Question: What type of influence matters in a canon?

[lawpark]

And even Rome - the appeal for Europe seems to be the unified empire for Europe (and beyond), while for US seems to be the (once) democratic republic that somehow stills drive a war machine and is a world hegemon.

But the fact that the democratic republic couldn't sustain itself (and became an Empire), and then as Empire, which gets transformed into a military dictatorship -- clearly not as welcomed in the modern world vs. civil bureaucratic government -- even this does not detract from Rome's appeal somehow.

[stlukesguild]

I think we might need to think a bit more here ... Asians actually are numerically much stronger than Europe ... and just Chinese (if you consider them Asians) have printing just about 500 years longer than Europe, with being literate as pretty much to get to the most coveted career path of being a literati-bureaucrat.

My comment was addressed to the complaint that the so-called Western Canon was almost wholly dominated by white, middle-class, men. The reasons for the absence of women in the arts seems obvious to anyone with the most basic inkling of history (and even so there are more than a few exceptions). The exclusion of non-whites seemed equally obvious when we are talking about the literature predominantly of Europe... with the inclusion of the Americas around 1850 when one considers just how few Asians, Blacks, or other minorities lived in Europe... let alone were educated and literate.

World literature is another issue altogether. Undoubtedly the literature of China, Japan, India, Persia, etc... can quite well rival that of the West

[stlukesguild]

Greek definitely has more literary works than Persia

That is certainly debatable. It may seem as such to us considering our limited access to Persian literature and the fact that Greece was long seen as the foundation of the West... resulting in a level of scholarship, research, translation, and archaeology far beyond that expended upon the literature of Persia. Most who have read Firdowsi rank him as an equal to Homer, Virgil, or Dante... yet how many here have even heard of him... let alone read the Shahnameh?

[JBI]

I think we might need to think a bit more here ... Asians actually are numerically much stronger than Europe ... and just Chinese (if you consider them Asians) have printing just about 500 years longer than Europe, with being literate as pretty much to get to the most coveted career path of being a literati-bureaucrat.

My comment was addressed to the complaint that the so-called Western Canon was almost wholly dominated by white, middle-class, men. The reasons for the absence of women in the arts seems obvious to anyone with the most basic inkling of history (and even so there are more than a few exceptions). The exclusion of non-whites seemed equally obvious when we are talking about the literature predominantly of Europe... with the inclusion of the Americas around 1850 when one considers just how few Asians, Blacks, or other minorities lived in Europe... let alone were educated and literate.

World literature is another issue altogether. Undoubtedly the literature of China, Japan, India, Persia, etc... can quite well rival that of the West

The big question is how is study mapped now - for instance, for an European one traditionally would study ones own vernacular vaguely, but focus on Latin, and to a lesser extent after Erasmus, Greek classics as models of education. Later vernacular was mixed in, with German and Italian and French being paired in (and to a lesser extent Spanish and Portuguese) with French being the dominant one.

For Koreans and Japanese people, it was always to turn back to Chinese classics - Genji for instance, in the text has a penchant for Chinese - Koreans had a long history of turning toward Chinese education, and to writing in Chinese up until the 20th century as a form of scholar-class pursuit. Chinese people, in contrast, tended to always only think of their own language, that is, in the classical form, nevermind the regional dialects popping up everywhere, and the outdatedness of the endeavor.


Now with the entering of globalization, if we want to look at how to understand the world of literature, with language being the primary method of understanding, the options are wide open.

One, for instance, can more or less study any language in any order one wants with a base language of English. One can be fluent in any number of languages in any order.

Traditionally, those who study Chinese literature seriously usually look toward Japanese criticism and comparison. Likewise, those who study Chinese philosophy tend to look toward French as a relevant language for scholarship.


The connection through academies provides a world of wild opportunities, if one is thinking of world literature in the global context. Likewise, it also funds the fuel behind translation, which is important in determining what is exactly counted in world literature.

Countries already have picked up on this, and everyone wants their culture read, as it allows for a self-created image of oneself to be internationally exported. British people make a killing selling themselves off as Shakespeare-like-James-Bond-like well groomed gentlemen. The French government is working on keeping the stereotype of French people away from rude and more toward romantic and passionate, the German government is promoting a sense of itself as scholar nation, the United States persists with its image as world savior, captain America to the rescue. All these constructs are part of the big fight of world literature. Our problem is understanding who is counted within the concept of world.

Today's options are rather staggering. We have come a long way from even the Goethe days, Goethe being perhaps the first great World Literature advocate, but still it makes one wonder when the great wave of Arabic, or Persian or Indian literature will hit the mainstream here. For a culture so obsessed with images of Arabs, I am shocked at how difficult it is for me to get a good anthology on Arabic Poetry, much less Persian. Likewise, India seems to do better, but it still feels like there is a wall between the cultures.

Japan was lucky (in some respects) in that the American funding helped bring a generation up enjoying their art and literature. Something like Manga or Anime is an interesting culture exchange, especially since there is a wide range of possibilities, made even more accessible by the American government pouring boatloads into translation and academic grants. Korean literature and culture was less lucky, but I hear now there is huge funding for Korean studies in many universities.

Simply put, what we include in our group of "The world" must first be monitored and translated, it must be accepted. Indonesian literature, for instance, is not first on anyone's list here presumably, whereas Russian literature may very well be - we need to understand why that is before we can talk of a world literature, and white males and who is represented.

[JCamilo]

I suppose his comment was that the canon would not have more white guys since chinese, indians, arabians would not be white guys. But of course, chinese, indians, arabians have also they system of exclusion and cultural imposition just like western have.

But this is irrelevant, even the white european guy was not an unity (the germans will laugh off spanyards, italians consider them more latin than portuguese, etc). So, it is pretty much irrelevant as influence. The good works will leave this area of interest to remain read outside those confort zones. H.G.Hagard is pretty much a good minor example. He survives when people care little for england, imperialism, africa...

[lawpark]

Greek definitely has more literary works than Persia

That is certainly debatable. It may seem as such to us considering our limited access to Persian literature and the fact that Greece was long seen as the foundation of the West... resulting in a level of scholarship, research, translation, and archaeology far beyond that expended upon the literature of Persia. Most who have read Firdowsi rank him as an equal to Homer, Virgil, or Dante... yet how many here have even heard of him... let alone read the Shahnameh?

Sorry for having misread your other comments. On this one, my original comments refer specifically to classical Greek vs. Persian as during the same timeframe (i.e. during the "Achaemenid" Empire). Based on what we do have now, I think we definitely have more Greek texts than old Persian Empire texts ... but of course, it did always make me wonder why the Persians would have left so little texts to posterity - given the obvious fact that the Empire clearly uses literacy as a means of Empire (clearly so from Cyrus' cylinder or the Darius' inscriptions) - was it an issue of lack of creation or more an issue of preservation?