Talk:Western canon

message: "Dead white males" (the new expression) wrote books because they were the educated people.  A negro couldn't be expected to write books.  A slave could be whipped for learning the alphabet.  Why would anyone "attack?"  I am perplexed.  GhostofSuperslum 11:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are perplexed because you think that there is a logical reason for the attack. Instead, look for emotion, passion, and will as causes.This will terminate your perplexity.72.73.205.104 03:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Singularity

message: i found links that talk some more about the sides of the controversy.
http://www.goacom.org/overseas-digest/Discourse/literarycanon.htm
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/107629/ethnic_writers_and_the_western_literary.html
The beginning of the debate section is terrible. That the western canon "do not represent the viewpoints of many others in contemporary societies around the world" is not a failing; hence the name western. A particular cultural viewpoint should not be criticised for its lack of universality; it was never attempting such.
125.238.245.135 (talk) 10:37, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  more on the debate 

message: I would think that despite the existence of undisputed masters of Western literature (Homeros, Shakespeare, Goethe, Dante, Cervantes, Camoes, Pessoa, etc.), there would be a lot of bias depending on the scholar's national background. For example, British or American experts would place more emphasis on Chaucer, Dickens, and so forth, while a Frenchman would go into Rabelais and Moliere, an Italian Boccaccio, Petrarch, etc. Especially since the 19th century, the ideal of a universal Western masterpiece is a little rare.
Wouldn't there be some kind of dispute over this? Brutannica 07:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As an English-speaking American I have to disagree with you there. The whole course of my education has been "western" in general; that is, the goal universally preached to me was to become cognizant of the world outside our narrow shores (narrow because so far apart as to be isolating). If you were unfamiliar with other European literature you just were not educated. In fact this tradition descends from the rationalist goals of the American Revolution, which was considered only a stage in the universal revolution. The American army scoured Europe, so to speak, for military men who would become international soldiers of fortune and our war memorials are full of their names: Kosciusko, Lafayette, etc etc. The first thing we said on being forced out of our isolationism was "Lafayette we are here." I'm familiar with the ignorant brand of "nationalism" of which you are speaking; it crops up on Wikipedia all the time. These mainly European "nationalists" promulgate any distortion or lie in the interest of their "nation." I myself do not think they are allowed freedom of speech in their own societies, but then, those usually have an "ethnic" basis. I think the Great Books series is truly international; that is, western - they admittedly do not cover the great writings of India, China, Japan and so on - and whenever I see narrow nationalism raising its ethnic-cleansing head I think - oh no, foreign prejudice. Usually those in America who go for the ethnic cleansing idea are not educated enough to use Wikipedia or be interested in Great Books or even know or care what the issues are. They just know they hate people who are different. The rationalist ideal failed them or else they failed it. They cannot avail themselves of our educational resources including Wikipedia. So, I do not believe nationalism played any part in the selection of the western canon. If all the books were French or Greek or Albanian or Russian that is what would be in the great Books series.Dave (talk) 14:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: PS. There's an analogy with opera. The Italians just happened to write the lion's share of the world's best opera. The fact that they dominate compendia does not indicate Italian nationalism, even though Italians may justly be proud of Italian opera. Excelsior. Ciao.Dave (talk) 15:29, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the OP is correct--and I've done the Great Books program. In colleges, we talk about the Western tradition as a line of texts going back to the Greco-Roman-Judeo-Christian foundation of Western European culture. So in some respects, the Western Canon refers to a particular origin-point in antiquity that is shared by all the modern European national languages. As we move into the Renaissance and into the development of modern languages and modern nation-states, we see that different countries do in fact develop different influences—certain texts become more important in one country than in another, and often these influences are based on language: the French canon will have more French authors, the Germans will have more German authors, etc. So yes, there should be some divergence regarding the line of influence in the past 400 years. Much of the issue is built on which works transcended national boundaries--Shakespeare, Molière, Goethe, Ibsen, Baudelaire and Flaubert have all become international figures. But otherwise, yes, I expect that a French version of "the" canon would use Hugo, Balzac, Zola, Maupassant, Stendahl, Sand and Dumas instead of Dickens, the Brontës, Mary Shelley, Scott, George Eliot, Trollope and Austen, and in place of Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson and Thoreau. Not that any of these are not international, but that at a certain point in the conversation, each country begins to focus more on its own internal tradition. Think of it this way: the Eastern European tradition also builds on the Greco-Judeo-Christian tradition (not so much on Rome), but it's clear that their conversation developed in very different ways, and often with little or no interaction with the Western European tradition. So even the very notion of a Western Canon implies a certain parameter of lineage, one not shared with other cultures who come from the same starting points. Aristophanes68 (talk) 17:55, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: National bias

message: In ecclesiastical literature, the Western canon is widely known as the Patrologia Latina, although I'm not sure how that fits into a general article on literature. ADM (talk) 20:19, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Patrologia Latina

message: I know this article is about the Western canon, but it might be at the very least polite to include some recognition that there are countries outside that great landmass of the western hemisphere, North America.
In particular, the set of university reading lists is exclusively American, containing such internationally respected institutions as Colgate University and St John's College (not the one in Oxford, nor the one in Cambridge, but some two-bit outfit in Annapolis that only offers a single course). Yet there is absolutely no acknowledgement that there are any universities elsewhere in the world, English-speaking or otherwise, and no intimation that anyone outside the borders of the lower 48 would ever read this article, let alone the great works of western culture. 87.114.101.69 (talk) 14:03, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes.  Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the  link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills.  New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). — goethean ॐ 15:12, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

text: According to Silvia Federici's 1995 book Enduring Western Civilization: The Construction of the Concept of Western Civilization and Its "Others" the term "the West" in the sense of Western Civilization goes back to the 16th century, when mutually hostile Catholic and Protestant countries joined forced to fight off the Turks in Mediterranean sea battles. The underlying concept, of course, has its roots in the Christian church schism. Centuries later the words "culture" or "civilization" were added, each with their own connotations: Western Culture had connotations of rural, Germanic, tribal, feudal - Western Civilization meant urban, French, urbane, bureaucratic, etc. The Greco-Roman / Judeo-Christian thing is just a modern attempt to define, retroactively, the historical antecedents. Zyxwv99 (talk) 20:06, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ludicrous US bias, as usual 

message: How come this page mentions a canon and afterwards (all along the text...) doesn't point or refer to a single, or several at least agreed by multinational - namely non-english speaking - representative parties, list(s) that can really constitute some sort of canon?
Maybe I, a skeptical raised in a catholic country, have a different concept of canon; but being raised in Europe gave me the same kind concept of canon(s) that any north american should have...
There are as many canons as views on the world, but if one wants to leave a real global legacy, despite of one's opinion, there's an obligation to at least try to establish the ground basis for a western canon... Whatever that means...
A final thought: what really means, nowadays, western canon? Are we really talking about a cultural and social canon that is specific to the west?
By the way, what is really (the) west? For us, europeans, the west was, five houndred years ago, just sea, for americans, almost two houndred and thirty years ago, bare lands, for indians (the people of India) and chinese, for more than two thousand years, at least, just land filled with savages, for the persians, the same for almost the same amount of time, and we are back in europe again. We could do this exercise starting in any given point of the globe!
Is it really that important to establish, nowadays, a western canon? Shouldn't there be several, real, canons? Shouldn't those canons be comprised? Is it so unreachable to obtain some sort of understanding about what culture, art and thinking, is really about? Zejoao2000 (talk) 07:06, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Canon is a Canon! 

message: Please stop pushing this ridiculous anti cis-white-male agenda. This is racist, sexist and insulting. Otherwise I (and other ciswhitemales) have to take our annual donations elsewhere).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.200.79.163 (talk) 08:26, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Dead White Males 

message: The Debate section only includes authors who argue the canon should be maintained. I agree with these authors mostly, but this makes for a very unbalanced "debate" section. Adding in Nussbaum or Cornel West would be good. It might also be relevant to note that the Canon-ists largely lost the debate.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.161.103.26 (talk) 02:07, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Debate Section biased 

message: Page moved here following the merge.
===Feminist revisions?===
Shouldn't this include some discussion of feminist revisions? (e.g. Aemilia Lanyer, Mary Wroth) I don't know the details, so I can't do it myself.--gecian
=== Page title ===
This article is mis-named as it is just on English poetry. Furthermore, there is, oddly, no article on English renaissance poetry, or Elizabethan poetry, though there is one on the Metaphysical poets. This is reads more like a scholarly paper (or student essay) than an encyclopaedia article. I suggest that it be re-written to focus more on the poetry, and with just one section discussing the canon. Otherwise it should be part of a much wider discussion of the topic, The Canon in literature. Rwood128 (talk) 18:02, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: On further thought it would probably be best to merge this article with Western canon. Comments? Rwood128 (talk) 19:09, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: As there has been no objections I will complete the merge shortly. Rwood128 (talk) 13:04, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Coming new to this I think it is rather long and over-detailed given the overall shape of the article, even after recent expansions. I think it would be better to add to Elizabethan literature (in the absence of Elizabethan poetry) with a short summary here.  Johnbod (talk) 20:33, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

text:  Johnbod, on further thought this section is on both Elizabethan and Metaphysical poetry. Perhaps it, along with material from the existing articles, on Elizabethan literature and Metaphysical poets, could form the basis for a new article on British renaissance poetry? Rwood128 (talk) 10:44, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly that would be ideal, but quite a large job to do well. Don't know about the title though - "English Renaissance" normally stops early into James' reign in Eng. Lit. studies. English poetry is very cursory indeed, and it could go there. All these articles need much better expansion. Johnbod (talk) 13:12, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

text: I have begun by moving some material to the Elizabethan literature page. Rwood128 (talk) 14:11, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I have revised this page also - the Metaphysical poets already cover this topic. I may not have followed strict merge protocol here, but everything has been recorded. Rwood128 (talk) 14:56, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge: The canon of renaissance poetry

message: This article is mis-named as it is just on English poetry. Furthermore, there is, oddly, no article on English renaissance poetry, or Elizabethan poetry, though there is one on the Metaphysical poets. This is reads more like a scholarly paper (or student essay) than an encyclopaedia article. I suggest that it be re-written to focus more on the poetry, and with just one section discussing the canon. Otherwise it should be part of a much wider discussion of the topic, The Canon in literature. Rwood128 (talk) 18:02, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: On further thought it would probably be best to merge this article with Western canon. Comments? Rwood128 (talk) 19:09, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: As there has been no objections I will complete the merge shortly. Rwood128 (talk) 13:04, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Coming new to this I think it is rather long and over-detailed given the overall shape of the article, even after recent expansions. I think it would be better to add to Elizabethan literature (in the absence of Elizabethan poetry) with a short summary here.  Johnbod (talk) 20:33, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

text:  Johnbod, on further thought this section is on both Elizabethan and Metaphysical poetry. Perhaps it, along with material from the existing articles, on Elizabethan literature and Metaphysical poets, could form the basis for a new article on British renaissance poetry? Rwood128 (talk) 10:44, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly that would be ideal, but quite a large job to do well. Don't know about the title though - "English Renaissance" normally stops early into James' reign in Eng. Lit. studies. English poetry is very cursory indeed, and it could go there. All these articles need much better expansion. Johnbod (talk) 13:12, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

text: I have begun by moving some material to the Elizabethan literature page. Rwood128 (talk) 14:11, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I have revised this page also - the Metaphysical poets already cover this topic. I may not have followed strict merge protocol here, but everything has been recorded. Rwood128 (talk) 14:56, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page title 

message: Most of what is in the article Dead white males is already here, so that article is redundant. Rwood128 (talk) 11:09, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: As there have been no objections the merge will be completed shortly.Rwood128 (talk) 11:05, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge proposal 

message: The picture labelled 'Susanne Langer' is not of the philosopher Susanne Langer, and quite obviously so, since it was clearly taken after 1985, which is the date of her death as listed directly below the photo. The photograph actually depicts another Susanne Langer, a Danish politician.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.244.175.151 (talk) 21:40, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Susanne Langer 

message: For example, there is a sub-section after every single section about women and feminism relating to the subject. The philosophy section has more discussing the status of females in Western philosophy than actually discussing the canon of Western philosophy itself. The music section discusses, and uses as a picture, the work of Clara Schumann, who might at best make up a footnote of what is typically studied in most major western conservatories, while neglecting to even mention Mozart, Haydn, Wagner, etc... The debate section is the second section, before actually discussing individual aspects of the cannon, and takes up about as much space as all of the previous space as all of the previous material put together. I motion that most of this content be moved to a separate page, and a controversy section be added at the bottom of the article summarizing the material found in the "debate" section and linking to the more detailed page.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.81.250.87 (talk) 21:03, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Re philosophy and music, I suggest that you can easily remedy this. Otherwise a discussion of the lack of women in the canon, and the reasons for this, is especially relevant. In fact more attention might well be paid to the emergence of major women musicians, painters, sculptors, poets, novelists, philosophers and dramatists, etc. in the twentieth century. Rwood128 (talk) 17:16, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Problem: Who defines "major" figures here? We need sources for that. Dimadick (talk) 19:00, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

text: You have a point: Clara Schuman is certainly not a major composer. However, the reasons for the absence of major women composer, until recently, has a place here. I think that the article should be revised rather than divided. Also more importantly Momteverdi, Dante, etc. should be added. I'll try and do something in the next few weeks. Rwood128 (talk) 11:58, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: On further thought a new article may well be necessary: one that discusses the historical reasons for absence of women from the Western canon. Though the absence of key male figures is probably a more significant problem with this article. Also the article doesn't address the rise of major women composers, such as Sofia Gubaidulina and Kaija Saariaho, in more recent years. Some canonical women writers are also absent, such as Marianne Moore and Emily Dickenson Rwood128 (talk) 12:26, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think that there is a lot in the article that would be happier elsewhere .. perhaps the article on western culture (rather than the canon)?  but yes, an article specific to women would be a good and valuable alternative. Good plan. Scarabocchio (talk) 14:32, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is more focused on debating the status of women in the canon than explaining the Western canon itself.  

message: I check pages listed in :Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of :Western canon's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "gale":
From Glossary of literary terms: 
From Barbara Hepworth: Gale, Matthew "Artist Biography: Barbara Hepworth 1903-75" Retrieved 31 January 2014.
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 22:22, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Orphaned references in [[:Western canon]] 

message: The thinkers named in the 'Debate" section are all Americans. Does this mean that there is no debate (or less of a debate) in France, Russia, Germany, Italy, UK, etc.? Also is the main debate about literature? Rwood128 (talk) 20:38, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: In practice I think the debate is very largely American. Even in Britain it is only followed with mild interest, partly because academic courses teaching the canon as a canon are rare to non-existent here. The same issues come up in British academia, but in a more fragmented way. Johnbod (talk) 14:57, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Debate outside America? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Under the section "Classic Book" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_canon#Classic_book), Sigmund Freud's name is listed as "Some of the writers who are generally considered the most important in Western Literature". Obviously I agree that Freud was very influential, but should he be under this particular section? Freud's writings, to my knowledge, are exclusively treatises, or at leas the vast majority of them are. He's not exactly a writer of Literature, like Goethe or Joyce or even Camus (who still wrote fiction and plays, as well as treatises), but more a writer of Psychoanalysis -- he's more a Thinker than a writer.
So my question/concern is this: Since Freud only write psychoanalytic treatises (that's my understanding), should Freud be removed from that list? If he shouldn't, should we place other philosophical/psychoanalytical writers on that list, such as Plato and Nietzsche?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr. Johnny (talk • contribs) 22:04, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sigmund Freud 

message: Would it make sense to merge Artistic merit with this article? Rwood128 (talk) 14:40, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: On further thought artistic merit seems to be a broader term that can include works that are not necessarily part of a canon. Rwood128 (talk) 20:21, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Artistic merit 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: A discussion is taking place to address the redirect :Literary canon. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 October 26#Non-canonical until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  SWinxy (talk) 01:09, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Literary canon" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: I feel like video games as of now have been added to the canon, and I feel we should have a section in this article for them Alena 33 (talk) 19:07, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: and you have a reliable source for that? (Ref WP:NOR). 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 21:27, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Video Games?