World Canonical Texts
Based on the above 5 posts typed out from Oxford's VSI, I finally come up with a chronological list of 168 authors/texts! More than double authors are mentioned than the VSI booklet on French Literature. Below is the list:
| Ibn Hazm's (994-1064, Cordoban Arabic prose writer) The Dove's Neck-Ring |
| Ibn Zaydun (1003-70, Andalusi Arabic love poet) |
| Ibn Rushd (12th century) |
| Maimonides (12th century) |
| Moses Ibn Ezra (c. 1055 to after 1138, Granada-born Jew, best-known Arabized poet of the Hebrew Golden Age, poet in Hebrew, prose author in Arabic) |
| Judah Halevi (c. 1075-1141, most celebrated poet of his age, poetic corpus in Hebrew) |
| Ibn Quzman (1078-1160, poet, mixed formal and vernacular Arabic, with Romance elements) |
| Poem of the Cid |
| Ibn Arabi (1165-1240) |
| Calila and Dimna (c. 1251, translated from Arabic into Castilian, commissioned by Alfonso X 'the Wise'). Work in Arabic translated from Persian, stories within stories) |
| Gonzalo de Berceo's (1196?-1264?) hagiographic/Marian verse (1230s-1260s), Life of St Emilian, Miracles of Our Lady |
| Ramon Llull's (1232-1315) Book of Contemplation (first written in Arabic, then in Catalan), Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men, The Book of the Lover and the Beloved contained within his novel Blanquerna |
| Alfonso X 'the Wise (1221-84, r. 1252-84) - commissioned translation into Castilian of Calila and Dimna, supervised composition of Seven-Part Code (laws), Estoria de Espanna and General Estoria (histories) (all above in Castilian),and Songs to the Virgin Mary (lyric poetry in Galician-Portuguese) |
| Juan Ruiz's (1283?-1350?, Archpriest of Hita) Book of Good Love (1330-43, title given by Ramon Menendez Pidal in 1898) |
| Don Juan Manuel's (1282-1348, Alfonso X's nephew) Count Lucanor (wisdom text) |
| Anselm Turmeda (1355?-1430?, refutation of Christianity in Arabic, author of texts in Catalan) |
| Ausias March (1397-1459, Valencian lyric poet writing in Catalan) |
| Joannot Martorell's (1413-68) and Marti Joan de Galba (?-1490) Tirant lo Blanc (1490, novels of chivalry in Catalan-Valencian) |
| Antonio de Nebrija's Gramatica de la lengua castellana (1492, first grammar of the Castilian language) |
| Fernando de Rojas's (c. 1465-1541, converso) Celestina (original title: Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea) (1499) |
| Leon Hebreo's (c. 1465-1523) Love Dialogues (1501-2, in Italian) |
| Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo's (?-1504) Amadis of Gaul (chivalry novel in Castilian) |
| Carajicomedia (1519, anon.) |
| Francisco Delicado's (c. 1480 to after 1534)The Lusty Andalusian Woman (1528) |
| Garcilaso de la Vega (1501-36, Castilian Renaissance figure) (importer of Petrarchan tradition into 16th century Spanish lyric poetry) Eclogues (pastoral novel) |
| Juan Luis Vives (1493-1540, wrote in Latin) |
| St Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises (1548) |
| Lazarillo de Tormes (1554, anonymous, picaresque novel) |
| Jorge de Montemayor's (1520?-61) La Diana (c. 1559) |
| El Abencerraje (anonymous, novella, 1565?) |
| St Teresa of Avila's (1515-82, converso) Meditation on the Song of Songs (1566-7, burnt in 1580), Book of My Life (composed 1562-5), Way of Perfection (composed c. 1565-9), The Inner Castle (1577), Book of Foundations (written 1573-82), Life |
| St John of the Cross's (1542-91, canonized 1726, converso) Spiritual Canticle (1584) |
| Fray Luis de Leon (1527-91, Jewist descent "conversos", female translator of Song of Songs from Hebrew, canonized 1622) Life; The Perfect Wife (1583, conduct manual) |
| Mateo Aleman's (1547-1615?) Guzman de Alfarache (1599 Part I; 1604 Part II, picaresque novel) |
| Francisco Lopez de Ubeda's La picara Justina (1605) |
| Alonso Jeronimo de Salas Barbadillo's (1581-1635) Celestina's Daughter (1612) |
| Lope de Vega's (1562-1635, dramatist) Fuenteovejuna (1612-14), Peribanez (1605?), True Pretence (1604), The Simple-Minded Lady (1613), Outwardly Simple-Minded, Inwardly Discreet (1623-35), Punishment without Revenge (1631) |
| Miguel de Cervantes's (1547-1616) Don Quixote (1605 Part I; 1615 Part II); Persiles and Sigismunda (posthumous 1617, Byzantine romance), La Galatea (1585, early pastoral novel), Exemplary Novels (1613) |
| Gines Perez de Hita's (1544?-1619?) Civil Wars of Granada (1595 Vol 1, 1619 Vol 2) |
| Catalina de Erauso's (1592-1650) The Story of the Lieutenant-Nun (c. 1624-5, autobiography) |
| Juan Perez de Montalban's (1602-38) The Lieutenant-Nun (1626, play) |
| Tirso de Molina's (1584-1648) The Trickster of Seville (1626), Don Gil with the Green Breeches (1615, play), Martha the Pious (1614-5, play), Medical Love (1618-25?), Bandit Countess or the Heavenly Nymph (1613) |
| Francisco de Quevedo's (1580-1645) The Swindler (1626, picaresque novel), Politics of God (1626/55, courtly conduct manual) |
| Luis de Gongora's (1561-1627, Baroque poet) Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea (published posthumously like all his works), Solitudes (incomplete) |
| Pedro Calderon de la Barca's (dramatist, 1600-81) The Mayor of Zalamea (1636), Life is a Dream (1635, his best-known play), Life is a Dream (best-known auto sacramental = morality play) No Trifling with Love (1635?), Devotion of the Cross (c. 1633), The Surgeon of His Honour (1629), Secret Injury, Secret Vengeance (1635), The Painter of His Dishonours (1640-50) |
| Maria de Zayas's (1590-1661, female author of novellas) Exemplary Love Stories (1637), Disenchantments of Love (1647) |
| Ana Caro's (1590-1650, female dramatist) Valour, Insult and Woman |
| Baltasar Gracian's (1601-58, author of courtly conduct manuals and novels, Jesuit) The Hero (1637), The Gentleman of Discretion (1646), The Art of Wordly Wisdom (1647), Skill and Art of Wit (final version 1648), The Sceptic (1651-7, allegorical novel) |
| Alvaro Cubillo de Aragon's (c. 1596-1661) Anasco from Talavera (play) |
| Jose de Cadalso's (1741-82) Lugubrious Nights (1771, Gothic novel), Moroccan Letters (1789) |
| Francisco Martinez de la Rosa's (1789-1862) Abenhumeya (drama, first performance in Paris, 1830) |
| Angel Saavedra, Duque de Rivas's (1791-1865) Don Alvaro or the Force of Destiny (1832, drama, in French, later as Verdi's opera), The Moorish Foundling (1834, long narrative poem) |
| Buenaventura Carles Aribau's (1798-1862) 'Ode to the Fatherland' (1833, poem) |
| Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch's (1806-80) The Lovers of Teruel (1837, play) |
| Jose de Espronceda's (1801-42) 'The Student of Salamanca' (narrative poem, 1840); Sancho Saldana (1834, medieval novel) |
| Jose Maria Blanco White's (1775-1841) Letters from Spain (1822, written in English), and autobiography The Life of Joseph Blanco White Written by Himself (posthumous, 1845) |
| Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda's (1814-73) Sab (1841, novel) |
| Jose Zorrilla's (1817-93) Don Juan Tenorio (play, 1844) |
| Enrique Gil y Carrasco's (1816-45) The Lord of Bembibre (1844, Romantic medieval historical novel) |
| Mariano Jose de Larra's (1809-37, initiator of costumbrista article in 1828) Don Enrique the Sad's Page (1834, medieval novel) |
| Ramon Mesonero Romanos (1803-82, costumbrista author) |
| Rosalia de Castro's (1837-85, Galician poet, also fiction writer in Castilian) Galician Songs (1863, book of poetry), En la orillas del Sar (1884, Castilian poetry), The Daughter of the Sea (1859, novel) |
| Jacient Verdaguer's (1835-1902) Canigo (1885, epic poem) |
| Leopoldo Alas's (1852-1901, leading Krausist political thinker / journalist) La Regenta (1884-5) |
| Eduardo Pondal's (1835-1917) Laments of the Pines (1886) |
| Emilia Pardo Bazan's (1851-1921, female novelist, translator of J.S.Mill's The Subjection of Women) The House of Ulloa (1886), Mother Nature (1887, sequel) |
| Sabino Arana (founder of Basque nationalism, 1880s and 1890s) |
| Narcis Oller's (Catalan realist novelist) Gold Fever (1890-3) |
| Angel Guimera's (1845-1924, dramatist) Lowlands (1897, play) |
| Azorin's (1873-1967, pen name Jose Martinez Ruiz) The Will to Live (1902) |
| Pio Baroja's (1872-1956) The Struggle for Life (1904-5, trilogy), Way of Perfection (1902) |
| Catarina Albert's (Catalan female novelist) Solitude (1905, novel) |
| Valentin Lamas de Carvajal's (1849-1906) Galician Longings |
| Manuel Curros Enriquez's (1851-1908) Airs of My Land |
| Joan Maragall (1880-1911, modernist poet) |
| Eugeni d'Ors's (1881-1954) La ben plantada (1911, novel) |
| Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo (1856-1912, major literary historian) |
| Benito Perez Galdos's (1843-1920, realist writer) The Disinherited (1881), Fortunata and Jacinta (1886-7, his best known novel), Angel Guerra (1890-1), Nazarin (1895), Halma (1895), That Bringas Woman (1884), 46 National Episodes (1873-9, 1898-1912, historical novels) |
| Ramon Gomez de la Serna's (1888-1963, avant-garde poet) El Rastro (1914) |
| Felipe Trigo (1864-1916, social novelist) |
| Unamuno (1864-1936, novelist) Fog (1914, experimental novel), The Other (1926, play), Two Mothers (1920, story), Aunt Tula (1921, novel), Abel Sanchez (1917) |
| Carmen de Burgos's (1867-1932) Article 438 (1921, story) |
| Alvaro Retana (1890-1970, novellas, most written in 1917-22) |
| Ramiro de Maeztu's (1874-1936) essay (1924) |
| Rafael Alberti's (1902-99, poet, dramatist) Sailor on Land (1925, avant-garde poetry), I Was a Fool and What I Have Seen Has Made Me Two Fools (performed in 1929), Radio Seville (1938) |
| Ramon Maria del Valle-Inclan's (1866-1936, avant-garde poet) Bohemian Lights (1920, play), Cinelandia (1925, novel) |
| Antonio de Hoyos (1885-1940, novellas, publish in 1903-27) |
| Felipe Alfau's (1902-99, novelist) Locos: A Comedy of Gestures (1928) |
| Vicente Blasco Ibanez (1867-1928, social novelist) |
| Francisco Ayala's (1906-2009 novelist) Hunter at Dawn (1929, experimental novella) |
| Narcis Oller (1846-1930, realist novelist) |
| Luis Cernuda's (1902-63, poet) Forbidden Pleasures (written 1931), 'To a Dead Poet' (on Lorca's death) |
| Ernesto Gimenez Caballero's (1899-1988) view of Don Juan (1935) |
| Federico Garcia Lorca's (avant-garde poet, dramatist, author of rural tragedies, 1898-1936) Gypsy Ballads (his best-known book of poetry, 1928), avant-garde plays Blood Wedding (1933), Yerma (1934, tragedy), The House of Bernarda Alba (written in 1936, tragedy); Buster Keaton's Promenade (1928, dramatic sketch), Trip to the Moon (surrealist film script, discovered in 1989), Poet in New York (written 1929-30, posthumous), 'Dance of Dealth' (poem); 'Ode to Walt Whitman' (poem), The Public (1930, play), When Five Years Pass (1931, play), Sonnets of Dark Love (poems, written 1935-6) |
| Dali (avant-garde poet) |
| Miguel Hernandez's (1910-42) Wind of the People (1937) |
| Borges' 'Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote' (story, 1939) |
| Rosa Chacel's (protege of Ortega y Gasset, translator of Freud) Memoirs of Leticia Valle (1945, novel) |
| Salvador de Madariago's (1886-1978) BBC radio play (1948) and an interpretation of Don Juan (1952) |
| Ramon Menendez Pidal's (literary scholar who dated Poem of the Cid to 1140 [orally c.1105] in 1948) Relics of Spanish Epic Poetry (1951) |
| Americo Castro's The Structure of Spanish History (1948, revised 1954) |
| Ortega y Gasset's (1883-1955, philosopher) prologue to The Dove's Neck-Ring; Journal of the West; The Dehumanization of Art (1926, essay) |
| Concha Espina (1869-1955, social novelist) |
| Claudio Sanchez Albornoz's Spain, a Historical Enigma (1956) |
| Manuel Altolaguirre (1905-59, poet) |
| Luis Martin-Santos's (1924-64) Time of Silence (1962, Joycean novel) |
| Merce Rodoreda (1908-83, Catalan, novelist / short stories, expatriate) The Time of the Doves (1962, novel) |
| Juan Benet's (1927-93) Return to Region (1967, Faulknerian) |
| Camilo Jose Cela's (1916-2002) Day of St. Camillus, 1936 (1969), The Family of Pascual Duarte (1942) |
| Ana Maria Moix's (1947-) Julia (1969) |
| Jose Maria Castellet's (critic) Nine New Spanish Poets (1970) |
| Maria Teresa Leon's (1903-88, female) Memoir of Melancholy (1970, autobiography); Dock Strike (1933, prolecult drama) |
| Juan Marse's The Fallen (1973, experimentist novel) |
| Maria Martinez Sierra's (1874-1974, author of 5 books of feminist essays 1916-32, playwright under her husband's name) A Woman on the Road in Spain (autobiographical account of her Socialist campaigning) |
| Carlos Barral (Barcelona publisher who promoted "New Spanish Novel' in the 1970s) |
| Luce Irigaray (feminist, 1970s) |
| Helene Cixous (feminist, 1970s) |
| Esther Tusquets's (1936-) The Same Sea Every Summer (1978), Love is a Solitary Game (1979) |
| Montserrat Roig's (1946-91) Goodbye Ramona (1972), The Time of the Cherries (1977), The Violet Hour (1980) (above a trilogy of novels) |
| Colin Smith (British Hispanist who attacked Pidal's scholarship in 1980s) |
| Manuel Vazquez Montalban's (author of Carvalho thriller series) Murder on the Central Committee (1981), The Pianist (1985) |
| Concha Mendez (1898-1986, female poet) |
| Jaime Gil de Biedma (1929-90, poet, started in Castilian) |
| Alvaro Pombo's (1939-) Tales of Insubstantiality (1977, about London); The Iridized Platinum Rule (1990) |
| Julio Llamazares's (1955-) Wolf Moon (1985), The Yellow Rain (1988), Scenes from Silent Cinema (1993) |
| Rosa Chacel (1898-1994, novelist) |
| Laura Mintegi's (1955-, Basque female novelist) Nerea and I (1994) |
| Maria-Merce Marcal's (1952-98, Catalan author and poet, trnaslator of Colette, Yourcenar, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva) The Passion According to Renee Vivien (1994, novel), Sister, Stranger (1981-4, poems) |
| Josefina Aldecoa (1926-, a short story collection in 1961) Story of a Schoolteacher (1990), Women in Black (1994), The force of Destiny (1997) (above forms a novel trilogy) |
| Manuel Rivas's (1957-) The Carpenter's Pencil (1998, Galician original) |
| Carmen Martin Gaite's (1925-2000, early fiction in 1957-76) The Back Room (1978, novel), Coutship Customs in Postwar Spain (1981, historical study), Variable Cloud (1992, novel), The Snow Queen (1994, novel), Living's the Strange Thing (1996, novel), Leaving Home (1998, novel) |
| Lucia Etxebarria's (1966-) Beatrice and the Heavenly Bodies (1998) |
| Gloria Fuertes (1917-98, poet) |
| Terenci Moix's (1942-2003, novelist, switched from Catalan to Castilian) The Day Marilyn Died (1969, novel, Catalan), The Wanker's Burden (1990-98, 3 volumes autobiography), Don't Tell Me It Was a Dream (1986, Castilian romance) |
| Gonzalo Torrente Ballester (1910-99, novelist, started in Castilian) |
| Ernestina de Champourcin (1905-99, female poet) |
| Carme Riera's (1948-, founder of first feminist magazine Feminist Defence 1976-9) 'I Leave You, My Love, the Sea as a Token' (1975, story), 'I Call on the Seagulls as Witness' (1977, story), In the Last Blue (1994, historical novel), Towards the Open Sky (2000) |
| Juan Jose Domenchina (poet) |
| Carlos Ruiz Zafon's (1964-, Catalan writing in Castilian, lived in LA since 1993) The Shadow of the Wind (2001) |
| Javier Cercas's (1962-) Soldiers of Salamis (2001) |
| Dulce Chacon's (1952-2003) The Sleeping Voice (2002) |
| Manuel Vazquez Montalban (1939-2003, fiction and political writer, started in Castilian) |
| Bernardo Atxaga's (1951-) Obabakoak (1988, stories), The Lone Man (1993, novel), The Lone Woman (1996), The Accordionist's Son (2003) |
| Jorge Semprun's (1923-, most writings in French) The Long Voyage (1963, French), Autobiography of Federico Sanchez (1977, novelized memoir, Spanish), Twenty Years and a Day (2003, Spanish, historical novel) |
| Ray Loriga's (1967-, post-modern novelist) The Man Who Invented Manhattan (2004, lived in New York in 2004), The Worst of All (1992), Heroes (1993), Fallen from Heaven (1995), Tokyo Doesn't Love Us Anymore (1999) |
| Antonio Munoz Molina's (1956-) Manhattan Windows (2004) |
| Alberto Mendez (1941-2004)'s The Blind Sunflowers (2004) |
| Carmen Laforet's (1921-2004) Nothing |
| Ildefonso Falcones's (1957-, Catalan writing in Castilian) Cathedral of the Sea (2006) |
| Javier Marias's (1951-, novelist) Your Face Tomorrow (2002-7, trilogy) |
| Almudena Grandes (1960-) The Ages of Lulu (1989, novel), Malena is a Tango Name (1994), The Frozen Heart (2007) |
| Juan Goytisolo's (1931-, Catalan novelist, wrote in Castilian, lived in Paris) Marks of Identity (1966), Count Julian (1970), Juan the Landless (1975, these 3 novels form a trilogy named Trilogy of Evil), preface to selected translations of Blanco White, The Virtues of the Solitary Bird (1988), Quarantine (1991), State of Siege (1995), Landscapes after the Battle (1985), The Exile from Here and There (2008), Mourning in Paradise (1955), Carajicomedia (2000, satire of Spanish Catholic moral repression); Fiestas (1958), Makbara (1980); Forbidden Zone (1985), Realms of Strife (1986) (the above are his 2-vol autobiography) |
| Antonio Munoz Molina's A Manuscript of Ashes (1986), The Polish Rider (1991), Sepharad (2001), The Night of Time (2009) |
The following are recent authors, not dated in my list:
| Pere Gimferrer (1945-, poet, switched from Castilian to Catalan) |
| Juan Marse (1933-, novelist, started in Castilian) |
| Fernando Arrabal (1932-, wrote in both Castilian and French) |
| Juana Salabert (1962-, novelist in France, writes in Spanish) |
| Cristina Peri Rossi (1941-, Uruguayan writer who stayed in Spain) |
| Eduardo Lago's (1954-) Call Me Brooklyn |
| Arturo Perez-Reverte (1951-, author of time-travelling thrillers, and Alatriste series of historical novels) |
| Rosa Montero (1951-, top columnist for newspaper El Pais, author of popular novels) |
| Luis Antonio de Villena (1951-, poet, short-story writer) |
| Alfredo Conde |
| Suso de Toro |
| Unai Elorriaga |
| Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio |
| Ignacio Aldecoa |
| Eduardo Mendicutti (1948-) |
Of course, not all these authors / works are in Spanish (=Castilian).
Some interesting tidbits about the list generated from VSI:
- 18th c. is almost blank! Not sure if it is just a gap in the author's knowledge or what.
- Many recent authors are mentioned - all the way up to works published in 2009 - very impressive
- Usually the later it is, the harder it is to canonize. But in the VSI, it is very clear that the author considers Galdo, Lorca and Goytisolo as the most important Spanish authors in late 19th c., 1H of 20th c., and 2H of 20th c./ living authors respectively.
- Before the 18th c., other than Cervantes, Celestina is also very much highlighted as a key work
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