nia, I think they're all British except for Oedipus Rex and the Aeschylus ones, which are ancient Greek tragedies.
siamese, I've read all of them except for Beowulf and the only idea that's coming to my mind is some sort of vague thing about the danger/futility of trying to resist fate, and I'm not even sure if that applies to Canterbury Tales (I read that one for fun a few summers ago. Yes, I'm that much of a dork.)
I would put myself as my avatar, but I always feel like there's something wrong about most of the pics I have of myself. If I'm not having a bad hair day, there's a zit, or I have a weird expression on my face or whatever.
"There was this one time an alarm went off - it was in the middle of '24.' That's just wrong. Everyone knows everyone was watching '24' at that time."
--NYU student quoted in the Washington Square News about students ignoring the frequent fire alarms in dorms