Challenge idea: at least one book/work from each century

[J_BlueFlower]

I have a number of goals I am aiming at. Not just 2019 but all life. Like for instance I want to read the main work of all major religions.

Another possible goal that works well together with the first one, could be to read at least one book/work from each century. This is inspired by the publication year stat the my state page. I have though about this many times, but never seriously started. I have a huge gap of about 1800 years from Tao Te Ching to William Shakespeare.

I am not actually doing this as a challenge. There are too many years during the dark middle age where I would be reading a book for the sake of the stats. I am not going to do that.

How many books have you read in the interval -300 to just-before-Shakespeare?

[Luke]

J_BlueFlower wrote: "How many books have you read in the interval -300 to just-before-Shakespeare?"

Eleven.

The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night - Anonymous - 800 CE
Beowulf - Unknown - 975 CE
The Pillow Book - Sei Shōnagon - 1002 CE
The Tale of Genji - Murasaki Shikibu - 1008 CE
The Diary of Lady Murasaki - Murasaki Shikibu - 1010 CE
Njal's Saga - Anonymous - 1290 CE
The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri - 1308 CE
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Unknown - 1390 CE
The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer - 1390 CE
The Book of the City of Ladies - Christine de Pizan - 1405 CE
The Heptameron - Marguerite de Navarre - 1542 CE

[Julie]

J_BlueFlower wrote: "How many books have you read in the interval -300 to just-before-Shakespeare?"

Six :)

[siriusedward]

Five

The Canterbury Tales
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The Diary of Lady Murasaki
And
Five t'Ang Poets
Songs of Kabir ,translated into English by Rabindranath Tagore.

Oh ,I forgot about Homer 🤦‍♀️

So,it will be six and half...

Odyssey and half of Iliad (currently reading )..

[J_BlueFlower]

That is an intriguing list, siriusedward. Thank you.
If you have correct publication years for the last two, I can fix them.

[Darren]

some that I've read or on my TBR:
Meditations (Marcus Aurelius) 180
Beowulf 975
Tale Of Genji (Lady Murasaki) 1008
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1120
Divine Comedy (Dante) 1308
Revelations of Divine Love (Julian of Norwich) 1393
Mabinogion 1410
Utopia (Thomas More) 1516
Gargantua and Pantagruel (Rabelais) 1532

[siriusedward]

J_BlueFlower wrote: "That is an intriguing list, siriusedward. Thank you.
If you have correct publication years for the last two, I can fix them."


They are from around 500 to 1000 ,I think J_blueflower..I will check..

[siriusedward]

Wang Wei - 699 to 759
Li Bai - 701 to 762
Du Fu - 712 to 770
Li Ho - 790 to 816
Li Shang-yin - 813 to 859

Kabirdas - 15th century... more of a mystic poet ,I think.
We had his couplets known as "dohe" in Hindi to study ,when we were in High school.
I bought a different collection of his Dohes in Hindi ,recently.
This particular book by Rabindranath Tagore was published in 1915..

[Kathleen]

A great challenge idea, and interesting to think about, J BlueFlower. I've read very few, but the ones I've read were fantastic.

Tao Te Ching - 300
The Iliad - 720
The Odyssey - 720

If you go way before 300, there's one of my favorites:
Metamorphoses

And a little into Shakespeare's time, there's another favorite:
Don Quixote.

I'm hoping to read Poetics this year, and I'd love to read some of the poetry mentioned above!

[Christopher]

Here are a few which haven't been mentioned:

The Secret History

The New Life

King Alfred's Old English Version of St. Augustine's Soliloquies Turned into Modern English

The Song of Roland

[Christopher]

One more:

The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry

[J_BlueFlower]

Kathleen wrote: "...I'm hoping to read Poetics this year..."

Hmmm Aristotle?! That would be a nice nomination.

[Lynn, New School Classics]

Here are the books I have read from different early centuries

Tao Te Ching 300 BC

The Didache 70 AD

The Romance of Tristan and Iseult 1170

Romeo and Juliet late 1500s

Macbeth early 1600s

True Devotion to Mary 1700

numerous from 1800s, 1900s, 2000s

[Pink]

Hmm, between -300 and Shakespeare I’ve read 14 and I think they’re all but one European. Homer is a lot earlier, with the other ancient Greeks, which I’ve read more of.

Tao Te Ching -300
Jason and the Golden Fleece -250
The Aeneid -19
Doomed Love -19
Tales from Ovid: 24 Passages from the Metamorphoses 8
Daphnis and Chloe 150
Beowulf 975
Inferno 1320 (currently reading)
The Decameron 1353
The Canterbury Tales 1390
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 1390
The Prince 1513
Utopia 1516
Doctor Faustus 1592

It looks like my biggest gap is between 150 and 975, nothing between the Roman period and Beowulf’s old English for me.

[J_BlueFlower]

The Tale of Genji (written about 1010) referred to it as the "ancestor of all romances.": The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter first published 900.

[Pink]

I found another one from my shelves Forbidden Fruit: From The Letters of Abelard and Heloise This is a shorter selection from The Letters of Abélard and Héloïse 1133

[Luke]

Books that would work that I haven't gotten to yet:

On the Nature of the Universe - Lucretius (55 BCE)
Metamorphoses - Ovid (8 CE)
Letters from a Stoic - Seneca (64 CE)
The Twelve Caesars - Suetonius (121 CE)
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius (180 CE)
As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams: Recollections of a Woman in Eleventh-Century Japan - Lady Sarashina (1050 CE)
Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam - Omar Khayyám (1120 CE)
The Alexiad - Anna Comnena (1148 CE)
The Sagas of Icelanders -Various (1200 CE)
The Tale of the Heike - Anonymous (1219 CE)
Rending the Veil -Rumi (1273 CE)
The Confessions of Lady Nijō - Lady Nijō (1307 CE)
The Decameron - Giovanni Boccaccio (1353 CE)
Three Kingdoms: Classic Novel in Four Volumes - Luo Guanzhong (1360 CE)
The Spirit of Noh: A New Translation of the Classic Noh Treatise the Fushikaden - Zeami (1400 CE)
The Book of Margery Kempe - Margery Kempe (1438 CE)
Le Morte D'Arthur - Thomas Malory (1485 CE)
The Prince - Niccolò Machiavelli (1513 CE)
Leonardo's Notebooks - Leonardo da Vinci (1519 CE)
Gargantua and Pantagruel - François Rabelais (1532 CE)
The Book of My Life - Girolamo Cardano (1570 CE)
Essays - Michel de Montaigne (1580 CE)

[J_BlueFlower]

J_BlueFlower wrote: "That is an intriguing list, siriusedward. Thank you.
If you have correct publication years for the last two, I can fix them."

I could not find anything in the Goodreads policy about ”original publications date”, so I asked, and the answer is:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

So I set Songs of Kabir to 1448 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabir
and
Five t'Ang Poets to 859

[J_BlueFlower]

Thank you for all the suggestions. Looking forward to see some of them in the really old-school nomination ;-)

My list so far:

upto -300: is covered
100- New testament
600- Qurʾan
900- The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (is on the 1001-books list)
1400- Songs of Kabir
1500- covered (but Montaigne: complete Essays and Machiavelli: The Prince is TBR anyway)

[siriusedward]

A great challenge to follow, J_blueflower.
Thanks.

[J_BlueFlower]

I am not doing challenges. I like as few obligations for my reading as possible. I was just thinking... something like... if I were to do one... ;-)

[siriusedward]

A list then...😉
A thought...

[Lynn, New School Classics]

Pink wrote: "Hmm, between -300 and Shakespeare I’ve read 14 and I think they’re all but one European. Homer is a lot earlier, with the other ancient Greeks, which I’ve read more of.

Tao Te Ching ..."

Pink I just download Daphnis and Chloe ebook. What a wonderful idea! It never occurred to me to look for the book. Ravel's ballet is one of my favorite pieces of music. The Royal Ballet's version is wonderful. I look forward to this one.

[Warren]

Hi J_Blueflower
Some thoughts for your missing centuries ...
200s Kama sutra
500s Recognition of Sakantula by Kalidasa
700s Early Irish Sagas and Myths
800s Book of one thousand and one nights (dates are a but rubbery but could squeeze in here)

Good luck!!