The Most Important in Literature

[mercy_mankind]

What are the most important novels/poems/plays... in English Literature that everyone should know?!

I mean when would you say that someone is ignorant about English literature? When someone doesn't know all Shakespeare's works for instance?

[mal4mac]

The major critics all suggest that Shakespeare's greatest works are the pinnacle of English literature. At least 24 plays are considered "great". Because I haven't read all of these 24, I consider myself to be one of the ignorant. At least I realise this and am doing something to try and fix it

Part of Shakespeare's greatness is his unplummable depth, so no one can be said to know his works fully, and so everyone remains ignorant...

[cdchaplin10]

I would also add John Milton's Paradise Lost to this list. I can do no better than Samuel Johnson in explaining why Milton's work deserves to be on this list.

By general consent of critics the first praise of genius is due to the writer of an epic poem, as it requires an assemblage of all the powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions... Epicpoetry undertakes to teach the most important truths by the most pleasing precepts, and therefore relates some great event in the most affecting manner... The subject of an epic poem is naturally an event of great importance. That of Milton is not the destruction of a city, the conduct of a colony, or the foundation of an empire. His subject is the fate of worlds, the revolutions of heaven and earth; rebellion against the Supreme King raised by the highest order of created beings; the overthrow of their host and the punishment of their crime; the creation of a new race of reasonable creature...

From The Lives of the Poets by Samuel Johnson.