My list:

10. "The Oedipus Cycle" by Sophocles- Technically, this is THREE plays, "Oedipus Rex", "Antigone", and "Oedipus at Colonus." However, they all interconnect and form a coherent story and WERE and HAVE been performed all together in a day-long epic of a performance, so I'm counting it. Why does this make the list?
+Base for Western Theatre: There may have been earlier plays, but those who study theatre (speaking from personal experience here) generally start here, because not only is this one of the first, it's the first to really be such a blockbuster and bring the first Western tradition in theatre, Greek Theatre (at least the first BIG one) to it's high mark. Characters with motives and depth, demonstrating Asristotle's Poetics and Unities to perfection, the Chorus, a complex plot... the plays have it all. "Rex" demonstrates the tragedy of pride and introduces psychological undertones to be felt for millenia on, "Antigone" gives us the first great female heroine and in Creon shows absolute-power-corrupts-absolutely, Tyresias the blind prophet (so many symbols there that's a paper in itself), and finally, "Colonus" gives us a man seeking redemption and absolution, or at the very least acceptance.
+Feminist Undertones: See "Antigone" comments above
+Psychology: EVERYONE has heard of the Oedipus Complex...

9. "Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo- Hugo's masterpiece here needs no boosting, but nonetheless gets it due to the brilliant and mostly faithful Broadway adaptation, a work with such poetry in itself that it warrants AT LEAST a YouTube viewing... so, with not only one of the greatest novels but pehaps the greatest Broadway musical ever resulting from the work of Hugo, it's more than enough to land it here. WHy?
+DEPTH- This is a MONSTER of a story... thousands of pages, thirty years covered in the book... and every bit is described in detail and brought to life, every action placed in the context of the thirty years, and every one of the main characters (and in a books so huge there are so many... you can go so far as to call Jean Valjean, Javert, Fantine, Mr. and Mrs. Thernadier, Cosette, Marius, and Enjolras all major characters with depth and great importance in the story) has all the more backbround and, so very importantly, believablity. These aren't people we know for a few days, a month, even a year or two... we know them for in some cases DECADES, see them grow up, see their parents, their friends, friends' parents... these ARE people.
+Setting: Paris in the tumultuous years of the 19th Century monarchy and jsut around Napoleon's fall is brought to life, and those thirty years and inhabitants make it one of the liveliest and, indeed, most ALIVE cities in literature. This is not merely a plot device, either- Paris herself nealy counts a character, growing, chainging... just as her inhabitants do
+Philosophy: Philosophy goes a long way in this story... what's justice? Is a man forever a criminal or crook, or can he change? What made him a crook in the first place, and was it his fault... was he REALLY a crook? Is the law uncompromising, or should it see shades of grey? What of love? Revoltuion? What's worth fighting and dying for? All this and more is raised and given attention.
+Conflicts Between Characters: Any good story has this just about, but this story goes one further than most, it seems. It's not just one vs. one, it's EVERYONE. Valjean vs. Javert, Valjean vs. Fantine, Fantine vs. Javert and society, Cosette and Marius, the Students of the ABC vs. the French Monarchy... many more, and what's more amazing- over all these characters and all these years, the conflicts don't just make sense, but LINK to form such a remarkable chain of events that, once again, you could swear this was, or could be, REAL.
+Legacy: Not only solidifying Hugo's place among the greats and cementing importance of the novel, the aforementioned musical...

8. "Waiting For Godot" by Samuel Beckett- If you've never seen "Godot" before, be forewarned- the INSTANT you see it, you will never think the sam again. I said SEE it, not READ it. "Godot" is a great text, but plays are meant to be SEEN, ans just as a Shakespeare play seems 100x better in person (and IS) "Godot" just isn't quite "Godot" if it's not seen. The pacing in particular, so vital to the story's tone and meaning, is there in the text... but seeing it is altogether more enabling in the understanding of the greatest play (and arguably the greatest and most important literary work) of the 20th Century.
+God Almighty: Again, be warned- if you're not ready to question your faiths and beliefs, religious OR atheistic, "Godot" will hurt. It leaves virtually NOTHING we know (or THINK we know) as a society alone and for granted. Religion comes under fire, non-religous ideals, government, social order, language itself, the meaning of life or lack thereof... NOTHING is sacred to this play, which is why it really DOES stand out as it does. There ARE sacred cows, yes... and "Godot" burns every one of them. Plot? Conflict? A building story? What's THAT? This is the REAL "Show about nothing" except for two things- it really IS fun... and it IS, actually, about EVERYTHING.
+Lucky: Didi and Gogo and Pozzo are ALL great characters, important... Pozzo certainly, and of course Didi and Gogo are the central characterrs, never really leaving the stage. But it's LUCKY, the character who speaks really only ONCE, that underlines much of what makes this play what it is... and WHY it MUST be seen live. Reading that Lucky's standing there, drooling, panting, tired, dazed, it all has an affect... but SEEING it, with the pacing, meaning, deliberation... THAT'S what captures the spirit of the character and play, and when he DOES speak, it makes it all the more meaningful (and satisfying.) And WHAT he says, what he goes on about for two pages without the aid of periods or commas, just straight rapid-fire philosophising and joking and musing and cryng and moaning about pain and poking fun at life and showing so much in that one burst... when you've seen this character stand mostly silently for an hour and a half and suddenly he EXPLODES for three minutes with all this coming out so fast and so heated... again, if you're not ready to be shaken...
+Existentialism: Simply put- if Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre all are the philosophic leaders of existential and nihilistic thinking, "Godot" is the masterpiece work showing off so much of what they all of them meant.

7."Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare- THIS should inspire some ire from the literary elitists... WHY "R&J?" WHY such a seemingly cliche and overused and, true, imperfect play? And of SHAKESPEARE'S? He has so many BETTER plays, and even better comedies, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The Merchant of Venice" just off the top of my head. WHY THIS? Because this is a list of plays that are not only great but contain elements of humanity, good and bad, that need to be preserved, and "R&J" IS overused (though not as much as you'd hink, but I'll adress that in a moment) and IS the working of a fomulatic idea, that of star-crossed lovers. However, it is the BEST formulation of that idea, and the "star-crossed lovers" idea IS important to humanity... and besides that aspect there's so much more to this play that makes it worthy of preservation on this list.
+All You Need Is Love: The love story here isn't, perhaps, the best in literature, and probably not even in English literature. Some might REALLY want to push the envelope and say that Romeo and Juliet aren't even the best Shakespearean lovers... and they would have a case there... that'd be a hot debate, but nevertheless it IS open for debate. Then WHY these two? Why are Romeo and Juliet so important if literally they aren't quite so perfect? Because they dominate the landscape, not just of literary love, but our CONCEPT of love. One might argue that the characters in "Midsummer's" are better lovers, or, indeed, Marius and Cosette from the aforementioned "Les Miserables" can be argued to be much more complex lovers. But what do we as a culture think of when we think love? Youth. And WHO comes to mind from literature? Romeo and Juliet. They just DO... you can be an Oxford English professor or the janitor at the local high school, but mention love and ask them to name some lovers from literature... Romeo and Juliet will have different spots on the lists, but they'll come up so very often, and more often than jsut about any other couple. They have shaped our idea of what love SHOULD be. We SHOULD, we think, be youthful, and SHOULD meet the person of our dreams and fall madly in love, so in love we're willing to risk our lives and just about anything for that love. We SHOULD be so matched... it's just... right. It's fair. It's what we WANT. Romeo's sensitive, open, passionate, courageous (if not rash), caring... an archetype of what we might consider women want in men. Juliet is pure, aloft on her balcony, so beautiful and yet just out of reach... but she's willing to MEET US, she's not going to stay away and stay high... she's that one angel we want who DOESN'T elude us forever, the one fantasy we CAN have. Or so we hope. Or so we think. Or so we feel.
+Fault: Just as we get our ideas of what love is so much from this play as a society, we also get some of our ideas on who's to blame. Who DO we blame for Romeo and Juliet's untimely passing, and all that die with them? Is it the parents and families... is it their fault for hatred that makes civil hands unclean? Is THIS the lesson- hate not rashly and certainly not in the face of love? Do we blame those who interfere with the parents' wishes and try and see Romeo and Juliet to their wishes... is THIS our lesson, that perhaps helping two love-struck teenagers/young adults get just what they want isn't the wisest thing to do in the world... and maybe experience, however hateful, should prevail? (And if so, is that RIGHT- after all, R&J's dying ends the fued... what's a few young children's deaths to end a fued, after all, that's how wars are solved, we sacrifice a good many of our sons for THAT...?) Do we blame Romeo and Juliet themselves and thus come to blame and warn against unrequited passion? All of these? Some? What you choose as your interpretation may be a most telling aspect of this play's significance- you choose, and from that choice you see yourself aligned with others sharing your vieew, and from THAT you get a clearer view, maybe of who you are. Younger? You're probably going to blame the families, as young people so often wish to do. Older? You might be more inclined to place the blame on youthful foolishness and say if only those kids had listened to their elders...
+Impact: This has been stated to death here, but it's worth summarizing that "R&J" is here due to its impact maybe more than the play itself. But I DID promise a defense against the "cliche" attack, and here it is- this IS cliche... but ONLY because it IS that good and people have tried to emulate that now for centuries. "West Sid Story?" That summer movie that seems to come out EVERY summer with the sadly, TRAGICALLY star-crossed lovers that are just PERFECT but it just CAN'T work out? Hallmark endings that try and make the lovers end happily? Blame it on "R&J"... but don't. Is it Shakespeare's fault people can't be more original (irony, the greatest writer and plagarizer ever annoyed people can't plagarize BETTER, at least.) And when Shakepeare wrote/adapted the play, this WAS already a formula... but not yet tired, and still fresh. After HIS show, after "Romeo and Juliet" hits the scene...

From shakespeare - hard to beat 'Merchant of Venice' in my opinion.

Dumas also weighs in with some punchy stories.... my favourite is the Count of Monte Cristo. The original is pretty long winded, primarily because books in those days were printed as serialisations and they made more money if they were drawn out. (much like TV series these days). However, the abridged version and the general plot are as good as it gets.

6. The King Arthur Legend/"Le Morte De Artur" by Various/Sir Thomas Malory- Here is perhaps the most babby collection on the list, for if we include ALL the Arthur material, we'd have literally hundreds if not thousands of pieces and authors. So the question becomes who to trim, how, and why... what's essential to the most essential king in all of literature? "Le Morte de Artur" is, hands down, the most classical and renowned work of Arthurian lore, and fits most of the story nicely, and so that's the backbone, the core of what's nominated here. What goes in with it are the solo fringe works that are so important that they MUST go to give the full view of King Arthur's Court, but never found their way into Mallory for one reason or another. The biggest and perhaps best example of what's included here with Mallory's work is "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," the semi-epic poem by an anonymous author; Mallory's work emphasized a certain French slant on the Britons and Welsh and THEIR heroes... as such, Gawain is, while not a monster, far from the great and virtueous knight he is in "Green Knight" and really IS shown as the flawed foil to the virtuous (and yet, irnoically, MORE imperfect in many ways) Lancelot.
+Fellowship and the Fall of Camelot: King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table have, since their introduction over the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, served as a sort of model for the perfect friendship, fellowship, government... AND shown us how all that can go to pieces. We get a great idea about equality for government, for example, in the earliest post-Greece parliaments and congresses via the idea of the Round Table- no one at the head, no one man above another... just the King and his Knights sitting as equals and TREATING EACH OTHER AS EQUALS. Lancelot praises Gawain, Gawain praises him, Bors praises the two, they him, Percival, Galahad, Gareth, Tristan, Bedivere... they're all great warriors and great people, but great friends first. They're LOYAL to each other, so much so they risk their lives for each other and for each other's honor; while that wsn't a new idea even when the first Arthurian stories appeared, they WERE popularized by them. We think of knights today, and we think of fair, mighty warriors off to do great and virtuous deeds... we get this image largely from the Round Table Knights. We, for better or worse, as men often feel the instinctive need to protect women and treat them differently, more kindly and with more care, than we do with other men... chivalric courtesy that was a ode in Europe at the time of the writings, but, again, is popularized and made significant to us today through those writings. We IMAGINE ourselves slaying the dragon, saving the maiden in distress, achieving the Holy Grail... and we see ourselves doing this, often, with friends' help. And just as strong as this bond is, just as easily, we see, it can be broken, and THIS, perhaps, is the more important lesson of Arthrian lore, and more unique to it- we see the Greeks fighting together in Homer's works, and we see Beowulf performing great deeds by himself and with others, but not in any other work to this point do we really see the fall of not just a man, not just a roay court, not just a nation, but a nation's SOUL. Troy was burnt, but the Trojan spirit didn't die with it. When Camelot goes, it GOES. It doesn't have the seeds for revival or continuance... we've LOST IT, can't get it BACK (in the literal sense), and we as readers have to realize what was just lost forever, and WHY. It's not jsut that Camelot falls, and not even that it falls because of a fight for power- it's that this was BUILDING, even in the good times. This was COMING. AVOIDABLE; it can be argued that the prophetic visions in some versions by Merlin stating how Camelot shall fall seals their fate, but this is an inconsistent part in the stories, isn't always there or the same, and it still is ALWAYS seen as an avoidable tragedy. Did Lancelot and Guinevere really NEED to test Athur's love, betray it? Did Arthur, in spite of the Round Table, still play favorites a bit... we hear he has so many knights, but he professes time and again how much he loves Lancelot and Gawain and Galahad and Bedivere, his sort of Fab Four. It sews jealousy and creates some of literature's first CLIQUES. The Round Table is still equal... and yet it's NOT. Would Agravain and his follower knights have gone along with Sir Mordred to expose Lancelot and break up the Table if they didn't dislike Lancelot already for stealing so much attention? From bad to worse, that Fab Four breaks- Galahad leaves after the Holy Grail quest, and so Bedivere and Gawain remain loyal to Arthur... Lancelot flirts with Guinevere and cultivates his own following with bors and others on HIS side. Lancelot and Gawain, once scuh perfect friends and essentially brothers, become enemies after each commits a rash act, Gawain refusing point-blank to guard Guinevere during her exectuion but then not push the issue and just sitting back and letting brothers Gareth and Gaheris do the job; Lancelot saves Guinevere from the stake but kills two masked guards... Gareth and Gaheris. Lancelot didn't KNOW he'd killed his friends sn Gawain's brothers, and Gawain didn't KNOW his staying allof could cost lives... but the deed's done. And so two of the soundest friends in literature to that point become enemies, Lancelot ridden with guilt and Gawain driven mad with incurable anger. Camlaaan, the Last Battle, sees it happen AGAIN, as if to drive the point home even MORE- Mordred and Arthur are to come to an accord for jsut a day, Arthur just has to get through the day and then Lancelot will reunite with him, they'll defeat Mordred, and camelot, however scarred, will be saved. But no, a random knight acts on impulse to draw his sword, and the slightest movement, the tiniest mistake costs the world the Round table. But ALL of these deaths were preventable way back at the start- if those cliques never form, the Table doesn't break, and so we get a message that's not analyzed much but is known, if not through the works then from future novles and media inspired by the Arthur stories and Mallory's book, all across the West: you DO get by with a little help from your friends, you NEED friends to stay yourself, friendship and loyalty is of immense imprtance, and the INSTANT that's take for granted or forgotten...
+Chivalry: Again, the idea is popularized by the Arthurian legends\
+Courage, Redemption, and Christianity: From "Green Knight" to the Holy Grail story, the questions of what's courageous, how to redeem oneself, and Christian ideals are prominant throughout the stories. What's courage? Is it Gawain kneeling, readying to take the axe-blow from the Green Knight he believes will kill him? Is it Lancelot saving the damsel? Gareth fighting for his lady when no one, not even HIS LADY, beleives in him? Galahad foresaking all worly ideals to attempt a spiritual sort of courage to get the Grail? Interestingly, all four of these famous stories of courage double as a story about repemption- Gawain seeking to prove himself a worthy knight after his first quest ends in disaster, Lancelot attempting to offset his sin of lust by savig the day over and over, Gareth redeeming the reputation of his fellow knights by succeeding not only in his quest but his coutresy towards women, and Galahad seeking to redeem all of Camelot, indeed, all of man in the tradtional Christian sense by living so free of sin he may drink from the Holy Grail and show man to still be worth something. The Grail Story in particular creates an interesting argument for how we should live by showing us all the notable, best knights, how they go about looking for the Grail... and what becomes of their wanderings. Galahad takes a spiritual and contemplative quest, and succeeds; Lancelot takes it as just one more thing to be best at, and not only fails but feels ashamed of WHY he's failed for not realizing the importance of being at least somewhat spirtiual; Gawain taking Lancelot's approach but faring just better as he DOES, in the end, see the spiritual meaning before it's altogether too late... on and on, showing us who to live, what's a virtue, and why
+Mentoring: Arthur/Merlin is the classic student/teacher archetype; from Obi-Wan/Luke to Harry Potter/Dumbledore, and more classical stories before these, the archetype stands, the wise old man and the destined young man eager for growth and knowledge.

10: "The Stainless Steel Rat" by Harry Harrison
9: "With the Night Mail" by Rudyard Kipling
8: "Mad Max 2" (film)
7: "At The Mountains of Madness" by H. P. Lovecraft
6: "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
5: "1984" by George Orwell
4: "The Strange Case Of Charles Dexter Ward" by H. P. Lovecraft
3: "Battleship Potemkin" (film)
2: "Mad Max" (film)

and the best novel I have ever read:

1: "Darkness at Noon" by Arthur Koestler

Geez, the Stainless Steel Rat? Haven't heard that mentioned since I was in middle school.

It's trash, but it's very entertaining.

Slaughterhouse-Five
A Brave New World
Count of Monte Cristo
Dead Poets' Society
Oldboy
Hotel Rwanda
Othello
Lord of the Flies
Alas, Babylon

those are in no particular order but in the top spot is........

look dude i'm sorry i have to say the bible. i promise i will not argue about it i just think its the best representation of humans out there all in one work

Qu'raan, old testament, porn i win THE GAME

btw i performed godot i was estragon

These aren't gonna be in any sort of order, but I suppose my top however-many-this-ends-up-being are:
-Catch-22
-The Master and Margarita
-Xenophon's Anabasis
-Don Quixote
-Sandman, by Neil Gaiman
-Star Wars (Original Trilogy)
-Aeneid
-Paradise Lost
-Gunnerkrigg Court, although technically that comic's still in progress, but so far, it rocks.
-Livy's Histories. If only they were all extent... : (

OK - here goes. @Stukus - like a lot of yours too...
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
The Valachi Papers
Killer Angels
To Kill a Mockingbird
Hope Springs Eternal (Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption)
The Last Days of Socrates (esp Crito)
A Clockwork Orange
MacBeth
The Cancer Ward
and the top spot:
The Brothers Karamazov

Not sure I would put these in the same order every time - or whether others may creep in ....

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
1984 - George Orwell
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Plague - Albert Camus

and of course I can't forget this although perhaps it is more entertainment than life changing ....
Lord of the Rings

In no particular order:
Siddhartha
The Good Earth
Huckleberry Finn
Hamlet
1984
Flowers for Algernon
Oliver Twist
Don Quixote
Romeo and Juliet
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

honorable mentions... (only because I haven't read/seen them yet and so probably shouldn't vote for them - but I anticipate loving them)
Waiting for Godot
Les Miserables
The Grapes of Wrath
Heart of Darkness
Macbeth

A list of children's literature:
Alice in Wonderland
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Treasure Island
Aesop's Fables (take your pick: The Dog in the Manger, The Boy who Cried Wolf, The Goose that laid the Golden Eggs, The Tortoise and the Hare...)
Hans Christian Anderson (take your pick: The Emperor's New Cloths, The Princess and the Pea, The Ugly Duckling...)
The Jungle Book(s)
The Call of the Wild
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Martian Chronicles (book only)
A Christmas Carol (the book and some of the movies)
Charlotte's Web (book only)
Animal Farm (book only)
Where the Wild Things Are (book only)
Love You Forever
The Cat in the Hat (book only)

1: 1984 by George Orwell
2: War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy
3: The Oddessy
4: The Bourne Identity (Book) by Ludlum
5: Brave New World by Huxley

I can't do more than my top five because I'm bad at prioritizing............

The books that most impact me with no specific order (not the best, but the one´s that made a huge impression on me):
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - The plot, the historical reconstitution, the characters, the irony and pain are just perfect.
Don Quixote - Cervantes - I read when a child end when adult and both times the experience were just awesome.
On the Road - Jack Kerouac - This is like a punch on your face.
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley -
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon - A historical book, but in change my mind in a lot of aspects on the time I read. Also a great explanation of human nature and why empire just fall some day.
El amor en los tiempos del cólera - Love in the time of Cholera - Gabriel García Márquez - Awesome, start to read and you will not want to stop until the end.
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger - Every teenager in the world need to read this.
Moby Dick - Herman Melville - Masterpiece from Melville, you can almost feel the loneliness and pain and hate of the main character while you read the book

and some on Portuguese (go find a translation)
O Tempo e o Vento (trilogy) - Érico Veríssimo - don´t need to say more then that I was named after the main character.
Grande Sertão Veredas - Guimarães Rosa - it this was wrote in English will be on every list of best books of all time, but it´s almost impossible to translate as the author creates a new language for the characters.

10. The Hunt for Red October - Tom Clancy
9. Animal Farm - George Orwell
8. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
7. The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
6. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
5. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
3. Catch 22- Joseph Heller
2. All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Remarque
1. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee

The top ten list as voted on by an online poll conducted by Random House Publishing:

1. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
2. THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
3. BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
4. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
8. WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
9. MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
10. FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html

ROTFLAO!! Yes, 4 of the top ten are written by Ayn Rand and 3 by L. Ron Hubbard. Who would have known? Just goes to show you that online polls are crap.

...and it goes to show that the average Ayn Rand reader and the average L. Ron Hubbard reader are tools. (apologies to my esteemed colleagues here who like Ayn Rand)

haha. That's hilarious.

good no. 1, Rare Eagle.
I was looking for it.

I find it hilarious and wonderful that almost everyone here has either Brave New World or 1984 or both in their lists. That's probably why I like this place so much.

or 'top spot' I should say-

Looks like a Libertarian organization got together to vote up those Ayn Rand books. I mean I really liked Atlas Shrugged, but even if that book cracked top 100, her other books wouldn't be close.

As for Hubbard... tool indeed, looks like the C.O.S. voted up some of his fiction, it definitely isn't worthy of top 3 novels by a long shot.

I'm going to go ahead and guess some people were voting more than once on the Random House Poll. Or hell, maybe they just picked the winners RANDOMly. Badum-tsh!

Don Quixote, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, In Search of Lost Time, The Sound and The Fury, Zeno's Conscience, The Illiad/Odyssey, Chyld Harold's Pilgrimage, Hills Like White Elephants

Not going to do ten, because that would be too hard, but two I would have to consider that I didn't see above: Of Mice and Men, and A Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovitch

6. The King Arthur Legend/"Le Morte De Artur" by Various/Sir Thomas Malory- Here is perhaps the most babby collection on the list, for if we include ALL the Arthur material, we'd have literally hundreds if not thousands of pieces and authors. So the question becomes who to trim, how, and why... what's essential to the most essential king in all of literature? "Le Morte de Artur" is, hands down, the most classical and renowned work of Arthurian lore, and fits most of the story nicely, and so that's the backbone, the core of what's nominated here. What goes in with it are the solo fringe works that are so important that they MUST go to give the full view of King Arthur's Court, but never found their way into Mallory for one reason or another. The biggest and perhaps best example of what's included here with Mallory's work is "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," the semi-epic poem by an anonymous author; Mallory's work emphasized a certain French slant on the Britons and Welsh and THEIR heroes... as such, Gawain is, while not a monster, far from the great and virtueous knight he is in "Green Knight" and really IS shown as the flawed foil to the virtuous (and yet, irnoically, MORE imperfect in many ways) Lancelot.
+Fellowship and the Fall of Camelot: King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table have, since their introduction over the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, served as a sort of model for the perfect friendship, fellowship, government... AND shown us how all that can go to pieces. We get a great idea about equality for government, for example, in the earliest post-Greece parliaments and congresses via the idea of the Round Table- no one at the head, no one man above another... just the King and his Knights sitting as equals and TREATING EACH OTHER AS EQUALS. Lancelot praises Gawain, Gawain praises him, Bors praises the two, they him, Percival, Galahad, Gareth, Tristan, Bedivere... they're all great warriors and great people, but great friends first. They're LOYAL to each other, so much so they risk their lives for each other and for each other's honor; while that wsn't a new idea even when the first Arthurian stories appeared, they WERE popularized by them. We think of knights today, and we think of fair, mighty warriors off to do great and virtuous deeds... we get this image largely from the Round Table Knights. We, for better or worse, as men often feel the instinctive need to protect women and treat them differently, more kindly and with more care, than we do with other men... chivalric courtesy that was a ode in Europe at the time of the writings, but, again, is popularized and made significant to us today through those writings. We IMAGINE ourselves slaying the dragon, saving the maiden in distress, achieving the Holy Grail... and we see ourselves doing this, often, with friends' help. And just as strong as this bond is, just as easily, we see, it can be broken, and THIS, perhaps, is the more important lesson of Arthrian lore, and more unique to it- we see the Greeks fighting together in Homer's works, and we see Beowulf performing great deeds by himself and with others, but not in any other work to this point do we really see the fall of not just a man, not just a roay court, not just a nation, but a nation's SOUL. Troy was burnt, but the Trojan spirit didn't die with it. When Camelot goes, it GOES. It doesn't have the seeds for revival or continuance... we've LOST IT, can't get it BACK (in the literal sense), and we as readers have to realize what was just lost forever, and WHY. It's not jsut that Camelot falls, and not even that it falls because of a fight for power- it's that this was BUILDING, even in the good times. This was COMING. AVOIDABLE; it can be argued that the prophetic visions in some versions by Merlin stating how Camelot shall fall seals their fate, but this is an inconsistent part in the stories, isn't always there or the same, and it still is ALWAYS seen as an avoidable tragedy. Did Lancelot and Guinevere really NEED to test Athur's love, betray it? Did Arthur, in spite of the Round Table, still play favorites a bit... we hear he has so many knights, but he professes time and again how much he loves Lancelot and Gawain and Galahad and Bedivere, his sort of Fab Four. It sews jealousy and creates some of literature's first CLIQUES. The Round Table is still equal... and yet it's NOT. Would Agravain and his follower knights have gone along with Sir Mordred to expose Lancelot and break up the Table if they didn't dislike Lancelot already for stealing so much attention? From bad to worse, that Fab Four breaks- Galahad leaves after the Holy Grail quest, and so Bedivere and Gawain remain loyal to Arthur... Lancelot flirts with Guinevere and cultivates his own following with bors and others on HIS side. Lancelot and Gawain, once scuh perfect friends and essentially brothers, become enemies after each commits a rash act, Gawain refusing point-blank to guard Guinevere during her exectuion but then not push the issue and just sitting back and letting brothers Gareth and Gaheris do the job; Lancelot saves Guinevere from the stake but kills two masked guards... Gareth and Gaheris. Lancelot didn't KNOW he'd killed his friends sn Gawain's brothers, and Gawain didn't KNOW his staying allof could cost lives... but the deed's done. And so two of the soundest friends in literature to that point become enemies, Lancelot ridden with guilt and Gawain driven mad with incurable anger. Camlaaan, the Last Battle, sees it happen AGAIN, as if to drive the point home even MORE- Mordred and Arthur are to come to an accord for jsut a day, Arthur just has to get through the day and then Lancelot will reunite with him, they'll defeat Mordred, and camelot, however scarred, will be saved. But no, a random knight acts on impulse to draw his sword, and the slightest movement, the tiniest mistake costs the world the Round table. But ALL of these deaths were preventable way back at the start- if those cliques never form, the Table doesn't break, and so we get a message that's not analyzed much but is known, if not through the works then from future novles and media inspired by the Arthur stories and Mallory's book, all across the West: you DO get by with a little help from your friends, you NEED friends to stay yourself, friendship and loyalty is of immense imprtance, and the INSTANT that's take for granted or forgotten...
+Chivalry: Again, the idea is popularized by the Arthurian legends\
+Courage, Redemption, and Christianity: From "Green Knight" to the Holy Grail story, the questions of what's courageous, how to redeem oneself, and Christian ideals are prominant throughout the stories. What's courage? Is it Gawain kneeling, readying to take the axe-blow from the Green Knight he believes will kill him? Is it Lancelot saving the damsel? Gareth fighting for his lady when no one, not even HIS LADY, beleives in him? Galahad foresaking all worly ideals to attempt a spiritual sort of courage to get the Grail? Interestingly, all four of these famous stories of courage double as a story about repemption- Gawain seeking to prove himself a worthy knight after his first quest ends in disaster, Lancelot attempting to offset his sin of lust by savig the day over and over, Gareth redeeming the reputation of his fellow knights by succeeding not only in his quest but his coutresy towards women, and Galahad seeking to redeem all of Camelot, indeed, all of man in the tradtional Christian sense by living so free of sin he may drink from the Holy Grail and show man to still be worth something. The Grail Story in particular creates an interesting argument for how we should live by showing us all the notable, best knights, how they go about looking for the Grail... and what becomes of their wanderings. Galahad takes a spiritual and contemplative quest, and succeeds; Lancelot takes it as just one more thing to be best at, and not only fails but feels ashamed of WHY he's failed for not realizing the importance of being at least somewhat spirtiual; Gawain taking Lancelot's approach but faring just better as he DOES, in the end, see the spiritual meaning before it's altogether too late... on and on, showing us who to live, what's a virtue, and why
+Mentoring: Arthur/Merlin is the classic student/teacher archetype; from Obi-Wan/Luke to Harry Potter/Dumbledore, and more classical stories before these, the archetype stands, the wise old man and the destined young man eager for growth and knowledge.

Obiwan - I have read and seen Godot multiple times, and as it goes on, I realize that it is neither a profound nor an interesting play. It is at times clever, but it is primarily frustrating - not a purposeful or artistic sense, but in a way that comes from its lack of substance or quality. I understand the impulse to interpret a vague sense of confusion coupled with ethos as the profound, but Beckett isn't that good.