Contrary to popular belief it is not lack of intelligence nor good breeding that leaves those citizens of the late 20th and early 21st century unwilling to read great literature of the past. Rather, it is unfamiliarity with the mythology that is used as allusion in most of the greatest works, such as Milton's Paradise Lost.Thankfully, an obscure but industrious banking clerk named Thomas Bullfinch used his spare time througout his life to create one of the 2 definitive mythology introductions for the non-specialist back in the late 18th and early 19th century.Available in book form as well as online.Have a great summer.http://www.bulfinch.org/bulpref.html

More kudos to the unsung hero of literature and finance's connection to great literature:http://www.bulfinch.org/bulfinch.html

"Available in book form as well as online." Is it also available in audio format? I'd love to take a shortcut to the shortcut to reading the greatest literature while commuting.

www.teach12.comis the closest that I know of....

George Polti reduced Bullfinch even further in the 36 Dramatic Situations. His brevity of all the plots of world literature approach almost.....(wait for it)......mathematical precision. And hence modelability.Polti, Georges. The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations. trans. Lucille Ray. Polti claims to be trying to reconstruct the 36 plots that Goethe alleges someone named [Carlo] Gozzi came up with. More complete details of this schema can be found in the Stumpers-L archive at: gopher://gopher.cuis.edu:70/0R2300474-2326630-gopher_root%3A%5Bsearchidx%5Dstumpers-l_1999-02.txtFor bizzare departures from this reductio ab absurdum worldview, see:http://users.aol.com/bigsecrets/Keeler/ ... tmlWarning: after reading Bullfinch and Polti the transparency of literature increases exponentially, and it becomes harder to be amused.Plato never warned us that emerging from the cave and finally seeing the real tree would leave us like Alexander weeping in Persia for no more worlds to conquer.