Harold Bloom

THE ARISTOCRATIC AGE PART II OF HAROLD BLOOM'S WESTERN CANON

Samuel Butler

In The Western Canon; The Books and School of the Age (1994), Harold Bloom examines the Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. Bloom concludes his work with an extensive bibliography covering 36 two-columned pages. Here he provides a complete list of essential writers and books - his version of the Canon. The list is divided into four chronological ages: Theocratic, Aristocratic, Democratic , and Chaotic. Each of these is presented as a separate file at this site. He writes about the second part of the Canon, the Aristocratic Age as Follows. "It is a span of five hundred years from Dante's Divine Comedy through Goethe's Faust, Part Two, an era that gives us a huge body of reading in five major literatures: Italian, Spanish, English, French and German." See Bloom's book for his recommended translations.

                       ITALY
                                Dante                                    The Divine Comedy. The New Life.
                                Petrarch                                Lyric Poems. Selections.
                                Giovanni Boccaccio             The Decameron.
                                Matteo Mariaa Boiardo        Orlando Innamorato.
                                Ludovico Ariosto                 Orlando Furioso.
                                Michelangelo Buonarroti      Sonnets and Madrigals.
                                Niccolo Machiavelli            The Prince. The Mandrake, A Comedy.
                                Leonardo da Vinci                Notebooks.
                                Baldassare Castiglione         The Book of the Courtier.
                                Gaspara Stampa                    Sonnets and Madrigals.
                                Giorgio Vasari                      Lives of the Painters.
                                Benvenuto Cellini                 Autobiography.
                                Torquato Tasso                     Jerusalem Delivered.
                                Giordano Bruno                    The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast.
                                Tommaso Campanella           Poems. The City of the Sun.
                                Giambattista Vico                 Principles of a New Science.
                                Carlo Goldoni                       The Servant of Two Masters.
                                Vittorio Alfieri                      Saul.

                       PORTUGAL
                                Luis de Camoens                   The Lusiads.
                                Antonio Ferreira                   Poetry in The Muse Reborn.

                       SPAIN
                                Jorge Manrique                      Coplas.
                                Fernando de Rojas                 La Celestina. Lazarillo de Tormes.
                                Francisco de Quevedo           Visions. Satirical Letter of Censure.
                                Fray Luis de Leon                  Poems.
                                St. John of the Cross              Poems.
                                Luis de Gongora                    Sonnets. Soledades.
                                Miguel deCervantes               Don Quixote. Exemplary Stories.
                                Lope de Vega                         La Dorotea. Fuente Ovejuna. Lost in a Mirror.
                                                                                  The Knight of Olmedo.
                                Tirso de Molina                     The Trickster of Seville.
                                Pedro Calderon de la Barca   Life is a Dream. The Mayor of Zalamea. The
                                                                                   Mighty Magician. The Doctor of His Own Honor
                                Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz       Poems.

                        ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND
                                Geoffrey Chaucer                   The Canterbury Tales. Troilus and Criseyde.
                                Sir Thomas Malory                Le Morte D'Arthur.
                                William Dunbar                     Poems.
                                John Skelton                           Poems.
                                Sir Thomas More                   Utopia.
                                Sir Thomas Wyatt                 Poems.
                                Henry Howard,                      Poems.
                                     Earl of Surrey
                                Sir Philip Sidney                   The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.
                                                                                  Astrophel and Stella. An Apology for
                                                                                  Poetry.
                                Fulke Greville, Lord             Poems.
                                     Brooke
                                Edmund Spenser                   The Faerie Queene. The Minor Poems.
                                Sir Walter Raleigh                Poems.
                                Christopher Marlowe           Poems and Plays.
                                Michael Drayton                   Poems
                                Samuel Daniel                      Poems. A Defence of Ryme.
                                Thomas Nashe                     The Unfortunate Traveller.
                                Thomas Kyd                         The Spanish Tragedy.
                                William Shakespeare            Plays and Poems.
                                Thomas Campion                  Songs.
                                John Donne                           Poems, Plays, and Masques.
                                Francis Bacon                       Essays.
                                Robert Burton                        The Anatomy of Melancholy.
                                Sir Thomas Browne               Religio Medici.
                                                                                   Hydriotaphia, or Urne-Buriall. The Garden
                                                                                   of Cyrus.
                                Thomas Hobbes                     Leviathan.
                                Robert Herrick                       Poems.
                                Thomas Carew                       Poems.
                                Richard Lovelace                   Poems.
                                Andrew Marvell                    Poems.
                                George Herbert                      The Temple.
                                Thomas Traherne                   Centuries, Poems, and Thanksgivings.
                                Henry Vaughan                       Poetry.
                                John Wilmot,                          Poems.
                                    Earl of Rochester
                                Richard Crashaw                    Poems.
                                Francis Beaumont,                  Plays.
                                    John Fletcher
                                George Chapman                    Comedies, Tragedies, Poems.
                                John Ford                               'Tis Pity She's a Whore.
                                John Marston                          The Malcontent.
                                John Webster                          The White Devil. The Duchess of Malfi.
                                Thomas Middleton,                The Changeling.
                                      William Rowley
                                Cyril Tourneur                       The Revenger's Tragedy.
                                Philip Massinger                    A New Way to Pay Old Debts
                                John Bunyan                           The Pilgrim's Progress.
                                Izaak Walton                          The Compleat Angler.
                                John Milton                            Paradise Lost. Paradise Regained. Lycidas,
                                                                                   Comus and the Minor Poems. Samson
                                                                                   Agonistes. Aeropagitica.
                                John Aubrey                           Brief Lives.
                                Jeremy Taylor                        Holy Dying.
                                Samuel Butler                        Hudibras.
                                John Dryden                           Poetry and Plays. Critical Essays.
                                Thomas Otway                       Venice Preserv'd
                                William Congreve                 The way of the World. Love for Love.
                                Jonathan Swift                       A Tale of a Tub. Gulliver's Travels. Shorter
                                                                                  Prose Works. Poems.
                               Sir George Etherege              The Man of Mode.
                                Alexander Pope                     Poems.
                                John Gay                                The Beggar's Opera.
                                James Boswell                      Life of Johnson. Journals.
                                Samuel Johnson                     Works.
                                Edward Gibbon                     The History of the Decline and Fall of the
                                                                                   Roman Empire.
                                Edmund Burke                       A Philosophical Enquiry into ... the Sublime
                                                                                    and Beautiful. Reflections on the
                                                                                    Revolution in France.
                                Maurice Morgann                  An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir
                                                                                    John Falstaff.
                                William Collins                     Poems.
                                Thomas Gray                         Poems.
                                George Farquhar                   The Beaux' Stratagem. The Recruiting Officer.
                                William Wycherley               The Country Wife. The Plain Dealer.
                                Christopher Smart                 Jubilate Agno. A Song to David.
                                Oliver Goldsmith                  The Vicar of Wakefield. She Stoops to
                                                                                  Conquer. The Traveller. The Deserted
                                                                                  Village.
                                Richard Brinsley Sheridan    The School for Scandal. The Rivals.
                                William Cowper                   Poetical Works.
                                George Crabbe                      Poetical Works.
                                Daniel Defoe                         Moll Flanders. Robinson Crusoe. A Journal
                                                                                    of the Plague Year.
                                Samuel Richardson                Clarissa. Pamela. Sir Charles Grandison.
                                Henry Fielding                       Joseph Andrews. The History of Tom Jones,
                                                                                   a Foundling.
                                Tobias Smollett                      The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker. The
                                                                                   Adventures of Roderick Random.
                                Laurence Sterne                      The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy,
                                                                                    Gentleman. A Sentimental Journey through
                                                                                     France and Italy.
                                Fanny Burney                          Evelina.
                                Joseph Addison,                     The Spectator.
                                    Richard Steele

                       FRANCE
                                Jean Froissart                           Chronicles.
                                The Song of Roland
                                Francois Villon                         Poems.
                                Michel de Montaigne                Essays.
                                Francois Rabelais                     Gargantua and Pantagruel.
                                Marguerite de Navarre               The Heptameron.
                                Joachim Du Bellay                    The Regrets
                                Maurice Sceve                          Delie
                                Pierre de Ronsard                     Odes, Elegies, Sonnets.
                                Agrippa d'Aubigne                    Les Tragiques
                                Robert Garnier                          Mark Antony. The Jewesses.
                                Pierre Corneille                        The Cid. Polyeucte. Nicomede. Horace.
                                                                                      Cinna. Rodogune.
                                Francois de La Rochefoucauld  Maxims.
                                Jean de La Fontaine                   Fables
                                Moliere                                     The Misanthrope. Tartuffe. The School for
                                                                                       Wives. The Learned Ladies. Don Juan.
                                                                                        School for Husbands. Ridiculous
                                                                                        Precieuses. The Would-Be Gentleman.
                                                                                        The Miser. The Imaginary Invalid.
                                Plaise Pascal                             Pensees.
                                Jacques-Benigne Bossuet          Funerary Orations.
                                Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux      The Art of Poetry.
                                Jean Racine                               Phaedra. Andromache. Britannicus.
                                                                                       Athaliah.
                                Pierre Carlet de Marivaux         Seven Comedies.
                                Jean-Jacques Rousseau              The Confessions. Emile. La Nouvelle
                                                                                        Heloise.
                                Voltaire                                      Zadig. Candide. Letters on England. The
                                                                                        Lisbon Earthquake.
                                Abbe Prevost                             Manon Lescaut
                                Madame de La Fayette               The Princess of Cleves
                                Sebastian-Roch Nicholas de      Products of the Perfected Civilization.
                                    Chamfort
                                Denis Diderot                             Rameau's Nephew.
                                Choderlos de Laclos                  Dangerous Liaisons.

                       GERMANY
                                Erasmus (Dutchman)                  In Praise of Folly.
                                Johann Wolfgang von Goethe     Faust, Parts One and Two. Dichtung und
                                                                                       Wahreit. Egmont. Elective Affinities.
                                                                                       The Sorrows of Young Werther. Poems.
                                                                                       Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship.
                                                                                       Wilhelm Meister's Years of Wandering.
                                                                                       Italian Journey. Verse Plays. Hermann
                                                                                       and Dorothea. Roman Elegies. Venetian
                                                                                       Epigrams. West-Eastern Divan.
                                Friedrich Schiller                        The Robbers. Mary Stuart. Wallenstein.
                                                                                       Don Carlos. On the Naive and
                                                                                       Sentimental in Literature.
                                Gotthold Lessing                        Laocoon. Nathan the Wise.
                                Friedrich Holderlin                    Hymns and Fragments. Selected Poems.
                                Heinrich von Kleist                    Five Plays. Stories.