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What’s included?

Below is the full list of works included in the Old Western Culture Reader Series.

Year One: The Greeks

Unit One: The Epics:

• The Iliad by Homer
• The Odyssey by Homer

Unit Two: Drama and Lyric

• The Agamemnon by Aeschylus
• The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus
• The Eumenides by Aeschylus
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles
• Antigone by Sophocles
• The Trojan Women by Euripides
• The Medea by Euripides
• The Frogs by-Aristophanes
• Sappho’s Poems by Sappho
• Odes of Pindar by Pindar
• Idylls of Theocritus by Theocritus
• Works and Days by Hesiod
• The Fall of Troy by Quintus of Smyrna.

Unit Three: The Histories

• The Histories, by Herodotus
• The History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides
• Anabasis (The Persian Expedition), by Xenophon

Unit Four: The Philosophers

• The Apology by Plato
• The Crito by Plato
• The Phaedo by Plato
• The Phaedrus by Plato
• The Republic (Book I, II, VII, VIII, IX, X) by Plato
• The Metaphysics (Book I, XII) by Aristotle
• Nicomachean Ethics (Book I, VIII) by Aristotle
• The Poetics by Aristotle

Year Two: The Romans

Unit One: The Aeneid

• The Aeneid by Vergil
• Metamorphoses (selections) by Ovid
• De Rerum Natura by Lucretius
• Pharsalia by Lucanus
• Thebaid by Publius Papinius Statius

Unit Two: The Historians

• History of Rome, by Livy
• The War of the Jugurtha, by Sallust
• The War with Catiline, by Sallust
• The Gallic Wars, by Julius Caesar
• The Annals, by Tacitus
• Lives, by Plutarch
• Verres, Antony, and On Duties, by Cicero
• The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, by Suetonius
• Correspondence, by Pliny & Trajan
• Institutes of Oratory, by Quintillian

Unit Three: Early Christianity

• The Didache by Unknown
• First Epistle of Clement by Clement of Rome
• The Letters of Ignatius by Ignatius
• Letter to the Philipians by Polycarp
• A Plea to the Philipians byAthenagoras
• Epistle to Diognetus by Unkown
• The First Apology by Justin Martyr
• Against Heresies by Irenaeus
• Exhortation to the Greeks by Clement of Alexandria
• History of the Church by Eusebius

Unit Four: Nicene Christianity

• On the Incarnation by Athanasius
• The Life of St. Anthony by Athanasius
• Paschal Homily by John Chrysostom
• Baptismal Instructions by John Chrysostom
• On the Holy Spirit by Basil the Great
• Funeral Oration by Gregory Nazienzen
• Confessions by Augustine
• The City of God by Augustine
• The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius

Year Three: Christendom

Unit One: Early Medievals

• The Rule of Saint Benedict by St. Benedict
• Wars of Justinian by Procopius
• History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours
• Book of Pastoral Rule by Gregory the Great
• The Dialogues by Gregory the Great
• The Confession of St. Patrick by St. Patrick
• Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus by St. Patrick
• The Life of St. Columba by Adomnan of Iona
• The Voyage of Brendan by Anonymous
• Beowulf by Anonymous
• Ecclessiastical History of the English People by Bede
• Life of Charlemagne by Einhard
• Life of Alfred by Esser
• The Fount of Knowledge by John of Damascus

Unit Two: Defense of the Faith

• Proslogium by Anselm of Canterbury
• Monologium by Anselm of Canterbury
• History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth
• The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine
• The Conquest of Constantinople by Geoffrey de Villehardouin
• The Life of St. Louis by Jean de Joinville

Unit Three: The Medieval Mind

• Compendium by Thomas Aquinas
• The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Unit Four: The Reformation

• The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
• Clericis Laicos & Unam Sanctam by Boniface VIII
• Defensor Pacis by Marsilius of Padua 
• Sacrosancta & Frequens by The Council of Constance
• Julius Exclusus, Erasmus of Rotterdam, 
• Ninety-Five Theses, Letter to the Christian Nobility, Babylonian Captivity of the Church, & The Freedom of the Christian by Martin Luther.
• Exsurge Domine by Leo X
• The Schleitheim Articles by Michael Sattler
• Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Philip Melanchthon
• Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin
• The Decree of Trent by The Council of Trent
• Spiritual Exercises by Ignatius of Loyola
• Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism by Zacharias Ursinus
• Book of Common Prayer by the Church of England
• Foxe’s Book of Martyrs by John Foxe
• An Admonition to Parliment by Field and Wilcox
• The Laws of Ecclesastical Politie by Richard Hooker
• The Faerie Queene, Amoretti, Epithalimion by Edmund Spenser

Year Four: Early Moderns

Unit One: Rise of England

• Sonnets 3, 73, 55, 60, 103, and 106 by William Shakespeare
• King Lear by William Shakespeare
• Richard III by William Shakespeare
• The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
• A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, Holy Sonnets X and XIV, Meditation XVII, by John Donne
• Redemption, The Collar, and Love “3” by George Herbert
• To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell
• On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, Sonnet 16: On His Blindness, and Sonnet 15: On the Late Massacre in Piedmont by John Milton
• Paradise Lost by John Milton

Unit Two: Poetry and Politics

• Essay on Criticism, Essay on Man, and Ode on Solitude by Alexander Pope
• Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
• The Rhime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge
• Intimations of Immortality and The Solitary Reaper by Wordsworth
• She Walks in Beauty and The Destruction of Sennacherib by Byron
• In First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer by Keats
• Ode to the West Wind by Shelley
• The Lady of Shallot, In Memorium A.H.H., The Eagle, and Crossing the Bar by Tennyson
• Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, My Last Duchess, and Fra Lippo Lippi by Browning
• Dover Beach by Arnold
• Song, A Better Resurrection, and A Birthday by Rossetti
• God’s Grandeur, Windhover, and Pied Beauty by Hopkins
• The Cask of Omontillado, Anabel Lee, To Helen, The Raven, and The Bells by Edgar Allen Poe
• Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

Unit Three: The Enlightenment

• What is Enlightenment, Emmanuel Kant
• The Sidereal Messenger, Letter to Benedetto Castelli, and Letter to the Grand Duchess, Galileo Galilei
• Discourse on Method and Meditations, René Descartes
• Laws of Gravity and Motion, General Scholium, and Optics, Isaac Newton
• An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume
• An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, Thomas Reid

Unit Four: The Novels

• The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky
• The Bet by Chekhov
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• A Christmas Carol by Dickens
• Selected Essays by C. S. Lewis