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It is kind of fun to think about. Whats your opinion, what do you def think belongs on there. What do you think about Harold Bloom's take on it?
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Feb 14, 2015 01:56
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| # ? Jan 23, 2026 16:58 |
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The only thing certain is that the bible is definitely apart of it.
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Feb 14, 2015 01:58
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My nomination: The Virginian 
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Feb 14, 2015 06:56
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What do you mean by canon? Are we talking philosophy and the like or fiction as well? I think that the Bible is probably the only work in this canon that I've read. I've had The Anatomy of Melancholy on my to read list for ages and have just ordered it, despite the blank  I gave at the page count.
Fellwenner fucked around with this message at 08:54 on Feb 14, 2015 |
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Feb 14, 2015 08:52
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:My nomination: The Virginian I read Bonanza books as a kid. The only one I remember was called Hoss and the Puma.
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Feb 14, 2015 12:28
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Fellwenner posted:What do you mean by canon? Are we talking philosophy and the like or fiction as well? I think that the Bible is probably the only work in this canon that I've read. I've had The Anatomy of Melancholy on my to read list for ages and have just ordered it, despite the blank Genrally people mean the books that are essentially indispensable to WESTERN LITERATURE. Some people have stuff like The BIble, Shakespeare, Dante + whatever else is a really big name and call that the canon, whereas others have huge exhaustive lists. Harold Bloom's big list of things is for the most part just fiction literature + then occasionally Greek philosophers, but I find that weird because there;s so much philosophy + science that has had a huge impact on everything that vcame after it. Basically the idea of an actual homogeneous Western Canon is sort of stupid, but it makes for a nice reading list.
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Feb 14, 2015 15:14
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Stravinsky posted:The only thing certain is that the bible is definitely apart of it. The western canon is The Bible, The Jewish Bible, and The Arab Bible.
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Feb 14, 2015 15:15
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Bloom's approach legitimizes critics of the canon, in my opinion, and his approach of stern masturbation as the best way to read seems somewhat wrongheaded to me, but it's hard to argue with his short list, unless you haven't read Neruda or Passoa at all.
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Feb 14, 2015 15:25
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CestMoi posted:Genrally people mean the books that are essentially indispensable to WESTERN LITERATURE. Some people have stuff like The BIble, Shakespeare, Dante + whatever else is a really big name and call that the canon, whereas others have huge exhaustive lists. Harold Bloom's big list of things is for the most part just fiction literature + then occasionally Greek philosophers, but I find that weird because there;s so much philosophy + science that has had a huge impact on everything that vcame after it. Basically the idea of an actual homogeneous Western Canon is sort of stupid, but it makes for a nice reading list. Well it's the canon of Western literature, not Western anything else.
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Feb 14, 2015 15:39
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Yeah but stuff like Hegel, Schopenhauer, Principia, etc etc etc had such massive effects on all thought following them that it's pretty difficult to disentangle them. Saying you should read Nietzsche because he's a sort of literary philosopher but not Kant because he doesn't make stories he just writes what he believes seems a bit weird to me
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Feb 14, 2015 16:36
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Stravinsky posted:It is kind of fun to think about. Whats your opinion, what do you def think belongs on there. What do you think about Harold Bloom's take on it? I think honestly, like most lists, it is a waste of time. There are great books included most versions of the canon, and there are great books that are left out of all of them. Reading any of such books is a better use of time than trying to figure out a definitive canon.
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Feb 14, 2015 18:17
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I'd like to shoot James Joyce out of a western cannon.
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Feb 14, 2015 18:46
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FactsAreUseless posted:I'd like to shoot James Joyce out of a western cannon. James Joyce can be in the Western canon, but only if he engages in a caged deathmatch with Virginia Woolf for the spot.
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Feb 14, 2015 19:52
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Effectronica posted:Bloom's approach legitimizes critics of the canon, in my opinion, and his approach of stern masturbation as the best way to read seems somewhat wrongheaded to me, but it's hard to argue with his short list, unless you haven't read Neruda or Passoa at all. Bloom himself would actually be the first to disagree: http://www.vice.com/read/harold-bloom-431-v15n12 Harold Bloom posted:The list was not my idea. It was the idea of the publisher, the editor, and my agents. I fought it. I finally gave up. I hated it. I did it off the top of my head. I left out a lot of things that should be there and I probably put in a couple of things that I now would like to kick out. I kept it out of the Italian and the Swedish translations, but it’s in all the other translations—about 15 or 18 of them. I’m sick of the whole thing. All over the world, including here, people reviewed and attacked the list and didn’t read the book. So let’s agree right now, my dear. We will not mention the list.
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Feb 14, 2015 23:42
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The collected works of the American Tolkien.
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Feb 15, 2015 00:51
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CestMoi posted:Yeah but stuff like Hegel, Schopenhauer, Principia, etc etc etc had such massive effects on all thought following them that it's pretty difficult to disentangle them. Saying you should read Nietzsche because he's a sort of literary philosopher but not Kant because he doesn't make stories he just writes what he believes seems a bit weird to me I don't think affecting literature means something is literature though. And The Tale of Genji or w/e is literature, but not Western. A canon of Western thought would be a good thing but a different thing, it would also include art, music, written stuff that isn't remarkable as literature, and actual historical events. OTOH I haven't read any philosophy except the symposium.
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Feb 15, 2015 03:24
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House Louse posted:I don't think affecting literature means something is literature though. And The Tale of Genji or w/e is literature, but not Western. A canon of Western thought would be a good thing but a different thing, it would also include art, music, written stuff that isn't remarkable as literature, and actual historical events. Are you really arguing that the major works of western philosophy are not literature
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Feb 15, 2015 10:22
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Three words: Harry. Freaking. Potter.
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Feb 15, 2015 16:33
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Silver2195 posted:Bloom himself would actually be the first to disagree: http://www.vice.com/read/harold-bloom-431-v15n12 That's the long list, which is fundamentally flawed as a concept, but the people he focuses on in the book proper are all canonical, though not the sum total (for example Pilgrim's Progress and Faerie Queen are canonical English lit but not in the book)
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Feb 15, 2015 17:58
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It really depends on how far you're going to strech what does and does not belong there. I mean, Mein Kampf, canon or not?
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Feb 15, 2015 18:43
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anilEhilated posted:It really depends on how far you're going to strech what does and does not belong there. I mean, Mein Kampf, canon or not? Mein Kampf was not a particularly influential book. It was popular in Germany for a brief period of time but I would not say that the book itself had much of a lasting effect on Western literature and thought. Naziism itself did, but not because of that book in particular.
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Feb 15, 2015 19:06
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Yeah, but imagine if they had won and the thing would force its way into public eye. A probably better example - Das Kapital and its interpretations have for good or bad shaped the history and literature of the entire 20th century, yet it's a book few will have read nowadays. Guess what I'm saying is that different books get prominence for different reasons - and even the pulp trash we're so fond of now could one day inspire someone to do something via some sort of butterfly effect. I'd say that the canon is just about all the books in existence.
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Feb 15, 2015 19:18
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anilEhilated posted:Yeah, but imagine if they had won and the thing would force its way into public eye. Well yes if they had won the book would be much more influential as people in large parts of the world would have been made to read it in school, etc. Similarly the Bible would not be in the western canon had Christianity not been forcibly spread to huge areas of the world. quote:A probably better example - Das Kapital and its interpretations have for good or bad shaped the history and literature of the entire 20th century, yet it's a book few will have read nowadays. Das Kapital is a widely read and influential book and I would think anyone who has studied modern history on a basic level has been exposed at least to excerpts from it  I would say The Communist Manifesto is more widely read and influential though.
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Feb 15, 2015 19:27
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anilEhilated posted:Yeah, but imagine if they had won and the thing would force its way into public eye. A probably better example - Das Kapital and its interpretations have for good or bad shaped the history and literature of the entire 20th century, yet it's a book few will have read nowadays. There;s a difference between "has inspired people to do certain things" and "has shaped currents of western thought". The Bible has directly inspired people to do both bad and good things, but those aren't what matter in terms of its place in the canon, what matters is the direct infuence the thought + writing behind it has had on everything after. Thoughts rather than actions I guess. CestMoi fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Feb 15, 2015 |
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Feb 15, 2015 20:15
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Also those hypothetical books haven't inspired anything yet. The WESTERN CANON is a thing that we can look at now and say that much of what is thought and written now today can be traced back through various lines to these specific books, it's a product of our thoughts in the present. If someone ends up forming a cult based on the Dresden Files that takes over the world and everyone is forced to read it in school then those people will say "everything that is written now is hugely influenced by the Dresden Files and it is part of our canon" but currently it isn't part of our canon on account of its bad and hasn't inspired anyone to write anything worthwhile.
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Feb 15, 2015 20:22
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A human heart posted:Are you really arguing that the major works of western philosophy are not literature No. But I think the real answer to the question of why aren't there any philosophers on the list is that Bloom is a professor of English, not philosophy.
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Feb 17, 2015 02:35
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But there are philosophers!! Nietzsche is on there, Plato is on there, Aquinas is on there. Bloom's drawn the line in a very weird way, and I think that's sort of indicative of the problem with actually trying to write a western canon. You have to draw the line somewhwre so you don't end up including literally everything ever made, but anywhere you draw the line is weird and arbitrary and you leave a lot of perfectly fantastic and incredibly important stuff stranded on the other side
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Feb 17, 2015 09:05
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I think all fiction should be considered non-canon, because it didn't really happen, and it's really starting to confuse the wiki.
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Feb 17, 2015 11:16
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Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, and leave that latecomer monotheist trash in the garbage where it belongs.
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Feb 17, 2015 14:03
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CestMoi posted:But there are philosophers!! Nietzsche is on there, Plato is on there, Aquinas is on there. Bloom's drawn the line in a very weird way, and I think that's sort of indicative of the problem with actually trying to write a western canon. You have to draw the line somewhwre so you don't end up including literally everything ever made, but anywhere you draw the line is weird and arbitrary and you leave a lot of perfectly fantastic and incredibly important stuff stranded on the other side To be fair, he did say he wasn't actually trying to make a definitive list and was pressured into doing so with that long list by his publisher. His short list includes no philosophers. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 14:40
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CestMoi posted:But there are philosophers!! Nietzsche is on there, Plato is on there, Aquinas is on there. Bloom's drawn the line in a very weird way, and I think that's sort of indicative of the problem with actually trying to write a western canon. You have to draw the line somewhwre so you don't end up including literally everything ever made, but anywhere you draw the line is weird and arbitrary and you leave a lot of perfectly fantastic and incredibly important stuff stranded on the other side I meant "hardly any" not "literally none"
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Feb 17, 2015 15:35
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CestMoi posted:I think that's sort of indicative of the problem with actually trying to write a western canon. You have to draw the line somewhwre so you don't end up including literally everything ever made, but anywhere you draw the line is weird and arbitrary and you leave a lot of perfectly fantastic and incredibly important stuff stranded on the other side Bloom's "western canon" is just a more highbrow version of Buzzfeed's 32 Books That Will Change Your Life. At best, it's a useful tool to help someone spot holes in their reading ("Y'know, I probably should actually read Trollope at some point"); at worst it's elitism and pedantry ("Tolkien isn't real literature," says Harold Bloom, after editing two whole volumes of Tolkien criticism.) It's fun to make lists like that and argue about them but ultimately the answer is to read voraciously and always seek out new challenges as a reader. Everything goes into the pot. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 17:16
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That's what I've been saying this whole time!!!!
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Feb 17, 2015 17:31
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I don't know why we even need this thread when the Pratchett thread is right there.
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Feb 17, 2015 19:24
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does lyle's goodreads account count?
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Feb 17, 2015 19:30
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Das Kapital, The Phenomenology of Spirit, The Critique of Pure Reason, all of Aristotle's surviving works, Two Treatises of Government, the Leviathan, The Gay Science, The Panopticon, Dialectic of The Enlightenment, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, City of God, Summa Theologica, Don Quixote, Complete Works of Shakespeare, The German Ideology, On the Concept of History, the Bible... poo poo I could go on and on. Why on earth did you ask this question?
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Feb 17, 2015 23:05
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ZombieLenin posted:Das Kapital, The Phenomenology of Spirit, The Critique of Pure Reason, all of Aristotle's surviving works, Two Treatises of Government, the Leviathan, The Gay Science, The Panopticon, Dialectic of The Enlightenment, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, City of God, Summa Theologica, Don Quixote, Complete Works of Shakespeare, The German Ideology, On the Concept of History, the Bible...
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Feb 17, 2015 23:14
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making lists of the Most Important Books is an inherently masturbatory and exclusionary effort that benefits no one and produces nothing of real heuristic value well bye
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Feb 18, 2015 00:30
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End Of Worlds posted:making lists of the Most Important Books is an inherently masturbatory and exclusionary effort that benefits no one and produces nothing of real heuristic value The idea of canon does not necessarilly mean a written list or w/e by some jackoff. Society has decided for one reason or another that certain works are more important than others. The way literature is taught is schools is based on the idea of there being a canon, that knowing Shakespeare is more important than one of his contemporaries.
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Feb 18, 2015 03:01
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FactsAreUseless posted:Three words: Harry. Freaking. Potter.  this. just mothershitting this
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Feb 18, 2015 03:03
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