Western canon/Talk

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

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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.