Great Books: Definition and Background
Lest any may have come to this page unacquainted with the term "great books," it is simply a contemporary equivalent for "the classics," i.e., a cover term for the best works of all time, especially as is applied to the notion of a complete, holistic, humanistic, liberal, well-rounded education, in which they are to be read and discussed in seminar format.

In most times and places, education has consisted precisely of developing an intimate relationship with the classic works of that civilization. However, in the 19th century, Western education began to grow away from this and towards narrow specialization and a concept of education as job training rather than general mental and character formation. Reacting to this, by the early decades of the 20th century, such academics, thinkers, and educators as John Erskine, Mortimer Adler, Robert Hutchins, Charles Van Doren, and Stringfellow Barr began to formulate the notion of great books education in the liberal arts tradition of broad cross-disciplinary learning. In the mid-20th century, this concept of education spread successfully to form a core curriculum in many colleges, and to justify the publication of a series of Great Books of the Western World, originally by Encyclopedia Britannica. That series is now maintained by the still extant and active Great Books Foundation, and great books education stills forms the heart of the core curriculum at Columbia College as well as the entire course of study at the St. John's University that has twin campuses in Annapolis, Maryland and Santa Fe, New Mexico; moreover, a handful of other colleges maintain great books programs, generally as honors programs. Unfortunately, however, it must be confessed that the notion of great books education is a most noble lost cause, for education in general is more narrowly specialized than ever, and many universities that once had great books programs have either abandoned them outright or else diluted them beyond recognition by concessions to political correctness and area studies.

Great Books in my own Education and in Polyglottery
I am thoroughly steeped in the great books tradition, having been "formed" at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, those same two universities at which the notion itself was initially conceived. Moreover, my last real assignment as a full-time academic was to build and lead such a great books program in Lebanon. Thus, the great books play a central role in my discipline of Polyglottery. Indeed, not only a logical extension of Polyglottery but even a simple formulation of the entire concept of the purpose of learning as many languages as possible is the endeavor to read as many classic works as possible in their original tongues of composition. In fact, I believe that one reason Great Books education is a generally lost cause is that this logical connection has not been made before: if works are worth reading and rereading, then surely they are worth reading as they were written. It is generally considered to be very difficult if not actually impossible to learn many languages well. It is indeed demanding, but I always had the feeling that the education I myself received was never demanding enough. Thus, I propose Polyglottery as a course of education that will indeed be more demanding than the most demanding programs currently in existence, and with the specific goal of encouraging the reading of great books, not in translation, but in the original.

The Standard Canon of Great Books
The great books of the Western world as they form the curricula at colleges around the United States, and as they are comprised in the encyclopedic publication of the same title, in effect form a canon of some 100 primary works or authors. As they are not quite the same at all institutions, I have combined the reading lists of a good number of programs (Columbia, Malaspina, St. John's, the Great Books Foundation, etc.) to find a general canon of closer to 150 works, 154 to be exact. Given my overweening interest in languages in a diachronic perspective, I thought to add not only a means to view the list chronologically (that has been done before), but also by original language, which has not been done before. The general canon organized thus can be seen here.

Analyzing this by language, I find that 49 of the authors wrote in English, 26 in French, 24 in Latin, 23 in Greek, 16 in German, 6 in Russian, 4 in Italian, 2 in Spanish, and 1 each in Danish, Norse, and Norwegian.

Analyzing this canon chronologically, I find that there are 31 authors who wrote primarily in the 20th century; 34 primarily in the 19th century; 20 in the 18th; 17 in the 17th; 10 in the 16th; 8 in the millennium generally known as the Middle Ages; 15 in the first five centuries AD of Antiquity; and 18 in the 9-century period of BC Antiquity.

In other words, of a list compiled by American intellectuals in the early 20th century, fully one-third of the classic authors were British or American, one out of every five "classic" authors was still alive at the time the list was compiled, and two-thirds of them lived within the preceding century and a half. This standard canon is, in essence, a chronicle of the Anglo-American liberal tradition with proper and due acknowledgement to the French Enlightenment and Greek Antiquity. This canon is indeed a fine starting point for a life-time of reading and discussion, particularly for those coming from and being educated in the Anglo-American liberal tradition, but I believe it is would be more accurate to refer to this list in those terms rather than as the list of great books of Western Civilization as a whole, for it is neither broad nor representative enough of the entire time-span of Western Civilization, or of the literary heritages that comprise it. Contemplating the list with a general knowledge of the major intellectual traditions of Germany, Italy, and Spain, one will notice that many of the very greatest figures from those languages are absent. Likewise, many of the only comparatively minor languages whose heritages are an integral part of the true scope of Western Civilization are not represented at all, despite having their fair share of classics.  

Principles for Expanding the Canon
Thus, I have set about trying to comprise a list that would be more representative of the entire true great books heritage of Western Civilization. I have done this by adding copiously from my direct experience of deliberately searching out the greatest texts from the entire heritage by reading literary, intellectual, and cultural histories of all of the languages of Europe. As attempting to keep the list to 100 or 150 greatest works would have entailed an impossible constant paring down, I saw no sense at all in doing this, but rather simply expanded the list. I am more than willing to continue doing so as it only stands to reason that as time goes by, more and more classics will have been written. Still, in compiling my lists, I have attempted to follow a principle learned from Schopenhauer, which the compilers of the original lists seemed to heed not at all, namely: nothing should be considered a classic until its author has been dead for 100 years. Thus, I have deleted many names from the standard canon and placed them on a separate "20th century waiting list" (also given below) until a century has elapsed since their deaths.

As it stands, I now have over 533 authors on my list of Great Books of Western Civilization. Obviously, this can no longer form the core of a unified college curriculum, but is more along the lines of a list for a life-time of reading and discussion.

Likewise, feeling that the general time has come for the compilation of similar lists of Great Books from other civilizations as an integral part of the project of Polyglottery, I have belatedly begun compiling these as well. Thus, I also have and offer the beginnings of lists for Eastern (66 authors/works), Indic (57 authors/works), and what I feel is best labeled "Central" (74 authors/works) Civilizations in rudimentary stages as well. These lists are terribly fragmentary and incomplete, but at least they are a beginning.

Other Expanded Lists
I may be pushing the scope of this project beyond what has been proposed before, but even if I am proposing radically idealistic hopes for a discipline that will enable large numbers of these works to be read in the original, I do not feel I am doing anything terribly original in proposing these lists themselves. Indeed, I am greatly indebted to all previous lists, in particular those of:

De Bary, Wm. Theodore and Irene Bloom.   Approaches to the Asian Classics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.

De Bary, Wm. Theodore and Ainslie T. Embree. A Guide to Oriental Classics, 2nd ed. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1975.

Fadiman, Clifton. The Lifetime Reading Plan, 3rd ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.

Fadiman, Clifton and John S. Major. The New Lifetime Reading Plan, 4th ed. New York:  HarperCollins, 1997.

Rexroth, Kenneth. Classics Revisited. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968.

Rexroth, Kenneth, ed. By Bradford Marrow. More Classics Revisited. New York: New Directions, 1989.

Ward, Philip. A Lifetime's Reading: The World's 500 Greatest Books.

Four Lists for Four Living Civilizations (plus a 20th century waiting list for those who have not yet been dead for 100 years)

1. Western Civilization
2. Central Civilization
3. Indic Civilization
4. Eastern Civilization
5. 20th Century Waiting List