From: sanjiva@ecrc.de (Sanjiva Prasad)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Reply-To: sanjiva@ecrc.de (Sanjiva Prasad)
Organization: European Computer-Industry Research Centre, Munich
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 10:34:55 GMT

Mike Morris (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca) writes:
>You know it occurs to me if we're talking particularly about
>the Britannica Great Books set, we should keep in mind
>that the set is geared to America and Americans (i.e. toward
>understanding the history of ideas leading up to and past
>the Founding of the United States). It's for readers of English.
>In other words, I think a French canonizer of the stripe of Mortimer
>Adler would come up with different books, especially in the more modern
>parts of the set. Or, given that English is a northern
>European language, and that the set is made for American readers
>of English, it's sensible to me that many northern Europeans, and
>in particular English authors, should show up in the set.
>

Ah, The Great Books of the Western World series, published by the publishers of 
Encyclopaedia Britannica  (University of Chicago?) with their off-white dust jackets, 
numbered 1-54.  I am familiar with them -- we had them on our shelf since 1968.  I
didn't know they are The Canon.  I always thought they were those well-bound books, where
you could find the unabridged, unexpurgated works of Shakespeare or Chaucer (as an adolescent
I got my dirty stories from there!) or the Federalist papers ...

First of all, they are called the Great Books of the Western World,  and so I'd be extremely
surprised to find any Asian or African writing in that set.   Although my mother, who has 
dusted the books almost every single day for the last 24 years, calls them "West Asian 
Literature" -- you know, the part of Asia west of Turkey...  But I digress. 

Second, they are the selection of an extremely opinionated man, Hutchins, on what he 
considered books that were significant in forming the academic culture of America,
the genreal idea being that these works influenced literary forms (why else are
Boswell and Fielding in there, for example?) and criteria for academic investigation. 
This is similar to what Mike Morris said above.  You or I may disagree about the inclusion
of certain authors (what the hell is Sterne doing in there?) or feel significant books and 
ideas that have influenced the western world have been left out -- it is althogether more
literature-oriented than towards other areas of study, and it omits many great 
philosophers, especially those in the last 100 years.

So, right away, we can see why lots of non-whites are not going to appear in this
set.  And not for all bad reasons.  Secondly, a great deal of older Asian literature
(e.g. the Indian epics, the Arabian 1001 nights, ..) were written anonymously, and
it is only recently that we have seen the Achebes and Garcia Marquezes and Rushdies
and others storm on the scene and *influence* literatures in other languages.  Now
this is for lots of reasons,  European imperialism being a salient one.  

Next, even if today we  discover the greatness of a "minority" writer of the past,
that writer's work is unlikely to figure in a series like Great Books unless that writer
was known to have influenced several others.  Again, yes, some of them may have been deprived
of having been influential because of social circumstances and policy, but if they weren't
they weren't.  

So, should you be looking at this series to see if they satisfy the Quotas In Your Mind
of proportionally representing minorities?  If you feel that someone ought to be there,
go out and buy their work (in nicelky bound editions) and plonk it down on the same
shelf. 

Regards,
Sanjiva



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