Challenge: "Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition"

Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition by Professors Elizabeth Vandiver, James A. W. Heffernan, Thomas F. X. Noble, Ronald B. Herzman  and Susan Sage Heinzelman.

Audiocourse by the Teaching Company
Rating: 5 so far!

It has been my recent practice to listen to audio courses while driving in the car.  I found this particular course, made up of 7 parts and 84 lectures at our local library and am really enjoying it.  Who knew that ancient literature could be so interesting?  I am sure it is due to the style and delivery of Professor Vandiver - she makes the material accessible which motivates me to want to read the original text.

Just as I've made my own challenge to read through the bibliography of another excellent audio course, The English Novel, I would like to do the same with this course.  Now I REALLY need to win the lottery so I can quit my job and stay home and read!

Part I: Near Eastern and Mediterranean Foundations - listened in February 2012

• Aeschylus I and II: The Complete Greek Tragedies by Aeschylus ed by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore.
• Euripides I - V: The Complete Greek Tragedies by Euripides ed David Grene and Richmond Lattimore.
• The Epic of Gilgamesh translated by Andrew George.
• The Illiad by Homer translated by Richmond Lattimore - read March 2012
• The Odyssey by Homer translated by Richmond Lattimore - read April 2012
• Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation by Andrew W. Miller.  Includes works by Alcaeus, Archilochus, Anacreon, Sappho and Pindar.  Prof. V says this is "readable and accurate". 
• The Complete Plays of Sophocles translated by Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb.  Ajax (read Feb 2012), Electra (read March 2012), Oedipus the King, Antigone, Trachinian Women, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus. Finished in August 2012

Part II:  Literature of the Classical World - finished listening in March 2012

• The Aeneid by Virgil translated by Robert Fitzgerald (1984) - read July 2012
• Metamorphoses by Ovid translated by Charles Martin (1999)
• The Golden Ass by Apuleius translated by P.G Walsh (1999)
• Confessions by Augustine translated by R.S. Pine-Coffin (1961)

Part III: Middle Ages - finished listening in August 2012

• Beowulf A new version translation by Seamus Heaney (2001)
• La Chason de Roland (Song of Roland) student edition by Gerald J. Brault (1984)
• The Poem of the Cid translated by Rita Hamilton and Janet Perry. Introduction by Ian Michael. Harmondsworth Press (1984).
• Tristan & Isolt by Gottfried Von Strassburg. Translated by A.T. Hatto Penguin (1960).
• Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean du Meun.  Translated by Frances Horgan.  Oxford University Press (1994)
• The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.  Verse translation by John Ciardi (1961) or 3 volume with commentary by Mark Musa (Penguin Classics).
• The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio translated by Guido Waldman.  Oxford Univ. Press (1993)
• Sir Galwain and the Green Knight translated by Helen Cooper. Oxford Univ. Press (1998)
• The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer translated by David Wright.  Oxford Univ. Press (1986)

Part IV: The Renaissance - September 2012

• The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine De Pizan. Translation by Early Jeffry Richards. Persia Books, 1982.
• The Praise of Folly by Erasmus.  Translated by John Wilson.  University Michigan Press, 1965.
• Utopia by Thomas More.  Translated by Paul Tuner.  Penguin, 1965.
• Dr. Fausus & Other Plays by Christopher Marlowe. Oxford Univ. Press, 1998
• Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt, 2004.
• Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes.  Penguin Classic
• Paradise Lost by Milton John.  Edited by Merrit Hughes, Odyssey Press, 1962.

Part V: Neoclassic and 18th Century Literature - September 2012 

• Blake's Poetry and Designs by William Blake.  Mary Lynn Johnson and John E Grant, Norton, 1979.
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.  Edited by Michael Shinagel, Norton, 1994.
• Faust Part I - by Johan Wolfgang von Goethe.  Transl. by Martin Greenberg, Yale Univ. Press, 1992.
• Faust Part II - by Johan Wolfgang von Goethe.  Transl. by David Luke, Oxford Univ. Press, 1994.
• The Major Works by Samuel Johnson.  Ed by Daniel Greene, Oxford Univ. Press, 2000.
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Life of Johnson by James Boswell.  Everyman's Library 1993.