The Best Work of All-Time?

[DanielBenoit]

I pretty much agree with all of the choices by MortalTerror, SLG and B. Laumness.

Note: All of these are personal preference.

Best Epic Poem: Homer's two works cut it for me, though I have yet to read Dante.

Best Sonnet: Shelly's Ozymandias: Not only that, but one of the most compact and memorable poems in our language. Any number of Shakespeare's sonnets easily make the cut as well though I'll list his 66th sonnet in order to stand out. Milton's sonnet On His Blindness is definitely one of the most moving.

Best Poem/Collections: "The Tint I cannot take is best" by Dickinson, Leaves of Grass by Whitman, 1819 Odes by Keats, Epithalimion by Spenser, Tintern Abbey by Wordsworth, The Waste Land by Eliot, The Second Coming by Yeats, Book V of the Masnavi by Rumi, Song of Solomon, Paradise Lost by Milton, Psalm 23, any number of short poems by Du Fu or Wang Wei.

Best Short Story: An Encounter by Joyce, The Hunter Gracchus by Kafka, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Borges, The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Hemingway.

Best Novella: The Dead by Joyce, Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky.

Best Comedic Play: As You Like It, though I Love Labour's Lost is certainly an underrated one and is Shakespeare at his most musical and playful. Measure for Measure is one of his best as well, but it's far too bitter to be considered a "pure" comedy.

Best Tragic Play: King Lear: The Bard's greatest achievement and whose power is comparable only to the Book of Job. Hamlet follows very close behind along with Henry IV; both which contain Shakespeare's two greatest creations: Hamlet and Falstaff. Outside of Shakespeare there is of course Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and what I consider the two best plays of the 20th century, Beckett's Endgame and Waiting for Godot.

Best Comedic Novel: I have yet to read Don Quioxte so it is impossible for me to even make a proper judgement.

Best Dramatic Novel: Ulysses by Joyce.

And now, how about some extras questions?

Best Religious Work: The Book of Genesis. The Book of Job, The Book of Ecclesiastics, The Gospel of Thomas, The Tao Te Ching and the Bhavagad-Gita.

Best Non-Fiction Work: Book 3 of Essais by Montaigne, Experience and The Conduct of Life by Emerson, Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche, Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard, Symposium by Plato.


Best Work: King Lear - The most devastating and profound work of literature I have yet read. The human condition in five acts.

[Alexander III]

Best Epic Poem of All-Time?

This is a though one, I have to give the nod to the Iliad, the poem which set the standard in the west for the epic. Such aesthetic and psychologic insight is given into war, religion and men that it truly is a masterpiece.

Best Sonnet of All-Time?

When I Have Fears I May Cease To Be, by Keats. I think this sonnet posses the most powerful final couplet in the english language. Though I think Ozymandius is defiantly the runner up, two of the finest sonnets which english romanticism produced. Also I feel I have to mention my third place allocation, which is Rimbaud's sonnet, Sleeper In The Valley.

Best Other Poem of All-Time

I am torn between Byron's Don Juan and Orlando Furioso. Have to give it to Don Juan though.

Best Novella of All-Time?

Have to say René by Chateaubriand

Best Comedic Play of All-Time?

This goes to the master of comedy, Molliere's Tartuffe.

Best Dramatic Play of All-Time?

This one was the easiest by far to answer, Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Best Dramatic Novel of All-Time?

Have to say Les Miserables, personally I did not find a single section dull. Hugo's prose was beautiful throughout and the description of Waterloo was one of my favorite parts.

[Lord Macbeth]

More intersting opinions...

-It IS opinion-based, of course, and there isn't a right or wrong answer...but to hose that took something other than Hamlet's tragedy or a Shakespeare play...really, I LOVE Arthur Miller and Sophocles and Euripides, but I don't think Shakespeare can really be beaten in the tragedy department, he has at least FOUR--Hamlet, King Lear, MacBeth, and Othello--that could easily win Best here...and Hamlet's right up there for Best of Al-Time Overall, even a lack of length can't count against it, it's a LONG play, the Bard's longest, and takes four hours or more uncut to do--just ask Kenneth Branaugh. So I'm not attacking picks here or anything, just curious why you chose over Shakespeare here, since here he seems to be THE choice (in the "Sonnets" category as well he's strong, but there he has Spenser and Petrarch and all the rest, and he DOES have a ton of competition from Sophocles, Euripides, and Ibsen, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller are in the mix as well, but Shakespeare's tragedies are so good I don't even knopw where to begin to defend my position...just my position, of course, but still--why take another throne away from Prince Hamlet, or at least his creator?)

-To whomever made it, nice nod to Plautus, one of if not the favorite source of Shakespeare for his comedies...

-I won't touch the "Religious Work" category, but in terms of Best Non-Fiction Book, ie philosophy (mainly, unless we want to get into textbooks and chemistry books...I don't think so...) I think it's a three-way tie: for literary, subjective, and existentialist minds Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche is the Superman of the contest, for the more analytic and objective-minded A Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant is the counterpoint to Nietzsche's work (or rather Nietzsche is the counter to Kant, as he came after him) and for those seeking the most important and influential philosophy text to date there are MANY, but for two thousand years of dominance and essentially being the first great text that lit the flame for Western Philosophy, Plato's The Republic gets the nod.

Two more categories:

-Best For-The-Cause Text of All-Time?

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. A VERY close second is Thomas Paine's Common Sense, but due to the length of Marx's work and the worldwide effect, he just wins out here (though you'd think with his ideals he'd be somewhat disgusted at the idea of some being ranked above others...)

-The Farenheit 451 Award For The Text You Most Wished Was Burned Day 1:

A bit ironic the "award" name here, given the fact that Bradbury's great text is all about NOT burning books, and as literature lovers we should be apalled at the idea...

But I don't think my pick will be too irksome--Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler.

I honestly think we could've done without that book, and if the publisher had just decided to burn all the copies straightaway, would any of us really be shedding any tears of sorror or outrage?

Just saying...

[DanielBenoit]

Haha, I didn't like Farenheit 451 either, way too overrated with rather sophomoric prose.

-Best For-The-Cause Text of All Time: Being somewhat a Marxist myself I would indeed choose either The Communist Manifesto or Das Kapital, though the former is certainly a lot more easier to get through.

This category is really vague though. Is it a political category? Would The Republic count? Is this meant for books with a purely rhetorical approach and one that is advocating a specific idea or cause? If so I would also choose the Declaration of Independence which is almost a cliche to say now because it is so exceedingly worshiped in this country, though it is easy to see why. Any of the works of Jefferson, Paine and Franklin are very eloquent and capture the spirit of what one likes to think of the birth of America.

Mill is quite good too, though I think above all I would choose any of the speeches or letters of MLK as my personal favorites for "cause-oriented" non-fiction.


-Book I wished were burned:

None really, the very idea of burning any books disgusts me. That said, I think the world would be a lot better without Mein Kampf (poorly written anyway), The Turner Diaries (the equivalent of neo-Nazi porn) and maybe Tolstoy's god-awful essay on Shakespeare I think tops them all (just kidding ).


EDIT: Thinking it over again, for the political/rhetorical category I think I'll change my opinion and list Montaigne's On Cannibals for my personal favorite. It was radically ahead of its time in criticizing colonialism and it gives an unusual sympathetic perspective on the natives and even goes so far as to consider the West, with all of its barbarous wars and state tyranny, as no more civilized than the primitive cultures of pre-Columbian America. (Note: The title is misleading, as with many of Montaigne's essays.)

[OrphanPip]

Book written for a cause?

I'm gonna go with Bacon's Novum Organum. The first articulation of the scientific method in the West, and with the work of Descartes, the foundation of modern science. I say it's a work for a cause because Bacon was trying to argue for state sponsorship and funding of science. (And if we look around today he seems to have succeeded )

[mortalterror]

I pretty much agree with all of the choices by MortalTerror, SLG and B. Laumness.

Those are three righteous dudes.

It IS opinion-based, of course, and there isn't a right or wrong answer...but to hose that took something other than Hamlet's tragedy or a Shakespeare play...really, I LOVE Arthur Miller and Sophocles and Euripides, but I don't think Shakespeare can really be beaten in the tragedy department, he has at least FOUR--Hamlet, King Lear, MacBeth, and Othello--that could easily win Best here...and Hamlet's right up there for Best of Al-Time Overall, even a lack of length can't count against it, it's a LONG play, the Bard's longest, and takes four hours or more uncut to do--just ask Kenneth Branaugh. So I'm not attacking picks here or anything, just curious why you chose over Shakespeare here, since here he seems to be THE choice (in the "Sonnets" category as well he's strong, but there he has Spenser and Petrarch and all the rest, and he DOES have a ton of competition from Sophocles, Euripides, and Ibsen, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller are in the mix as well, but Shakespeare's tragedies are so good I don't even knopw where to begin to defend my position...just my position, of course, but still--why take another throne away from Prince Hamlet, or at least his creator?)

If we want to consider The Oresteia by Aeschylus or The Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles as one play in three acts then they are better than Hamlet and about the same length. I've seen the 8 history plays of Shakespeare performed as though they were one continuous story like Wagner's Ring Cycle. Anne Carson came out with a translation of three Oresteia plays by three different authors Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, but I wish somebody would put on a version together with all of the prequels and sequels by Racine, Goethe, and Seneca. You could call it The Fall of the House of Atreus, and include six of the greatest dramatists of all time! It would take all day to watch, but wouldn't it be worth it?

There has been a lot of talk for Shakespeare based on Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Richard III. But let us not lose sight of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound, Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Antigone, Euripides' The Bacchae, Medea, Electra, Iphigenia in Aulis, Seneca's Thyestes, De Vega's Fuente Ovejuna, Racine's Phedre, Athalia, Andromache, and the Thebaid, Calderon's Life is a Dream, Kalidasa's Sakuntala and the Ring, Wang Shifu's Romance of the Western Chamber, Chikamatsu's Chushingura, Goethe's Faust, Ibsen's A Doll's House, Beckett's Waiting For Godot, and O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, any one of which is a contender for greatest tragic play ever written.

To whomever made it, nice nod to Plautus, one of if not the favorite source of Shakespeare for his comedies...

I didn't mention him in my post; but I did mention him on my blog which I've linked to already. Although he is not as good as Aristophanes, he is still hilarious, and my favorites of his are the Pot of Gold, The Menaechmus Twins, The Braggart Soldier, and the Haunted House. Anybody who doesn't have the time to read his twenty or so plays should either see a performance of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, Moliere's Amphitryon, or watch the modern cinema adaptation of his work A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

I won't touch the "Religious Work" category, but in terms of Best Non-Fiction Book, ie philosophy (mainly, unless we want to get into textbooks and chemistry books...I don't think so...) I think it's a three-way tie: for literary, subjective, and existentialist minds Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche is the Superman of the contest, for the more analytic and objective-minded A Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant is the counterpoint to Nietzsche's work (or rather Nietzsche is the counter to Kant, as he came after him) and for those seeking the most important and influential philosophy text to date there are MANY, but for two thousand years of dominance and essentially being the first great text that lit the flame for Western Philosophy, Plato's The Republic gets the nod.

As far as I'm concerned, almost all of the best work is religious to some degree. There are heaps of religion and gods and fate and justifying the ways of gods to men in Homer. All of the Ancient Greek plays are performed at religious festivals and their themes are composed around explaining some rite or other still held by their society. You got your Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, Bhagavad Gita, Lotus Sutra, Dhammapada, Masnavi, the Shahnamah written by the deeply religious Firdawsi trying to reconcile Persian nationalism and it's Zoroastrian traditions with modern Islamic teaching, The Aeneid with it's pietas, Les Miserables with it's modern Christ figure on the path from sinner to saint, The Book of Job and other Hebrew writings, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, the list goes on and on.

I haven't read much philosophy outside of Plato and Aristotle, so I can't comment on Kant, Locke, Rousseau, Spinoza, Hegel, Berkeley, Hume, Descartes, Mills, Aquinus, Kempis, Boethius, Augustine, Avicenna, Averroes, Erasmus, More, Hobbes, Marx, Schopenhauer, or Wittgenstein. But what I have read of Nietzsche did not leave me half as impressed as when I read Plato's Republic or Montaigne's Essays.

If we were selecting a best non-fiction book outside of philosophy, I'd have no difficulty choosing The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. The prose is heavenly. Best scientific work? Again, I'm a novice but how about Darwin's Origin of Species?

-The Farenheit 451 Book For The Text You Most Wished Was Burned Day 1:

A bit ironic the "award" name here, given the fact that Bradbury's great text is all about NOT burning books, and as literature lovers we should be apalled at the idea...

I burned a book once. It was a friend of mine's. H.D.'s The Gift if I recall correctly. Neither one of us could stand her writing; so after he finished it for a class we stuck a knife in it and pinned it to a wall for the semester. Then during summer we had a weenie roast with smores and we tore pages out to cast into the flames. It was a lot of fun. It's not like it was the last copy on earth.

I don't mind book burning. A person has a right to do what they want with their personal property. I nearly burned my Koran on September 11th, when I heard how those guys had chickened out, and backed down from doing it; but I wanted to finish reading it first, so I guess that makes me a ***** too. The world doesn't end when someone burns a book. It's not a sacred relic, or a human life. If it were you couldn't buy one for five dollars. I see the act of destruction as another form of speech or protest, the way some people will burn a flag.

Still, as much as I hate it, I wouldn't burn the last copy of Ulysses if I got the chance, just because I know how much other people like it.

[DanielBenoit]

I nearly burned my Koran on September 11th, when I heard how those guys had chickened out, and backed down from doing it; but I wanted to finish reading it first, so I guess that makes me a pussy too.

You're right, you do have a right to burn whatever the hell you want; but my God, do you know what a feat of ignorance that is? Does it specifically say in the Qu'ran to start killing innocents and flying planes into buildings? "To kill an innocent life is to have killed all mankind." I wonder where that verse came from? Not to mention that Muslim extremism makes up a very very small minority of the Islam population.

And btw, that clown pastor was smart in backing out; Extremist groups were already making threats against American troops.

Anyway, I suppose because of the Crusades I should burn my New Testament, or maybe I should burn the U.S. Constitution because of Hiroshima, genius.

You're right though, the world doesn't end when somebody burns a book. It's utterly stupid how extremists have to start killing people just because someone has a different opinion. I'm not criticizing the act of burning the Qu'ran; I'm criticizing why you're burning the Qu'ran.

[mortalterror]

EDIT: Thinking it over again, for the political/rhetorical category I think I'll change my opinion and list Montaigne's On Cannibals for my personal favorite. It was radically ahead of its time in criticizing colonialism and it gives an unusual sympathetic perspective on the natives and even goes so far as to consider the West, with all of its barbarous wars and state tyranny, as no more civilized than the primitive cultures of pre-Columbian America. (Note: The title is misleading, as with many of Montaigne's essays.)

Yeah, but you are forgetting that after all of that "Noble Savage" rhetoric he flips the whole essay with the final lines which amount to "But what the hell do they know? They don't even wear pants!"

You're right, you do have a right to burn whatever the hell you want; but my God, do you know what a feat of ignorance that is? Does it specifically say in the Qu'ran to start killing innocents and flying planes into buildings? "To kill an innocent life is to have killed all mankind." I wonder where that verse came from? Not to mention that Muslim extremism makes up a very very small minority of the Islam population.

And btw, that clown pastor was smart in backing out; Extremist groups were already making threats against American troops.

Anyway, I suppose because of the Crusades I should burn my New Testament, or maybe I should burn the U.S. Constitution because of Hiroshima, genius.

I didn't want to burn it to protest Muslims. I wanted to burn it to protest censorship, and to protest the media fear mongering. I think all this fear flying about over what "THEY" will do if "WE" do anything is incredibly cowardly and racist. This is still America after all.

I would have no problem with you burning your Bible. I'm a Presbyterian but when I was in college, I didn't have a hammer handy so I pulled my KJV off of the shelf to pound a nail. What you do with your property is your own business. Seriously, go use the Book of Mormon for rolling papers. There are a couple billion of them.

[Lord Macbeth]

I understand your position with the Oedipus Cycle, mortalterror, but I still do not agree.

If we do take your idea and take those plays as one, as they were meant to be, three plays as one VERY long play--an ancient equivalent of The Lord of the Rings in that regard, and that IS how they are meant to be read and performed after all--and if we do the same with Shakespeare's Histories...

King John, Richard II, Richard III, Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2, Henry V, Henry VI, Henry VIII...

Eight plays, and within that the classics Richard III, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V...four plays against the three in Oedipus' cycle...the other plays of various quality, but on the whole relatively good...

It'd seem to produce a richer tapestry--Oedipus Rex and Antigone are classics, Oedipus at Colonus is a fair play, and against that the four classics of Shakespeare's cycle and the four that vary in quality...even if we argue that Oedipus Rex and Antigone are INDIVIDUALLY "superior" as plays, they are still set against four Shakespearean classics, the aggregate of which MUST be at least as great, all four of those plays rank among the Bard's best, and the Bard ranks among the best in literature if not THE greatest writer, so...

Really, I definitely don't mean to diminish Sophocles' efforts, after Shakespeare his plays might very well be my choices for the next-best tragedies, it would certainly be between he and Henrik Ibsen...but even still anyway I look at it, eight vs. three, two classics vs. four, the sheer weight of the Histories seems to trump the Oedipus Cycle if viewed this way.

And if the HISTORIES can do this, and they're of a lesser quality, in the minds of most, than the TRAGEDIES...

So unless you're T.S. Eliot and have to your credit the infamous "Hamlet and His Prblems" essay detailing how that work is a failed attempt at art by Shakespeare (the one work of Eliot's I think was totally off the mark, though his idea of an objective correlative nevertheless is an important tool in literary criticism) I'll maintain the Bard is the greatest tragedian ever, though given stiff competition from Sophocles, Euripides, Kyd, Marlowe, Ibsen, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller.

[mortalterror]

King John, Richard II, Richard III, Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2, Henry V, Henry VI, Henry VIII...

Eight plays, and within that the classics Richard III, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V...four plays against the three in Oedipus' cycle...the other plays of various quality, but on the whole relatively good...

It'd seem to produce a richer tapestry--Oedipus Rex and Antigone are classics, Oedipus at Colonus is a fair play, and against that the four classics of Shakespeare's cycle and the four that vary in quality...even if we argue that Oedipus Rex and Antigone are INDIVIDUALLY "superior" as plays, they are still set against four Shakespearean classics, the aggregate of which MUST be at least as great, all four of those plays rank among the Bard's best, and the Bard ranks among the best in literature if not THE greatest writer, so...

But it works the other way too. The aggregate of all the flaws in the history plays works against them, and the bad plays Henry VIII, Henry VI parts I,II, and III bring down the good ones Richard III, Henry IV part I, and Henry V. Every play in The Oedipus Cycle or the Oresteia is an all time classic. Oedipus at Colonus and The Furies are almost as good as Oedipus Rex and Agamemnon. There may be less quantity in the classics but the quality is high and even.

You wouldn't want to read all of the History plays as much as you'd want to read all of the Oedipus Cycle. Besides, I wasn't trying to match three plays of Shakespeare's against three plays of Sophocles or Aeschylus. I was commenting on how much longer Renaissance plays are than Ancient Greek plays, and implying that you'd have to triple their size to get the same line length, so it's like comparing short stories or novellas to novels. In these two exceptions, it would be alright to group three plays, present them as a whole, and they would remain unified and of an even enough quality to compare them to the longer plays of Shakespeare. In fact, I think they would come off better than Hamlet could by itself because they have much tighter plotting than Shakespeare's play, and The Oresteia is essentially the same story.

[Lord Macbeth]

But it works the other way too. The aggregate of all the flaws in the history plays works against them, and the bad plays Henry VIII, Henry VI parts I,II, and III bring down the good ones Richard III, Henry IV part I, and Henry V. Every play in The Oedipus Cycle or the Oresteia is an all time classic. Oedipus at Colonus and The Furies are almost as good as Oedipus Rex and Agamemnon. There may be less quantity in the classics but the quality is high and even.

That's why when I speak of Shakespeare as the greatest dramatist, I don't mention inferior works of his like Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winters Tale, Troilus and Cresida, Timon of Athens, all three Henry VIths, or the abominable Henry VIII. When I match Shakespeare against Aeschylus I don't think it's important to bring up lesser plays of his like The Persians or The Suppliant Maidens. Ajax, Electra, and Philoctetes are all good plays but they are as nothing compared to Sophocles' famous trilogy.

It's like when people read the Bible and they talk about how great it is they aren't talking about Deuteronomy, 2nd Samuel, and Nehemiah. Those are the ones they mean when they say they don't like reading the Bible. They are in a completely different timber than Job, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, The Song of Solomon, and Revelations. That's why when I read the Bible or Shakespeare, it's best to read selectively.

You wouldn't want to read all of the History plays as much as you'd want to read all of the Oedipus Cycle. Besides, I wasn't trying to match three plays of Shakespeare's against three plays of Sophocles or Aeschylus. I was commenting on how much longer Renaissance plays are than Ancient Greek plays, and implying that you'd have to triple their size to get the same line length, so it's like comparing short stories or novellas to novels. In these two exceptions, it would be alright to group three plays, present them as a whole, and they would remain unified and of an even enough quality to compare them to the longer plays of Shakespeare. In fact, I think they would come off better than Hamlet could by itself because they have much tighter plotting than Shakespeare's play, and The Oresteia is essentially the same story.

Firstly, how "abominable" any Shakespeare play is...even his worst works still have their moments, still have their lines...and Trolius and Cressida and Timon of Athens aren't all that bad, FAR below his standard, but I think they actually suffer for that fact, if they were written by another writer of the period we might appreciate what they do well more (and they certainly do have aspects which are very good, the more modern relationship between Trolius and Cressida and the possible rejection of ascetisicm by Timon are both themes which seem far more modern and are written of more today, hence their negative reception in Shakespeare's day) instead of suffering against seemingly-unfair comparison with the "big boys" of the Bard, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet King Lear, Othello, Richard III, and Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, besides which are all the comedies, The Merchant of Venice, which sort of straddles the line between the two categories, Coroilanus, which T.S. Eliot famously described as not only far better than Hamlet but perhaps Shakespeare's finest play, and Titus Andronicus, which has always been looked down upon by scholars as being the worst or near-worst of Shakespeare's works, but I believe it to be VASTLY underrated and underappreciated, it really is a Shakespearean Sweeney Todd, low on elegance but high on atmosphere, and Julie Taymor's movie version really does it justice, if you've never seen it...simply BRILLIANT.

The Histories together may not measure up cohesively to the Oedipus Cycle, but in terms of having as much aggregate literary worth? Again, even if you wish to throw out the "clunkers," we're left with four plays that rank high, and perhaps it's no coincidence that they themselves are their own cycle, from Richard III to Henry V is a great story with overarching themes and characters, the three Henry plays serving as the main body and probably the best coming-of-age tale ever staged with one of if not the greatest comedic character in Falstaff, the changing relation between he and Prince Hal/Henry V really is one of Shakespeare's best pairings, and then Richard III ALONE is a masterpiece, and in this context serves as perhaps the greatest "prequel" in history.




Maybe the Histories don't measure up to the Oedipus Cycle play-by-paly, but I still think that taken as a whole, or, perhaps more appropriately, the Richard III-Henry V cycle-within-the-cycle of histories, the aggregate of literary worth matches respectably, if not exactly.

But I cannot pin an argument for Shakespearean Tragedy's supremacy on the Histories...it'd be like arguing the 1980s 49ers dynasty was the best ever in the NFL without making mention of Joe Montana and the West Coast Offense.

So I'll go out on a limb and say that Hamlet-Macbeth-King Lear is a greater threesome of tragic plays than the Oedipus Cycle in the same way "Madame Butterfly"-"La Boheme"-"Tosca" are a better selection of musical pieces than Beethoven's 9th Symphony--the sum is FAR greater than the parts in the case of Beethoven's work than in Puccini's three, unconnected operas, but on the merits of the parts ALONE Puccini's works are superior, as the parts by themselves may be brilliant, but cannot match the sheer bredth of brilliance exhibitied by one of the operas.

Sophocles' works ARE great, but their connectivty is, in this respect, both a strength and weakness in terms of their merit--apart they are but great, together they are THE Cycle, yes...but that cannot change the fact that they are still caught in the situation of trying to maintain their OWN identity while remaining a PART of a greater whole. Shakespeare's Tragedies, by contrast, may not connect (at least not systematically, thematically it can be argued that they DO, but that's a whole different matter) but are BY THEMSELVES the greatest staged tragedies in history.

To put it into perspective, we receive the full extent of Oedipus' suffering in three doses, three parts--even with the enormity of the traedy in Oedipus Rex, the tragic fall THERE somehow seems less BY ITSELF than, say, Hamlet, Macbeth, or LEar suffering, as THEY have all of their tragic woes compacted into one enormously-powerful piece, in his ONE PLAY we have more of a sense of what Hamlet's suffering or Macbeth's fall from grace or Lear's tragic condition means, how it feels, than Oedipus, not because Oedipus is an inferior character or Sophocles an inferior playwright, but because Oedipus' true suffering is stylistically stretched out over three plays, so going work-by-work we only recieve a half or a third or what his overall suffering may be, and that third or half is far less than the huge whole that Hamlet gives us in one play.

As a CYCLE, Oedipus may be King--and if THAT'S the argument, then perhaps he should be placed in the "Best Serial" category, for if that is the argument, that the series of his sufferings in the trilogy ammounts to a huge whole, then he should seem to fit there as it then IS a series (and if that's the argument and he is determined to be a Series/Serial/Cycle, then surely he msut be the greatest, THAT is a fact I won't dispute, nor do I think most would, if we view him like this.)

But as a PLAY, as ONE WORK, I'll go on record and say ANY of Shakespeare's "big gun" Tragedies, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, those four (Romeo and Juliet is famous but cannot hold a candle to Oedipus, the same applies to Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus just is not as relatable as Oedipus, as much as TS. Eliot adores him and that play, Richard III in this line of reasoning should seem committed to a cycle of its own, and so to seperate it would be to commit the same fallacy, and Richard III as a character and play ALONE is not as good as Oedipus, and Julius Caesar is a great work but neither Casear nor Marc Antony is strong enough to beat out Oedipus) are all superior to ANY of the plays in the Oedipus Cycle BY THEMSELVES, in a play-to-play analysis.

I'll finally make two last assessments (because I'm already so far in I might as well) and name Iago from Othello The Best Antagonist of All-Time, certainly for the stage, and even in works of literature, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a more worthy candidate...Lucifer from Paradise Lost, perhaps, but other than those two...

And I'll finally posit that The Best Dialogue/Monologue Line of All-Time should be awarded to...what else?

"To be or not to be, that is the question..." from Hamlet, for not only having what is INDISPUTABLY the most quoted and known line of literature in the West this side of "In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" but for the utter brilliance and perfection of that monologue.

I don't use that term lightly or often in discussing literature, but I honestly think that's about as perfect a monologue, as good a selection of text you can put togetether as potentially possible, I do not see any way at the moment to top that, do not see any flaws with any of the lines, they're all brilliant, all work, it's a tour de force, a total examination of the human condition--in one monologue, and with SO MANY lines that are not only poignant but also so popular they're part of our cultural awareness as peoples in the West.

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy..."
"The Undiscovered Country..."
"To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or To take arms against a sea of troubles..."
"To die, perchance to dream, aye, there's the rub..."

And, the line I will unashamedly and forever defend as being The Human Experience Captured In One Line,

"To be or not to be, that is the question."

[JCamilo]

You're right, you do have a right to burn whatever the hell you want; but my God, do you know what a feat of ignorance that is? Does it specifically say in the Qu'ran to start killing innocents and flying planes into buildings? "To kill an innocent life is to have killed all mankind." I wonder where that verse came from? Not to mention that Muslim extremism makes up a very very small minority of the Islam population.

And btw, that clown pastor was smart in backing out; Extremist groups were already making threats against American troops.

Anyway, I suppose because of the Crusades I should burn my New Testament, or maybe I should burn the U.S. Constitution because of Hiroshima, genius.

You're right though, the world doesn't end when somebody burns a book. It's utterly stupid how extremists have to start killing people just because someone has a different opinion. I'm not criticizing the act of burning the Qu'ran; I'm criticizing why you're burning the Qu'ran.

Burning books is a healthy act. They use a vast ammount of space, some insects like to eat it, fungus too. Paper just paper, something that is detroyed by Time anyways.
It is even helpful, let's try everyone to burn our copies of Don Quixote and see if this will make any difference... after all copies of Don Quixote are burned everyday anyways and if I send you an email you will delete without remorse...

As a CYCLE, Oedipus may be King--and if THAT'S the argument, then perhaps he should be placed in the "Best Serial" category, for if that is the argument, that the series of his sufferings in the trilogy ammounts to a huge whole, then he should seem to fit there as it then IS a series (and if that's the argument and he is determined to be a Series/Serial/Cycle, then surely he msut be the greatest, THAT is a fact I won't dispute, nor do I think most would, if we view him like this.)

I would erase it all. Oedipus King alone is near perfect. It needs no argument, if anything, the talent of Shakespeare was creating tragedies as good as Oedipus King, not the other way around. He did not failed doing so, so he is great and of course, he did more than once which is an amazing feat, but Hamlet, King, Macs and all can be measured by the quality of Oedipus King.
By the way, no writer is perfect and those older guys certainly have the help of the fact their worst attempts are not saved in a hard drive, but if we are going to pick one to be unchallenged it is not Shakespeare, it is Dante. He basically answers all questions you posted without needing an argument. Where there is need of argument, something went wrong.

I'll finally make two last assessments (because I'm already so far in I might as well) and name Iago from Othello The Best Antagonist of All-Time, certainly for the stage, and even in works of literature, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a more worthy candidate...Lucifer from Paradise Lost, perhaps, but other than those two...

Really? Does matter that Satan is the antagonist of book of job too? That a certain white whale does not even need to say a word? That Heitor is the antagonist of Iliad? And Prometheus have the same role in his own plays (which made Zeus the antagonist), that Sharyar is the antagonist of Scherazade? And Oedipus himself is the villian and the hero? Not that this matters much...

And I'll finally posit that The Best Dialogue/Monologue Line of All-Time should be awarded to...what else?

"To be or not to be, that is the question..." from Hamlet, for not only having what is INDISPUTABLY the most quoted and known line of literature in the West this side of "In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" but for the utter brilliance and perfection of that monologue.

Well, the Fall of the House of Harold Bloom starts with too much bests... Plato dialogues are the archetypical dialogues... That Molly Bloom girl did much more with her monologue that our vain philosophy... Lucifer and Ahab go eating the books they are when they talk... oh well...

And I think Juvenal panis et circus is very quoted, perhaps even more than this one... or in a world of absolute incapacity to determine absolutes, all statistics are in vain (and art is not subjective, this is not true, so that is not what I am saying here)

I don't use that term lightly or often in discussing literature, but I honestly think that's about as perfect a monologue, as good a selection of text you can put togetether as potentially possible, I do not see any way at the moment to top that, do not see any flaws with any of the lines, they're all brilliant, all work, it's a tour de force, a total examination of the human condition--in one monologue, and with SO MANY lines that are not only poignant but also so popular they're part of our cultural awareness as peoples in the West.

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy..."
"The Undiscovered Country..."
"To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or To take arms against a sea of troubles..."
"To die, perchance to dream, aye, there's the rub..."

And, the line I will unashamedly and forever defend as being The Human Experience Captured In One Line,

"To be or not to be, that is the question."

The same can be said about any of the greats. Not just Shakespeare. He is of course the dominant name of western literature, his influence unboundable. But his quality is not so absolute that he does not admit a tea party with guys lie Plato, Sophocles, Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, Cervantes... But since mortal pointed at him, it is not a matter of style, but Gibbon Fall and Rise will make all english kings eat dust. And this really if we do not bring confucious to the table, to name one...

[mortalterror]

Maybe the Histories don't measure up to the Oedipus Cycle play-by-paly, but I still think that taken as a whole, or, perhaps more appropriately, the Richard III-Henry V cycle-within-the-cycle of histories, the aggregate of literary worth matches respectably, if not exactly.

My point was to the length of the plays. It's not fair to ask a craftsman to do what another equally talented craftsman can do with one third of the time and materials. Agamemnon may be just as well written as Hamlet, but there's no way it will contain as much awesome stuff. It's like comparing novellas to novels. The entire Oresteia is about 3750 lines long, and Hamlet is just over 4,000. Both tell the story of a mad prince and his sidekick who's father's ghost appears to tell them that their uncles murdered them to usurp their kingdom and marry their wives. I happen to think that Aeschylus tells the tale with a bit less fat on it. There is no running off to England, only to be kidnapped by pirates and murder his friends, and still be back for the next scene. There's no silly play within a play or people skulking behind tapestries spying on each other. The story in Aeschylus' hands is a well oiled machine where every piece fits neatly together. In Shakespeare's, it's a divinely inspired mess. It's a marvel that it even works at all.

Again, I'm not saying that Sophocles or Aeschylus' wrote better trilogies or that their three best would beat Shakespeare's three best. I'm stating rather simply that as to size, on a line by line basis they should stack up well. There are as many good and beautiful things in The Oedipus Cycle or the Oresteia as there are in Hamlet.

[kelby_lake]

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.

Sonnet 18, read out of the sequence, is a nice love poem. But read as part of the sequence, it is an unashamed avowal of love for this guy who he's been telling to marry and have children. The relationship doesn't go well and near the end of the sonnets, the narrator becomes cynical towards love- Sonnet 18 is from more innocent days.

Its universal power for me is not "You are the prettiest thing ever and when you die, you'll live on here." It's how innocent and unashamed it is, and how despite the many problems this relationship may face, this document is a reminder of the power of that first love.

[DanielBenoit]

I didn't want to burn it to protest Muslims. I wanted to burn it to protest censorship, and to protest the media fear mongering. I think all this fear flying about over what "THEY" will do if "WE" do anything is incredibly cowardly and racist. This is still America after all.

Excuse me for making assumptions. Everyone has a right to burn whatever they want; I just don't like the reasons why people burn some things. For instance, that pastor in Florida who was planning to burn the Qu'ran on 9/11 was because he believed that "Islam was of the devil" and that it was Islam itself which had caused the attacks.

Anyway, I just don't think burning a Qu'ran or anything is going to help at all in protesting Islamic extremism. That's just my opinion though.