Great Books Bracket Round 2

Welcome to Round 2 of the 2014 Great Books Bracket.

Round 1 was, shall we say, full of surprises. It appears that the Lutherans banded together and pushed Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will through to the second round in a fairly monumental upset over Aristotle’s seminal and incredibly important Organon. That or a lot of you just don’t like logic. Meanwhile, in the same bracket, Euclid’s Works managed to secure the similarly surprising upset against the works of the Cappadocian Fathers. Our response: No comment.

Other upsets included Sir Gawain and the Green Knight‘s victory over Oedipus Rex, Shakespeare’s Comedies win over The Institute’s of Christian Religion, and Beowulf‘s route over Bede’s History of the English Speaking People, and, finally, Euripede’s Plays upset Plato’s Timaeus.

Here is the updated bracket.

ROUND 2 VOTING IS NOW OVER

For those interested in a more detailed breakdown here’s the percentage breakdowns of the matchups (winners in bold).

REGION A

1 The Iliad (88%) vs 16 The Song of Roland (12%)
8 Plato’s Meno (46%) vs 9 Plato’s Phaedrus (54%)
5 Nicomachean Ethics (67%) vs 12 Aristophanes Plays (33%)
4 Hesiod’s Theogany (82%) vs 13 Kepler’s Works (18%)
6 Antigone (51%) vs 11 Thucydides History (49%)
3 Plato’s Timaeus (42%) vs 14 Euripedes’ Plays (58%)
7 Plutarch’s Lives (87%) vs 10 Caesar’s Civil Wars (13%)
2 The Aeneid (91%) vs 15 Ptolemy’s Works (9%)

REGION B

1 The Odyssey (97%) vs 16 Hippocrates Works (3%)
8 Aristotle’s Poetics (26%) vs 9 Aesops’ Fables (74%)
5 Aristotle’s Rhetoric (79%) vs Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things (21%)
4 The Canterbury Tales (72%) vs 13 Don Quixote (28%)
6 Shakespeare’s Tragedies (88%) vs 11 Marcus Aurelius Meditations (12%)
3 Augustine’s Confessions (89%) vs 14 Works of Maximus the Confessor (11%)
7 Institutes of Christian Religion (36%) vs 10 Shakespeare’s Comedies (64%)
2 Incarnation of Christ (86%) vs Theodoret’s Ecclesiastical History (14%)

REGION C

1 Aristotle’s Metaphysics (64%) vs 16 Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly (36%)
8 Imitation of Christ (82%) vs Annals of Tacitus (18%)
5 Rule of St. Benedict (75%) vs 12 Virgil’s Poetics (25%)
4 Consolation of Philosophy (57%) vs 13 Archimedes’ Works (43%)
6 Oedipus Rex (43%) vs 11 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (57%)
3 Summa Theologica (69%) vs 14 Cicero’s Orations (31%)
7 The Agammemnon (64%) vs 10 The Works of John of Damascus (36%)
2 The Divine Comedy (88%) vs 15 Works of Copernicus (12%)

REGION D

1 Aristotle’s Organon (44%) vs 16 Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will (56%)
8 Herodotus History (56%) vs 9 Livy’s History (44%)
5 Homilies of John Chrysostom (63%) vs 12 Works of Justin Martyr (37%)
4 Paradise Lost (69%) vs Shakespeare’s Histories (31%)
6 Bede’s History of the English Speaking People (22%) vs 11 Beowulf (78%)
3 Cappadocian Fathers (45%) vs 14 Euclid’s Works (55%)
7 Aristotle’s Rhetoric (57%) vs 10 Ovid’s Metamorphoses (43%)
2 Plato’s Republic (96%) vs 15 Hooker’s Laws… (4%)