Do famous works of literature need citations?

When I published a paper on statistical analysis of various texts, which included really famous works, I gave full references. Why I think they are deserved:

• what you consider a famous work may be in fact unknown to a reader and she may become genuinely interested in the work - in that case the more bibliographical data, the better (e.g. call me simple-minded, but I have never heard of Red Sorghum Clan);

• you may be implicitly referring to a passage that was present in particular edition, but was not present in others;

• where do you draw a line between a scientific work and a work of art that does not require a citation?

• in your example you are not citing an original work (which, according to wikipedia is titled 红高粱家族), but a certain derivative work, a translation, done by a certain translator, who - inter alia - came with the English version of the title. I think one should then give precise pointers to this translation.

Also, check whether your manual of style says anything on the matter.

To the revised and clarified question, I think the answer is clearly no. We give citations so that readers can, in principle, compare what we saying about a text to what's actually written there, or to send them somewhere for more information. In the kind of situation you describe, the mentioned text plays a fundamentally different role. It's more closely analogous to saying, "Think of any famous building, say the cathedral of Notre Dame." You wouldn't give a citation to the building.

If I refer to a specific work, I would cite it.

However, in some fields is common to read articles that name work without citing the original paper. For example, recent hydraulics papers will refer to "Saint-Venant equations" or "Manning formula" without citing the original publication, because those are very well-known and over a century old.