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6 voters
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Classical Books
Showing 1-50 of 9,799
The Odyssey (Paperback)
by (shelved 435 times as classical)
avg rating 3.85 — 1,265,314 ratings — published -750
The Iliad (Hardcover)
by (shelved 337 times as classical)
avg rating 3.94 — 532,384 ratings — published -750
Pride and Prejudice (Hardcover)
by (shelved 288 times as classical)
avg rating 4.30 — 4,981,806 ratings — published 1813
The Aeneid (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 261 times as classical)
avg rating 3.88 — 147,970 ratings — published -19
The Great Gatsby (Paperback)
by (shelved 208 times as classical)
avg rating 3.93 — 6,111,792 ratings — published 1925
Metamorphoses (Paperback)
by (shelved 206 times as classical)
avg rating 4.10 — 80,606 ratings — published 8
Jane Eyre (Paperback)
by (shelved 196 times as classical)
avg rating 4.16 — 2,401,595 ratings — published 1847
To Kill a Mockingbird (Paperback)
by (shelved 194 times as classical)
avg rating 4.26 — 7,090,448 ratings — published 1960
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Paperback)
by (shelved 177 times as classical)
avg rating 4.13 — 1,984,352 ratings — published 1890
Wuthering Heights (Paperback)
by (shelved 171 times as classical)
avg rating 3.89 — 2,277,243 ratings — published 1847
1984 (Paperback)
by (shelved 165 times as classical)
avg rating 4.20 — 5,720,291 ratings — published 1949
Romeo and Juliet (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 157 times as classical)
avg rating 3.74 — 2,882,222 ratings — published 1590
The Republic (Paperback)
by (shelved 150 times as classical)
avg rating 3.97 — 231,985 ratings — published -400
Animal Farm (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 144 times as classical)
avg rating 4.03 — 4,778,614 ratings — published 1945
Crime and Punishment (Paperback)
by (shelved 135 times as classical)
avg rating 4.29 — 1,145,933 ratings — published 1866
Frankenstein: The 1818 Text (Paperback)
by (shelved 133 times as classical)
avg rating 3.92 — 1,988,225 ratings — published 1818
Oedipus Rex (The Theban Plays, #1)
by (shelved 132 times as classical)
avg rating 3.73 — 242,963 ratings — published -429
Little Women (Little Women, #1)
by (shelved 130 times as classical)
avg rating 4.18 — 2,531,436 ratings — published 1868
Sense and Sensibility (Paperback)
by (shelved 129 times as classical)
avg rating 4.09 — 1,331,849 ratings — published 1811
Meditations (Hardcover)
by (shelved 127 times as classical)
avg rating 4.27 — 377,238 ratings — published 180
Antigone (Theban Plays, #3)
by (shelved 119 times as classical)
avg rating 3.69 — 182,970 ratings — published -441
The Count of Monte Cristo (Paperback)
by (shelved 118 times as classical)
avg rating 4.34 — 1,074,082 ratings — published 1846
The Catcher in the Rye (Paperback)
by (shelved 118 times as classical)
avg rating 3.80 — 3,995,399 ratings — published 1951
The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides (Paperback)
by (shelved 115 times as classical)
avg rating 4.02 — 48,312 ratings — published -458
Dracula (Paperback)
by (shelved 115 times as classical)
avg rating 4.03 — 1,532,033 ratings — published 1897
The Histories (Paperback)
by (shelved 110 times as classical)
avg rating 4.01 — 57,072 ratings — published -430
Hamlet (Paperback)
by (shelved 106 times as classical)
avg rating 4.03 — 1,085,397 ratings — published 1601
Emma (Paperback)
by (shelved 105 times as classical)
avg rating 4.05 — 1,017,638 ratings — published 1815
Lord of the Flies (Paperback)
by (shelved 102 times as classical)
avg rating 3.70 — 3,299,980 ratings — published 1954
Anna Karenina (Paperback)
by (shelved 100 times as classical)
avg rating 4.11 — 962,485 ratings — published 1878
Of Mice and Men (Paperback)
by (shelved 100 times as classical)
avg rating 3.90 — 2,934,479 ratings — published 1937
A Tale of Two Cities (Paperback)
by (shelved 99 times as classical)
avg rating 3.88 — 1,031,194 ratings — published 1859
The Epic of Gilgamesh (Paperback)
by (shelved 98 times as classical)
avg rating 3.76 — 123,392 ratings — published -1800
The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone (Paperback)
by (shelved 97 times as classical)
avg rating 4.00 — 72,086 ratings — published -450
Macbeth: Moment by Moment (Paperback)
by (shelved 97 times as classical)
avg rating 3.89 — 1,050,846 ratings — published 1623
Fahrenheit 451 (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 96 times as classical)
avg rating 3.97 — 2,967,986 ratings — published 1963
Lysistrata (Paperback)
by (shelved 95 times as classical)
avg rating 3.87 — 54,690 ratings — published -423
Medea (Paperback)
by (shelved 95 times as classical)
avg rating 3.96 — 90,494 ratings — published -431
History of the Peloponnesian War (Paperback)
by (shelved 93 times as classical)
avg rating 3.95 — 41,427 ratings — published -411
Les Misérables (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 85 times as classical)
avg rating 4.22 — 860,482 ratings — published 1862
The Metamorphosis (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 85 times as classical)
avg rating 3.91 — 1,533,061 ratings — published 1915
The Symposium (Paperback)
by (shelved 81 times as classical)
avg rating 4.09 — 94,756 ratings — published -380
The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso (Hardcover)
by (shelved 80 times as classical)
avg rating 4.09 — 178,605 ratings — published 1320
Inferno (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 79 times as classical)
avg rating 4.03 — 212,224 ratings — published 1321
Brave New World (Paperback)
by (shelved 78 times as classical)
avg rating 3.98 — 2,142,600 ratings — published 1932
The Old Man and the Sea (Hardcover)
by (shelved 78 times as classical)
avg rating 3.81 — 1,366,115 ratings — published 1952
Great Expectations (Paperback)
by (shelved 77 times as classical)
avg rating 3.80 — 892,235 ratings — published 1861
Persuasion (Paperback)
by (shelved 76 times as classical)
avg rating 4.15 — 805,621 ratings — published 1817
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Adventures of Tom and Huck, #2)
by (shelved 75 times as classical)
avg rating 3.83 — 1,351,440 ratings — published 1885
Aesop’s Fables (Paperback)
by (shelved 71 times as classical)
avg rating 4.05 — 130,875 ratings — published -560
“Let me posit 2 other divisions. The 1st is somewhat nebulous & entails some generalizations. I state that Shakespeare- despite claims for his universality- was a very limited thinker- at least thematically; although similar themes would often be twisted anew with metaphor & image. But compared to the aforementioned other sonneteers Shakespeare demonstrates a near tunnel vision in range of themes (let’s put aside the question of his own Shakespearean sonnet form). Even worse, he seemed to be obsessed with running said themes into the ground. In the sonnets there are only a handful of broad themes- with only occasional overlap. They are: beauty, sleep/dreams, love/friendship, despair/ parting, art/the Muse, &, of course, death. The riposte: But isn’t all Art about these things? Well, yes & no. Yes, in a broad sense, but no in the sense that Modern Poetry’s superiority to Classical or non-Modern [a term I prefer to pre-Modern because any number of poets today still write this type of poetry & it seems silly to label these contemporaries pre-anything!] poetry is its very multi-layered approach to these themes & relegating them to sub-themes at service to portraits of people, events, & moments. This is all dramatic technique centuries ahead of Shakespeare & while his best sonnets survive this his worst are telltale in their failure’s being tied to their time.”
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“The power of classical music turns my words into fire.”
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