Harold Bloom's The Western Canon

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The Western Canon (Book) by Harold Bloom, 1498 Books

The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages is a 1994 book about Western literature by the American literary critic Harold Bloom, in which the author defends the concept of the Western canon by discussing 26 writers whom he sees as central to the canon.
The Western Canon includes four appendices listing works that Bloom at the time considered canonical, stretching from the earliest scriptures to Tony Kushner's Angels in America. Bloom later disowned the list, saying that it was written at his editor's insistence and distracted from the book's intention.
In adding this list, I did expand certain titles into multiple books, and combined some, since some are single short stories. This was a difficult list to add since there are so many books.

This list was originally published in 1994 and was added to this site over 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
264 The Epic Of Gilgamesh Unknown -2100 Multiple Akkadian
5915 Egyptian Book Of The Dead Unknown -1550 Egyptian Egyptian (hieroglyphic)
19 The Bible Unknown -1400 Jewish Hebrew, aramaic, greek
323 Mahabharata Vyasa -400 Indian Sanskrit
422 Ramayana Valmiki -200 Indian Sanskrit
37 The Iliad Homer -750 Greek Ancient greek
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
1049 Works and Days Hesiod -700 Greek Ancient greek
3256 The Theogony Hesiod -700 Greek Ancient greek
5832 Poems Archilochos -650 Greek Ancient greek
900 The Poems of Sappho Sappho -569 Greek Ancient greek
5831 Poems Alkman -650 Greek Ancient greek
4779 Odes Pindar -518 Greek Ancient greek
285 Oresteia Aeschylus -458 Greek Ancient greek
1350 Seven Against Thebes Aeschylus -467 Greek Ancient greek
1256 Prometheus Bound Aeschylus -455 Greek Ancient greek
613 The Persians Aeschylus -471 Greek Ancient greek
1351 The Suppliants Aeschylus -463 Greek Ancient greek
106 Oedipus the King Sophocles -429 Greek Ancient greek
383 Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles -401 Greek Ancient greek
125 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
986 Electra Sophocles -409 Greek Ancient greek
1124 Ajax Sophocles -440 Greek Ancient greek
1126 Women of Trachis Sophocles -450 Greek Ancient greek
1125 Philoctetes Sophocles -409 Greek Ancient greek
5816 Cyclops Euripides -405 Greek Ancient greek
4219 Heracles Euripides -416 Greek Ancient greek
3106 Alcestis Euripides -438 Greek Ancient greek
4218 Hecuba Euripides -424 Greek Ancient greek
943 The Bacchae Euripides -405 Greek Ancient greek
4225 Orestes Euripides -408 Greek Ancient greek
4216 Andromache Euripides -425 Greek Ancient greek
307 Medea Euripides -431 Greek Ancient greek
4220 Ion Euripides -413 Greek Ancient greek
2518 Hippolytus Euripides -428 Greek Ancient greek
5819 Helen Euripides -412 Greek Ancient greek
4221 Iphigenia At Aulis Euripides -405 Greek Ancient greek
1383 The Birds Aristophanes -414 Greek Ancient greek
932 The Clouds Aristophanes -423 Greek Ancient greek
4227 The Frogs Aristophanes -405 Greek Ancient greek
876 Lysistrata Aristophanes -411 Greek Ancient greek
3609 The Knights Aristophanes -424 Greek Ancient greek
4231 The Wasps Aristophanes -422 Greek Ancient greek
4158 The Assemblywomen Aristophanes -391 Greek Ancient greek
624 The Histories of Herodotus Herodotus -450 Greek Ancient greek
596 The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides -410 Greek Ancient greek
1364 Fragments Heraclitus -500 Greek Ancient greek
5855 Works Empedocles -439 Greek Ancient greek
388 The Complete Works of Plato Plato -387 Greek Ancient greek
1297 Poetics Aristotle -322 Greek Greek
402 The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle -334 Greek Ancient greek
5843 The Girl From Samos Menander -342 Greek Ancient greek
5829 On The Sublime Longinus -50 Greek Greek
5823 Hymns And Epigrams Callimachus -239 Greek Ancient greek
5824 Idylls Theocritus -260 Greek Ancient greek
334 Parallel Lives Plutarch 100 Greek Greek
5825 Moralia Plutarch -100 Greek Greek
562 Aesop's Fables Aesop -560 Greek Ancient greek
5827 Satires Lucian -160 Greek Ancient greek
5834 Pseudolus Plautus -191 Roman Latin
5838 The Braggart Soldier Plautus -204 Roman Latin
5849 The Rope Plautus -204 Roman Latin
4786 Amphitryon Plautus -184 Roman Latin
5842 The Girl From Andros Terence -166 Roman Latin
5841 The Eunuch Terence -161 Multiple Latin
5845 The Mother In Law Terence -160 Roman Latin
405 De Rerum Natura Lucretius 55 Roman Latin
5828 On The Gods Marcus Tullius Cicero 45 Roman Latin
518 The Odes Horace 23 Roman Latin
4217 Epistles Horace 20 Latin Latin
4226 Satires Horace 35 Latin Latin
5835 Satires Persius 62 Latin Latin
3128 Attis And Other Poems Catullus -53 Roman Latin
70 The Aeneid Virgil -19 Roman Latin
1543 Eclogues Virgil -37 Latin Latin
2264 Georgics Virgil 29 Latin Latin
4782 Pharsalia Lucan 61 Roman Latin
175 Metamorphoses Ovid 8 Roman Latin
4783 The Art Of Love Ovid 2 Roman Latin
5820 Heroides Ovid 25 Roman Latin
3314 Satires Juvenal 100 Roman Latin
5817 Epigrams Martial 86 Latin Latin
5837 Six Tragedies Seneca 54 Roman Latin
554 Satyricon Petronius 65 Roman Latin
512 The Golden Ass Apuleius 158 Roman Latin
1459 The City of God Augustine 413 Roman Latin
133 Confessions Augustine 397 Roman Latin
505 The Quran Unknown 610 Arabic Arabic
46 One Thousand and One Nights Unknown 800 Multiple Arabic
1544 The Poetic Edda Unknown 1270 Multiple Old norse
5895 The Prose Edda Snorri Sturluson 1220 Icelandic Old norse
699 The Nibelungenlied Unknown 1200 German Middle high german
1291 Parzival Wolfram Eschenbach 1200 German Middle high german
4795 Yvain Chrétien de Troyes 1177 French Old french
669 Beowulf Unknown 1000 Unknown Old english
1410 Poem of the Cid Unknown 1207 Spanish Old spanish
807 The Book of the City of Ladies Christine De Pizan 1405 French French
7216 Prison Of Love Diego de San Pedro 1485 Spanish Spanish
30 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
5858 The New Life Dante Alighieri 1295 Italian Italian
464 Petrarch's Songbook Francesco Petrarca 1341 Italian Italian
5859 Selections Francesco Petrarca 1340 Italian Italian
122 Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio 1353 Italian Italian
7216 Orlando Innamorato Matteo Maria Boiardo 1483 Italian Italian
972 The Orlando Furioso Lodovico Ariosto 1516 Italian Italian
7216 Sonnets And Madrigals Michelangelo Buonarroti 1545 Italian Italian
152 The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli 1532 Italian Italian
7216 The Mandrake Niccolo Machiavelli 1518 Italian Italian
2384 Notebooks Leonardo da Vinci 1883 Italian Italian
5863 The Book Of The Courtier Baldassare Castiglione 1528 Italian Italian
7216 Rime Gaspara Stampa 1554 Italian Italian
515 Lives of the Artists Giorgio Vasari 1550 Italian Italian
1936 Autobiography Benvenuto Cellini 1728 Italian Italian
5393 Jerusalem Delivered Torquato Tasso 1581 Italian Italian
7216 The Expulsion Of The Triumphant Beast Giordano Bruno 1584 Italian Italian
7216 Poems Of Tommaso Campanella Tommaso Campanella 1601 Italian Italian
5813 The City Of The Sun Tommaso Campanella 1623 Italian Latin
5863 The New Science Giambattista Vico 1725 Italian Italian
5856 The Servant Of Two Masters Carlo Goldoni 1746 Italian Italian
7216 Saul Vittorio Alfieri 1782 Italian Italian