Tag: great books

“Weohryant University” (V)

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What’s that? said Alex. It’s a reading list Bonny prepared for Harlan and my university. What’s on it? said Alex. Lots of things I’ve never heard of, said Blurtso. Read it to me, said Alex. It’s very long, said Blurtso. That’s all right, said Alex. O.k., said Blurtso, it says:

First Year – Fall Semester:
The Upanishads, The Bhagavad Gita, The Ramayana, The Mahabharata, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Bible, The Tao Te Ching, The Writings of Confucius, The Emerald Tablet, The Quran

First Year – Spring Semester:
The Odyssey, “Oedipus Rex,” “Iphigenia at Aulis,” Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton, Early Greek Philosophy, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1001 Nights

Second Year – Fall Semester:
The Poetry of Yongshu, The Poetry of Du Fu, The Poetry of Li Qingzhao, The Divine Comedy, The Decameron, The Poetry of Petrarch, Machiavelli’s The Prince, Njal’s Saga, The Canterbury Tales, The Masnavi of Rumi

Second Year – Spring Semester:
“King Lear,” “Hamlet,” “Macbeth,” “Romeo and Juliet,” The Poetry of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Don Quixote, Tartuffe, Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, The Biography of Benjamin Franklin, The Farmer’s Almanac, Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

Third Year – Fall Semester:
Selected Poems of Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats, Vanity Fair, Pride and Prejudice, The Poetry and Prose of Edgar Allan Poe, Les Fleurs du Mal, The Origin of Species, Crime and Punishment, Notes from the Underground, Huckleberry Finn, Leaves of Grass, Goethe’s Faust

Third Year – Spring Semester:
Les Misérables, Moby Dick, Walden, The Doll’s House, The Poetry and Prose of José Martí, Selected Poems of Rubén Darío, Selected Poetry of William Butler Yeats, Poemas Humanos of César Vallejo, The Poems of T.S. Elliot, “The Penal Colony” by Franz Kafka

Fourth Year – Fall Semester:
Einstein’s Universe by Nigel Calder, Mein Kampf, The Stories of Jorge Luis Borges, The Heart of Darkness, Waiting for Godot, No Exit, 1984, Animal Farm, Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda, Man, Woman, and Nature by Alan Watts

Fourth Year – Spring Semester:
The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, Giovanni’s Room, Slaughterhouse Five, The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Things Fall Apart, The Adventures of Captain Harvey, Blurtseau Lundif – Corsaire Extraordinaire, The Poems of Blurtso Lundif.

That’s a good list, said Alex, but I would add one more. What’s that? said Blurtso. The Baseball Encyclopedia, said Alex.

“Weohryant University” (IV)

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A university? said Pablo. Yes, said Blurtso, and we need another professor. What would I teach? said Pablo. You’d teach Where-101. Is that, said Pablo, a class about gardening? It can be, said Blurtso, as long as the questions begin with “where.” How many days does it meet? said Pablo. Once a week, said Blurtso. O.k., said Pablo. And what about me? said Bonny. What would you like to teach? said Blurtso. I don’t know, said Bonny, maybe a reading class. Reading? said Blurtso. Yes, said Bonny, what are your students going to read? Nothing, said Blurtso, we’re just going to talk. If your students read something, said Bonny, the discussions will be more interesting. You may be right, said Blurtso, what do you suggest? I’ll prepare a list of great books, said Bonny, and get them from the library. Great! said Blurtso.