**********************************
The Western Canon Mailing List
Moderator: Paul John Barnette Jr.
Activation Date: March 8, 1997
Current Date:  May 18, 1997
Current Membership: 56
**********************************


   Hello all. My name is Monzia Moodie and I must first say that I am
absolutely relieved that there is a place on the Internet that is
commited to the preservation and seriousness and enjoyment of great
literature in all its complexities and beauty. I hope this will be an
enlightened and enlightening encounter of open minds.       

    Entering this debate (The Great Canon Debate--If one can call it
that) first as a practicing reader then as a practicing writer I 
began to wonder, as all studious readers/writers must at some point 
do, what makes a book or literature or writing great, canonical.  
What signals permanence in the art, the artifice, the craft that is 
writing?  Who sets the standards? (the critics? the literate masses? 
no?; Harold Bloom?)  Who raises the bar a notch? (I should hope the 
writer does) Who (or What) says "this is good" by "this" standard?  
Where does the aesthetic lie?  Does it matter?  

    After reading, from many quarters, all there has to be said on
this topic, these questions, this Great Debate I have come to believe 
that the answer(s) lies not with the critic or philosophers or great 
men (and women) but purely with and within the conscious 
readers/writers. That that is where the canon is made, preserved, 
polished.  It is the complex play, dance, relationship, argument (if 
a work inspires such things) between the reader and the writer that 
produces great art.  It seems to me that no one (at least none that 
I've read) has done a critical or satifactory study on such an urgent 
and, to me, basic consideration. Too deep?  It is not.  Everyone 
agrees that there is and should be a canon.  Fine.  But what no one 
asks, agrees upon, or answers is What does a canon represent: who is 
represented? I say it is the consciuos reader/writer; no one else.  

    If there is anyone who is interested in picking up the argument
where I left off or commenting on it thus far I would be happy to 
continue, to provide the basis of my thesis.  

(Moderator's Note: The following is Monzia's response to the
Western Canon #019 posting)

  What about Toni Morrison?  Surely, she belongs within this
distinguished pantheon.  Don't you think so?


*********************************************************
The Western Canon Mailing List
pbarnett@geocities.com
The Western Canon WWW Site
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6681/index.html
*********************************************************