This book examines 'great ideas'- the term used generically to refer to the deep-seated anxieties that art, religion and philosophy all seek to address- in relation to a selection of great literary texts. The texts chosen are those that remain, often centuries after their appearance, beacons of illumination and wisdom. The twelve chapters of this book each deal with one great text and the central idea that propels it. The ideas are examined as events possessed of their own field of resonance, and it is by tracing them in their narrative, dramatic or lyrical development that one can appreciate how these great texts speak as powerfully as they do to generations of readers.