Western canon
Encyclopedia
The term Western canon denotes a canon of book
s and, more broadly, music and art
that have been the most important and influential
in shaping Western culture
. As such, it includes the "greatest
works of artistic merit
." Such a canon is important to the theory of educational perennialism
and the development of "high culture
". In practice, debates and attempts to define the canon in lists are essentially restricted to literature
, including poetry
, fiction
and drama
; biographical and autobiographical writings; philosophy
; and history. A few accessible books on the science
s and mathematics are also included.
lists of most important works include the following:
University reading lists reflect the Western canon:
Longer, more comprehensive, lists include the following:
Chronological brackets
has said: "In my experience there never was, in fact, a fixed 'canon'; there was rather a certain set of tentative judgments about what had importance and quality. Such judgments are always subject to revision, and in fact they were constantly being revised."
One of the notable attempts at compiling an authoritative canon in the English
-speaking world was the Great Books of the Western World
program. This program, developed in the middle third of the 20th century, grew out of the curriculum at the University of Chicago
. University president Robert Hutchins
and his collaborator Mortimer Adler
developed a program that offered reading lists, books, and organizational strategies for reading clubs to the general public.
An earlier attempt, the Harvard Classics
(1909), was promulgated by Harvard University president Charles W. Eliot, whose thesis was the same as Carlyle's:
, feminism
, critical race theory
, and Marxist attacks against capitalism and classical liberal
principles. In the United States
, in particular, the canon has been attacked as a compendium of books written mainly by "dead European men
", that does not represent the viewpoints of many in contemporary societies around the world. Allan Bloom
in his 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind
, has disagreed strongly. Yale University
Professor of Humanities Harold Bloom
(no relation to Allan) has also argued strongly in favor of the canon, and in general the canon remains as a represented idea in many institutions, though its implications continue to be debated.
Defenders maintain that those who undermine the canon do so out of primarily political interests, and that such criticisms are misguided and/or disingenuous. As John Searle
has written:
One of the main objections to a canon of literature is the question of authority
—who should have the power to determine what works are worth reading and teaching? Searle's rebuttal suggests that "one obvious difficulty with it [i.e., arguments against hierarchical ranking of books] is that if it were valid, it would argue against any set of required readings whatever; indeed, any list you care to make about anything automatically creates two categories, those that are on the list and those that are not."
such as some epic poems, poetry
, music
, drama
, novel
s, and other assorted forms of literature
from the many diverse Western (and more recently non-Western) culture
s. Many non-fiction works are also listed, primarily from the areas of religion
, mythology
, science
, philosophy
, psychology
, economics
, politics
, and history
.
Works which directly address the canon (both for and against):
Western literature
Western literature refers to the literature written in the languages of Europe, including the ones belonging to the Indo-European language family as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque, Hungarian, and so forth...
s and, more broadly, music and art
Western art history
Western art is the art of the North American and European countries, and art created in the forms accepted by those countries.Written histories of Western art often begin with the art of the Ancient Middle East, Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Aegean civilisations, dating from the 3rd millennium BC...
that have been the most important and influential
Power (sociology)
Power is a measurement of an entity's ability to control its environment, including the behavior of other entities. The term authority is often used for power perceived as legitimate by the social structure. Power can be seen as evil or unjust, but the exercise of power is accepted as endemic to...
in shaping Western culture
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
. As such, it includes the "greatest
Greatness
Since the publication of Francis Galton’s Hereditary Genius in 1869, and especially with the accelerated development of intelligence tests in the early 1900s, there has been a vast amount of social scientific research published relative to the question of ‘greatness’...
works of artistic merit
Artistic merit
Artistic merit is a term that is used in relation to cultural products when referring to the judgment of their perceived quality or value as works of art....
." Such a canon is important to the theory of educational perennialism
Educational perennialism
Perennialists believe that one should teach the things that one deems to be of everlasting importance to all people everywhere. They believe that the most important topics develop a person. Since details of fact change constantly, these cannot be the most important. Therefore, one should teach...
and the development of "high culture
High culture
High culture is a term, now used in a number of different ways in academic discourse, whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture...
". In practice, debates and attempts to define the canon in lists are essentially restricted to literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, including poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
and drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
; biographical and autobiographical writings; philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
; and history. A few accessible books on the science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
s and mathematics are also included.
Examples
Examples of shorter canonicalCanonical
Canonical is an adjective derived from canon. Canon comes from the greek word κανών kanon, "rule" or "measuring stick" , and is used in various meanings....
lists of most important works include the following:
- Great BooksGreat BooksGreat Books refers primarily to a group of books that tradition, and various institutions and authorities, have regarded as constituting or best expressing the foundations of Western culture ; derivatively the term also refers to a curriculum or method of education based around a list of such books...
- Great Books of the Western WorldGreat Books of the Western WorldGreat Books of the Western World is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952 by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. to present the western canon in a single package of 54 volumes. The series is now in its second edition and contains 60 volumes.-History:The project got its start...
- The Harvard ClassicsHarvard ClassicsThe Harvard Classics, originally known as Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf, is a 51-volume anthology of classic works from world literature, compiled and edited by Harvard University president Charles W...
- Yale CollegeYale CollegeYale College was the official name of Yale University from 1718 to 1887. The name now refers to the undergraduate part of the university. Each undergraduate student is assigned to one of 12 residential colleges.-Residential colleges:...
Directed StudiesDirected Studies at Yale UniversityDirected Studies at Yale University is a selective humanities study program for freshmen. It follows the Great Books of the Western tradition, and resembles Princeton University's Interdisciplinary Approaches to Western Culture, Columbia University's Core Curriculum, The University of Notre Dame's...
curriculum
University reading lists reflect the Western canon:
- Colgate UniversityColgate UniversityColgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York, USA. The school was founded in 1819 as a Baptist seminary and later became non-denominational. It is named for the Colgate family who greatly contributed to the university's endowment in the 19th century.Colgate has 52...
's required Western Traditions class - Columbia College Core Curriculum
- Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
's Interdisciplinary Approaches to Western Culture - St. John's College reading list
- Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
's Program in Structured Liberal EducationStructured Liberal EducationStructured Liberal Education is a program at Stanford University offering an alternative three-course sequence for freshmen to fulfill their Introduction to the Humanities and Program in Writing and Rhetoric requirements...
curriculum - University of ChicagoUniversity of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
Common CoreCommon coreThe Common Core is the University of Chicago's implementation of the Great Books program for its college. These courses cover topics in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics, and sciences. It forms the general education requirements for the college and uses the Socratic method to teach... - University of Notre DameUniversity of Notre DameThe University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...
's Program of Liberal Studies curriculum - New York UniversityNew York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
's mandatory Conversations of the West course
Longer, more comprehensive, lists include the following:
- Everyman's LibraryEveryman's LibraryEveryman's Library is a series of reprinted classic literature currently published in hardback by Random House. It was originally an imprint of J. M. Dent , who continue to publish Everyman Classics in paperback.J. M. Dent and Company began to publish the series in 1906...
(Modern works) - The Modern Library
- Penguin Classics
Chronological brackets
- Philosopher John SearleJohn SearleJohn Rogers Searle is an American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.-Biography:...
suggests that the Western canon can be roughly defined as "a certain Western intellectual tradition that goes from, say, SocratesSocratesSocrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
to Wittgenstein in philosophy, and from HomerHomerIn the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
to James JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
in literature..."
Origins
The process of listmaking—defining the boundaries of the canon—is endless. The philosopher John SearleJohn Searle
John Rogers Searle is an American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.-Biography:...
has said: "In my experience there never was, in fact, a fixed 'canon'; there was rather a certain set of tentative judgments about what had importance and quality. Such judgments are always subject to revision, and in fact they were constantly being revised."
One of the notable attempts at compiling an authoritative canon in the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
-speaking world was the Great Books of the Western World
Great Books of the Western World
Great Books of the Western World is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952 by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. to present the western canon in a single package of 54 volumes. The series is now in its second edition and contains 60 volumes.-History:The project got its start...
program. This program, developed in the middle third of the 20th century, grew out of the curriculum at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. University president Robert Hutchins
Robert Hutchins
Robert Maynard Hutchins , was an educational philosopher, dean of Yale Law School , and president and chancellor of the University of Chicago. He was the husband of novelist Maude Hutchins...
and his collaborator Mortimer Adler
Mortimer Adler
Mortimer Jerome Adler was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for the longest stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California...
developed a program that offered reading lists, books, and organizational strategies for reading clubs to the general public.
An earlier attempt, the Harvard Classics
Harvard Classics
The Harvard Classics, originally known as Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf, is a 51-volume anthology of classic works from world literature, compiled and edited by Harvard University president Charles W...
(1909), was promulgated by Harvard University president Charles W. Eliot, whose thesis was the same as Carlyle's:
Debate
There has been an ongoing, intensely political debate over the nature and status of the canon since at least the 1960s, much of which is rooted in critical theoryCritical theory
Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
, feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, critical race theory
Critical race theory
Critical Race Theory is an academic discipline focused upon the intersection of race, law and power.Although no set of canonical doctrines or methodologies defines CRT, the movement is loosely unified by two common areas of inquiry...
, and Marxist attacks against capitalism and classical liberal
Classical liberalism
Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....
principles. In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, in particular, the canon has been attacked as a compendium of books written mainly by "dead European men
Dead white males
Dead white males or Dead White European Males is a derogatory term that refers to a purportedly disproportionate academic focus on contributions to historical and contemporary Western civilization made by European males....
", that does not represent the viewpoints of many in contemporary societies around the world. Allan Bloom
Allan Bloom
Allan David Bloom was an American philosopher, classicist, and academic. He studied under David Grene, Leo Strauss, Richard McKeon and Alexandre Kojève. He subsequently taught at Cornell University, the University of Toronto, Yale University, École Normale Supérieure of Paris, and the University...
in his 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind
The Closing of the American Mind
The Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom , describes "how higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today's students." He focuses especially upon the "openness" of relativism as leading paradoxically to the great "closing" referenced in the book's title...
, has disagreed strongly. Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
Professor of Humanities Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
(no relation to Allan) has also argued strongly in favor of the canon, and in general the canon remains as a represented idea in many institutions, though its implications continue to be debated.
Defenders maintain that those who undermine the canon do so out of primarily political interests, and that such criticisms are misguided and/or disingenuous. As John Searle
John Searle
John Rogers Searle is an American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.-Biography:...
has written:
One of the main objections to a canon of literature is the question of authority
Authority
The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...
—who should have the power to determine what works are worth reading and teaching? Searle's rebuttal suggests that "one obvious difficulty with it [i.e., arguments against hierarchical ranking of books] is that if it were valid, it would argue against any set of required readings whatever; indeed, any list you care to make about anything automatically creates two categories, those that are on the list and those that are not."
Works
Works which are commonly included in the canon include works of fictionFiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
such as some epic poems, poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
, novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s, and other assorted forms of literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
from the many diverse Western (and more recently non-Western) culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
s. Many non-fiction works are also listed, primarily from the areas of religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
, science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, and history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
.
Works which directly address the canon (both for and against):
- Debating the Canon: A Reader from Addison to Nafisi by Lee Morrissey (ISBN 978-1403968203)
- The History of Western Literature by Otto Maria CarpeauxOtto Maria CarpeauxOtto Maria Carpeaux , born Otto Karpfen, was a Brazilian literary critic born in Austria and multilingual scholar.Carpeaux was born in 1900 in Vienna, Austria, to a Jewish family, and lived there until 1939...
(eight volumes, only available in PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
) - The Oldest Dead White European Males and Other Reflections on the Classics by Bernard KnoxBernard KnoxBernard MacGregor Walker Knox was an English classicist, author, and critic who became an American citizen. He was the first director of the Center for Hellenic Studies. In 1992 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Knox for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S...
(ISBN 9780393312331. - Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold BloomHarold BloomHarold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
(ISBN 978-1573227513) - The Western Canon: The Books and School of the AgesThe Western Canon: The Books and School of the AgesThe Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages is a 1994 book by Harold Bloom on Western literature. Bloom defends the concept of the Western canon by focusing on 26 writers whom he sees as central to the canon:*Shakespeare*Dante*Chaucer*Cervantes...
by Harold BloomHarold BloomHarold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
(ISBN 978-1573225144)
See also
- Canons of Elizabethan poetry
- Great ConversationGreat ConversationThe Great Conversation is a characterization of references and allusions made by authors in the Western canon to the works of their predecessors. As such it is a name used in the promotion of the Great Books of the Western World published by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. in 1952...
- Harold BloomHarold BloomHarold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
- Le Mondes 100 Books of the CenturyLe Monde's 100 Books of the CenturyThe 100 Books of the Century is a grading of the books considered as the hundred best of the 20th century, drawn up in the spring of 1999 through a poll conducted by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde....
– books of the 20th century - Modern Library 100 Best Novels – English-language novels of the 20th century
- Scott BuchananScott BuchananScott Milross Buchanan was an American philosopher, educator, and foundation consultant. He is best known as the founder of the Great Books program at St...
- Stringfellow BarrStringfellow BarrStringfellow Barr was an historian, author, and former president of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where he, together with Scott Buchanan, instituted the Great Books curriculum.Barr was the editor of Virginia Quarterly Review from 1931-1937...
- Monateri, Pier Giuseppe for a deep reflection on the concept of "Western Canon" in the field of law
- Banned Books
External links
- "The English Literary Canon - a work in progress"
- "Great Books Lists: Lists of Classics, Eastern and Western"
- "World Canonical Texts"
- "Harold Bloom's canon"
- Harold Bloom's Western Canon, with links to online texts
- "Great Ideas" Website
- A "Great Books" Website
- Western Canon Great Books University
- Columbia College Core Curriculum
- The World's Greatest Books page at Project Gutenberg of Australia