On the other hand, there are many great authors and books which I haven't been able to engage with, but I am unwilling to contest their greatness. I am a huge reader of nautical history and fiction, but can't seem to get into most of Melville work, I don't think he is a bad writer, something about him just doesn't engage me. Ulysses was impenetrable to me, it must be great, or the king has no clothes, I'm not certain which, it was so impenetrable to me that I don't know. I think there is something about trying to define what is great literature that doesn't sit right with me, or at least trying to say that "these are the 100 greatest books ever written."
It's like people who get in arguments about who the greatest guitar player ever was. It's fine to say "I think the greatest guitar player ever is Leo Kottke," but to assert it as fact just seems foolish. Reading the entire list of a 100 greatest books of all times is probably less edifying then following your interest and then looking on amazon and reading whatever people who like what you what you liked also enjoyed. Well that might not be true if you read trashy romance novels, but if you are a serious and open minded reader I think it might be.
I have a simple formula: Great literature shapes language, thought, and feelings. So Bible is great literature, & pretty much anything by William Shakespeare. http://www.scribd.com/doc/13320268/Neologisms-by-Shakespeare > Joyce (We just have to wait and see if James Joyce really did write the "new Bible" (per Jung)).
(Speaking of the film: have you noted that there a just a 2 'individual' characters in that film and the rest are 'repeated patterns'?)
These cultural product provide concise pedagogical content that the larger society absorbs and then, in a "personal" way, each individual applies in (both) his or her internal reflection and external expression. There is pretty much a Persian proverb for every little thing that can happen and most come from "literature" of our greats. Of course, for the serious reader, each of these compact literary forms are gateways to the deeper (occult) content matter.