Is most strongly connected to the Great Ideas and thereby to all the other Great Books. Shakespeare certainly fits the bill in category one. While the language may be difficult to read, it is easy to see and hear because it was intended to be spoken in the theater. In particular, his complex and sympathetic portrayals of the female gender validates Shakespeare as much in the 21st as in the 16th Century. What Women Want began in ancient myth, was carried forward by Chaucer in Canterbury Tales, dramatized by Scandanavian playwrights and Leo Tolstoy in the 19th Century, and still amuses us as film in 2001.
Ideas change, yet are always the same.
The Great Books show us why. When I think of Adler s Category number two, I try to remember the books I want to read again and again. D.H. Lawrence s The Plumed Serpent, Aldous Huxley s Point, Counter Point, James Joyce s Ulysses. I know that they helped me to form some idea of what good literature is, but I can't honestly say I gain additional insight from reading them a second time. On the other hand, Joseph Conrad s Heart of Darkness takes on more meaning every time I return to it, as does Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.