The Library
1780 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
1700–1601 BC
1 work
c. 1700 BC
Akkadian
Anonymous
The lesser gods strike over the work of digging the canals, so humanity is made from clay mixed with the blood of a slain god to take the labour. Then people multiply and their noise keeps Enlil awake, and he sends plague, drought, and finally the flood — from which one man is warned to build a boat.
1200–1101 BC
1 work
standard version c. 1200 BC; older material from c. 2100 BC
Akkadian
Sin-leqi-unninni
A king and the wild man sent to match him become friends, kill a monster and a bull, and then one of them dies. Gilgamesh, unable to accept it, crosses the waters of death to find the survivor of the flood, who tells him how the gods sent it, how he built the boat and sent out the dove, the swallow, and the raven — and who cannot give him what he came for.
301–400
1 work
c. 329–330
Latin
Evangeliorum Libri Quattuor
Juvencus
The gospel story, mostly Matthew, recast in some thirty-two hundred lines of Virgilian hexameter by a Spanish priest of noble birth. The preface says plainly what it is for: Homer and Virgil will burn with the world, but a poem carrying the deeds of Christ will not.
401–500
2 works
c. 405
Latin
Prudentius · 348–c. 413
An epic in which the virtues and vices fight in single combat for possession of the soul, each duel described with Virgilian relish.
c. 425–450
Latin
Carmen Paschale
Sedulius
The gospel story retold in five books of Virgilian hexameters, with the miracles of Christ set against the wonders of the Old Testament.
501–600
2 works
c. 500–510
Latin
De Spiritalis Historiae Gestis
Avitus of Vienne · c. 470–c. 519
Five books of hexameters on creation, the fall, the sentence, the flood, and the crossing of the Red Sea, with a serpent given real rhetorical craft.
544
Latin
De Actibus Apostolorum
Arator · c. 490–c. 550
Acts retold in hexameters and read allegorically throughout, publicly recited over four days in a Roman basilica to enthusiastic crowds.
901–1000
1 work
9th–10th century; authorship disputed
Latin
Attributed to Ekkehard of Saint Gall
A Germanic heroic legend told in Virgilian hexameters by a monk: two hostages escape Attila's court, and old comrades fight each other for treasure until all are maimed.
1001–1100
1 work
c. 1090–1115
Old French
La Chanson de Roland
Anonymous
Charlemagne's rearguard is destroyed at Roncevaux through treachery; Roland refuses to sound his horn until too late, and dies offering his glove to God.
1601–1700
1 work
1667; twelve-book edition 1674
English
John Milton · 1608–1674
The revolt of the angels, the creation, and the fall, written to justify the ways of God to men — and giving Satan the best speeches in the process.
10 of 1780 works