10 more influential books

[Taliesin]

3. Elements -- Euclid
So it's more than one volume. . . . so it's more than 10 volumes. . .( ). But this book collected mathematical axioms and offered systems of logic and science that influenced mathematicians for centuries afterward.

I might not agree on the other books suggested, but this is indeed highly influential. I shall not compose my own top ten.
I understand that this is a literature forum, but nevertheless, it is interesting how people pose works literature as highly influential, might admit that social sciences might have had a bit of influence and as for hard sciences - bah!

[The Comedian]

I might not agree on the other books suggested, but this is indeed highly influential. I shall not compose my own top ten.
I understand that this is a literature forum, but nevertheless, it is interesting how people pose works literature as highly influential, might admit that social sciences might have had a bit of influence and as for hard sciences - bah!

Yay! I tried really hard to think of a list that would not include titles that I knew many others would toss around and that would represent high, middle, and pulp cultures.

[Etienne]

Republic (Maybe the most polemic and influential work of the classical greek philosophy)

I'd vote on Aristotle being more influential than Plato any day.

I'd also put Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy in such a list any day.

[mortalterror]

Dante
Shakespeare - if you need a text, either the Ardent Shakespeare or the First Folio
Virgil
Milton
The Bible
Chu-Ci - especially Li Sao and the "barbaric poems" by Yu Quan
300 Tang Poems
The Manyoshu
Mahabharata
And Either Journey to the West or Dream of the Red Chamber

No love for the Muslims? No Firdawsi, Rumi, Hafiz, Nizami, Saadi, or Jami? Not even the Mu'allaqat? You found room for three Chinese works. Speaking of which, I didn't see the Chu-Ci coming. I thought you would have picked the Shi Jing. Was it Li Sao that made the difference? As for Milton, I've lately come to believe that Tasso was actually the better epic poet, but that's a moot point if your list already includes Virgil or Homer. Other than that, it's a good list.

[Il Penseroso]

Scratch it, moot point.

[Brasil]

The question is:
which are the 10 more influential books...

... in the whole world (not just in USA, Europe or western world... but on Earth);
... in any time (It means the books that changed course of history and shaped the society).


So, I belive, there are 3 names that, unquestionably, can't be off in any list:

- Bible
- Koran
- Karl Marx
(their impact is in global level)


Another 3 names are very important too:
- Homer
- Darwin
- Freud
(but I can't say if they are as important in eastern as they are in western)

[stlukesguild]

Luke, I hate to tell you this, but no contemporary poet takes the sonnet form seriously anymore. This is not to say there is no market for formalist structures, these exist, but they are basically designed to generate income for contest publishers. Real poets alive today, like Robert Thomas, or Al Maginnes, do different things with the natural iambic flow of English--even bigger poets, like Simon Armitage, who is more conscious of rhythm and form, really doesn't use sonnet structures.

You, of course follow poets who are more contemporary than I through journals, magazines, e-zines, etc... Of the contemporary poets that I am reading, and these would include Anthony Hecht, Geoffrey Hill, Richard Wilbur, Seamus Heaney, Yves Bonnefoy, Bella Akhmadulina, Adam Zagajewski, W.S. Merwin, even Anne Carson... a good many of them lean toward the formalist side of the spectrum from time to time or even quite frequently employ traditional formal poetic structures. Both Pablo Neruda and J.L. Borges made a concerted use of the sonnet right up to their deaths. Of course my choice of the term "sonnet" was purely arbitrary... or rather chosen because it is quite likely the most known poetic form to those who know little of poetry.

Even JBI might agree with me when I suggest that I'm somewhat doubtful of the relevance or lasting merit of almost any contemporary American poet... but I do suspect that figures such as Anne Carson (Canadian) and Geoffrey Hill (British living in the US)... who are absolute masters of form... as well as powerfully innovate poets... may be among those who have the strongest chance of survival. Poetry... like art... seems to swing continually between the polar opposites of Romanticist experimentation (and free form) and Formalism/classicism. I doubt that we are looking at an ultimate victory for either side. Personally, I like some achievements on either side of the spectrum... but I'm always fascinated with the figures who virtually merge the two such as Spenser, Baudelaire, and Carson. Perhaps not unlike Cervantes and his love of the romance, it is those with the greatest love and understanding of the tradition who are most cognizant of the same tradition's weaknesses and are most willing to make truly profound challenges to the tradition.

[JBI]

Yes, but even if form does pop its head up every now and then, even the best formalists are want to move away from the sonnet. Wilbur for instance, would have, back when he was writing still, seem to have preferred to use constructed forms, or French forms over sonnets. There are good innovators now, but in the scheme of things, these only seem to come from Established poets, not those working the periodicals.


In Canada it is very different - virtually no poet writing today uses formalist techniques - even using conventional tropes is being pushed away from. As one of my professors said, "Frye's great code no longer holds." - That is, in Canada, the vast populace of poets seems to be of very different backgrounds - and most from there own traditions even look forward to a genre understanding beyond traditional confines. The main vehicle seems to be intense irony and/or new metaphorical language taken from the contemporary commonplace. You'd be hard pressed, for instance, to find mythological creatures amongst modern Canadian poets, unless they were undergoing some sort of beating.

I think now, forms in general, if they are used, are want to be ironized. I think it is near impossible right now to write a sonnet that isn't completely ironizing the form. There seems a general recognition that the purpose of forms is merely for the sake of form itself - and with that, the actual usefulness of form has been continuously questioned. Think of other forms, like margin-aligned centre - talking to editors, they will automatically not publish a poem written like that, because it has such a childlike quality.

I would think in today's world, the people writing forms happen to be those who lack a sort of professionalism - not saying that applies to everyone, but generally, there are two trends I find when looking over mediocre poetry - first of all, mediocrity in form usage, being that you get rhymes and couplets and whatnot, which don't particularly work well together, and b) over-the-top either classical appeal, or personal rant.



As for MortalTerror's criticism,

Well, it is only ten books, and, as I said before, I could have picked a completely different 10 and have been just as happy.

True, no Muslims on the list, but there are also no Jews, no French people, no Africans, no Americans, Mongols, Koreans, Indochinese, etc. etc.

It's a hard thing to compile, especially given the way things are.

As for the more appropriate question, of why I chose the Chu-Ci over the Shi Jing - well, anybody familiar with the Chu-Ci will note how, poetically speaking, the Chu-Ci is a far stronger tradition, and overall, by my estimate, far better poetry. Li Sao, as a long poem, is brilliant, and has not been without influence. If we date things, the Shi Jing would seem to be from generations before Confucius, perhaps far before him into the Western Zhou period in many cases, and featuring essentially folk songs that were modified, and later edited, and essentially constructed as political "lessons" to be used as, essentially adages when giving opinions. The Chu-Ci to me feels to be more centrally poetic - I read more of the Chu-Ci in, for instance, Tang Poetry than I do the Shi Jing, simply because it is a much stronger poetic force, and far more human, given that it has more defined narrative voice.

If we were to make a long winded comparison, it is like having drama where the chorus is the protagonist, versus drama where there is a defined character as protagonist - it is very different in terms of scope, and, personally, I think the latter has been far more dominant in terms of poetics (not politics evidently, though the Li Sao in particular is a very political poem that has been used politically) throughout Chinese history.


The Yue-Fu tradition, to me at least, seems rooted in these lyrics, and that would, by any account, be seen as the dominant form from the Qin to the Tang (when, though still popular, the Yue-Fu tradition was essentially pushed out by "new" forms, the earlier being called "Ancient form").

[stlukesguild]

Yes, but even if form does pop its head up every now and then, even the best formalists are want to move away from the sonnet.

I don't think that the question of form is something that only pops up occasionally. Form and content are so intertwined... especially with poetry... as to be insuperable. Certainly, there are endless dry academics and amateurs who approach poetry through a strict use of traditional forms... but then there are an equal amount of equally bad poets embracing every possible interpretation of "free form"... and largely, one might assume... because it does not even demand a certain mastery of craft. I like Tom Disch's description of lazy free-form poetic efforts as "snapped prose":

Take any piece of prose you like
and snap it into lines of verse
like this, using the end of the line

as a kind of comma. You can create
a further sense of shapeliness
by grouping the snapped prose in stanzas, so.

Wilbur for instance, would have, back when he was writing still, seem to have preferred to use constructed forms, or French forms over sonnets.

Certainly. And it might be noted that Wilbur was nothing if not a Francophile. But he did write sonnets as well. Still, the main thrust of my argument was that there have been and still are any number of truly fine poets who continue to work in a manner that builds upon definite formal structures... and often uses very traditional forms as well.

In Canada it is very different...

I'll bet no one here could have seen that one coming. Beyond Carsen... just who are the brilliant Canadian poets that are so clearly relevant and remaking the whole of poetry today? You would have us believe that we'll all soon be in need of expanding our book-shelves to accommodate all the marvelous literature coming out of that great multi-cultural paradise* that is the "great white north."

That is, in Canada, the vast populace of poets...

The vast populace...??! Is there even a vast populace of people... let alone poets... in Canada? Is there even a vast populace of poets anywhere?

I think now, forms in general, if they are used, are want to be ironized.

And such has always been the reality. Spenser surely turns the epic upside down with his mock-epic Muiopotmos and toward an entirely different end (not unlike Milton) with The Fairie Queene. Cervantes, Sterne, Swift, etc... all up-end the tradition of the romance... the novel... fictional narratives. Baudelaire inverts the sonnet... literally and figuratively.

I think it is near impossible right now to write a sonnet that isn't completely ironizing the form.

I know that Umberto Eco would agree. He has suggested that irony is the only means for a self-conscious Post-Modernist to say what he or she desires to say. There was a great little essay that I can't find right now in which Eco suggests... and I'll paraphrase: The Post-Modern lover wants to say "I love you," but he fears he will look ridiculous and unsophisticated in doing so, and so he needs to reframe it and say "As Shakespeare said, I love you...". Thus he says what he wishes to say... but at the same time he lets you know that he knows what he has to say has been said before. While some of my absolute favorite writers are masters of irony (Swift, Cervantes, Sterne, Wilde, Kafka, Borges...) irony can wear thin at time and sincerity has its moments. Blake is never anything but sincere. So is Geoffrey Hill.

There seems a general recognition that the purpose of forms is merely for the sake of form itself - and with that, the actual usefulness of form has been continuously questioned.

And that is a complete misunderstanding of form. Again form and content are combined in an inseparable manner from which we build our "meaning". The lack of a traditional form is as much a form in itself and as much of a part of the overall experience as the most traditional forms.

Think of other forms, like margin-aligned centre - talking to editors, they will automatically not publish a poem written like that, because it has such a childlike quality.

And yet the "child-like" form can result in the most brilliant works of poetry, be it Thomas Traherne, William Blake, Christian Morgenstern, etc...

I would think in today's world, the people writing forms happen to be those who lack a sort of professionalism...

And I would imagine the opposite to be true: that the majority of people writing bad poetry are those who haven't the slightest understanding or grasp of poetic form and imagine poetry to just be a formless jabbering broken into lines... like Disch' "snapped prose".



* By the way... according to the numbers Canada is not so multi-cultural as you would have us believe:

Percentage of Canadian Population by Percentage:

32.2% Canadian
21.0% English
15.8% French
15.1% Scottish
13.9% Irish
10.2% German
4.6% Italian
4.0% South Asian
3.9% Chinese
3.9% Ukrainian
3.8% Aboriginal
3.3% Dutch
3.2% Polish
2.5% Black/African

With the combined populations of the South Asian, Chinese, Aboriginal (or the indigenous peoples of Canada) and Black Canadians we are left with a culture in which over 85% of the nation is of European heritage.

Compare this with the American population of 308 Million of which 4.5% are Asian, 15.4% are Hispanic, 12.8% are Black/African-American, 1.4 million Native Americans... in which 34 Million speak Spanish (that's larger than the entire population of Canada), 2.4 million speak Chinese, 1.4 million speak Tagalog, 1.2 million speak Vietnamese, 1.1 Million speak Korean, etc... as their primary language.

Considering this data you might discover that Canada is not as great of a multi-cultural paradise... or the United States quite as monolithic a culture as you repeatedly suggest.

[JBI]

... Look, it is easy to divide on those lines - Canadian as a "racial category" doesn't mean anything, and almost a third of the country is Francophone.

Beyond that too, what makes up that largest section, the 32%, and to what extent are the boundaries so defined?

You see, you are breaking categories down by race, as is the, from what I understand, standard practice of such things in the US. Even the category of Black/African in Canada would, by most people, considered to be racist. Simply put, the definition of the US would seem more race-obsessed than the Canadian one.


Think of it this way - why is the marking of "African-American", or "Hispanic" so defined? Look at, for instance, the markings on the Canadian graph of geographic locations - there isn't a headlined "European" or "White" is there. The whole nature of the graphic seems a bit fishy, don't you think?

You seem too preoccupied by absolutes - and in a sense, the United States is preoccupied by absolutes - think of, for instance, the fact that Obama is the first African-American President - what does that say about the conceptualization of Race in the United States, given that his father is from Kenya, and his mother, an American, who raised him in Indonesia, and Hawaii - clearly that would imply a sort of cosmopolitan identity of mixed traditions - why then is he regarded as "The First African-American" president - why such a defined identity, and fixed labeling?


To bring it back to Canada - I mentioned the writers, not the citizens anyway - the poets themselves do not accurately reflect the "population breakdown" at any rate anyway, given the nature of concentration of writers to specific geographical locations, the bulk of which being more multicultural than the rural parts of Canada, which, though multicultural, would probably fit into the "Canadian" category.


The difference again I will stress, is also in the way "Canadian literature" is not as easily and willingly divided into "White Canadian Literature" and "African-Canadian" literature, and "East-Asian Canadian literature" and "Jewish Canadian literature" and "Transgendered Canadian literature" and so forth, as is want to happen in the US - and is the backbone of division within academic circles. The whole concept of identity is completely different, and the whole government policy on identity too is very different.

The statistics you gathered say very little - they do not reflect either those writing, or how the people of Canada see themselves - perhaps American art is want to call itself by a categorical titles, but as I stated before, the whole Frye concept of a Great Code no longer applies in Canada, and the categorical has no longer held, so you get authors using different traditions within their works as well, for instance, the poet P. K. Page working in the past few years with poetry written primarily out of Spanish and Sufi traditions, and the collaborative group Pain Not Bread using primarily Tang Poetry as a foundation for one of their works, or whatever.

Beyond that too, there is the question of regional identity which is essential in shaping the literature.

I am sure much of this is also applicable to American poetry, and I know for a fact that American institutions in particular are some of the greatest contributors to a fuller understanding of culture, and of getting beyond cultural difference, despite what the American, or even Canadian population might think.

My point about bringing up Canada was not to put it against the US - quite simply, I am a Canadian Contemporary Poetry reader more so than a reader of American Poetry - as such, I comment on what I know. It is true though, that here there isn't much of a debate on form as there seems to be in the US when certain poets try to get their poetry read by making form out to be some sort of polemic, but as Jozanny has stated, form isn't particularly taken seriously in the US either.

[stlukesguild]

... Look, it is easy to divide on those lines - Canadian as a "racial category" doesn't mean anything, and almost a third of the country is Francophone.

And beginning with the 15%+ who speak Spanish as a primary language add adding up all the other non-English as primary language I doubt the US' population (in linguistic terms) is more monolithic. How commonly is French spoken outside of those regions that were historically French? Spanish instructions/directions can be found across the US because the Spanish speaking population is not limited to California, New Mexico, and Texas.

Beyond that too, what makes up that largest section, the 32%, and to what extent are the boundaries so defined?

This would seem, from the entire article, to have been Canadians of predominantly European heritage who do not clearly associate themselves with a single nationality (English, French, etc...)

You see, you are breaking categories down by race, as is the, from what I understand, standard practice of such things in the US. Even the category of Black/African in Canada would, by most people, considered to be racist. Simply put, the definition of the US would seem more race-obsessed than the Canadian one.

That's just PC double-talk. Certainly there are differences between the experiences of blacks in Canada and the US related to slavery, the tension between the North and the South, the huge exodus of Black Americans into the big Northern cities, segregation, poverty, etc... The Black American population is huge compared to that of Canada... nearly equal to the entire population of Canada. It is certainly diverse. There are Black Americans of Latin-American descent, those who trace their roots back to slavery, those who came from Africa after... and any number of mixtures. The size and the experience of African Americans, however, amount to culture within the larger culture... and one that holds firm to its identity rather than one that is simply labeled as such by others.

Your concepts of American culture are naive, to say the least. Based undoubtedly upon what you know through the media and perhaps through the experience of one or two major cities. The image of Canada that you put forward is equally skewed. The world of academia and that of one or two major cities does not mirror the whole of any nation. Canada has its racism as well as any nation. One need only look to the questions of the secession of French Canada. How integrated are the Native people into the larger culture? Are you certain to find Black, Asian, and Native First Peoples in any upper scale suburb in any province?

Think of it this way - why is the marking of "African-American", or "Hispanic" so defined? Look at, for instance, the markings on the Canadian graph of geographic locations - there isn't a headlined "European" or "White" is there. The whole nature of the graphic seems a bit fishy, don't you think?

I don't see anything "fishy" about it. The Hispanic, Black or African-American populations have clearly-defined cultures quite different from the larger American populace of European heritage (although admittedly all three are no where near being monolithic in form). The same might be said of any cultural minority... the Chinese, Vietnamese, Russians, Italians, Jews, etc... but the Hispanic and Black Populations of the US are also huge.. both as large or larger than the whole population of Canada. As such they have been able to assert themselves... in culture, the media, politics, etc...in a manner in which we don't see with smaller minorities

You seem too preoccupied by absolutes - and in a sense, the United States is preoccupied by absolutes - think of, for instance, the fact that Obama is the first African-American President - what does that say about the conceptualization of Race in the United States, given that his father is from Kenya, and his mother, an American, who raised him in Indonesia, and Hawaii - clearly that would imply a sort of cosmopolitan identity of mixed traditions - why then is he regarded as "The First African-American" president - why such a defined identity, and fixed labeling?

Obama was touted as the first African-American president because of the fact that he represents such most importantly to the African American population who saw his inauguration as the culmination of what they had been struggling for since the Civil War. There are certainly Americans (as there are people in any nation) who imagine that they represent the only "true __________" (Insert term of choice: Americans, Canadians, Germans, British, Russians, Japanese...) and see the world in terms of absolutes... in terms in which anyone unlike themselves are not only outsiders but a threat to their way of life and to the survival of the nation. This, of course, is the polar opposite of the truth. At the same time, I don't think the image of the "melting pot" has ever adequately described a nation like the US (or any other). This symbol suggests that each new immigrant gives up his or her own identity and becomes part of the whole. A more apt metaphor might be that of a stew, where each new ingredient adds to the whole... but also retains its identity.

If the US struggles with issues of race and nationality and immigration it is because it is undergoing continual growing pains far beyond what any other nation deals with. The US takes in over 1 million legal immigrants per year... far beyond that allowed by any other nation. (This does not even begin to address the issue of illegal immigrants. Currently there are over 40-million Americans who are identified as having been legal immigrants... including nearly 1 million Canadians.

To bring it back to Canada - I mentioned the writers, not the citizens anyway - the poets themselves do not accurately reflect the "population breakdown" at any rate anyway... The difference again I will stress, is also in the way "Canadian literature" is not as easily and willingly divided into "White Canadian Literature" and "African-Canadian" literature, and "East-Asian Canadian literature" and "Jewish Canadian literature" and "Transgendered Canadian literature" and so forth, as is want to happen in the US - and is the backbone of division within academic circles...

And you imagine that this is how literature is broken down in the US? I've yet to see the Jewish- or Asian-American section in the book stores, although there are admittedly sections defined as "African-American" or "Gay and Lesbian". Certainly, this does owe more to the demands of these "subcultures" for separate recognition and certainly owing to the divisions of academia... which have more to do with politics and carving out a niche than it does with literature. In spite of this Thomas Mann, Oscar Wilde, Toni Morrison, Anne Carson, Emily Dickinson, Tu Fu, Wang Wei, J.L. Borges, Julio Cortazar, Philip Roth, etc... are all to be found in the larger sections on poetry and fiction and not in the Jewish, Gay and Lesbian, Women's Studies, Hispanic, African-American sections.

The statistics you gathered say very little - they do not reflect either those writing, or how the people of Canada see themselves - perhaps American art is want to call itself by a categorical titles, but as I stated before, the whole Frye concept of a Great Code no longer applies in Canada, and the categorical has no longer held, so you get authors using different traditions within their works as well, for instance, the poet P. K. Page working in the past few years with poetry written primarily out of Spanish and Sufi traditions, and the collaborative group Pain Not Bread using primarily Tang Poetry as a foundation for one of their works, or whatever.

The first question might be how many of these Canadian authors are truly major writers? How many are producing literature that will transcend the barriers of time and place? Undoubtedly, I could dig up any number of obscure writers active in the US who work within almost any tradition you can name. There are more than a few major poets... especially on the West Coast... who have been building upon Japanese and Chinese traditions for decades. Latin-American literature... and its parent traditions in Spanish and Portuguese literature have been engaged in a mutual influence for nearly a century. Poe, Hawthorne, and Whitman (among others) have been a major source of inspiration on Spanish/Portuguese/Latin-American literature but no less than Borges, Neruda, Garcia-Lorca, and now Pessoa in the US. Undoubtedly the Islamic/Middle-Eastern traditions are gaining in recognition as we now find that any serious bookstore will undoubtedly carry at least a collection by Hafez, Rumi, and Omar Khayyam... as well as the Qur'an... if not Sa'di, Nezami, Attar, and the Shanameh. The notion the US literature is some monolithic entity is simply an absurdity.

My point about bringing up Canada was not to put it against the US - quite simply, I am a Canadian Contemporary Poetry reader more so than a reader of American Poetry...

And we all thought you were now majoring in Chinese Studies...

[Scheherazade]

The OP:

Actually, they are 12 books:

...

Now, make your top 10.

Please carry on off-topic discussions either in another thread or via PM.

[stlukesguild]

Yes... I recognized we were getting a bit off topic.

[Scheherazade]

Yes... I recognized we were getting a bit off topic.

Excellent!




Now we can go back to the OP, then.

[stlukesguild]

Now we can go back to the OP, then.

Seriously... I always found that the great digressions in Don Juan and Tristam Shandy were what made the books interesting.

Oh... and so I'll stay on topic... I've always found both of those books to be incredibly influential.