English

    --
    • The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border

    compiled by Walter Scott; originally published in three volumes, 1802-03—English

    --
    • The English and Scottish Popular Ballads

    compiled by Frances James Child; originally published in ten volumes, 1882-98—English

    --
    • Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser

    Ancient Danish Ballads
    compiled by Sven Grundtvig, Axel Olrik, and Hakon Harald Grüner-Nielsen; originally published in twelve volumes, 1853-1976—Danish

    --
    • One Hundred English Folksongs

    compiled by Cecil Sharp; 1916—English

    --
    • English Folk Songs From the Southern Appalachians

    95. compiled by Cecil Sharp; 1932—English

  95. Frederick Douglass

    96. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
    1845—English

  96. Harriet Beecher Stowe

    97. Uncle Tom's Cabin
    1852—English

  97. Aristotle

    98. Peri Poiêtikês
    De Poetica; Poetics
    Fourth Century B C—Greek

  98. Jonathan Swift
    Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and Then a Captain of Several Ships
    Gulliver's Travels
    1726; revised 1735—English

    • Robert Burns

    Poems
    late Eighteenth Century—English

    --
    • Song of Songs

    99. Song of Solomon; Canticles
    part of the Bible—Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek

  99. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    100. Faust
    originally published in two volumes: first, Faust. Der Tragödie Erster Teil, published in part, 1790; in its entirey, 1808; revised 1829; second, Faust. Der Tragödie Zweiter Teil, 1832—German

  100. Thucydides
    History of the Peloponnesian War
    early Fifth Century B C—Greek

    • Charles Baudelaire

    101. Poems
    Nineteenth Century—French

    Thomas Aquinas
  101. Summa Theologiae
    Summa Theologica
    written 1265-74—Latin

    • 'Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium'

    Thirteenth Century—Latin

    • 'Adoro te Devote'

    Thirteenth Century—Latin

    • 'Verbum Supernum Prodiens'

    102. Thirteenth Century—Latin

    H G Wells
  102. The Time Machine

    103. 1895—English

  103. The Island of Doctor Moreau

    104. 1896—English

  104. The Invisible Man

    105. originally published serially 1897 in Pearson's Magazine—English

  105. The War of the Worlds

    106. originally published serially 1897 in Pearson's Magazine—English

  106. When the Sleeper Awakes

    107. originally published serially 1898-1903 in the Graphic; revised and retitled, The Sleeper Awakes, 1910—English

  107. The First Men in the Moon

    108. 1901—English

  108. Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul

    109. 1905—English

  109. In the Days of the Comet

    110. 1906—English

  110. The War in the Air

    111. originally published serially 1908 in the Pall Mall Magazine—English

  111. Tono-Bungay

    112. 1909—English

  112. Ann Veronica

    113. 1909—English

  113. The History of Mr. Polly

    114. 1910—English

  114. The New Machiavelli

    115. originally published serially 1910 in the English Review—English

  115. The World Set Free: A Story of Mankind

    116. originally entitled A Prophetic Trilogy, published serially Jan.-Mar. 1914 in the Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine; retitled for publication in book form, 1914—English

  116. The Research Magnificent

    117. 1915—English