Books that changed the world . . .

"Something that everybody wants to have read, and nobody wants to read."
--Mark Twain's definition of a classic

Ancients

Homer's Iliad

Achilles pissed at Agamemnon, Patroclus dresses up in Achilles' armor, Hector kills him, Achilles kills Hector, poem ends (without the horse).

Homer's Odyssey

Trojan war is over, Odysseus journeys ten years, pokes out the eye of the Cyclops (Polephemous), listens to the song of the Sirens, returns home, kills Penelope's suitors.

Sophocles' Oedipus the King

Killed his father, married his mother, poked out his own eyes.

Virgil's Aeneid

Arms and a man. Carried his father on his back, deserted Dido, killed Turnus, founded Rome.

Ovid's Metamorphoses

Ages of gold, silver, bronze, and iron; Echo and Narcissus; Pyramus and Thisbe; Jason and Medea; Orpheus and Eurydice; Pygmalion; Midas turned to gold; everything keeps changing.

Moderns

Dante's Divine Comedy

In a dark wood, abandon all hope, Virgil leads the way through Hell, the wicked are punished, and punished, and punished some more; the long ascent around purgatory, Beatrice unveiled; the heavenly spheres, the beatific vision, Love makes the world go round.

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Whan that April, Palamon and Arcite, the Wife of Bath, Patient Griselda, Chauntecleer and Pertelote, enditynges of worldly vanitees.

Spenser's Faerie Queene

Red Crosse Knight, bower of bliss, mutability.

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Star-crossed lovers. What light through yonder window breaks? Wherefor art thou Romeo? A plague on both your houses!

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

Puck's flower, Bottom's ass, Pyramus and Thisby, Ninny's tomb. What fools these mortals be.

Shakespeare's Hamlet

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. There is more in heaven and earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy. To be or not to be, that is the question. Get thee to a nunnery. Though this be madness, yet there is method in't. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I. The play's the thing. Alas, poor Yorick. Sweets to the sweet. The readiness is all. Good-night, sweet prince. The rest is silence.

Shakespeare's Macbeth

When shall we three meet again? Is this a dagger which I see? Banquo's ghost. Out damned spot. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Brinam wood comes to Dunsinane. Lay on Macduff.

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands? The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.

Shakespeare's Othello

An old black ram is tupping your white ewe. Your daughter and the Moor are making the beast with two backs. O! thereby hangs a tale. O! beware, my lord of jealousy; It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.

Shakespeare's King Lear

Nothing will come of nothing, speak again. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child! Poor Tom's a-cold. Out vile jelly! As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport. Ripeness is all. And my poor fool is hang'd. The oldest hath borne most.

Shakespeare's The Tempest

Doth suffer a sea-change. What's past is prologue. O brave new world that has such people in't. Our revels now are ended.

Milton's Paradise Lost

Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit of that forbidden tree. Justifies the ways of God to men. Satan falls, darkness visible, disguised as snake, tempts Eve with an apple. Adam eats it too. Then Michael explains everthing. The world was all before them. . . . They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.

The above is a collection of classic works that everyone seems to know about even without ever reading them.