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Read Me What to read, 1401-1600

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15th Century

One star: English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Edited from the Collections of Francis James Child Etext: Internet Sacred Text Archive Reference: Nelson | KWIC Concordance Criticism: Weblog H. C. Sargent and G. L. Kittridge, eds. 1904

Nur ad-Din 'Abd ar-Rahman JAMI (1414-1492) Reference: Wikipedia Criticism: Ward
Baharistan

KABIR (c. 1430-1518) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Ward
Poems

VILLON (Francois de Montcorbier, 1431-after 1462) Etext: The Online Books Page
The Great Testament (1461) Criticism: Ormsby a great poem of 2,000 or so lines which develops the 'legacy' theme but also interpolates the great ballads (some written earlier) by which he is remembered... --Philip Ward, A Lifetime's Reading (1982) pp. 27-28
One star: Poems Etext: Ballad of the Hanged

Matteo Maria BOIARDO (1434-1494) Etext: Project Gutenberg
Orlando innamorato

Jorge MANRIQUE (1440-1479)
Coplas

CHANDIDAS (15th Century) Etext: Reference: Poet Seers Criticism: Ward
Love Songs of Chandidas [Shri-Krishna-kirtana] (1916)

Adi Granth (15th Century) Etext: Sikhism Reference: Sikhism Criticism: Ward

Maurice SCEVE (15th Century) Etext: REC Music Foundation
Delie

Diego de SAN PEDRO (fl. 1450) Etext: Cal. Santa Barbara [99 pp. pdf]
Prison of Love (Carcel de amor, 1492)

Christopher COLUMBUS (1451-1506) Reference: Columbus Navigation Criticism: Weblog but the greatest of a long line of Italians who, in the service of the western nations, sailed into distant seas. --Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, translated by S. G. C. Middlemore (1878), (Random House 1944) p. 210 It was the achievement of Columbus to convert conjecture into certainty, to substitute knowledge for hypothesis, and to open a way across the Atlantic which has never since been closed. --Cecil Jane
Letter Concerning Newly Discovered Islands (1493)

LEONARDO Da Vinci (1452-1519) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Gopnik | Gelernter | Spalding | Perl | Gayford | Rowland | Henneberger | Wolfe | Ward
One star: Notebooks Whereas in his lifetime and for the next three centuries of so, Leonardo's reputation was based almost exclusively on his activity as a painter, he is now equally famous for his other interests, which have been accessible since the publication of his notebooks. --Charles Hope, The New York Review of Books, August 9, 2001, p. 10

William DUNBAR (1460-1520) Etext: Poem Hunter
Poems

John SKELTON (1460-1529) Etext: The Online Books Page
Poems

Gil VICENTE (c. 1465-c. 1536) Etext: Poetry Archive Criticism: Ward
Quem tem farelos? (1508)
Auto da India (1509)
Farso do Velho da Horta (1512)
Auto dos Fisicos (1512)

Fernando de ROJAS (c. 1465-1541) Criticism: Ward
One star: The Spanish Bawd (La Celestina 1499)

Desiderius ERASMUS (c. 1466-1536) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Downs | Ward ...someone who never made the mistake of putting ideas before flesh and blood... --Paul Johnson, 'The Human Race', The New Criterion, November 2006, p. 12
Three stars: The Praise of Folly (1509)
Colloquies (1518-1533)

Niccolo MACHIAVELLI (1469-1527) Etext: The Online Books Page Study: The History Guide Criticism: Simpson | Rexroth | Downs | Fadiman | Van Doren What unites Machiavelli's personal and political sides is his desire that one's beliefs reflect life as it is actually lived rather than as we think it should be lived. --Alexander Stille, The New York Times Book Review, December 3, 2000 p. 90
One star: Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy (c. 1513)
The Mandrake, a Comedy (Mandragola 1518)
Florentine History (Istorie fiorentine 8 vol. 1520-1525)
Five stars: The Prince (1532) This potent pamphlet is in the form of a how-to-do-it book for a ruler or would-be ruler. It tells how to become a successful, not a good or wise, ruler. --Peter Wolff, The Development of Political Theory and Government (1959), p. 87 Start out wanting to be feared, by all the right people, and you may end up being loved in the bargain. Start out seeking love, even from enemies, and you wind up with nothing at all. --Noemie Emery, National Review, July 26, 1999, p. 55 ...we do have to ask whether this kind of divorce that Machiavelli has proclaimed as real and necessary sometimes--between personal morality and the conduct of political leadership--is that something we have to accept as the way it is? --William R. Cook, Machiavelli in Context; Lecture 24: Was Machiavelli a Machiavellian? The Teaching Company

WANG Yang-Ming (Wang Shou-Jen, 1472-1529) Reference: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Criticism: Ward
One star: Instructions for Practical Living and other neo-Confucian Writings Chan Wing-tsit, trans. (1963) The principal Neo-Confucian philosopher of the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries, his philosophy of the mind drew on that of Chu Hsi, yet also provided the principal alternative to Chu Hsi's intellectualism in later Chinese thought, in regard to the role of moral intuition versus cognitive learning. --A Guide to Oriental Classics (3rd Ed. 1989) p. 218

Nicolaus COPERNICUS (1473-1543) Etext: Bartleby Reference: History of Mathematics Archive | Institute and Museum of the History of Science Criticism: Weblog Downs | Van Doren In an age when experimental method has achieved the dignity of dogma, it is worth emphasizing that astronomers and physicists undertook closer observations and more exact measurements only after Copernicus (d. 1543) had put an alternative to traditional Ptolemaic and Aristotelian theories before the learned world; and Copernicus did so, not on the basis of observations and measurements, but on the grounds of logical simplicity and aesthetic symmetry. --William H. McNeill, The Rise of the West, p. 593
Two stars: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543) Where the earth had been the center of the Ptolemaic universe, the sun now took that place. Where the earth had been immobile in its central position, it now was seen to have both a daily rotation and a yearly revolution. --Peter Wolff, Foundations of Science and Mathematics (1960), p. 91 proposed two radical changes to man's conception of the cosmos: The first claim was heliocentrism, namely, that the Sun was at the center of the universe. The second was geokineticism, simply meaning that the Earth was in motion and in fact had two motions: a diurnal motion on its axis and its annual motion around the Sun. --Lawrence M. Principe, Science and Religion: Irreconcilable, Lecture 5: Church, Copernicus, and Galileao, The Teaching Company

Ludivico ARIOSTO (1474-1533) Criticism: Ward ...the most prodigal imagination ever possessed by man. --Lord Acton
One star: Orlando Furioso (1516) Etext: On-Line Medieval and Classical Library From a poet of such fame and such mighty gifts we would gladly receive something better than the adventures of Orlando. --Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, translated by S. G. C. Middlemore (1878), (Random House 1944) p. 242

MICHELANGELO Buonarroti (1475-1564) Criticism: Ward
One star: Sonnets and Madrigals (1623)

Saint Thomas MORE (1477-1535) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Center | Farrow | Roper Criticism: Bork | Downs | Rexroth | Ward If only he had left theology to the theologians. --Erasmus a model layman, living the Gospel to the full. He was a fine scholar and an ornament to his profession, a loving husband and father, humble in prosperity, courageous in adversity, humorous and godly. --Pope John Paul II, Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, May 28, 1982, Vol. V, 2, p. 1899 ...it was determination to avoid damnation for heresy which took Thomas More to the block. --Paul Dean, Donne's 'dialogue of one', The New Criterion, January 2007, p. 70
Three stars: Utopia (1516) unfolds the picture of a frugal, moral and equalitarian society that was the exact opposite of English society in More's day. --Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (3rd ed. 1950) Ch. XXIV p. 306 ...he envisioned the authoritarian communist world of his 'Utopia,' with its universal requirement of six hours' labor a day and a population that flocked voluntarily to improving pre-dawn lectures, as a detailed and practical alternative... --Anthony Grafton, Over the Rainbow, The New York Review of Books, November 30, 2000 p. 4

Baldassare CASTIGLIONE (1478-1529) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Ward
One star: The Book of the Courtier (1528) Sir Thomas Hoby, trans. (1561)

Francesco GUICCIARDINI (1483-1540) Reference: eNotes Criticism: Ward
The History of Italy (1561)

Martin LUTHER (1483-1546) Etext: The Online Books Page | The Small Catechism Reference: Criticism: Weblog Criticism: Downs In one sentence: The Church teaches that God for Christ's sake imparts holiness: Luther taught that God for Christ's sake imputes holiness to the sinner. --M. L. Cozens, A Handbook of Heresies (abridged edition 1959), p. 71 the doctrine of justification by faith alone derives from Luther's effort to correct the individualist turn of Catholic theology, and from his sensitivity to the overwhelming need of man to love himself in the world, as God had loved him. --Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud (1966) p. 207 Luther had what Wycliffe and Hus did not: technology. --Hugh Hewitt, 'Blog' 2005 p. 55 In the west, identity politics began in earnest with the Reformation. Martin Luther argued that salvation could be achieved only through an inner state of faith, and attacked the Catholic emphasis on works--that is, exterior conformity to a set of social rules. The Reformation thus identified true religiosity as an individual's subjective state, dissociating inner identity from outer practice. --Francis Fukuyama, Identity and Migration, Prospect, February 2007 The task of the Reformer, the work of the Reformer, was to bring God's Word to the people--the kind and gracious word of the Gospel--and to do that you need to have God speaking in German. --Phillip Cary, From Medieval Monk to Rebellious Reformer, Lecture 12: The Work of the Reformer, The Teaching Company
Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Respecting the Reformation of the Christian Estate (1520)
Three Treatises
The Babylonian Captivity of the Church
The Bondage of the Will
Commentary on Psalm 2
Commentary on Psalm 110
The Freedom of a Christian
One star: Table Talk (1566)

FUZULI (Suleyman Mehmet, c. 1490-c. 1556) Reference: Poetry Magic Criticism: Ward
One star: Leyla and Mejnun (1535-1536) ...stems from an old Arabic legend of unrequited love among the Bedouins. ... Fuzuli's beautiful treatment of it as a mystic allegory is the best-known Turkish version of the romance. --A Guide to Oriental Classics (3rd Ed. 1989) p. 64

MARGUERITE de Valois (1492-1549) Etext: The Online Books Page Sister of Francois. Wife first of the Duc d'Alencon, and then of Henri d'Albert, king of Navarre. Mother of Henry IV of France. Henry married a Margaret of Valois (1553-1615), daughter of Henry II of France and Catherine de Medicis, who was known as Queen Margot.
Heptameron

Bernal DIAZ del Castillo (1492-1581) Criticism: Ward
The Conquest of New Spain (1632) Reference: PowerPoint

Francois RABELAIS (c. 1495-1553) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Moran | Schneider Criticism: Carne-Ross | Fadiman | Rexroth | Van Doren | Ward
Four stars: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1535-1552) Serious piety accompanies mocking irreverence, tender sentiment goes with coarse sensuality, the quest for truth is interspersed with merry and sometimes cruel pranks. --Seymour Cain, Imaginative Literature I: From Homer to Shakespeare (1961), p. 168

Portuguese Voyages (1498-1663) (1953) Criticism: Ward
Charles David Ley, Ed.

Benvenuto CELLINI (1500-1571) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Ward
One star: Life of Benvenuto Cellini (1558-1564) first published 1728

Sir Thomas WYATT (1503-1542) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Luminarium
Poems

The Water Margin or All Men Are Brothers [Shui-hu chuan] Reference: Chinese Classics & History | National Museum of Japanese History A classic of Chinese popular fiction, narrating the adventures of a band of outlaws in the Sung Dynasty. --A Guide to Oriental Classics (3rd Ed. 1989) p. 223

16th Century

WU Ch'eng-en (c. 1506-1581) Reference: Doran et al. Criticism: Fadiman | Ward
One star: Hsi-yu chi [Monkey or The Journey to the West] Reference: China Page The work is a mixture of satire and folk tale, fictionalized history and religious allegory. Though it should be read as fantasy, not as a profound religious treatise, there is a serious meaning in Wu's treatment of society and bureaucracy. --G. L. Anderson, Masterpieces of the Orient (1961) p. 236 A highly imaginative fictional account of the epic pligrimages to India of the Buddhist monk Hsuan-tsang ... --A Guide to Oriental Classics (3rd Ed. 1989) p. 226

Jean CALVIN (1509-1564) He denied God's will to save all mankind, taught that God created some to be saved--to the glory of His mercy--others to be eternally lost--to the glory of His justice, or rather of His vengeance; for Calvin denied the freedom of man's will and held that men were damned for sins which they were utterly unable to avoid committing. Like Luther, he taught that faith, in the new sense of man's confidence in hsi own election to eternal life, was the only means of salvation. Moreover, this faith was caused in a sinner's soul by God alone without any co-operation on his own part, the sinner being entirely passive. --M. L. Cozens, A Handbook of Heresies (abridged edition 1959), p. 75 Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Christian Classics Ethereal Library Criticism: Weblog | Downs
Two stars: Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) Theologians ground their systems in some specific aspect of divine revelation. Thomas Aquinas centered the 'Summa' on the perfection of nature by grace; Calvin based his 'Institutes' on the doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God. --Christopher Levenick, Like a Mighty Wind, review essay, Claremont Review of Books, Winter 2006/07, p. 71

Ambrose PARE (1509-1590) Study: Reference: Weblog
Journeys in Diverse Places Etext: Bartleby

Giorgio VASARI (1511-1574) Criticism: Ward
One star: Lives of the Painters (Le Vite de' piu Eccellenti Pitttori, Scultori e Architettori 1550) Reference: Illustrated

Agustin de ZARATE (1514-?) Reference: Virginia Criticism: Ward
The Discovery and Conquest of Peru [Historia] J. M. Cohen, trans. (1968)

Andreas VESALIUS (1514-1564) Criticism: Downs
On the Structure of the Human Body (1543) Etext: Northwestern

St. TERESA of Avila (1515-1582) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Allen It was in 1562 that she founded her first convent (in Avila) and during the next three years she set down the story of her life at the request of her spiritual director, Francisco de Soto y Salazar. She writes pungently and frankly, as she speaks, with no idea of punctuation and little of grammar. --Philip Ward, A Lifetime's Reading (1982) p. 16
Vida (1588)

Henry HOWARD, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547) Reference: Luminarium
Poems Etext: Luminarium

Pedro CIEZA DE LEON (1518?-1560) Reference: Modern History Sourcebook
The Incas of Pedro Cieza de Leon (1959)

Gaspara STAMPA (1523-1554) Etext: Poem Hunter
Sonnets and Madrigals

Luis Vaz de CAMOES [or CAMOENS] (1524-1580) Etext: FT October 2002 | FT August/September 2002 | FT June/July 2002 | FT May 2002 | The Online Books Page Criticism: Ward
One star: The Lusiads (1572)

Fray LUIS de Leon (1520-1591) Etext: Reference: Los Poetas
Poems

Pierre de RONSARD (1524-1585) Reference: Poetry Portal
Odes
Elegies
Sonnets

Joachim Du BELLAY (1525-1560) Etext: Archive of Classic Poems
The Regrets

Antonio FERREIRA (c. 1528-1569) Etext: Projecto Vercial
Poetry The Muse Reborn, translated by T. F. Earle

Jean BODIN (1530-1596) Criticism: Downs
The Six Books on the State (1576) ...{O]ne religious denomination could not be imposed by force. Religion, he saw, was greater than the symbolization used to contain it. --Jene M. Porter, The Review of Politics, Fall 2000, p. 808

Michel Eyquem de MONTAIGNE (1533-1592) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Criticism: Weblog Criticism: Downs | Fadiman | Van Doren | Ward
Five stars: Essays (1581, 1588) Thus he exemplifies the fact--no doubt true--that in moral matters we are influenced greatly in our feelings by what we think we ought to feel. --Peter Wolff, A General Introduction to the Great Books and to a Liberal Education (1959), p. 103

Garcilaso de la VEGA, "El Inca" (1539-1616) Etext: Golden Age Spanish Sonnets Criticism: Ward
Obras Completas

William GILBERT (1540-1603) Reference: Institute and Museum of the History of Science | Stern Criticism: Downs | Van Doren
One star: On the Lodestone, Magnetic Bodies and On the Great Magnet the Earth (1600)

Saint JOHN of the Cross (Juan de Yepes, later Juan de San Matia and Juan de La Cruz, 1542-1591) Criticism: Ward Etext: Apart and Not Yet a Part | To the Divine | Nine poems | The Online Books Page
One star: Complete Poems

Robert GARNIER (1544-1590)
Mark Antony Etext: Renaissance Editions
The Jewesses

Torquato TASSO (1544-1595) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Ward Why is it that the Renaissance Italian poet Tasso, who fired imaginations from Milton and Dryden to Shelley, Byron, and Goethe, should now subsist as a decoration in scholarly footnotes instead of as a living presence? --Roger Kimball, The New Criterion, December 2000, p. 4
One star: Jerusalem Delivered (1580) A certain kind and degree of artificility, a certain very skilful balance of unity and variety, a certain tone of disciplined ardour--these prevail from the first line to those wholly satisfactory last words *e scioglie il voto* which Tasso had in mind before he first put pen to paper. --C. S. Lewis, from 'Tasso' in 'Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature'

Sir Francis DRAKE (c. 1545-1595) Etext: The Online Books Page
Sir Francis Drake Revived

Francis PRETTY Etext: The Online Books Page
Sir Francis Drake’s Famous Voyage Round the World (1580)

Captain Walter BIGGES (d. 1586) Etext: The Online Books Page
Drake’s Great Armada

Miguel de CERVANTES Saavedra (1547-1616) Etext: The Online Books Page, Reference: Criticism: Weblog Criticism: Fadiman | Van Doren | Ward
Five stars: The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha (1604, 1615) Don Quixote, the mad visionary who seeks to be a knight-errant in the days when chivalry is long past, and Sancho Panza, the grossly practical and common-sense peasant who cannot see beyond the end of his nose--these two characters have become universal human types in whom we may see ourselves and others more lucidly. --Seymour Cain, Imaginative Literature II: From Cervantes to Dostoevsky (1962), p. 2 Cervantes, of part-Jewish origin, never free from fear of the Inquisition which associated intellect with Jewishness and heterodoxy, created Quixote as the essence of Spanishness; who questions everything and everyone, yet reaches answers that take unacceptable directions, and which it can neither reject nor accept. --Alfred Sherman, 'Invertebrate Spain', review of The Ghosts of Spain, by Giles Tremlett, The Salisbury Review, Autumn 2006, p. 39
Exemplary Stories

Giordano BRUNO (1548-1600) Etext: Esoteric Archives | The Online Books Page | Radical Adademy
The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast

The Book of Common Prayer (1549) Etext: The Online Books Page

Pedro CIEZA de Leon Etext: Koeller Reference: Zaro Criticism: Ward
Incas of Pedro Cieza de Leon

The Book of Dede Korkut [Kitab-i Dede Korkut] (16th C.) Etext: Ohio State Twelve epic tales in prose and verse as presented in sixteenth-century manuscripts. An Islamic coloring is superimposed on a setting tht reflects the pre-Islamic heroic age of the Oghuz Turks. --A Guide to Oriental Classics (3rd Ed. 1989) p. 60

Sor JUANA Ines de la Cruz (1551-1595) Etext: Sor Juana Project
Poems

Agrippa D'AUBIGNE (1552-1630)
Les Tragiques

Sir Edward COKE (1552-1634) Etext: Liberty Library
Commentaries Upon Littleton

Edmund SPENSER (1552 or 1553-1599) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: The Faerie Queen (1599)
Amoretti
Complaints
Hymne of Heavenly Beautie
Shepheardes Calendar

Richard HAKLUYT (c. 1552-1616) Etext: The Online Books Page
The Principal Navigations of the English Nation (1589)

Sir Philip SIDNEY (1554-1586) Etext: The Online Books Page I shall not want Honour in Heaven, For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney and have talk with Coriolanus And other heroes of that kidney. --T. S. Eliot, 'A Cooking Egg'
The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia It has to be skimmed, and the original version is far more readable than the revision. Still, it is a remarkable fusion of political philosophy, picaresque adventure, chivalric romance, and tragicomedy... --Paul Dean, The New Criterion, January 2002, p. 70
Astrophel and Stella
An Apology for Poetry ...unites prodigious learning to a style at once sinewy and supple, airy and weighty. --Paul Dean, The New Criterion, January 2002, p. 70

Sir Walter RALEIGH (1554-1618) Etext: The Online Books Page
Poems
History of the World

Fulke GREVILLE, Lord Brooke (1554-1628) Etext: Luminarium Reference: Luminarium
Poems

Lazarillo de Tormes (anonymous, 1554) Etext: Parallel text

Thomas KYD (1558-1594) Etext: The Online Books Page
The Spanish Tragedy

George CHAPMAN (1559-1634) Etext: The Online Books Page
Comedies
Tragedies
Poems

Francis BACON, 1st Baron Verulam (1561-1626) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Jonson | Downs | Van Doren | Ward [T]he propaganda for new ideas about nature, of which Bacon was the undoubted master, has come to be seen as vitally important for their triumph. --Theodore K. Rabb, New York Times Book Review, August 15, 1999, p. 13 defined the scientific method in its classic form: the use of inductive reasoning to draw conclusions from an exhaustive body of facts. --Science Wars: What Scientists Know and How They Know It, by Steven L. Goodman, The Teaching Company
Letter to Lord Burghley (1592)
Two stars: Essays; Or, Counsels Civil and Moral (1597)
Two stars: Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human (1605) For Bacon, it is not contemplation but productive activity which is the highest aim of philosophical inquiry. --Seymour Cain, Philosophy (1963), p. 131
Wisdom of the Ancients (1619)
One star: Novum Organum (1620) For the first time, we hear the modern pragmatic notion of truth forcefully announced. Also modern is Bacon's cry to make everything new--a new system of the sciences, a new method of inquiry, discoveries of new things. --Peter Wolff, Foundations of Science and Mathematics (1960), pp. 133-134 The novelty—according to Bacon's vision—lies in a new correlation between science and praxis. This is also given a theological application: the new correlation between science and praxis would mean that the dominion over creation —given to man by God and lost through original sin—would be reestablished. --Pope Benedict XVI, 'On Christian Hope' (Spe Salvi) 16, November 30, 2007
Apophthegms (1625)
One star: New Atlantis (1626) Where Leviticus ritually separates pure from impure with an eye to what is divine in man, Bacon's 'New Atlantis' vivisects and recombines everything for the sake of healing man's animal body. --Eric Cohen, 'The Ends of Science', First Things, November 2006, p. 28
Sylva Sylvarum (1627)

Luis GONGORA y Argote (1561-1627) Etext: Poetry Archive
Sonnets
Soledades

Samuel DANIEL (1562-1619) Etext: The Online Books Page
Poems
A Defence of Ryme

LOPE Felix de Vega Carpio (1562-1635) Etext: Golden Age Spanish Sonnets Criticism: Ward
Peribanez (1610?)
One star: Fuentovejuna [or Fuente ovejuna] (1613?)
El Perro del Hortelano
One star: El Caballero de Olmedo
El Castigo sin Venganza (1631)
La Dorotea
Lost in a Mirror

Michael DRAYTON (1563-1631) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: The Battle of Agincourt (1627)
One star: To the Virginian Voyage

Christopher MARLOWE (1564-1593) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Weblog | Ward
One star: Doctor Faustus (1604) Criticism: Halliburton
Poems

William SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Criticism: Humor: Weblog Criticism: Downs | Fadiman | Rexroth | Van Doren | Ward | see Coleridge Dates of works are first performance rather than first publication. He lived in the period just before the era of economic liberalism--with the market as its master model of society--split off 'liberty' and 'individuality' from community and finally from the social self. His direct and publicly cognizable transformations of the irrational into art were therefore still possible. --Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud (1966) p. 205 ...we see how Shakespeare remains *politically* relevant to a wide variety of situations around the world; he seems to be taken most seriously by people who find themselves in the middle of a crisis and, in particular, who feel their liberties threatened. --Paul A. Cantor, Playwright of the Globe, Claremont Review of Books, Winter 2006/07, p. 37
Two stars: King Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III (1590)
Two stars: Romeo and Juliet (1591-1596)
Two stars: King Richard III (1592)
Two stars: The Taming of the Shrew (1593)
Two stars: Titus Andronicus (1593)
Two stars: Love's Labour's Lost (1594)
Two stars: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594)
Two stars: The Winter's Tale (1594-1610)
Two stars: King Richard II (1595)
Two stars: A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)
Three stars: The Merchant of Venice (1596) This is a 'controversial' play--so much so that some people contend it should never be read or presented on the stage, while others consider it perfectly harmless and ascribe the former view to the anxieties of our age. --Peter Wolff, Philosophy of Law and Jurisprudence (1961), p. 123
Two stars: King John (1596)
Three stars: King Henry IV, Parts I and II (1597, 1598) There are two problems which run throughout the two plays that are of universal interest and importance for political philosophy. The first is the question of the legitimacy of a king, or any ruler; the second is the question of how to educate a prince or ruler. --Peter Wolff, The Development of Political Theory and Government (1959), pp. 122-123
Two stars: The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597-1600)
Three stars: As You Like It (1599)
Two stars: Julius Caesar (1599) Fearful that Caesar will become Emperor of Rome, fellow senators Cassius and Brutus conspire against him. Caesar ignores warnings to lie low, heads to the Senate and is brutally stabbed. Caesar's right-hand man, Mark Antony, rallies the public against the conspirators, who flee Rome--with Antony's army hot on their heels. --Netflix ...they are inspired first to hate Caesar by Brutus’ speech and then to love him by Antony’s, in the space of minutes. This scene is terrifying because it reveals that even though Caesar has just been assassinated to preserve the Republic, the Republic is already dead. Its people are unfit for it. --Eve Fairbanks, Magic Words, review of 'Framing the Debate' by Jeffrey Feldman, The New York Times Book Review, April 8, 2007, p. 24
Two stars: King Henry V (1599)
Two stars: Much Ado about Nothing (1599)
One star: The Passionate Pilgrim (1599)
Four stars: Hamlet (1599-1600) For the puzzle of the play is the character of Hamlet. Almost anything that we might be tempted to say concerning him can as easily be denied as affirmed. --Peter Wolff, A General Introduction to the Great Books and to a Liberal Education (1959), p. 118 His mother wed his dead murdered father's brother! Next Jerry Springer. --David M. Bader, 'Haiku U.'
Two stars: Troilus and Cressida (1602)
Two stars: Twelfth Night, or, What You Will (1602)
Three stars: Othello (1603) He is lead to this tragic end by the machinations of Iago, perhaps to most masterful of Shakespeare's creations of human villainy. But his downfall is also caused by his own passion, impetuousity, and pride. --Seymour Cain, Imaginative Literature I: From Homer to Shakespeare (1961), p. 203
Two stars: All's Well That Ends Well (1603)
Two stars: Measure for Measure (1603)
Three stars: King Lear (1603-1606) In one sense, it is a story of the conflict between the generations, of the miseries of old age and retirement, of the tension between parents and children. But it is much more than this, not only because of its deep insights into the complexities of human character and motivations, but because it is the story of an anointed monarch, and the hostile acts against his person are blasphemous treason. --Seymour Cain, Imaginative Literature I: From Homer to Shakespeare (1961), p. 212
Four stars: Macbeth (1603-1606) Macbeth. I think nothing equals Macbeth. It is wonderful! --Abraham Lincoln, Letter to James H. Hackett (1863) It derives much of its impact from its deep insights into human character and motivations, akin to the interpretations of modern depth psychology, and also from the sense it conveys of the tremendous change that follows from the commitment of an single act, the catastrophic weight of the present moment. --Seymour Cain, Imaginative Literature I: From Homer to Shakespeare (1961), p. 222 It is an introduction to the richness of genius, and the richness of something at the disposal of persons who are not geniuses--the English language. --George F. Will, 'We are what we read, so here's Will's 10 best,' The Milwaukee Journal, June 28, 1984, Part 1, p. 19 ...secretly, I confess, I rooted for MacBeth, and hated to have him die, even if I did see the justice of it. --John Simon, Learning to Read, The New Criterion, January 2007, p. 41
Two stars: Antony and Cleopatra (1606)
Two stars: Coriolanus (1607)
Two stars: Timon of Athens (1607)
Two stars: Pericles (1608)
Three stars: Cymbeline (1609)
Two stars: The Sonnets (1609)
Four stars: The Tempest (1611) Shakespeare, however had clearly read Montaigne and disagreed with him. Some critics think that The Tempest was a challenge to On the Cannibals. --Merrie Cave, The Salisbury Review, Summer 2001, p. 47
Two stars: King Henry VIII (1612)

GALILEO Galilei (1564-1642) Etext: The Online Books Page | Great Books and Classics Criticism: Weblog | Downs | Fadiman | Van Doren
The Starry Messenger (Siderius Nuncius (1610) Albert Van Helden, trans. (1989)
The Authority of Scripture (1614)
Two stars: Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World, the Ptolemaic and the Copernican (1632)
One star: Dialogue Concerning the Two New Sciences (1638) It is cast in the form of a dialogue between three men who, though well educated, are not themselves scientists. The pace of the work is leisurely, and very little of it is highly technical. It is puncutated with examples drawn from everyday life, and the wishes of the company for additional discussion are almost always heeded. --Peter Wolff, Foundations of Science and Mathematics (1960), p. 118

Thomas NASHE (1567-1601) Etext: Luminarium Reference: Luminarium
The Unfortunate Traveller

Thomas CAMPION (1567-1620) Etext: The Online Books Page
Songs

Tommaso CAMPENELLA (1568-1634) Etext: The Online Books Page
Poems
The City of the Sun

Johannes KEPLER (1571-1630) Reference: History of Mathematics Archive | Institute and Museum of the History of Science Criticism: Grenier | Downs | Van Doren
The New Astronomy (1609)
One star: Epitome of Copernican Astronomy (1618-21) Whereas astronomers for hundreds of years had seen nothing but circles in the heavens, Kepler could see that the planets moved in ellipses. --Peter Wolff, Foundations of Science and Mathematics (1960), p. 106
One star: Harmony of the World (1619)

John DONNE (1572-1631) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Iannone | Bernstein | Fadiman | Van Doren | Ward
Two stars: Songs and Sonnets (to 1615)
Two stars: Elegies (to 1615) We are seldom reminded as forcefully as by these poems that in the Latin poetry which underlies them the idea of rhetorical figuration is itself imaged as the application of cosmetics. --Paul Dean, The New Criterion, March 2001, p. 66
Two stars: First and Second Anniversary
Two stars: Holy Sonnets (1607-1631)
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)
One star: Sermons (1625, 1626)
Two stars: The Canonization
Lecture upon the Shadow
Two stars: A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

Thomas DEKKER (1572-1632) Etext: The Online Books Page
The Shoemaker's Holiday (1600)

Benjamin JONSON (1572-1637) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Ward
One star: Volpone, or The Fox (1606)
Masques
Come, My Celia
Discoveries: Comedy and Tragedy
One star: Epicene
On My First Son
To the Memory of My Beloved Master William Shakespeare
Epitaph on Elizabeth

Cyril TOURNEUR (1575-1626) Etext: Poetry Archive
The Revenger's Tragedy

John MARSTON (1575-1654) Reference: Literary Encyclopedia
The Malcontent

Raphael HOLINSHED (d. c. 1580) Etext: Project Gutenberg
The Chronicles of England (1577)

Samuel PURCHAS (1577-1626)
Purchas, His Pilgrimes (1625) Etext: Kraus Collection | Kraus Collection, 4 vol.

Robert BURTON (1577-1640) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)

William HARVEY (1578-1657) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Texas Tech Criticism: Downs
One star: On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals (1628) Etext: Modern History Sourcebook Harvey's discovery compelled an entirely new orientation in medicine and set a magnificent example of the correct method to be adopted in attempting further advances. More than anyone else, Harvey introduced the scientific spirit into medicine, and his influence was widely felt. --Sir Zachary Cope
On the Generation of Animals (1651)
On the Circulation of Blood
Second Disquisition to John Riolan full title: Second Disquisition to John Riolan in Which Many Objections to the Circulation of Blood are Refuted

Francis BEAUMONT (1584-1616) Etext: The Online Books Page
and
John FLETCHER (1579-1635) Etext: The Online Books Page
Plays

Luis VELEZ de Guevara (1579-1644) Criticism: Ward
El diablo cojuelo (1641)

John WEBSTER (1580?-1625?) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Rexroth
One star: The Duchess of Malfi (c. 1618)
The White Devil

Francisco Gomez de QUEVEDO y Villegas (1580-1645) Etext: Poetry Searcher Criticism: Ward
One star: Visions (Suenos 1627)
Historia de la Vida del Buscon (1626)
Satirical Letter of Censure

Lord HERBERT of Cherbury (1581-1648) Etext: Poem Hunter
Autobiography (1764)

Philip MASSINGER (1583-1640) Etext: The Online Books Page
A New Way to Pay Old Debts

Hugo GROTIUS (1583-1645) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Downs
One star: On the Law of War and Peace (1625)

TIRSO de Molina (Gabriel Tellez, 1583-1648) Criticism: Ward
One star: The Trickster of Seville (El burlador de Sevilla y convidadode piedra 1630)

John SELDEN (1584-1654) Reference: Luminarium
Table Talk (1689) Etext: Luminarium

Edward HAIES (fl. 1580) Etext: The Online Books Page
Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage To Newfoundland

Cardinal RICHELIEU (Armand-Jean de Plessis, 1585-1642)
Political Testament (1687) Etext: Hanover

Thomas MIDDLETON (b. 1627?) Etext: The Online Books Page
and
William ROWLEY (1585-1642) Etext: The Online Books Page
The Changeling

John FORD (1586-c. 1640) Etext: The Online Books Page
'Tis Pity She's a Whore

Thomas HOBBES (1588-1679) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Weblog | Downs | Fadiman | Van Doren
Three stars: Leviathan (1651) full title 'Leviathan, Or, Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil' Hobbes does not glorify absolute power. He sees it as a matter of necessity for individual self-preservation. --Peter Wolff, The Development of Political Theory and Government (1959), pp. 99-100 ...private persons are bound to obey the supreme civil power in all public matters, and that power is derived directly from God. --Seymour Cain, Religion and Theology (1961), p. 126 Hobbes denies what Aquinas had affirmed, that as social creatures we have a natural inclination toward the good of others. --J. Daryl Charles, 'Protestants and Natural Law', First Things, December 2006, p. 35 We owe to Rousseau the insight that if there were no nation-states there would be no wars, and to Hobbes the insight that without nation-states there would be no domestic order. --Robert Delahunty and John Yoo, 'Lines in the Sand', The National Interest, Jan./Feb. 2007 p. 24
Answer to Sir William D'Avenant's Preface before Gondibert
Elements of Law
Human Nature
Elements of Philosophy (1651)

Robert HERRICK (1591-1664) Etext: Luminarium | The Online Books Page Reference: Luminarium Criticism: Van Doren
One star: Hesperides and Noble Numbers (1649)

Johann Amos COMENIUS (1592-1670) Etext: The Online Books Page
The Labyrinth of the World (c. 1622)

George HERBERT (1593-1633) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Van Doren
The Temple

Izaak WALTON (1593-1685) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Authors' Calendar
One star: The Compleat Angler (1653) Rexroth

Thomas CAREW (1595-1639) Reference: Luminarium
Poems Etext: Luminarium

Rene DESCARTES (1596-1650) Etext: The Online Books Page | Parenthetic Doubt Criticism: Weblog | Downs | Fadiman | Van Doren | Ward
Rules for the Direction of the Understanding (1628)
Geometry (1637)
Four stars: Discourse on the Method (1637) full title 'Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences' He did not cry 'Fire!' nor did he make it a duty for everyone to doubt; for Descartes was a quiet and solitary thinker, not a bellowing night-watchman; he modestly admitted that his method had importance for him alone and was justified in part by the bungled knowledge of his earlier years. --S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (1843) Preface, translated by Walter Lowrie (1945) p. 4 With Descartes' new stress on self-consciousness as the only immediately certain knowledge, the question of how we know external reality became a knotty and disturbing question for philosophical thought. --Seymour Cain, Philosophy (1963), p. 151 Descartes's method was not philosophical but rhetorical. He was a sophist and, perhaps, the most clever one of all. --James Mesa, Crisis, February 2001, p. 52
Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) On the one side stands the mechanical cosmos of extended things (res extensae), whose only attributes are extension and movement, constituting an objective world of pure externality without any interiority. On the other side stands the human soul, the 'thinking thing' (res cogitans), whose only attribute is rational consciousness, that is, knowledge and free will, a world of pure interiority. --Michael Waldstein, Introduction to 'The Theology of the Body' [pre-publication manuscript]
Objections to the Meditations and Replies (1641, 1642)
Principles of Philosophy (1644)
Letter to the Marquis of Newcastle (November 23, 1646)
Letter to Henry Moore (1649)
Passions of the Soul (1650)

TANG Xianzu Reference: China Culture
The Peony Pavilion (1598) Reference: Lincoln Center Cyril Birch, trans. (1980) ...famous love story. --A Guide to Oriental Classics (3rd Ed. 1989) p. 238

Pedro CALDERON de la Barca (1600-1681) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Ward
One star: Life is a Dream (La Vida es Sueno 1636)
The Mayor of Zalamea
The Mighty Magician
The Doctor of His Own Honor

< 1101-1400 | 1601-1700 >



Revised April 20, 2008.

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