I think this article is a good beginning, but could someone help in producing a good opening definition and history of the canon? What we have here is a very brief def, a big paragraph of how it has been under attack (without much discussion of WHY) and then the list which i have started and which has grown a bit. The canon is a problem of duality: we need to anchor more strongly why it exists both historically and socially, and then why it has been opposed (for good and for ill). I know the issues at stake in general, but I will need to find the time to do more research if I were to flesh out this article any more than it is. Is someone else more fluent in the canon debate? Please help. --
trimalchio
Where does this list come from? It doesn't mention Plato or Aristotle, and yet it mentions Salman Rushdie! They have been FAR more influential on the development of Western civilisation than Rushdie ever will be.
Not only that, who decides who is in and out of the canon? Any attempt to draw up a list can't be objective, its just going to end up as a "list of works anonymous likes". -- SJK
- Well, the list is ongoing. If you think its insufficient, add people to it. But you can't accurately describe the Western canon in literature without some sort of list. That's the whole point of a canon. But I agree wholeheartedly that the very idea of choosing who is and is not on the list is a problematic and controversial endeavor. Does anyone know a Canon expert (not that any one "expert" would be of tremendous help)? I also put a second list header, people who may be considered to belong on the canon. Maybe move more minor authors there. Just don't freak out. I agree that the idea of a western canon is a real mess, but I didn't invent it. And who said literature was an objective subject? Pretending that there is virtually anything objective about literature is a misdirection of worry. One might argue that the very idea of a Western Canon stems from the misplaced assumption that literature COULD be considered objectively. anyway, these issues need to be addressed somehow in the article itself. -t
- I added names to the list because it was extremely short (only Homer and Shakespeare). Of course, my choices were subjective, and everyone elses will be too. Maybe it's better to have some examples of canon lists during the times to show how the canon has changed. --Tsja
- The problem with that Tsja is that I don't believe there really have been canon lists. A canon of sorts has always existed, in the sense that certain works have always been studied and considered important, but I doubt many people ever explicitly listed what works were in it. Besides, the canon is a fuzzy set -- its not a question of works being in or out, but of degree. A list, being inherently binary, can't really capture the true nature of the canon. (I suppose you could in theory give a list with a number (0-1) showing the degree to which each work belongs to the canon, but good luck finding an objective means of calculating it.) -- SJK
- The best way to add lists is to add more than one coherent list developed by outside sources, and then commment on what the list leaves out and what it chooses. For example, the reading list from one of the 'Great Books' programs - either Mortimer Adler's or the curricular list from St. John's College of Annapolis. That way we won't have yet another 'Famous Authors' list with endless bickering (I for one don't think Rushdie belongs on the Western Canon. He's an interesting case, though). It's actually very interesting to compare the publishers list for Penguin's World Classics with major French publishing houses (I wrote a paper on the topic long ago and far away). The overlap outside their own national literatures was considerable, but not identical. --MichaelTinkler
Harold Bloom's list of the Western Canon is here:
http://www.literarycritic.com/bloom.htm
It might be a good start.
--AV
- I'll put it among external links on the page. Thanks, Anatoly!
<IANAL> However, we cannot include the list itself because
- it was first published on or after January 1, 1923 (US copyright statute), and/or
- one of the authors was surviving on or after January 1, 1931 (EU copyright treaty).
See
Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act for information on relevant recent developments in copyright law. </IANAL> --
Damian Yerrick
- However, it is simply a list of books, which probably can't be put under copyright. I'm not a laywer either. We should really get a copyright laywer hooked on Wikipedia. --STG
- It might qualify as a "compilation" which is protected under copyright law: "a work formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship." This quote comes from a text I received from Susan Kornfield, J.D. when she spoke to my class on copyright law for writers. her email address is: skornfield@bodmanlongley.com and I think the issue might be well addressed by her. She's a cool lady... or at least seemed so for the brief minute that I met her personally after class. --t
I think if we included a copy of Harold Blooms list and other lists also, for the sole purpose of commenting upon them and comparing them, that would fit within fair use requirements I suspect. The other possibility is that we ask him -- he might not mind us including a copy, if we explain why we want to. Also, MichaelTinkler, about that paper you said you wrote years ago: could that be used in Wikipedia? Would its content be suitable? -- SJK
- Yep, but it was very unambitious (it was a presentation write up for a seminar on What are the Liberal Arts/What? is a Liberal Arts Education?). I'll look around. It's fun to compare people's reading lists. --MichaelTinkler
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