The Most Complete Reading List, Ever
I stumbled upon this reading list on the website of St. John’s College. I cannot say enough about this reading list, with the exception of a few choice Eastern works, this is probably the most complete reading list I have ever come across.
This reading list essentially covers all the necessary exoteric lessons of the Fellowcraft Degree. Not to mention that the name of the school has some nice Masonic overtones.
PART I
- HOMER: Iliad, Odyssey
- AESCHYLUS:: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides, Prometheus Bound
- SOPHOCLES: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Philoctetes
- THUCYDIDES: Peloponnesian War
- EURIPIDES: Hippolytus, Bacchae
- HERODOTUS: Histories
- ARISTOPHANES: Clouds
- PLATO: Meno, Gorgias, Republic, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium, Parmenides, Theatetus, Sophist, Timaeus, Phaedrus
- ARISTOTLE: Poetics, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, On Generation and Corruption, Politics, Parts of Animals, Generation of Animals
- EUCLID: Elements
- LUCRETIUS: On the Nature of Things
- PLUTARCH: Lycurgus, Solon
- NICOMACHUS: Arithmetic
- LAVOISIER: Elements of Chemistry
- HARVEY: Motion of the Heart and Blood
PART II
- THE BIBLE
- ARISTOTLE: De Anima, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Categories
- APOLLONIUS: Conics
- VIRGIL: Aeneid
- PLUTARCH: “Caesar� and “Cato the Younger�
- EPICTETUS: Discourses, Manual
- TACITUS: Annals
- PTOLEMY: Almagest
- PLOTINUS: The Enneads
- AUGUSTINE: Confessions
- ST. ANSELM: Proslogium
- AQUINAS: Summa Theologica, Summa Contra Gentiles
- DANTE: Divine Comedy
- CHAUCER: Canterbury Tales
- DES PREZ: Mass
- MACHIAVELLI: The Prince, Discourses
- COPERNICUS: On the Revolutions of the Spheres
- LUTHER: The Freedom of a Christian
- RABELAIS: Gargantua and Pantagruel
- PALESTRINA: Missa Papae Marcelli
- MONTAIGNE: Essays
- VIETE: “Introduction to the Analytical Art�
- BACON: Novum Organum
- SHAKESPEARE: Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, The Tempest, As You Like It, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Coriolanus, Sonnets
- POEMS BY: Marvell, Donne, and other 16th- and 17th-century poets
- DESCARTES: Geometry, Discourse on Method
- PASCAL: Generation of Conic Sections
- BACH: St. Matthew Passion, Inventions
- HAYDN: Quartets
- MOZART: Operas
- BEETHOVEN: Sonatas
- SCHUBERT: Songs
- STRAVINSKY: Symphony of Psalms
PART III
CERVANTES: Don Quixote
GALILEO: Two New Sciences
DESCARTES: Meditations, Rules for the Direction of the Mind
MILTON: Paradise Lost
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD: Maximes
LA FONTAINE: Fables
PASCAL: Pensees
HUYGENS: Treatise on Light, On the Movement of Bodies by Impact
ELIOT: Middlemarch
SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise
LOCKE: Second Treatise of Government
RACINE: Phaedre
NEWTON: Principia Mathematica
KEPLER: Epitome IV
LEIBNIZ: Monadology, Discourse on Metaphysics, Essay On Dynamics, Philosophical Essays, Principles of Nature and Grace
SWIFT: Gulliver’s Travels
HUME: Treatise of Human Nature
ROUSSEAU: Social Contract, The Origin of Inequality
MOLIERE: The Misanthrope
ADAM SMITH: Wealth of Nations
KANT: Critique of Pure Reason, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals
MOZART: Don Giovanni
JANE AUSTEN: Pride and Prejudice
DEDEKIND: “Essay on the Theory of Numbers�
PART IV
Declaration of Independence
The Constitution of the United States
Supreme Court opinions
HAMILTON, JAY, AND MADISON: The Federalist Papers
DARWIN: Origin of Species
HEGEL: Phenomenology of Mind, “Logic� (from the Encyclopedia)
LOBACHEVSKY: Theory of Parallels
TOCQUEVILLE: Democracy in America
LINCOLN: Selected Speeches
KIERKEGAARD: Philosophical Fragments, Fear and Trembling
MARX: Capital, Political and Economic Manuscripts of 1844, The German Ideology
DOSTOEVSKI: Brothers Karamazov
TOLSTOY: War and Peace
MELVILLE: Benito Cereno
TWAIN: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
O’CONNOR: Selected Stories
FREUD: General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
WASHINGTON, BOOKER T.: Selected Writings
DUBOIS: The Souls of Black Folk
HEIDEGGER: What is Philosophy?
HEISENBERG: The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory
MILLIKAN: The Electron
CONRAD: Heart of Darkness
SUN TZU: The Art of War
THE ZoHAR
