The other "Canon"

[JBI]

Also, add Kālidāsa to your list of major Sanskrit writers, as he is somewhat of a giant.

[curlyqlink]

don't you find that a refusal to read the Qur'an is a position that is increasingly unacceptable... if not dangerous in our present world?

I'm not sure how in what sense to understand "refusal". Me, I've chosen not to read the Koran because-- like many religious texts-- its meaning is fundamentally ambiguous and seems to depend largely on the mindset of the reader. Students who are native Arabic speakers, born into the culture, who have devoted years of intense study to the Koran, come up with diametrically opposite interpretations of the book; so what chance would I have of coming to any kind of meaningful understanding? Is it even possible to come to an "objective understanding" of the Koran, or the Bible?

Does familiarity with the Bible help to explain the actions of Western leaders? Did it ever, even when European kings and princes were not only universally Christian, but universally Roman Catholic?

[JBI]

The fact that so many interpretations of a work can exist shows its depth, not its unimportance. The fact that it is taken as a personal address from Allah doesn't make it a bad book. When you read without the assumption of truth, you are able to generate clearer meanings, as the importance of each sentence isn't taken as fact.

[curlyqlink]

Generally I agree that complexity is a good thing in a text, as are multiple interpretations. But in this case, of trying to relate the actions of people in in the news to the word of the Koran, that complexity and multiplicity just seems to result in confusion.

From the brief excerpts and analyses that I have encountered, it seems that some people find the Koran full of stern warnings, restrictions on behavior, and exhortations to be the sword of God. Other people find it full of love, neighborliness, and understanding. I might find reading the Koran to be an interesting intellectual exercise, but I'm not sure it would shed much light on current events. In that sense, I don't think it can be considered essential reading.

[Virgil]

That being said, there is no real Eastern canon, because the list would be too long. The so called Western Canon only features works from maybe 1/6th of the world's population (being generous), and neglects over 5 billion people's cultural heritage. When we start to think of it, the amount of books in that canon cannot possibly fairly equal the amount of works in the Western canon, and as a result linguistic, and regional canons within the concept of the Eastern canon must assemble, so you get something like the Indian/Pakistani canon, or the Chinese/Japanese canon, or something similar. An all encompassing Eastern canon is far beyond hope.

I completely agree. I don't know enough about the Indian/Pakastani canon, but i would suspect that there might not be a Chinese/Japanese canon either. Though perhaps I could be persuaded otherwise.

[JBI]

Oh, the Japanese and Chinese canons exist within Chinese and Japanese culture, as they are part of their education system. If I recall correctly, at the high school level Japanese students are required to memorize 100s of poems. The Chinese have a similar system. Their canons are heavily developed. The reason why I grouped them together is because in the classical period, there was an exchange of poetry, as both languages used the classical Chinese alphabet, and therefore could be read without translation (though with different pronunciation).

[mortalterror]

As much as people like to gripe and whine about the impossibility of translation, if your native language is English, you will have no trouble finding many excellent translations of any major French, Spanish, Russian, or Italian work. There are so many good translations out there it's an embarrassment of riches. You just have to look for them. German's a little harder, but there are dozens of different translations of Faust alone; so at least one of them's bound to satisfy even the pickiest of dilettantes. But when I want to read Chinese and Japanese literature Rexroth and Waley are about the only show in town. Disgraceful. I wouldn't say that their translations are bad, but they aren't anywhere near the level I've come to expect from French or Italian.

As for StLukes ringing endorsement of The Shahnameh, I have to concur. What I've read is equal parts Dante and Homer. However, the only complete translation is the prose one he read by Dick Davis. What I've read from it is good, but doesn't begin to compare to the verse translation still in progress by Jerome W. Clinton. He's come out with two short books about a hundred and twenty pages each. These translations are obviously a labor of love, and remind me of Edward Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat they are so good. It will probably take Clinton the better part of thirty years to finish his work, but it might be worth the wait.

Although I've only read a couple dozen of Tu Fu's poems, they've never reminded me of Shelley. I thought they were better. Li Po seems to be more romantic in tone and style if you want to make those kinds of comparisons. I'm still looking for a good translation of either poet though. Wang Wei, and Po Chu-i are also very nice.

From what I've heard, the position held by Confucius and Mencius in the East is a little like the one Plato and Aristotle hold in the West. I haven't read Mencius yet, but while the Annalects were great they were no Republic. The Annalects of Confucius actually reminded me more of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius or The Maxims of La Rochefoucauld and not so much of a structured fully realized philosophical system.

I have a couple of these big Eastern novels on my bookshelf which I've only dipped into: Three Kingdoms, Red Chamber, and Genji. They all look nice in their own way, but I'm still searching for a handle to grip them by. I could read Tolstoy's War and Peace with relative ease because I'd already read a bunch of other Russian classics, and had extensive practice reading the modern work his books influenced. But these are all so different than anything I've read before, it's hard to know what effect they are aiming at with each word or phrase. What am I supposed to take away from the books? What tradition are they writing in? Or maybe I'm just being lazy and making problems for myself because I'd rather read ten short books than one long one.

As it stands, I thought the prose of The Pillow Book and Essays in Idleness were much more interesting, showed more human character, and dare I say "warmth" than Murasaki's Genji.

The Bhagavad Gita is probably essential Eastern reading and I'd add to that Kalidasa's plays, specifically Shakuntala and the Ring of Recollection.

If you want a good answer to "What middle eastern texts are we missing out on?" then you should probably ask Kafka's Crow. Aside from having like two masters degrees in literature, I think he told me once that he was Persian. He'd doubtless have some excellent advice. Here's some things he told me about Persian literature five months ago.

Though out of touch for over two decades, I could once read and write Persian, did an A Level in classical Persian Literature and enjoyed poetry no end. Firdawsi, Jaami, Nizaami, Hafiz, Roodki, Saadi, Omer Khayyam, the list goes on. I think it was Roodki, the blind poet who, when Sultan Mehmood of Ghazna asked him the price of his kingdom, the poet answered, 'a mole on my beloved's cheek.' (khaal i rukhsaar i yaar i mun). These people take great pride in their poetic heritage and quite rightly so. There are still people around who would not consider you educated unless you have read Gulistan and Bostaan by Saadi Shirazi. I hope we find a native speaker of Persian on this board. The common parlance is full of poetic anecdotes and even people on the streets know couplets by heart. Four hundred years before da Vinci, true 'renaissance men' or polymaths like Omer Khayyam, the poet, philosopher, astronomer and mathematician, lived in Persia or Iran. Persian poetry is a treasure trove of artistic achievement.

Shahnama for the epic grandeur, Hafiz and Saadi for wisdom, Rumi for the mysticism, Roodki for lyricism, Khayyam for the atmosphere in his Rubaiyaat.

...If you find time, read 'The Blind Owl' a novella by Sadeq Hedayat. Scary stuff! You can read it here:

http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/bashiri.../blindowl.html

There is still a strong tradition of oratory and poetry recitation in Iran, thanks to the high status of the genre called 'mersiya' or elegy written on the martyrdom of Prophets grandsons for which mourning is observed annually for forty days. 'Mersiya' employs the most elevated diction, grand style and requires a lot of oratory skills for its recitation. You may not agree but Persian is for poetry like English is for drama, or Russian and French for the novel. Poetry is an integral part of this language.

[mortalterror]

Oh, the Japanese and Chinese canons exist within Chinese and Japanese culture, as they are part of their education system. If I recall correctly, at the high school level Japanese students are required to memorize 100s of poems. The Chinese have a similar system. Their canons are heavily developed. The reason why I grouped them together is because in the classical period, there was an exchange of poetry, as both languages used the classical Chinese alphabet, and therefore could be read without translation (though with different pronunciation).

Yes, I forgot to mention that for about a thousand years, like 0-1000 AD, there wasn't any difference between Chinese and Japanese literature. Everyone wrote in Chinese the way that during the same time period every western writer wrote in Latin. It's only in the second millennium that you get cultural divergence. Selling people on an all encompassing Eastern canon might be difficult but a China/Japan canon wouldn't be a harder sale than a comprehensive Western canon.

P.S. I know my dates are sloppy above, and I use the Gregorian calendar, not the Chinese calendar, for convenience.

[Etienne]

I went to see that western cannon, and the omission of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy is absolutely unacceptable as it one of the most fundamental works of European literature. Also the bias toward English literature is far from being subtle. Has an author like, for example John Ford had such an important impact on Western culture? Over many omission from the Middle-Ages and Antiquity. Also there seems to be a strange inclusion of some works of philosophy, while leaving some of the most important out. I noticed also the omission of Juan Rulfo, probably the most important figure of Latin-American literature alongside Garcia Marquez and Borges...

In the end, I think calling this The Western Cannon is quite presumptuous (and why is Ancient India included?) I'd rather call it Harold's Little Melting Pot.

[JBI]

You forget, he is one person, not an army. It is a pretty good list for a one man effort, especially up until 1900. The 20th century list is where the trouble occurs.

Of course, works that shouldn't be omitted are, but we must not only read from that list. Clearly philosophy is not really included, and only cliché philosophers, like Nietzsche and Kant made the list, while Aquinas (who is even bigger than Boethius) didn't.

The list serves its purpose as an appendix, and was never meant to be taken as the core of the book. The canons mentioned in the body of the book of criticism are the core of the critical book, whereas the list just gains more credit. Either way, sadly to say the "Western canon" in America, and Canada, is essentially the books available at a decent price that have lasted since the death of their original readers (meaning essentially written before 1940).

[Etienne]

while Aquinas (who is even bigger than Boethius) didn't.

I was not even thinking of the philosophical scope of Boethius' work but of the literary one, since this list was obviously not a philosophical one, however, even on the philosophical level I would think twice before placing Aquinas over Boethius, considering that his influence of his work goes on up to the 12th century as a central part of European philosophy. The Consolation of Philosophy has often been considered the single most important work of European Literature. It's direct influence is well illustrated in Chaucer (who also made a translation of the Consolation of Philosophy) or Dante (who cites the Consolation regularly in his Divine Comedy), etc. How such a work could have been omitted by a so-called expert is beyond my understanding, not more forgivable than forgetting the Divine Comedy, Don Quixote, Gargantua and Pantagruel, Shakespeare plays or the Bible.

I went back to watch the list and I'm baffled at the number of omissions (Diderot's Jacques and his Master?, Hugo's Legend of Centuries? - he did put an essay on Shakespeare though *cough*, where is Villiers de l'Isle-Adam? de Lautreamont? etc.) - in places where I am knowledgeable enough to pinpoint them and that excludes quite a good part of the list. So in the end, this list which I've seen so much praise about, while it has a good core look to me more like the work of an amateur who has done some research than the serious work of a real expert, he might be an expert in say, English literature, but then he should leave "western" literature or world literature, or whatever to some other people, or call his list of a perhaps less presumptuous name.

[stlukesguild]

The availability of such books in translation is often quite pathetic, given the availability of European literature. The most common books of canonical works available is clearly English novels, then poetry, then Italian, French, German, and Russian works, then perhaps a few more obscure works. I am hard pressed to find a complete volume of Li Po's poetry for cheap, than I am, for instance, able to find a volume of Tennyson, or from that era, Beowulf.

Yes. Translations... or rather good translations of even the best writers can be difficult to come across. There's a lot of sappy "new-age" translations of key Eastern religious texts... a remnant of the hippie fascination with Eastern mysticism. Things are improving and there seem to be more quality translations being made of the central works of the various Eastern cultures... still we are limited to but a fraction of the work that surely must exist.

In fact, in the edition I had of his work, the translator made it clear that, though one could convey the meaning of the words in English, the actual writing system is able to add different elements to words in pictures, and as a result, can never be translated. Only the bare minimum of the work can be conveyed in another language.

Yes... something is always lost in translation. The best we can hope for is that a good translation succeeds like a good transcription of music from one instrument (or group of instruments) to another... preserving the music... and giving it voice in a new vocabulary... hoping to preserve the music in spite of the fact that not every instrument can play the same notes.

I have read a bit upon what I believe you are speaking of with relation to Chinese poetry. As a pictographic language Chinese (and as a result of shared symbols, Japanese) poetry often uses forms of visual parallelism... where an image in one line may echo (or contrast) an image in another line. It's far more complex than mere rhyming due to the pictographic nature of the language. In this manner it may be "read" not merely in a linear manner... but also across the whole work where a parallel might be perceived in a manner closer to how we might "read" a painting. The actual "writing" of the poem or calligraphy added further to the experience as such could be used to emphasize certain words/images through scale and handling. Most poets were also masters of calligraphy and often painters as well. Surprisingly very few Western authors have toyed with the visual impact of the written/printed poem. William Blake is the most obvious example... and then there's Apollinaire and Mallarme's Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard... in which he attempted something upon this level.

In addition to this, I would like to note that it is also extremely difficult (if impossible) to get volumes on single poets of the Japanese and Chinese traditions, and is far easier to get big anthologies of a period, or a few poets' work. This creates an identity problem, as it is easier to remember something if you have a book of it, than if you have 3 short lyrics of it.

Again... this is beginning to change. I have solid volumes on Tu Fu, Wang Wei, Hafiz, Rumi, Yosano Akiko, Ou-Yang Hsiu, Basho, Buson, and a few others... and I have seen strong editions of works by Lao-Tzu, Li Po, T'ao Ch'ien, Masaoka Shiki, Ryokan, and others. Part of the "problem" here is that many of these poems were originally collected as part of large anthologies... perhaps not unlike the manner in which the Hebrew Psalms... certainly the product of multiple hands... were collected into a single "canonical" volume. For example, in Japan the collection known as Man'yoshu or the "Ten Thousand Leaves" is still read as a unified whole (the entire collection can be found in several places on line). China has similar canonical anthologies such as the Shi Jing or "Book of Songs", which exists in translation by Arthur Waley. I somewhat suspect that part of the "problem" here is that in China and Japan there is a somewhat selfless world view that lacks the Western ego and desire for recognition and is closer to the medieval philosophy in which the artist loses himself in the higher purpose of the work.

[Virgil]

Oh, the Japanese and Chinese canons exist within Chinese and Japanese culture, as they are part of their education system. If I recall correctly, at the high school level Japanese students are required to memorize 100s of poems. The Chinese have a similar system. Their canons are heavily developed. The reason why I grouped them together is because in the classical period, there was an exchange of poetry, as both languages used the classical Chinese alphabet, and therefore could be read without translation (though with different pronunciation).

Thank you JBI.

[Petrarch's Love]

St. Luke's--There you go again, adding more things to my reading list! Great idea for a thread. I'll have to note some of these works for future reading when I'm not quite so enveloped in a dissertation planted deep in the heart of the Western Canon (whatever that may be). Don't really have anything to add here, having only read some pitifully small slices of Asian and Middle Eastern Lit., but I'll look forward to seeing what people recommend here. I do think translation is a particular problem with Asian languages, especially when it comes to poetry, and especially because there's such a huge gap between those languages and English. I'm sure there's a whole amazing world of literary experience I'm completely cut out of because of the language gap. I'll just have to end the frustration one of these days by learning Japanese, Chinese and Arabic and...ah for world enough and time.

[JBI]

The question though Etienne, is whether or not such a list can exist, or whether we must except the fact that we are ethnocentric, and can only read the most cliché works of other cultures (that's what I get out of 90% of his Italian list). A more obvious exclusion though, would probably Cavalcanti, and also almost the entire Medieval tradition cross-continent. You must give him credit though for having the nerve to make such a list in light of this fact. Though I think the problem with the list is that it isn't a list, and more a "suggest reading". It is, after all, smashed into the back of the book, and without commentary.