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What's a reasonable base/canon of Western literature to be familiar with to call oneself "educated" like a man from the early 20th century? I want to read in chronological order the great works and ideas of western civilization and am hoping Mottizens can help me fill in some gaps. I'm mainly interested in literature but of course there is room for philosophical works as well. Obviously this can be a really wide range of works, but I'm looking for the absolute indisputable foundation, things you cannot skip at all.
What I have so far (very basic in rough chronological order):
Iliad/Odyssey by Homer
Dialogues by Plato
Metamorphoses by Ovid
The Bible (King James version for the literary value?)
Beowulf (already read this one)
Summa Theologica by Aquinas? (Not sure how foundational this is)
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Divine Comedy by Dante
Shakespeare's Works
Paradise Lost by Milton
Don Quixote by Cervantes
Moby-Dick by Melville
In Search of Lost Time by Proust
Thoughts? Please help me fill in some gaps!
Right off the bat, random order, sticking to stuff I have read:
Gilgamesh is a must, before the Old Testament. It all starts here, and one of my ideas of why you read the Canon is to be able to trace themes and ideas through history. Might as well start at the beginning. Pairs well with the Old Testament, it's one of the few contemporary works left to us.
Aristotle's Ethics, this and the Summa I wouldn't hesitate to use primarily excepts used in philosophy classes. It's like a million pages and bone-dry boring otherwise.
Augustine between the Bible and Aquinas. Paul and Augustine are the bridge between the Greeks and the Old Testament.
Morte D'Arthur, the Alexander Romance and Tristan and Isolde before moving on to Dante Shakespeare and Cervantes, helps to set the scene and they're easy reads. Otherwise the Canon tends to get a little too barren during the dark ages.
Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch; inserted between Homer and Plato. Gives you the territory of the historical moments you're talking about.
De Bello Gallico is one of the few great literary works that are first-person written by first-tier world historic personages.
The nineteenth century Germans. Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche are all essential reading.
If you're going to read Shakespeare, you owe it to yourself to listen to audio performances or watch filmed performances. You can't make them dead letters on a page.
Joyce and Hemingway are both essential. Hemingway's short stories are very readable and capture the essence of his larger works, Joyce you have to go with Ulysses, ideally after the Odyssey.
Opera: Mozarts Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute, Carmen and La Boheme, Wagner's Ring Cycle; then pick up musical theater at selections of Gilbert and Sullivan through Cole Porter to Hair Westside Story Cabaret, Rent, and (sigh) Hamilton. Watch or at least listen to these, don't read them.
The early psychologists are a must. Freud, Jung, Frankl. Reading anything after Freud or Marx without understanding Freud or Marx puts one in the same position as reading canon western works without knowing your Bible or your Homer.
Beyond that, I do think it is worth your time to explore some other traditions as part of your curriculum once you are grounded in the Western Canon. The Quran, Avicenna, Confucius and Mencius, the Sutras, the great Hindu epics. All throw new light or alternative interpretations on our own history.
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