Context

Reading Guides

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The following lists were compiled from responses given by our advisors at universities and bookstores to a number of questions. These lists initially appeared in our first issue, and we will rerun them annually to introduce new readers to the aesthetic tradition that CONTEXT supports.

Most Influential Critical Works of the 20th Century

Mimesis, Erich Auerbach
S/Z, Roland Barthes
Illuminations, Walter Benjamin
The Rhetoric of Fiction, Wayne Booth
Modern Poetry and the Idea of Language, Gerald Bruns
The American Novel and Its Tradition, Richard Chase
On Deconstruction, Jonathan Culler
Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida
"Tradition and the Individual Talent," T. S. Eliot
Love and Death in the American Novel, Leslie Fiedler
The Order of Things, Michel Foucault
Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye
The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar
Art of the Novel, Henry James
The Great Tradition, F. R. Leavis
The Theory of the Novel, Georg Lukács
The ABC of Reading, Ezra Pound
The New Criticism, John Crowe Ransom
Principles of Literary Criticism, I. A. Richards
Time and Narrative, Paul Ricoeur
Theory of Prose, Viktor Shklovsky
The Necessary Angel, Wallace Stevens
The Origin of the Novel, Ian Watt
Theory of Literature, René Wellek and Austin Warren
From Ritual to Romance, Jesse L. Weston
Spring and All, William Carlos Williams

Most Influential Novels of the 20th Century

The Sot-Weed Factor, John Barth
Snow White, Donald Barthelme
The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett
Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges
Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino
The Stranger, Albert Camus
Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
White Noise, Don DeLillo
USA Trilogy, John Dos Passos
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford
The Sportswriter, Richard Ford
The Lime Twig, John Hawkes
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
Point Counter Point, Aldous Huxley
The Ambassadors, Henry James
Finnegans Wake, James Joyce
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
Ulysses, James Joyce
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Marquéz
Life: A User’s Manual, Georges Perec
Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
V, Thomas Pynchon
Mulligan Stew, Gilbert Sorrentino
Kora in Hell, William Carlos Williams
The Waves, Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates

The Pre-20th-Century Novels That Most Influenced the 20th Century Novel

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Human Comedy, Honore De Balzac
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Don Quixote, Cervantes
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
We’ll to the Woods No More, Edouard Dujardin
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Tom Jones, Henry Fielding
Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
Melmoth the Wanderer, Charles Maturin
Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
The Red and the Black, Stendhal
Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne
Germinal, Emile Zola

The 20th Century Novels Students Most Like

Blood and Guts in High School, Kathy Acker
Lost in the Funhouse, John Barth
Story of the Eye, Georges Bataille
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
Naked Lunch, William Burroughs
If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino
White Noise, Don DeLillo
The Franchiser, Stanley Elkin
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Neuromancer, William Gibson
The Counterfeiters, André Gide
The House of Breath, William Goyen
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Ulysses, James Joyce
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
Visions of Cody, Jack Kerouac
My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist, Mark Leyner
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Marquéz
Cigarettes, Harry Mathews
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
Impossible Object, Nicholas Mosley
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
1984, George Orwell
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, Richard Powers
Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig
Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, Ishmael Reed
Good Morning, Midnight, Jean Rhys
Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger
Martereau, Nathalie Sarraute
Aberration of Starlight, Gilbert Sorrentino
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson
Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
Native Son, Richard Wright

Novels That Will Be Considered the Most Important Literary Works of the 20th Century in the Year 2100

Nightwood

, Djuna Barnes
Malone Dies, Samuel Beckett
Molloy, Samuel Beckett
The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett
The Lime Works, Thomas Bernhard
Nostromo, Joseph Conrad
JR, William Gaddis
The Recognitions, William Gaddis
Ulysses, James Joyce
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Marquéz
At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O’Brien
The Inquisitory, Robert Pinget
Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust
Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
Mulligan Stew, Gilbert Sorrentino


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Context Reading Guides Untitled document The following lists were compiled from responses given by our advisors at universities and bookstores to a number of questions. These lists initially appeared in our first issue, and we will rerun them annually to introduce new readers to the aesthetic tradition that CONTEXT supports. Most Influential Critical Works of the 20th Century Mimesis, Erich Auerbach S/Z, Roland Barthes Illuminations, Walter Benjamin The Rhetoric of Fiction, Wayne Booth Modern Poetry and the Idea of Language, Gerald Bruns The American Novel and Its Tradition, Richard Chase On Deconstruction, Jonathan Culler Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida "Tradition and the Individual Talent," T. S. Eliot Love and Death in the American Novel, Leslie Fiedler The Order of Things, Michel Foucault Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar Art of the Novel, Henry James The Great Tradition, F. R. Leavis The Theory of the Novel, Georg Lukács The ABC of Reading, Ezra Pound The New Criticism, John Crowe Ransom Principles of Literary Criticism, I. A. Richards Time and Narrative, Paul Ricoeur Theory of Prose, Viktor Shklovsky The Necessary Angel, Wallace Stevens The Origin of the Novel, Ian Watt Theory of Literature, René Wellek and Austin Warren From Ritual to Romance, Jesse L. Weston Spring and All, William Carlos Williams Most Influential Novels of the 20th Century The Sot-Weed Factor, John Barth Snow White, Donald Barthelme The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino The Stranger, Albert Camus Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad White Noise, Don DeLillo USA Trilogy, John Dos Passos The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford The Sportswriter, Richard Ford The Lime Twig, John Hawkes The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway Point Counter Point, Aldous Huxley The Ambassadors, Henry James Finnegans Wake, James Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce Ulysses, James Joyce One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Marquéz Life: A User’s Manual, Georges Perec Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon V, Thomas Pynchon Mulligan Stew, Gilbert Sorrentino Kora in Hell, William Carlos Williams The Waves, Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates The Pre-20th-Century Novels That Most Influenced the 20th Century Novel Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen The Human Comedy, Honore De Balzac Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll Don Quixote, Cervantes Bleak House, Charles Dickens We’ll to the Woods No More, Edouard Dujardin Middlemarch, George Eliot Tom Jones, Henry Fielding Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert Portrait of a Lady, Henry James Melmoth the Wanderer, Charles Maturin Moby-Dick, Herman Melville The Red and the Black, Stendhal Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne Germinal, Emile Zola The 20th Century Novels Students Most Like Blood and Guts in High School, Kathy Acker Lost in the Funhouse, John Barth Story of the Eye, Georges Bataille A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess Naked Lunch, William Burroughs If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino White Noise, Don DeLillo The Franchiser, Stanley Elkin The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald Neuromancer, William Gibson The Counterfeiters, André Gide The House of Breath, William Goyen Brave New World, Aldous Huxley Ulysses, James Joyce On the Road, Jack Kerouac Visions of Cody, Jack Kerouac My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist, Mark Leyner One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Marquéz Cigarettes, Harry Mathews Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison Impossible Object, Nicholas Mosley Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov 1984, George Orwell The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, Richard Powers Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, Ishmael Reed Good Morning, Midnight, Jean Rhys Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger Martereau, Nathalie Sarraute Aberration of Starlight, Gilbert Sorrentino A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe Native Son, Richard Wright Novels That Will Be Considered the Most Important Literary Works of the 20th Century in the Year 2100 Nightwood, Djuna Barnes Malone Dies, Samuel Beckett Molloy, Samuel Beckett The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett The Lime Works, Thomas Bernhard Nostromo, Joseph Conrad JR, William Gaddis The Recognitions, William Gaddis Ulysses, James Joyce One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Marquéz At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O’Brien The Inquisitory, Robert Pinget Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon Mulligan Stew, Gilbert Sorrentino Current issue: CONTEXT # 21 CONTEXT is a triquarterly publication intended to create an international and historical context in which to read modern and contemporary literature. Its goal is to encourage the development of a literary community. CONTEXT is available at bookstores nationwide.

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