The Western canon includes literature, art, and music that have shaped and defined Western civilization. It is a cornerstone of universities and the transmission of cultural heritage. The canon is decided by qualified individuals and includes works that have aesthetic value, originality, and a contribution to society’s values and beliefs. Examples include Shakespeare and Joyce, who forever changed the expression of dialogue and the way people think.
The term Western canon is most often used to refer to a body of literature that is considered to have had the greatest influence on Western culture. It includes poetry, fiction and drama, philosophy, essays and autobiographical works. In a broader sense, the canon refers to the greatest works of art and music and represents the belief that the works included in it have shaped and defined Western civilization. The teaching of the canon is a cornerstone of Western universities and of the transmission of knowledge and cultural heritage. The works in the canon are those without which the scholarship would have no context.
The word canon has ecclesiastical origins and was first used to indicate sacred writings. It also means a standard to which all other jobs are held. The Western canon implies that there are qualified people to make decisions about what belongs in the canon and why. This has traditionally been the function of universities and their scholars. The academy is an environment in which scholars can devote their time to studying works of art and their meanings, and allows the canon to be explained and transmitted to subsequent generations.
What the Western canon consists of, at least as regards the older works of Western culture, does not seem to pose any difficulty. There is no doubt whether the works of Plato, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Dante are part of it. Why some works are included can have a variety of explanations. One is simply the beauty of the work and its aesthetic value, its striving for expressive perfection. Other works may have such originality as to represent a quantum leap in the use of language or a way of perceiving the world.
Examples of these leaps can be found in different writers of different eras. These artists seem to know exactly what they are trying to accomplish with their work and its contribution to their culture. Shakespeare is credited with forever changing the nature of the expression of dialogue and internal thought. James Joyce in a way changed the way people think about the way they think. His comment to his brother that his work “would keep scholars busy for the next 200 years” was accurate.
Another way a work can become part of the Western canon has to do with the artist’s relationship to society. Many great writers are considered seekers of truth, sometimes to the exclusion of all other values. The writer does not speak to the reader as a social being, but as a person alone with himself. It is the expression of this search for truth that can cause the wider culture to reexamine its values and rethink the nature and purpose of human existence.
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