The other "Canon"

[JCamilo]

Geography? But what does Dante is exactly to deny the geography of itaian peninsule at that time and claim a tradition for a new geography (not of Rome, but italy which is what Dante asks for. The roman empire was already the mode of the Church and dante is not just repeating them.) and even the flourishing of his city is due the east contact by commerce, the whole Marco Polo travel. Virgil is a model, but Dante drinks on Agustyn (African), Averrois (muslim), Rome (Cicer, Ovid, Boethius), Cavalcanti and cia (Florence), the hebrew (bbile). If anything, it is safe to know that Dante also defy the geography, and mix all in a idea that is a the classic tradition.

I would not imagine the idea of west with Dante. Not while the Roman empire had already his political problems related to his own division in west/east. The colonial ideas - specially the benefector colonialist, which is what works for real is there already. It is based on commerce like rome, supported by militar power, with law and social beneficts and one hand that allow the culture of conquered to exist (to allow the metropolis to absorv it cheaply to his own) and yet, to have his own culture admired. This is all rome, this is all that Alexander started. Of course, until him, the west was the poor guy, resisting invasions, for while Alexander changed it, but it was only definitive with Rome. Then they withdraw with the huns and musims and return with the XV age of discovery... But all really repeating the commercial routine of Rome, which already absorved oriental influences (Alexandria library was there, Zoroastrism, Christianism).

[ralfyman]

Administrators of what? There is no such thing as Administrators of Canonical works, Shinning brotherhood of Classics, anything as such. Even Academies, english and american academies have different approaches to literature (or even other fields, as one give more credit to Freud, while other dont)....

Administrators of schools, which teachers who "are quite influential" follow.

And of course Rules of market do not command just anthologies, but they do not command the canonical process either, which is what matters here.

I don't understand this sentence.

Explain to me how.

One may be stuck with Harry Potter because it is heavily marketed.

I am saying, his list, possible the most popular list of canon in the recent years, has almost no influence and is pointless as guidance. As you should see by your worlds : the list does not solve the problem of acessibility of books or any of the very "negociations" that lead someone to read or like a book. (I will add that like JBI points, the list make it a geographical busines, which is false. It also makes some short of chronological organization. False too. And put together works which give no clue to the reader if he will conect with those works).

If it is possibly "the most popular list of canon in the recent years," then why do you argue that it "has almost no influence"? If it has almost no influence, then it cannot be "popular."

Next, it is certainly pointless, but very likely only for those who don't know how to order from online stores and buy used copies, which is what I've been able to do, or to use places like libraries or to consider collections like the GBWW. In general, I find such an excuse irrelevant.

About "negotiations," you can read his interviews and his other books in order to understand his intellectual formation. If you don't want to follow Bloom, then consider another critic. If you are still not satisfied, then be your own critic and see what "negotiations" you had to go through. In any event, you end up with a canon.

It does not. That is what I said.

My point is that the idea of a canon remains, whether it consists of works selected by Bloom, works selected by another critic, or one driven by the "rules of market."

Nope, but I am saying his list has such influence that is completelly ignored by the younger reader. It is not the list of canon but Harry Potter the one read, so he is missing something.

They are reading Harry Potter likely because it's marketed heavily and not likely because they compared it with many other children's books from the present or the past. That's something that only critics can do.

[Darcy88]

Don't know if anyone's mentioned him yet, but Zhuangzi, Lao Tse's great disciple, would have to have his work included in "the other canon." His thoughts on relativism will turn your brain positively inside out.

[ralfyman]

1 - Bloom and Norton is a reflect of canonization, not the proccess. They give continuity to it, granted, but it is not the main factor.

There is no main factor in canonization but many factors, including what Bloom and others do.

2 - As JBI pointed, the canonization reflects a mentality. Obviously, the more broad it is (the canon since day one, the western canon, the world canon) you will have a caledoscopy of mentalities reflected there.

Not just a mentality but a philosophy based on the realization that there are too many works to consider and not enough time to read all of them.

3 - The public taste is a tricky one. Because it is today something that is confused with the popularity. Even Dante reflected public taste, as difficulty it is. But a narrow public inside a public even narrow of readers. The democratic process of inclusion of readers certainly add more factors to the process of canonization. Not because of popularity per si, but because you will have to include the canonized works of other sources while a process of canonization when artificial is not inclusive, rather selective. So, when Bloom do it, he fails, it is false, it is pointless.

Tricky, but it may remain constant across several generations.

And what Bloom does is not to come up with an "artificial" selection but ironically follow what you wrote. That's why Dante is also found in his list. That's why many of the works found in his list are also found in others.

One of results is the school of resentment. And of course, Bloom as member of a minority (and he attempted to list hebrewish books) should understand that he just cannt deny them. Because it would be judging their influence (which leads to the inclusive process) is basead on poor quality and this is ridiculous as imposing only the european-colonial view.

Actually, the school of resentment takes place across the board. I can imagine years from now how (now older) Harry Potter fans see what replaces Harry. And I'm sure many of Bloom's critics will want to replace his "Hebrewish books" with their own choices. Thus, a "European-colonial" view can be replaced by an opposing view that has the same limitations.

In which case, one should consider Bloom with lists from other critics.

4- A person must understand that a canon is not a ranking. If so, it would be very narrow. But those days, Homer is a canonical as every single of his imitadors of epic tradition. And of course, not all of them are Ovid, Virgil, Dante, Camoes, etc. Some are quite bad. Some could point Thomas Mallory for example is canonical albeit he never got in the level of Ariosto or Tasso. But he sits in the same place as them, He is canonical and him to fail the entire production of arturian circle would need to be erased from our memory.

There are actually different canons, and all of them are essentially rankings because they exclude various works for one reason or another (which is why for you some are "quite bad").

A list is simple an attempt to limit the potential infinite. It is like having a map for the universe says "16 meters from the border you turn right" knowing universe is is constant expansion. The list will fail, logically so. As funny they maybe.

The list is logical because one's life is finite. That means even with a "constant expansion" one is forced to exclude for obvious reasons.

If the list fails, it will be because one will simply read what is heavily marketed, not realizing, of course, that those who select what should be published do their own excluding. In which case, one simply does not follow one list because one is following another.

[lawpark]

Zhuangzi happen to have the opening of its third chapter as something like: "Our lives are limited, but knowledge is unlimited."

[scarjo]

Some interesting books by non-Western writers:
Orhan Pamuk (Turkey): "Snow"
Naguib Mahfoez (Egypt): "New Cairo"
Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria): "Half of a Yellow Sun"
J. M. Coetzee (South Africa): "Disgrace"
Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan): "The Kite Runner"
Salman Rushdie (India): "The Satanic Verses"

[Paulclem]

Orhan Pamuk is a great writer. Snow has a beautiful haunting qality about ii, though it does address serious Islamic issues. My Name is Red is also a favourite.

I haven't read The satanic Verses, but Midnight's Children is just brilliant. The narrative is packed with meaning.

[JBI]

Don't know if anyone's mentioned him yet, but Zhuangzi, Lao Tse's great disciple, would have to have his work included in "the other canon." His thoughts on relativism will turn your brain positively inside out.

If only we could understand him for certain, it's all so relative. Such a headache to read, I'll tell you that, fun, but it gets annoying very very fast, especially since he had a penchant for making fun of his readers.

[JBI]

As for Canon's like Bloom's advancing things, well, not really. IF anything he has done things to set back the study of literature by providing a rather basic, obvious list, and promoting it. Literature functions best when one picks up books they didn't expect to, or discovers new areas - think Upon Looking into Chapman's Homer by Keats - the world is expansive, and is so rich, and to stick to a list is to limit oneself.

A general introduction to literature is of course a requirement. Generally that list is 50 books for each "tradition" if you will.


Namely, ten or so authors of them stand out for the west (English):

Dante,
Homer,
Virgil,
Ovid,
Shakespeare
The Bible (for English, KJV, historical, the Vulgate)
Milton
Petrarch


That's about it for an English reader, for French add Racine, but for the most part English authors do not like French authors.

What is needed to understand most texts are those few books. One could probably catch 90% or more of our cultural literary references from there.

Likewise, I can think of 10 or so books in Chinese that probably would constitute the Chinese understanding, or come up with a Japanese list.

Does that mean that is how one should read? And beyond that, where does the list go?

These are obvious questions, and quite difficult to answer. But what Bloom did was to try to answer it, and, something which he regretted later, tried to write a list of it. I think that was the big screw up - the list was given way too much attention, and it is a pathetic list, without any of his actual opinions or ideas - simply a person's taste, not a canon, but instead it was interpreted by some internet users as the be all and end all.

Everyone who studies tries to specialize, everyone has their niche. Everyone has their own ideas, and these ideas are tied in with all forms of politics, society, and linguistic associations. Bloom has his too.

The whole list problem is it takes the idea from the canon, which is an oral tradition, and tries to make it a written idea - which is impossible since written forms are impossible to change, only oral forms can adapt properly.

The best advice one can give is just read around books you like - then you are sure to like what you do - recommendations are nice, but even Bloom has a limit, likewise, the norton is nice too, but it is a limited text.

[JCamilo]

Exactly, what the accomplishment of Bloom's List?

None. He fails, he reckonized it. Inside academy, his reputation wasnt helped much. Anyone could see it was a work of mass generalization of a specialist. For the generation of new readers? They still reading the same works that he attacks, his influence on them seems small and it must piss off that one like Stephenie Meyer was able to give Wuthering Height a burst whie his recent crusade certainly didnt caused much impact. No academic needs to be told about Shakespeare after all. And in most of the case, his message to the average reader was seem as pure snoberry.

For the canon itself? Nothing. He caused some discussion about it, not with the list which pretty much diverged from the books discussion. But then again, discussing the canon is not that useful. Discussing authors yes, but not the canon. It is like defending a restaurant because its menu and not because the food itself.

As tour guide, the museum guide? It would mean nothing if there wasnt the museum, the works which are seem. How loving the works because the guide and not because the works itself?

His list is artificial, non sense. Browning, Lewis Carroll and Conan Doyle are all in the same section. How does the reading of the monologue poetry of Browing, the fantasy of Carroll and the detective stories of Doyle appeal to the same average reader? It does not at all. It is like a tourism guide that takes you at sametime to ice skating and swim in the ocean. As if both appeal to all. Even the classic section. It opens with GIlgamesh and Book of Dead? What the narrative of Gilgamesh and a book about rituals of burial have in commun? And worst, Gilgamesh is not even a book, but several fragments more or less up together in different editions. Yes, in his guide he does not pinpoint to editons of books that existed or are even avaliable. So, if I read the Gilgamesh section in Britania Encyclopedia I have just followed Bloom guide.
Serious, when you want to guide people to read Keats, you tell him to read all that Keats wrote? His complete works? Or Yeats? Or Shakespeare. Sure, lets read Pericles, right?

And this because Bloom himself didnt read his entire list, so he just misses badly places like South America. It is like "Hey, in South America you visit Buenos aires and Brazil, you visit Just Rio de Janeiro!" It is just a bad guide. A failure that Bloom himself regrets.

[lawpark]

Midnight's Children is interesting ... wonder what other good Indian literature in the past several centuries are worth reading.

Oh, but of course, I have to consult some introduction / canon lists created by someone else, which clearly are of no use. Oops! Doomed.

[JCamilo]

You didnt need a list to get Rushidie name right? He is a world wide famous writer, favorite for nobels for more than a decade, for what? for 20 years he was hunted because a book he wrote. He also have several essays, which being an ok writer, must be interesting and answer your question quite better than well, Indian writers of xx century?
Because after all, how many of them are similar to Rushidie? Probally Kipling...

[lawpark]

Thank you very much for your list of one name.

Your list happens to have excluded the likes of Tagore and Prem Chand, which I found from a chapter on "Modern Indian Literature" which has lots of other names from a book called "A Cultural History of India" edited by A.L.Basham in 1984. And somehow in THAT list Iqbal name wasn't mentioned (not prominently at least) because he might have been considered Pakistani now ...

[aliengirl]

Midnight's Children is interesting ... wonder what other good Indian literature in the past several centuries are worth reading.

Oh, but of course, I have to consult some introduction / canon lists created by someone else, which clearly are of no use. Oops! Doomed.

Here is a list of some Indian authors of the past centuries. May be it can be of some use.

Rabindranath Tagore - Gitanjali

Prem Chand - Godan, Niramala, and a collection of his short stories.

Muhammad Iqbal - Bang-e-dara, Bal-e-Jibrael, and Zarb-e-Kaleem are great if you know Urdu. As for his Persian works Armagaan-e-hijaz and Ramooz-e-bekhudi are wonderful. If you are going to read a translation than Bang-e-dara would be best.

(You have mentioned them yourself.)

Now some others -

Ghalib- His verses flow like blood in every Indian's vein. He is clearly the most quoted poet in India. Again it would be better if you can read his original work although some good translations are available.

R.K. Narayan- His novel 'The Guide' is one of the most famous Indian novels. Malgudi Days, Bachelor of Arts and The Vendor of Sweets are other good ones. He portrays a realistic picture of south India while Prem Chand presents the culture of North.

Mulk Raj Anand - Untouchable and Coolie are his best works. A messiah of the downtrodden, Anand's novels can sometimes be too didactic. He portrays the deplorable living conditions of the poor all right but rubs his Marxist philosophy quite hard.

Salman Rushdie- He has been mentioned earlier in this thread.

Arundhati Roy - Her novel 'The God of Small Things' is a must read for anyone interested in Indian literature.

Amitav Ghosh - Ghosh is a contemporary author known for his fiction as well as non-fiction. 'The Shadow Lines' ,'The Hungry Tide', and 'Sea of Poppies' are some of his good works.

Arvind Adiga - Probably you have heard his name. His debut novel 'The White Tiger' won the 2008 Booker Prize and justly so.


And now if you want to go back a few centuries then-

Kalidas - Shakuntala

Veda Vyas - Mahabharata

Tulsidas - Ramayana

This is all I could think of now. I hope you don't feel doomed now, if you like to depend upon this list by some one else.

[JCamilo]

Thank you very much for your list of one name.

Your list happens to have excluded the likes of Tagore and Prem Chand, which I found from a chapter on "Modern Indian Literature" which has lots of other names from a book called "A Cultural History of India" edited by A.L.Basham in 1984. And somehow in THAT list Iqbal name wasn't mentioned (not prominently at least) because he might have been considered Pakistani now ...

See, my friend, even a list of One, is bound to fail.