********************************** The Western Canon Mailing List Moderator: Paul John Barnette Jr. Activation Date: March 8, 1997 Current Date: May 18, 1997 Current Membership: 56 ********************************** (In response to Western Canon #023) You make an interesting point regarding the canon. Surely, we all believe some works are better than others but consider an essay I wrote that I hope will be of interest. The Melting Canon: A Defense of Classical Literature "To reject our revered masterpieces is really to reject the political institutions at work in the cultures that produced them" (Krieger 257). The Canon Wars Defined The canon of literature has always been inclusive. I don't know where liberal education gets the idea that the conservative canon keepers wants to exclude all other writings and authors. We don't. It just is very funny when most articles in various English journals deal with the defense of an inclusive canon, as if, they are the only one's that are open to including more writing. Conservative canon keepers are asking that we keep the canon (i.e. Shakespeare, Homer, Chaucer, Twain) read in school because of it's influence on culture and because they are all marks of classic literature that we should know. Knowing the same classic material helps english scholars relate to each other better on an academic level. Although one of the major reasons canon wars continue on is because of the subjective judgment society has placed on literature. Society continues to treat literature like all other art forms. The argument usually follows the line of thinking that because everybody is different and thus expresses themselves in different ways then who is anyone to tell anyone how to express one's self. Sound confusing? It should. It's called relativism and it's creeping all over the canon wars. The problem is that we do know what good literature is but nobody is willing to weigh the good literature with other pieces of literature. For instance, weigh Chaucer with Laura Esquivel or Milton with Alice Walker. Do you see the problem? We may study both works and say tha there is much more meat and style in Chaucer and Milton, obviously classic material, but Esquivel and Walker are a different brand all together, it's like comparing a top of the line Rolls Royce and a top of the line Geo Metro. They are both top of the line but the Rolls has more tenure and class than the Geo. The reason I use such a weird illustration is to help you understand the conflict. There are many different great writers from different cultures and times that are exceptional but they still don't match up to canonical material, as of yet. Although that's the interesting thing, just because these wonderful writers like Esquivel and Walker aren't considered canonical now, doesn't mean in a hundred years they won't because the canon is constantly changing, just like language. But we must be very careful what books we include in our canon. Because though the canon is amoebae-like, taking in new material when the time is right, it is exclusive as of right now in history because we are not ready to give the same merit to any new authors that we have given writers like Shakespeare. And that's the problem canon assaulters have. Another major problem people have towards canonical literature is the place from where it has come from. . After all, most canonical literature is old and written by white, heterosexual males in the western world, right? It is that type of thinking that is destroying great literature and for those that follow that argument are being fooled by a common fallacy called, the red herring fallacy. Instead of dealing with the text itself, people have to attack something irrelevant. It doesn't matter how good the literature may be, if we don't like the author, it must not be good. If we don't like his race or culture than his writing can't be good. I don't want to misrepresent the opposing side so let me explain that the argument on both sides gets much more deeper and unfortunately this is just a brief synopsis for my argument in defense of the canon. The argument usually continues along the line of which cultures deemed these pieces of literature canonical in the first place. Nevertheless, regardless of all the cultural arguments that can be brought against our canon, we can't judge a piece of literature based on a race or era or culture because great writing is great writing, no matter where it's from. In the words of Lillian S. Robinson, scholar and teacher "a classic is `pure,' above race, gender and class, above history"(Robinson22). The reading of classical literature is crucial for two key reasons, reading helps us to understand different world views, cultures and eras, and because reading fuels imagination. "Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness. That's why I have to keep these books locked up in a safe. They're smut" (Huxley 240). Reading Classical literature helps us to understand different world views, cultures, and eras There are thousands of books that propagate different messages to society. These books range anywhere from manuscripts about ancient river cultures in 3500 b.c. dealing with historical information about the Euphrates and Nile rivers down through the ages. To books with the writings of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and so forth. Bonnie S. Sustein, Professor and author of Composing A Culture quotes Arnold Lazarus and Roznee Knudson, from their book Selected Objectives for the English Language Arts in saying that "no country or part of the world has a monopoly on literature; that quite often English and American literature is indepted, in one way or another, to Continental, Near Eastern, and Far Eastern literature" (Sunstein 50). This is a very important concept that many people forget. Classical literature doesn't only come from the Western world, but from all over the world. In Brave New World, Huxley painted a dreary picture of a society that had lost its desire for art, books and nature. He used fiction as a means to propagate his theory's about the future of society. Huxley's allegorical style allowed him to use the the Controller of his society to tell a Savage that he must ". . . choose between happiness and what people used to call high art." The Controller goes on to say that in his society "We have sacrificed the high art. We have the feelies and the scent organ instead." (Huxley 226) Huxley's Marxist world view almost prophetically speaks of today's society. Many of us have chosen to rid ourselves of classical literature "high art" and have instead fled to a different brand of modern literature that can be experienced easier, the "feelies and the scent organs." The excuse for reading these "feelies" is because readers can identify better. I'm not arguing that reading apocryphal material is wrong, but when it's thought to be better reading than canonical literature (i.e. Shakespeare, Chaucer, Homer, etc.), I must retort. These pieces of literature have been passed down throughout the ages, commented on by hundreds of men and women of various cultures and many of which were translated by Greek scholars. And now, our culture has the audacity to say that we can't relate to this Shakespeare anymore. Because we can't identify with these stories. Because we can't experience these stories. The assaulter's gospel message concerning canonical texts being spread is that "good literature [doesn't] match notions of good reading experience" (Sunstein 47). I'm not implying that doesn't happen. But what I am stressing is that good literature has a much better chance of giving students of literature a good experience than that of bad literature. Sanford Pinsker, Shadek Professor of Humanities at Franklin and Marshall College, reports that a new trend among Universities is to throw out the requirements for English Majors to deeply study canonical authors, such as Chaucer or Milton. Pinsker reports that out of "70 institutions surveyed, only 23 require a course on Shakespeare, and many do not even require a survey course. . ." This should not surprise people. Georgetown University has dropped a "Great Authors" class as a requirement for english graduates. Pinsker reports that ". beginning with the class of 1999, students will be obliged to read none of these authors [Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer]. Instead, they will be free to choose among a wide array of election courses such as `Prison Literature' or `History and Theory of Sexuality' " (Pinsker 19). Somehow these teachers either think these books are on an equal plain with the canonical texts of the past or that these new brands of literature will be better grasped by students. Perhaps they are. But should we throw out Chaucer because he wasn't gay. It's ironic but it seems that if these canonical writers weren't heterosexual white males, they would probably be read more. There is so much literature and so little time that I believe we should first delve into the writings that society's throughout the ages have considered classics and then move into the modern writings that may one day be canonical. But nevertheless, we should never stop critiquing, and analyzing these masterpieces. The canon of literature is much like our language, always changing and always growing. "Those who seek only vicarious happiness in their reading are unliterary; but those who pretend that it can never be an ingredient in good reading are wrong" (Lewis 39). Reading fuels imagination Why is imagination important? Because it is the tool by which inventions and creations are made. Without imagination, our culture can not advance efficiently. I'm not saying that we couldn't have invented the wheel without reading Moby Dick. I'm saying that, reading is a very powerful device that powers our minds eye into envisioning new products. Reading helped the world think about space travel. At first the idea of space travel was featured in science-fiction pulp, then it entered scientific journals, now every time a shuttle goes up, we can read about it in the newspaper. Unfortunately, many kids learn early to hate reading because it's the malady that has stripped them from the television. This malady carries over into the teen years and up into adulthood. It's interesting but I believe it's because these people never have stopped to pick up a book to read for pleasure. It's not a stressful thing but rather an informative experience. Reading is the fuel that feeds our imaginations. It can scare us or make us feel secure. It is a way for people from different lands and different times to be able to communicate their ideas about life, culture and society. If our children can learn to love literature just think of the future inventions and creations our world can produce. Many Teachers rarely discuss the importance of reading, they would rather just assign it. Many teachers will lecture weeks on end about a certain character in some book that has been stuffed in a locker collecting dust. Why? Because children don't know what they're missing. It's sad but the parents job of reading to their children has slowly been dismantling. Parents should read to them. Children should desire a new story each night, because reading can take us places, dreams can't. "We hold our breath with anxiety while the Cyclops gropes over the ram that bears Odysseus, while we wonder how Phedre (and Hippolyte) will react to the unexpected return of Thesee, or how the disgrace of the Bennet family will affect Darcy's love for Elizabeth. Our inquisitiveness is strongly excited by the first part of The Confessions of a Justified Sinner or the change in General Tilney's behavior. We long to discover Pip's unknown benefactor in Great Expectations" (qtd. Lewis 38) It is this type of literature that draws us back to reading again and again. The accounts of Homer's Iliad blow away the average pulp fiction. Every page is a new conflict, and new motive, a new story. Just reading the first book of the Iliad, which is no more than twenty pages long. covers nearly 10 different conflicts, entailing background information on various characters and Greek gods. Reading classics like Homer's canonical literature is like watching a movie with a thousand sub-plots. There is just no room to breath when reading classic literature. Every page is a new adventure. Every page must be defended Michael Delgado ********************************************************* The Western Canon Mailing List pbarnett@geocities.com The Western Canon WWW Site http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6681/index.html *********************************************************