Part of the conceit behind the "Great Books" movement is that history is more likely to secure its greatest works.
But if you think about it, were some great calamity to strike earth today and wipe out most or all of human civilization, the literary artifacts most likely to survive would be pop bestsellers like The DaVinci Code or the Harry Potter series.
It's reasonable to infer, then, that the works of Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Hesiod were but the pulp fiction of their day. Imagine what's been lost.
(Via 3 Quarks Daily.)
