The works of Homer, Shakespeare, and Joyce each probably have thousands or maybe tens of thousands of pages of commentary. Scholars have been writing about The Iliad and The Odyssey for over 2000 years. Joyce fans started trying to decipher Ulysses as soon as it came out, and are still publishing books about it. You could make a whole hobby out of reading about Shakespeare and find a community of people who share that hobby.
I'm not sure if Wuthering Heights, Don Quixote, or Gilgamesh has the same quantity of analysis.
I assume that the most analyzed book in the world is The Bible. I wonder if there's a world record for the most writing about a non-religious text.
What are some other books and authors that are the subjects of large amounts of literary analysis? What books have communities built around discussing them?
I realize that there are a lot of contemporary books and authors that have vibrant online fan communities: Cosmere, Stephen King, Twilight, Hunger Games, etc. While I think that there could be a very good discussion about those, that feels like a separate conversation. In this thread, I'm interested in talking about the type of books that have withstood the test of time.
by MDB_1987