# Which is the second most important work of literature for the Western World? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 23, 2010, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143 "2010-08-23T10:19:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swords_to_Plowshares)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/21 "2010-08-23T14:53:13Z")
Really? You’re basing which book of the Bible is the most influential on how many modern movie references there are to it? The crucifixion and resurrection alone far outweigh Revelation, as would the birth of Christ, Genesis, and the exodus out of Egypt. ---
**Author:** ![Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swords_to_Plowshares)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/22 "2010-08-23T14:58:53Z")
Missed the edit window. As for the second most important… I’m tempted to go with Greek philosophers here, because their line of thinking about science and philosophy went virtually unchallenged until the Enlightenment. Aristotle in particular. The best compilation would probably be the Corpus Aristotelicum. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/23 "2010-08-23T15:00:41Z")
**Sage Rat** , I think there is a slight misunderstanding between you and other posters. You restricted the importance of the Revelation to the literary influence it had in the Western tradition, and you may have a point there. But as I mentioned before, I was also going for general cultural impact of a work, and regarding this, I think that any of the canonical gospels is much more important than Revelation. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/24 "2010-08-23T15:08:51Z")
I’d go for something by Shakespeare, either Hamlet or MacBeth. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/25 "2010-08-23T15:18:40Z")
> [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](#): > > Really? You’re basing which book of the Bible is the most influential on how many modern movie references there are to it? 1. The Four Horsemen, Armageddon, 666, are referenced in film, fiction, drama, music, comics, etc. as you’d notice if you looked at the links. 2. What do you think “influential” means beyond how many people are _influenced_ by the work when they go to create something themselves? I’ll grant that there is some Christ imagery in modern adaptions of Superman and that the Last Supper legend of the Holy Grail influenced Arthurian lore. During the medieval ages, Morality Plays were pretty popular – but from what I’m aware the most popular ones were those with all the fire and brimstone, which would most likely get their imagery from Revelations. Dante’s Divine Comedy probably mostly draws from Revelations as does Paradise Lost. You could say that the morality of the Bible infused Europe and so, even though specific tales weren’t incorporated all that much, the general ethos of it all permeates everything. But then we’re really talking about _all_ of the Bible, not just a single element of it. And most of the morality of the Bible comes from the non-story stuff. That Jesus could multiply food doesn’t really effect morality. The parable of the Samaritan is fairly key to the morality, but so was the 10 commandments and a whole slew of stuff from the Old Testament, as were the epistles. And I’ll grant that that’s a reasonable argument to make. But, Revelations, as a single element that can be singled out of the Bible, is very influential on its own. Some other parables, books, and pieces have made a separate standing as well, but not to the same extent. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/26 "2010-08-23T15:22:15Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > I suppose I’d go with Romeo and Juliet. The tale of star-crossed lovers resonates with people on most levels and I’d bet most of the west would understand pretty quickly if you described two people as being such. Slight hijack, but this always bugs me: Romeo and Juliet were _not_ star-crossed lovers, they were damned idiots. Asimov made an excellent argument that the whole Montague/Capulet feud was on its last legs by the time the play started - for example, when Tybalt complains to Lord Capulet that Romeo is crashing their party, Lord Capulet’s response boils down to “What of it? He’s a good kid.” Tybalt cares about the feud, and maybe a few street toughs who just enjoy a fight. But none of the adults place much stock in it - if Romeo and Juliet had just gone to their parents, they’d probably have been delighted with the opportunity to “officially” end the feud through a marriage. But these stupid kids are are besotted with the idea of a “forbidden” romance that they ruin their own chance at whatever happiness such a marriage would provide (and I think it’d fall apart), and then they can’t even handle _that_ disappointment like sane people. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/27 "2010-08-23T15:26:15Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > 1. What do you think “influential” means beyond how many people are _influenced_ by the work when they go to create something themselves? For example: there are quite some people influenced to live their life in a certain way by the gospel of Matthew. Another: there were some not so unimportant political leaders influenced by “Das Kapital”, and not only in the way they _wrote_ their stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Galileo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Galileo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galileo)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/28 "2010-08-23T15:30:57Z")
Uh, **Sage Rage** , it’s _Revelation_, not \*Revelations \*… (And, I agree with those who say that many other parts of the Bible have been more important than Revelation.) Anyway, two scientific works have had a significant impact: _On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres_, by Copernicus. _On the Origin of Species_, by Darwin. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/29 "2010-08-23T15:34:24Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I’ll grant that there is some Christ imagery in modern adaptions of Superman Uh, it’s [not just Superman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_figure). > [@](#): > > Dante’s Divine Comedy probably mostly draws from Revelations as does Paradise Lost. Have you read _Paradise Lost_? It’s about the fall of Man and owes an enormous amount to Genesis and virtually nothing to Revelations. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/30 "2010-08-23T15:35:16Z")
If we’re including works of nonfiction on this list, _The Communist Manifesto_ and Lenin’s _What Is To Be Done?_ both deserve a prominent place. Whether or not you _like_ these things, they were certainly important (the Manifesto much more so, of course). The twentieth century would have likely been very different had Marx never set pen to paper. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/31 "2010-08-23T15:47:27Z")
Plato’s dialogues have to at least be considered. [QUOTE=Alfred North Whitehead] The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. [/QUOTE] They’ve possibly had more influence on the Western world than any other work of philosophy, and unlike some other philosophers’ writings, actually count as Literature. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/32 "2010-08-23T16:01:34Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > > [@minlokwat](#): > > > > Uh, I’m pretty sure this isn’t even remotely accurate. > > You’re forgetting that most of everything is crap. Any B-grade horror film or novel is going to take images of blood and doom from Revelations. Going by sheer mass, that’ll beat any comers. Not even close. There have been many thousands of times more weddings than horror movies, and a significant percentage of them have used 1 Corinthians 13 in the ceremony. That alone blows Revelation out of the water. That’s just one example. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/33 "2010-08-23T16:06:29Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Plato’s dialogues have to at least be considered. > [QUOTE=Alfred North Whitehead] > The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. They’ve possibly had more influence on the Western world than any other work of philosophy, and unlike some other philosophers’ writings, actually count as Literature. [/QUOTE] Agreed. The Republic’s influence on the creation and evolution of Western Democracy would seem to make it ranked very highly. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/34 "2010-08-23T16:09:31Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > The twentieth century would have likely been very different had Marx never set pen to paper. I think “[The world] would have likely been very different had [piece of literature] not been written” is a great metric of what the OP seeks. If we remove this one piece of literature from the timeline, how different would the world be? However, I can’t think of _The Communist Manifesto_ nor _What is to be Done?_ as literature. Nor _On the Origin of Species_, for that matter. And if they did count, I’d think Martin Luther’s _95 Theses_ or the _Magna Carta_ might beat them. I’ll second _Don Quixote._ ---
**Author:** ![Galileo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Galileo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galileo)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/35 "2010-08-23T16:45:14Z")
> [@bup](#): > > However, I can’t think of _The Communist Manifesto_ nor _What is to be Done?_ as literature. Nor _On the Origin of Species_, for that matter. And if they did count, I’d think Martin Luther’s _95 Theses_ or the _Magna Carta_ might beat them. Those are two good suggestions. As for what counts as “literature”: > [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > > [@Krokodil](#): > > > > Are we limiting “literature” to fiction? > > No, it can be a scientific or philosophical work. > > ETA: Really like Suil Dubh said, “any sort of written work”. ---
**Author:** ![Galileo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Galileo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galileo)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/36 "2010-08-23T16:49:30Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > There have been many thousands of times more weddings than horror movies, and a significant percentage of them have used 1 Corinthians 13 in the ceremony. That alone blows Revelation out of the water. That’s just one example. And, how many times has _The Lord’s Prayer_ been recited? ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/37 "2010-08-23T16:50:43Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Slight hijack, but this always bugs me: Romeo and Juliet were _not_ star-crossed lovers, they were damned idiots. [QUOTE=Shakespeare] Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life; Whole misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents’ strife. [/quote] I think that’s actually where the phrase “star-crossed” comes from, which make Romeo and Juliet the _archetypal_ star-crossed lovers. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/38 "2010-08-23T16:57:57Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > In terms of which gets the most references? I’d go with either the Divine Comedy or The Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I suspect that the latter is actually more likely, simply because more people will have actually read more than the first few pages (though probably not the entirety of the tales). > > (It’s also worth noting that within the Bible, nearly all references come from Revelations.) That last sentence is nowhere near true. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/39 "2010-08-23T17:00:09Z")
> [@](#): > > What does “important” mean? Neither of the texts you mention have been read by probably 99% of the English speaking population at any given time. Then again, the same is true of the Bible, if you mean reading the whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143/40 "2010-08-23T17:08:40Z")
Lots of good ideas here. I like including the works of Adam Smith or Marx/Engels. Newton’s \*Principia \*might be up there. But how about the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-second-most-important-work-of-literature-for-the-western-world/551143.md?page=3)