The Best Work of All-Time?

[Lord Macbeth]

"You can't really make that call." "Eras are so different." "Art is subjective."

Now that we have THAT out of the way...let's just give our opinions and have fun with it.



Best Epic Poem of All-Time?
Best Sonnet of All-Time?
Best Other Poem of All-Time
Best Short Story of All-Time?
Best Novella of All-Time?
Best Serial of All-Time?
Best Comedic Play of All-Time?
Best Dramatic Play of All-Time?
Best Comedic Novel of All-Time?
Best Dramatic Novel of All-Time?

And from those 10 nominees and categories--deliberately left somewhat broad, so you can interpret them how you wish for, as we've already acknowledged, art is subjective--the final envelope, please...

Best Work of All-Time?

Definitions:

"Best"=literary and cultural significance FIRST, and THEN personal taste.

Best Epic Poem of All-Time?

*This one is pretty self-explanatiory, we all know what epic poetry is and what isn't...The IOliad, The Odyssey, Beowulf, Dante, on the comedic side of it "The Rape of the Lock," we know what this is.

Best Sonnet of All-Time?

*I decided to set sonnets apart here as they are arguably the most recognizable and certainly one of the most influential and popular forms of poetry in history, with everyone from Petrarch to Spenser to Shakespeare to modern poets writing them. Italian and English/Shakespearean/Spenserian sonnets all count, just so long as it fits the rules...14 lines and all that jazz.

Best Other Poem of All-Time

*It can be a couplet, cinquain, limerick, anything that's not an epic poem or a sonnet is fair game here.

Best Short Story of All-Time?

*This is maybe the trickiest definition, between Short Story and Novella, and that's the case in real life, too...for simplicity's sake let's just say if if goes into chapters or past that 30 page mark it's a novella, and below that it's a short story, as no matter your print size, generally if you're at 30 pages, it's ceased to be all that short of a story.

Best Novella of All-Time?

*The flip side of what's been said above; if it's longer than 30 pages and/or has chapters, pretty much can fit in here...think Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Best Serial of All-Time?

*This can be a periodical serial or a serial of books, so this can apply to, say, Great Expecations, where the story is one long serial that was released via newsprint, or a series of short stories a la the Sherlock Holmes stories, or the Harry Potter book series.

Best Comedic Play of All-Time?

*Pretty self-explanatory, I think.

Best Dramatic Play of All-Time?

*Also pretty self-explanatory.

Best Comedic Novel of All-Time?

*Also pretty self-explanatory.

Best Dramatic Novel of All-Time?

*Also pretty self-explanatory.



And with that, let the nominations and pondering begin!

[Lord Macbeth]

Best Epic Poem of All-Time?

The Iliad by Homer.

For me this is one of the harder categories to choose from, as so much of classic literature--and the BEST classic literature at that--is found here. The Odyssey and Dante's The Divine Comedy, The Inferno in particular, were the other two vying for this spot for me; Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Aneid all merit mention as well. But for me the origin was the big deciding point, and Homer's epic might not have started EVERYTHING, just as Plato didn't invent philosophy, but just as Plato's writings of his mentor Scorates popularized and cemented philosophy's place, so to did Homer's works do that as well. The Epic of Gilgamesh came far before this, and actually might have topped Homer's epic if it had been discovered earlier and thus had more of an impact on literature, as it's almost a certainty it influenced the great blind poet to some extent. It was a lost work, however, now thankfully regained, but too late to make this list for me, and so with some of the most memorable lines, motifs, characters, and linguistic devices in literature full-stop, and on top of that the fact that it was the one that really got things rolling Homer's The Iliad wins the war for supermacy in this category.

Best Sonnet of All-Time?

Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day? by William Shakespeare.

Following what might've been the hardest category to decide for me is the easiest--NO other sonnet is so remembered, beloved, and poured over as this one; they teach it (albeit badly, sadly, as they do with much of the Bard's work) in public schools all over the Western World, and EVERYONE knows those lines, and many will be able to quote from the actual body of the poem. "Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May" and all that. Spenser and Petrarch surely wrote their fair share of good sonnets, as have other, more modern poets, but I think most would agree Shakespeare owns this category, 154 sonnets, and Sonnet 18 is as legendary as nearly any of his plays. The final push for this placement is the HUGE effort made to derive meanings from this play, and interpretations seem endless--it's not a woman, but a man, it's a man he's describing but the love is universal, it's evidence Shakespeare might've been gay, it's evidence Shakespeare had a great friend. On and on, but regardless, "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see" people will be reading this sonnet--the greatest sonnet of All-Time.


Best Other Poem of All-Time?

The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot. I STONGLY considered giving this to The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, but I feel this poem is more meaningful, even MORE symbolic than Poe's masterpiece, and we'll be seeing Poe on this list soon enough. Eliot's masterpiece is simply brilliant, and if you love allusions, symbolism, and literary references to emphasize a point, as I do, this is simply Literary Analysis Heaven.

Best Short Story of All-Time?

The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe. I must freely admit that I make this selection with one serious caveat--as much as I truly want to and plan to, I have never yet, to day, read Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" with enough conviction to truly give it justice. I hAVE read it, but not nearly as closely as I usually do, as...well, having about four other books and plays to read for my various English classes as an English major, I just haven't read it as closely or looked into it as deeply as I would like. As it is, that is sole work I cna think of that may be BETTER than Poe's short stories, particularly this one, so perhaps this spot will change in the future, but for now, Poe reigns here. In addition, I have ANOTHER confession to make--I actually prefer The Cask of Amontillado and possibly The Mask of the Red Death to this work; however, I DO love this work, and in terms of overall influence it can't be beat.

Best Novella of All-Time?

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Another category that's very broad, and a lot of possible entries. I personally don't care for his style, but without a doubt Conrad's Heart of Darkness deserves attention. Certain works of Hemmingway can be considered as novellas. However, as said, I don't care for Conrad's style, and I think Hemmingway's best works are more firmly in the "novel" category, and Steinbeck's work is one of the best works in American literature, and one of the best example of a character-driven plot and characters that we can truly develop a deep connection to in such a short time.

Best Serial of All-Time?

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I strongly considered the Sherlock Holmes stories here, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a fantastic author and The Great Detective himself is not only one of my absolute favorite literary characters but also someone I truly do indentify with...I DO feel like Holmes sometimes, and I am a bit of a Sherlockia Nerd. In addition to THAT I am also an admitted Harry Potter fan; they're not serious literature, they're pretty much the comic book equivalent of a novel, but I love them and my friends ADORE them, so they provide something fun to talk about. All that being said, neither series is something too significant for literature, and Dicken's work--one of his best--truly is. Seeing Pip and all the people of Dickens' England grow, learn, and love over a twenty year period is simply a joy, the language flows beautifully, the dialogue is convincing, striking that difficult-to-reach point in Victorian-Era literature where the characters speak beautifully-written lines while still ahving those lines of dialogue sound organic and, for the most part, actually like something a person of that era and status mgith actually say. I do not believe that we have had, before or since, a series, play, poem, or novel that has developed characters, locales, and situations so convincingly over such a long period of time, twenty or so years in the story, a great many months as Dickens wrote it as a serial. Expectations SHOULD be great entering into this work--and it will not disappoint.

Best Comedic Play of All-Time?

Lysistrata by Aristophanes. Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Merchant of Venice ALL strongly contended for this spot, as did Tartuffe and The Imaginary Invalid by Moliere, and Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni. While the plays have VERY serious philosophical and theological themes, Waiting for Godot by Sameul Beckett and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard may also merit consideration here. However, this glut of choices, ironically, works against the field. Godot and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are, really, serio-comic, and since they gnerally merit serious consideration due to their overtones, I can't quite qualify them here. Moliere and Goldini's works are funny, to be sure, but not as polished as Shakespeare's. And here we come to the problem with Shakespeare here--his brilliance allowed him to produce an IMMENSE valoume of work and of his 37 plays at least 2/3 are classics, with a solid 1/3 of those being of such a high qualify it's often highly difficult, if possible, to rank them. As we'll see with the tragedies, he DOES have a way out of that; in regards to his comedies, however, ANY of the above works can be argued to be "the best," and some not even mentioned could join in that fray. As a result, for me they all slit each other's throats. On top of all of that, however, is the sheer brilliance of Aristophanes' work, and the ENORMOUS influence it has over the genre, as we see with Shakespeare. The Bard's comedies are famous for boasting some of the strongest and best female characters in all of literature, especially up to that point. But for all of that, where does this concept of female characters being dominant come from? The comedies of the Greeks...and no comedy does this so well, expemplifies this concept so perfectly as Lysistrata.

Best Dramatic Play of All-Time?

Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Getting back to the idea expressed above about Will's work, how do we make the case for a TRAGEDY in particular? His comedies are great, but his tragedies are even more the stuff of literary legend. Othello. king Lear. Romeo and Juliet. Julius Caesar. Macbeth. (Did someone say my name?) It can be argued the history play Richard III crosses into this territory, and if so it certainly stands there with the rest. Even a so-called "poor" Shakespearean tragedy, such as Titus Andronicus, still packs a great amount of clout (and I would debate it's "poor" quality, I believe it to be a work that's rough around the edges, sure, but still a great mood piece, especially considering it was his first tragedy, and we'll see so many of these ideas used again in later, better plays.) And besides all of THAT...besides jsut SHAKESPEARE'S works, what about all the OTHER great tragedies? Oedipus Rex and Antigone by Sophocles. The Bacchae by Euripides. The Spanish Tragedy and Tamburlaine by Shakespeare's contemporaries Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, respectively. The MANY great works of Henrik Ibsen, from Hedda Gabler to A Doll's House to Ghosts. Tennessee Williams' titanic pieces, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Glass Menagerie. Death of a Salesman and The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The aforementioned Godot and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Amidst that MODEST selection of great tragedies (and that IS a relatively modest compilation, many, MANY more) HOW do we select The Melancholy Dane's tragic tale? Even if we accept Shakespeare as the greatest playwright, as most will, and take just his tragedies, how do we pick Hamlet? Isn't it just as difficult to select one of his tragedies as it is his comedies? I would argue that this is not the case. While all of his other tragedies are legendary, I would argue that Hamlet is trancendental, even more so than his other works. Nearly every character has been examined at length, and nearly every mode of interpretation has been explored. The play has arguably ceased to BE a play...it's been talked about, referenced, done, known, felt so much and to such a degree that Hamlet almost IS alive, and the character that so often is mentioned as possibly the most human in literature seems to have a life of his own. An analysis of Hamlet and his play done in proper would, should fill an entire book, or at least a full post. For now, however, it is enough to say that among the greatest creations of man in literature, Hamlet stands above the rest for being the best work of tragic theatre and arguably transcending the theatre at the same time.

Best Comedic Novel of All-Time?

Candide by Voltaire. Not a lot to say about this one, it simply seems the perfect novelized-satire, and the jokes and points about society stand up just as well--better, in places--to this day. Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels raises a challenge, but Candide seems up to it, and if placed in context even more so, though either work could admittedly be welcome in this spot.

Best Dramatic Novel of All-Time?

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. This was a CLOSE one, and I'd be remissed if I didn't mention George Orwell's 1984, which damn near took this spot and could very possibly take over this spot should it hold up in a few decades. Needless to say, this is one of those categories where there are a TON of possible candidates--Cervantes' Don Quixote, which is quite possibly the greatest work in the Spanish language, the many works of Dickens, Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Melville's Moby Dick, Tolstoy's War and Peace, Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Hemmingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms (a personal favorite of mine that i recommend to ANYONE who hasn't read it yet, short and simply INCREDIBLE, one of the greatest works of the last century), Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and so many more. I would, however, AGAIN be remissed if I didn't mention ANOTHER work that, even more than these works, nearly took the spot, and that would be Fydor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, as well as one of his other masterpieces, The Brothers Karamazov. In fact, in terms of the greatest NOVELIST of All-Time, that COULD very well be Dostoyevsky, with Hemmingway and a few others in the mix as well. With all that said, then, why Les Miserables? First, because it's author is someone who ALSO whou would have to be entered into that "Greatest Novelist Ever" debate, namely Victor Hugo, who was and remains simply incredible. I said earlier that I thought Great Expectations by Dickens captured the development of both characters and society better than any otehr serial, and I'd stand by that, be it a book series or a traditional serial, no one does it better than Dickens. In terms of overall, however, I'd tie him with Hugo for that honor. That being said, I don't believe his works have the sheer WEIGHT to compete with Hugo's masterpiece, and that's what does in many of these works for this lofty title--the sheer wight and scope, emotionally, mentally, and physically (in terms of the sheer size and depth of the novel) surpasses most of the authors here, leaving, again, Dostoyevsky and Orwell, who's work may not have the length Les Miserables has, but it certainly has the emotional and even MORE certainly the MENTAL weight, with the huge themes in his book and a style so bleak and dystopic that "Orwellian" is now its own adjective to describe such control and bleakness and despair...such MISERY, and that. after all, is the title and a titular issue of Hugo's work. So now the greatest question yet--between these three titans and their titanic works, Les Miserables, Crime and Punishment, and 1984, how does Hugo's work win out? This time we can't claim that one of these authors' pieces have their throats cut by similar pieces of importance, and so distinguishing them is difficult, for while all three authors DO have additional works--and masterpieces at that, as Hugo, Dostoyevsky, and Orwell boast The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, The Brothers Karamazov, and Animal Farm, respectively, their above works still remain distinct and generally cited as their best and most prominent work; Orwell is a slight exception, as Animal Farm may also be mentioned and thus create a bit of a question as to which is his opus, but this isn't too serious a question or issue, as that speaks more to the general quality of Orwell's writing than to any blurring of what his opus might be, and 1984 still carries enough of a majority and is more readily refrenced and recognized. That being said, Orwell's books DO blur more than the other two, and his works ARE more recent, making it more difficult to ascertain just how well they'll hold up, for while the fears, issues, and themes 1984 deals with are very much part of the human condition, and as immortal as the never-seen "Big Brother" is, these questions are just enough to keep him from the spot, though this is more the case of a work recieving a score of 99 our of 100 than its "falling short." Dostoyevsky's works suffer from the same slight blur, but not at all too much; rather, the issue with Dostoyevsky is how much his work's philosophical takes can be truly take ans unique, as Nietzsche and, to a lesser extent, Kierkegaard expressed similar ideas in their philosophical works, with Kierkegaard predating Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche having an arguably greater effect in Europe. Clinching, however, and appopriately enough, is Hugo's work itself. The characters are simply IMMORTAL, adn the story somehow carries about five stories (at least) within it in threads that run concurrent, interweave, and yet still remain distinct and resolve in distinct, convincing, and highly-dramatic ways. Jean Valjean is arguably the greatest protagonist of any novel, and Javert arguably one of the most conflicted and complex antagonists, to the point we're left asking if he truly is an antagonist...or simply one more of "The Miserables." Last but not least is the stylistiic significance of the work; Don Quixote may have introduce the modern novel, but Les Miserables seems to have perfected the art of it, and for that and all above, though facing incredibly heated competition, and Dostoyevsky and Orwell in particular have arguments on their side, Les Miserables certainly does seem to be the greatest achievement in the world of novels, so perfectly resonating, even to this day, you CAN almost swear to hearing the people sing.




And that's the list!

Just a brief take...

RANKED, I'd say...

10. Of Mice and Men
9. The Fall of the House of Usher
8. Candide
7. Great Expectations
6. Sonnet 18
5. Lysistrata
4. The Waste Land
3. The Iliad
2. Les Miserables
1. Hamlet

So Hamlet...you finally get the Crown!

[Patrick_Bateman]

Best Epic Poem of All-Time?
Divine Comedy
Best Other Poem of All-Time
Perfect Woman - William Wordsworth
Best Short Story of All-Time?
The Tell Tale Heart - Poe/The Lady With The Toy Dog - Chekhov
Best Novella of All-Time?
Old Man and The Sea - Hemingway
Best Serial of All-Time?
Eugene Onegin - Pushkin


the others require more thought

[dfloyd]

and I agree with most. I might choose another rather than Candide if I thought about it for awhile. But Candide will do. But what happened to Don Quixote? This book might be best comedic and dramatic novel, both. I read all the unabridged volumes (I have it in five volumes) of Les Miserables, but their are sections which are very dull, including Hugo's everlasting description of the battle of Waterloo. There are no DULL PARTS to Cervantes' novel. And the battle as described by Stendahl in The Charter House of Parma is better than as described in Hugo. I love Great Expectations and I have a copy with Dickens original ending where he doesn't end up with Estella. Also, the b&w movie directed by David Lean is the best Dickens movie ever. Starring John Mills, Alec Guiness, and a very young Jean Simmons as the young Estella. But I would have to say it is my second pick for serial. That would have to go to Dumas for the Count of Monte Cristo.

[mortalterror]

Best Epic Poem of All-Time?
*Divine Comedy. Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Paradise Lost, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Shahnamah, Masnavi, Jerusalem Delivered, Faerie Queene, Orlando Furioso, Beowulf, Os Lusiads
Best Sonnet of All-Time?
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day, Ozymandius, On his blindness, What Lips my Lips have Kissed, How Do I Love Thee Let Me Count the Ways, Loving in Truth, although Petrarch, Baudelaire, Ronsard, Wyatt, and others might have a claim.
Best Other Poem of All-Time
Bhagavad Gita, Book of Job, Gita Govinda, Song of Unending Sorrow, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Wasteland, although technically some of these can be classed as epic.
Best Short Story of All-Time?
The Snows of Kilimanjaro, To Build a Fire, The Cask of Amontillado, The Most Dangerous Game, The Gift of the Magi, Ball of Fat, Everything that Rises Must Converge, The Yellow Wallpaper, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings,
Best Novella of All-Time?
Heart of Darkness, The Pearl, Heart of a Dog,
Best Serial of All-Time?
The Three Musketeers
Best Comedic Play of All-Time?
Lysistrata, or The Farce of Sodom, for a more thorough rundown of the history of comedy consult my supplemental blog entry here.
Best Dramatic Play of All-Time?
Hamlet
Best Comedic Novel of All-Time?
Catch-22, for a more thorough consideration of the comedic novel consult my history of comedy here.
Best Dramatic Novel of All-Time?
Les Miserables, Moby Dick, War and Peace, Madame Bovary

[stlukesguild]

Best Epic Poem of All-Time?

This one is easy: Dante- The Divine Comedy- No other work by a single author can match the breadth from the comic to tragic to spiritual, the brilliant characters (including the author himself), the audacity of the writer in virtually re-inventing his own cosmos, the profundity of the epic as spiritual growth of the author... to say nothing of the linguistic and formal invention. After the Comedia? The Odyssey, The Shah Nameh, The Faerie Queene

Best Sonnet of All-Time?- Shelley- Ozymandias- This is virtually an impossible selection. There are so many stunning sonnets from Dante, Cavalcanti, Petrarch, Ronsard, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, on through Baudelaire, Valery, Richard Wilbur, etc... Shelley's poem on the fragility of life and art simply resonates deeply with me and sticks in my memory. Alternatives might include Shakespeare's Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day? or even better, My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun which is a brilliant variation on all the usual poetic conceits of love sonnets.

Best Other Poem of All-Time- Milton- Paradise Lost- I am following the argument that Milton's great work is not truly an epic poem. Be that as it may, I cannot think of a greater poem in the English language. The visual imagery is quite stunning... and heart-wrenching when one considers the blindness of the author. Other possibilities? Spenser's Epithalimion may be my single favorite non-epic poem... and then there's Tennyson's In Memoriam.

Best Short Story of All-Time?- Edgar Allen Poe- The Tell Tale Heart- As with the sonnet, this is almost an impossible selection. I might have gone just as well with any number of other tales from Hawthorne, Kafka, J.L. Borges, Checkov, etc... but admittedly I have always been enamored of the almost poetic aspects of this tale and the rich atmosphere suggested.

Best Novella of All-Time?- Goethe- The Sorrows of Young Werher- I almost went with The Heart of Darkness... but this great tragic Romantic tale made a deep impression on me when I read it as a teen... and it has stayed with me.

Best Serial of All-Time?

Novels- Proust- In Search of Lost Time- To my mind the greatest literary achievement of the 20th century. A rich, sensuous tapestry.

Stories- The Arabian Night's Entertainments- A brilliant collection of magical tales rich in character and sensual settings. Runner's Up: J.L. Borges- Collected Fictions (or Labyrinths if we must insist on a single volume)

Poems- Four Way Tie: Spenser- Amors (The Amoretti and Epithalimion)- To my mind the single most brilliant sonnet cycle. Where other poets invent an idealized, unattainable woman, Spenser documents his very real experiences in wooing his wife starting with his initial failings, developing into a relationship that blooms into real love that culminates with the great wedding poem, the Epithalimion. The language and imagery are worthy of Shakespeare at his most magical. Baudelaire- The Flowers of Evil- A brilliant collection of dark poems that must stand as the birth of Modern poetry. The atmosphere of decadence, urban sophistication and ennui, and eroticism is unmatched. Whitman- Leaves of Grass- Whitman achieves virtually the American equivalent and opposite to Baudelaire's European decadence... something even suggested by the very titles. This is surely the American literary achievement that seriously puts the US on the literary map and inspires endless followers from Pessoa to Neruda to Octavio Paz. Chaucer- The Canterbury Tales- Surely self-explanatory. Chaucer brilliantly develops a series of tales with characters that surpass any of his predecessors (ie. Boccaccio's Decammeron) especially achieved through the richness of variety in his narrators. We may forget the Wife of Bath's Tale... but who can forget the Wife of Bath?

Best Comedic Play of All-Time?- Shakespeare- A Midsummer Night's Dream- An exquisite dream fantasy of love, jealousy, confusion, and sheer poetry

Best Dramatic Play of All-Time?- Shakespeare- Hamlet... if not Hamlet, King Lear or MacBeth (although Sophocles Oedipus Rex, Euripides' Medea, and Aeschylus Oresteia must surely rank close). I give Shakespeare the nod for breaking with conventions and bringing comedy, the love story, and other elements into play... successfully.

Best Comedic Novel of All-Time?- Cervantes- Don Quixote... although I might go with Lawrence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy on another occasion. Cervante's achieves the miracle of turning the bumbling Don and his side-kick Sancho into figures far more heroic than the perfect heroes of the traditional Romances. The characters of the Don and Sancho are perhaps even more richly and profoundly developed than any by Shakespeare... and as with Tristam Shandy, Cervantes achieves one of the greatest literary friendships of all time.

Best Dramatic Novel of All-Time?- Flaubert- Madame Bovary- I'd go with Bovary as the most perfectly realized novel... developed almost as if it were a poem. Runner's up? Tolstoy- War and Peace, Dostoevsky- The Brothers Karamazov, Melville- Moby Dick.

Greatest Single Work?- Dante- The Divine Comedy- See above.

[B. Laumness]

Best Epic Poem of All-Time?
The Iliad, Homer
The Odyssey, Homer
The Divine Comedy, Dante

Best Sonnet of All-Time?
L'Ennemi, Baudelaire
El Desdichado, Nerval
"Quand vous serez bien vieille", Ronsard

Best Other Poem of All-Time
Le Voyage, Baudelaire
De rerum natura, Lucretius
Une Saison en enfer, Rimbaud

Best Short Story of All-Time?
Vor dem Gesetz, Kafka
The Masque of the Red Death, Poe
La Nuit, Maupassant

Best Novella of All-Time?
Heart of Darkness, Conrad
Le Horla, Maupassant
Die Verwandlung, Kafka

Best Serial of All-Time?
À la recherche du temps perdu, Proust
La Comédie humaine, Balzac
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, Dumas

Best Comedic Play of All-Time?
Dom Juan, Molière
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare
Rhinocéros, Ionesco

Best Dramatic Play of All-Time?
Hamlet, Shakespeare
Macbeth, Shakespeare
Phèdre, Racine

Best Comedic Novel of All-Time?
Candide, Voltaire
Don Quixote, Cervantes
Gargantua, Rabelais

Best Dramatic Novel of All-Time?
L'Education sentimentale, Flaubert
Les Misérables, Hugo
La Chartreuse de Parme, Stendhal

[PeterL]

"Art is subjective."

Best Epic Poem of All-Time?
Beowulf

Best Sonnet of All-Time?
None

Best Other Poem of All-Time
I don't know either.

Best Short Story of All-Time?
My opinion on this changes regularly.

Best Novella of All-Time?
"Inconstant Moon" by Larry Niven

Best Serial of All-Time?
The Carson of Venus series by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Best Comedic Play of All-Time?
I have no idea, and barely more interest.

Best Dramatic Play of All-Time?
I have no idea, and barely more interest.


Best Comedic Novel of All-Time?
The Aluminum Man by G. C. Edmondson

Best Dramatic Novel of All-Time?
The Ship the Sailed the Time Stream by G. C. Edmondson

Best Work of All-Time?
The Ship the Sailed the Time Stream and To Sail the Century Sea by G. C. Edmondson
Taken as a unit the two are the greatest work of prose fiction of the 20th century and probably of all time.

[Dark Muse]

Best Epic Poem of All-Time?

This was a tough one, but if I can only choose one I am going to have to go with The Inferno. That is a work I could easily read more than once, and I usually am not big for rereading.

Best Sonnet of All-Time?

I love the sonnets of Shakespeare but for me, my personal best, the one sonnet which sticks out foremost in my mind and which was the first thing to leap into my head when I saw this category is The World is Too Much With Us by Wordsworth. It is one of my all time favorite poems.

Best Other Poem of All-Time?

This one was obvious, no-contest, while there is a plethora of poems which I like a great deal, in choosing the single best, it has to be Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe.

Best Short Story of All-Time?

This is a tough one, but I am going to have to go with Poe again. I feel like I ought to choose someone else since I just did him for poem, but I cannot deny that he is the master of the short story, and if I had to choose one of his works for this category is has to be Ligeia.

Best Novella of All-Time?

I am not sure what the maximum cut off is between a novella and a novel. If The Stranger counts as a novella than that is hands down my choice for this category.

Best Serial of All-Time?

This is a tough category, I cannot think of any off the top of my head so I may have to come back to this one.

Best Comedic Play of All-Time?

I absolutely love Shakespeare's As You Like It.

Best Dramatic Play of All-Time?

This one was an easy, no-contest for me. Hands down it has to be Jean-Paul Sartre' No Exit. For me that is one of the most brilliant plays I have ever read. I absolutely love it and think it is an ingenious work.

Best Comedic Novel of All-Time?

This one is tough, but I think I am going to have to go with Good Omens.

Best Dramatic Novel of All-Time?

Another hard one, because there are so many, but if I must choose only one, I am going to have to go with The Magus, which I thought was truly a stunning book, and it kept me on the edge my seat the whole time I was reading. It was so unlike anything I have read before, and it was one of the few books, that after reading it, I wanted to tell everyone I knew about it, because it was so awesome.

[Mr.lucifer]

Best Work?
The Night of scourge.

[JuniperWoolf]

"You can't really make that call." "Eras are so different." "Art is subjective."

Now that we have THAT out of the way...let's just give our opinions and have fun with it.

Haha, well said.

'Kay.

*Best Epic Poem of All-Time?*
Ovid's Philomela and Procne.

*Best Other Poem of All-Time?*
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost.

*Best Short Story of All-Time?*
Hmm... A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Hemingway.

*Best Novella of All-Time?*
Easy. Of Mice and Men, by Steinbeck.

*Best Serial of All-Time?*
Geez. I'll go with Flowers in the Attic, for the creepy incestual child sex (not that I'm in to that kind of thing).

*Best Comedic Play of All-Time?*
Romeo and Juliet, and I mean it (I like Mercutio a lot).

*Best Dramatic Play of All-Time?*
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams.

*Best Comedic Novel of All-Time?*
Hmm... I don't really like comedy (it tries too hard). I thought that Don Quixote was pretty funny, I'll go with that.

*Best Dramatic Novel of All-Time?*
The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck.

[Lord Macbeth]

Wow, a LOT of interesting and very diverse answers...not really any constants...

A few interesting notes, going category by category:

-Wow, no one else thinks Homer's work gets the nod for Best Epic Poem? Though losing out to Dante is certainly no shame, and T.S. Eliot went so far as to say that Shakespeare and Dante were THE poets, and that there was no "third," that they RULE over poetry...and he does have a case...still would've thought Homer might've gotten a bit more praise (both from the selections so far and from Eliot, if there IS a third it WOULD be Homer) but Dante's a great choice here.

-Interesting that only a couple others have pulled for Shakespeare to win the Sonnet category, I thought his Sonnet 18/Shall I compare Thee To A Summer's Day would be much more dominant in the vote-getting...instead there's a wide selection.

-A different pick for all, which makes sense, how broad it is...

-Again pretty diverse, though Poe has a couple of nods...

-Diverse as it's maybe the hardest to define...

-Dumas seems to have gotten some consideration here, albeit with different works, wasn't expecting that...I generally think of those works as being one work rather than worked out as a series, but I'm not a Dumas expert, so I suppose I'm wrong.

-Aristophanes and Shakespeare hold a good share of the votes here, which is probably how it should be...and to Ms. Dark Muse, interesting that you chose As You Like It, not as familiar with that play as others, wouldn't have guessed that, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Twelfth Night all seem the apex of Shakespearean Comedy to me, and if it may be permitted, The Merchant of Venice, though that's now really a problem play as the Portia plot is very humourous and the Shylock story is actually somewhat of a tragedy...

-The one relative constant--while others that were deserving were mentioned, Hamlet seems a clear favorite choice in this category, and rightly so, as I'd argue (as shown in my above rankings) that I'd consider it not only the Greatest Dramatic Play of All-Time, but the Greatest Work of All-Time overall.

-Candide and Don Quixote the clear favorites, which is a bit surprising for me as while it does have some substantial humor in it, I always considered the latter piece a bit more serious, almost a tragedy with Quixote's Sisyphian attempts...after all, the verb "Quixotic" doesn't generally pertain to a comedic so much as a vain situation.

-Now HERE I'm a bit shocked...I expected a spread here, with so many BRILLIANT novels to choose from, but not a lot of support for Les Miserables or Crime and Punishment, at least not outright, and 1984 hasn't even been MENTIONED...after I went through all that trouble deciding between the three in that epic paragraph...




Interesting replies, though, hopefully more will come in...in the meantime, anyone care to rank their picks (this IS a thread for the "Greatest Work of All-Time," after all, so which of your ten categorical selections do you feel wins the prize? I've already sung the praises of Hamlet in that department...any challengers?)

[keilj]

Best Other Poem - I don't read much poetry - but I think Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman deserve a mention

Best Short Story - The Rich Boy by Fitzgerald

Best Novella - Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway

some folks picked Of Mice and Men for this - Steinbeck's The Red Pony is better

Best Dramatic Play - Death of a Salesman by Miller

Best Comedic Novel - Roughing It by Twain

Best Novel - The Grapes of Wrath

[David Lurie]

Best Epic Poem of All-Time?
When I was in my teens I loved so much Iliad and Ramayana but now my choice is:
Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto

Best Sonnet of All-Time?
This is the tough one and this one has to be Italian - sorry Bard, I'm sure you understand. My first thought was Erano i capei d’oro a l’aura sparsi by Francesco Petrarca but in the end my choice is:
A Zacinto by Ugo Foscolo

Best Other Poem of All-Time?
Even tougher than the sonnet, I'm going with my mother tongue once again, though L'Après-Midi d'un faune by Mallarmé is tempting me, my choice is:
La ginestra by Giacomo Leopardi

Best Short Story of All-Time?
Pirandello? Poe? Borges? Kafka? no one of them but:
Le Horla by Maupassant

Best Novella of All-Time?
The Judge and His Hangman by Dürrenmatt

Best Serial of All-Time?
not much choice here unless you are willing to consider potterish stuff and I'm not. Honorable mention to Kristof's The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie but there is only one choice to make here:
à la recherche...

Best Comedic Play of All-Time?
Much ado about nothing or As you like could have been my choice here but when I studied Latin in high school I developed a deep love for Plautus, so my choice is:
Amphitruo by Plautus

Best Dramatic Play of All-Time?
forgive me Sophocles but I have never been moved in my life like the first time I saw Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides and considering I have spent 3 months of my life studying the Greek text I have no other choice than:
Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides

Best Comedic Novel of All-Time?
The Pickwick papers by Dickens? how much I loved it when I was twelve and I loved it again when I was twentysix and I read it in English, but no matter how much I love it I'm going to choose a way superior book:
Don Quixote by Cervantes

Best Dramatic Novel of All-Time?
The Best novel has no boring sections I gladly skip when I re-read it so nor Hugo, nor Fedor, nor Lev, nor Manzoni, nor Stendhal, nor Balzac, will do it for me, I guess it has to be Wolfgang von:
Faustus or Elective Affinities by Goethe

Best Work of All-Time?
La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri

[OrphanPip]

Meh, I'm just going to put my favorites

Best Epic Poem of All-Time?

For me, it has to be Spenser's Faerie Queene.

Best Sonnet of All-Time?

Sonnet 73 by Shakespeare.

Best Other Poem of All-Time

I'm gonna go with Yeats' "The Second Coming" for today.

Best Short Story of All-Time?

A Good Man is Hard to Find - Flannery O'Connor

Best Novella of All-Time?

Heart of Darkness - Conrad

Best Serial of All-Time?

Great Expectations - Dickens

Best Comedic Play of All-Time?

The Country Wife by William Wycherley or Tartuffe by Moliere

Best Dramatic Play of All-Time?

Another nod to Williams from me, Glass Menagerie is a personal favorite, though I really like Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabbler too.

Best Comedic Novel of All-Time?

I don't really read comedic novels.

Best Dramatic Novel of All-Time?

Anna Karenina - Tolstoy