What literature would you consider essential for the canon? And besides their influence, why are they consider good?

What literature would you consider essential for the canon? And besides their influence, why are they consider good?

Sure, Homer and Shakespeare paved the way for others, but is the Odyssey or Macbeth better than, let's say, Moby Dick or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in purely artistic terms?

Bump.

>What literature would you consider essential for the canon?
An all-encompassing canon is a pipe dream. It will never exist.
>And besides their influence, why are they consider good?
Have you ever read a piece of critical work on anything? It is a combination of consensus among critics and your own personal tastes. What one person likes another may not, and that does not make either of them objectively correct or incorrect.

>Sure, Homer and Shakespeare paved the way for others, but is the Odyssey or Macbeth better than, let's say, Moby Dick or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in purely artistic terms?
Again, read critical studies and form your own opinion. You will never come to a direct conclusion about something by reading other people's opinions. Form your own.

I think you should be less concerned on an arbitrary and vacuous canon that is pure fantasy, and more concerned on developing your own knowledge of literature through trial and error & experimentation.

the importance of starting with the greeks exists beyond their widely accepted quality. of course one could argue that homeric poetry is just as good as moby dick, but widely the greeks are better than most literature.

>why?

history acts as a natural press, meaning "good" literature comes to the top. only a fraction of a percent of literature from that period still exists and remains in print. this is purely due to the fact that better literature was memorized and saved with higher importance that what was bad literature. therefore, when reading any work from the greeks, it has championed the tests of time and remained relevant due to its quality. of course many recent books are of undeniable quality, but modern literature isnt as consistent, just as you have moby dick you also have the fault in our stars. one is wonderful and the other isnt, so you cant really have that certainty coming into it.


>but why (start) with the greeks

the reason remains the same. classics have survived the test of time. their quality is hard to deny. therefore modern and historically significant authors draw inspiration from the greeks. there is no hope of appreciating most significant poetic and literary choices without awareness of the greeks. starting with the greeks demonstrates a strong structural knowledge of literature and poetry by demonstrating it in one of the highest qualities imaginable. if you start with the greeks you will be able to say if you appreciate macbeth better than moby dick and you will be able to tell why. the greeks lay foundations for poetic structure and flow, starting with them will teach you what you like in a poem and what you hate. simultaneously it will demonstrate what you like in story structure and what you think is lack luster

Stendahl and Plutarch

>critical theories

>this is purely due to the fact that better literature was memorized and saved with higher importance that what was bad literature

[citation needed]

> but modern literature isnt as consistent, just as you have moby dick you also have the fault in our stars. one is wonderful and the other isnt, so you cant really have that certainty coming into it.

according to your hypothesis good literature will come out on top, so the bad will be forgotten, so why are you worried that the fault in our stars exists?

> there is no hope of appreciating most significant poetic and literary choices without awareness of the greeks

while having an understanding of ancient greek literature is no doubt useful, this is a huge exaggeration

I am not talking about critical theories.

>there is no hope of appreciating most significant poetic and literary choices without awareness of the greeks

Dude I already shill the greeks really fucking hard because I love them (and a lot of romans) so much, but even I can't understate what you just said. I consistently find new references to greece and rome in historical, philosophical, or literary capacities all the time, ranging from obvious borrowing of characters to single words or fleeting anecdotes which will mean nothing to someone who doesn't immediately recognize their origins.

For example, I first read Baudelaire's very short essay on dandyism maybe three years ago. I reread it last week for maybe the fourth time, and only then latched onto a passing mention that never even registered with me before. It only meant anything to me because I had just finished reading Plutarch's life of Lycurgus:

>"[Dandyism] is the joy of astonishing others, and the proud satisfaction of never oneself being astonished. A dandy may be blasé, he may even suffer; but in this case, he will smile like the Spartan boy under the fox's tooth."

>according to your hypothesis good literature will come out on top, so the bad will be forgotten, so why are you worried that the fault in our stars exists?
Because we don't revel in being surrounded by people reading bad books. Literally having a single literary friend is life-changing. The more people there are who read and write good books, the better those people and the books they write will be.

>Because we don't revel in being surrounded by people reading bad books. Literally having a single literary friend is life-changing. The more people there are who read and write good books, the better those people and the books they write will be.

That is a baseless assumption not grounded in reality.

>why are you worried that the fault in our stars exists?
I'm not worried in the slightest. I am just saying that the fault in our stars is a novel that most likely wont be in print in the future. I was trying to demonstrate that when reading something from the past, it has gone through the natural filter of time. Modern literature has not had that privilege.


>while having an understanding of ancient greek literature is no doubt useful, this is a huge exaggeration
I truly dont believe so. One can appreciate music without knowledge of music theory, but knowledge of theory changes your appreciation. the same rule applies to greco-roman literature. the influence of greek literature is further exemplified in:

>Modern literature has not had that privilege.
What era would you classify as modern? 5 years ago, 10 years? What?

>but knowledge of theory changes your appreciation

That is an assumption.

>he will smile like the Spartan boy under the fox's tooth

is this a reference to the myth in which the boy hides the fox under his shirt allowing it to chew into his stomach?

Supposedly not a myth, but yeah exactly; it's about the boy refusing to get caught and punished, so he literally just dies instead.

>What era would you classify as modern? 5 years ago, 10 years? What?

Each era has had different surviving percentages of literature. So to be fair even literature from 10 years ago has been thinned down. This is the same for all periods of literature, music, arts, etc.
Because of this natural thinning down of information, the assumption is made that modern _______ is of poor quality. That is not entirely true, however it demonstrates a lack of consistency.

The comment I made in relation to music theory is of course debatable, but I stand by what I said. I think that having an understanding of filmography tools/history changes your appreciation of movies. Having understanding of history and theory of music changes and enhances appreciation of music. The same can be said for art and literature.

Fascinating stuff sir. is there anyway that I could view your reading list? I fear your knowledge of the Greeks far surpasses mine.

DESU the way you worded that makes me feel like you're making fun of me; in case you're serious, what are you into/what would you like to know more about?

genuinely not making fun of you. ive been running through of lot of stoical philosophies at the moment as well as currently working my way through some of Aristotle works but am in distress since none of the works I am currently working through are often mentioned by lit. (i.e. currently reading nicomachean ethics). Do you have any philosophy and history you view as entirely necessary?

Dude nice. I only recently started Aristotle myself after spending a long time on Plato and some on Xenophon. I'm about halfway through the organon right now and have had to read two short commentaries just to get a foothold and figure out what the hell is going on; it's very different from Plato, and much harder to jump into, but it's coming along.

Honestly almost all of Plato is great. I even enjoyed Laws, so if anyone's going to tell you to just read all of it, it's me. I haven't even reached the Romans for philosophy, and have barely started Aristotle, so unfortunately I can't really give balanced opinions in that genre.

But in terms of history I can definitely help. It's tough to declare any historian as absolutely necessary, as they cover such different topics and are almost always loaded down with boring details.

Livy is the most fun, and I think is the best storyteller. Also has the best account of early Rome.

Polybius is more academic and so sometimes is boring, but is I think the single best "teacher" of reading history in the ancient world; he wrote like Thucydides, but where Thucydides just did something, Polybius would do it and explain to you what was being done, and how you as the reader, should prepare yourself to best understand it. Not sure how valuable it'll be if you're an experienced history reader, but he taught me a lot just how to read, e.g., parsing "causes" from "pretexts," which never explicitly occurred to me before then.

Sallust is probably the only historian with almost no fluff in his writing. Maybe 200 pages total and some of the most indicting history I've ever read, largely because he explicitly mixed a lot of philosophy into his writing.

Tacitus gets a lot of praise on lit, largely because he's gotten a lot of praise historically. He IS a good historian; he's also constrained by a very depressing time period, and is far less fun to read than the adventures of the Scipios and Caesars of history.

Might want to read Arrian and/or Curtius Rufus for a life of Alexander. Haven't reached Plutarch's version yet, but considering the brevity of his other lives, I would guess Alexander deserves a fuller treatment.

As for Plutarch, I'd say if you read just one historian, read him; he can't go into depth in a lot of stories that really deserve it, but he CAN introduce you to those stories and point you to other writers treating them comprehensively.

>am in distress since none of the works I am currently working through are often mentioned by li

Dude welcome to the club. Read for yourself and assume you'll have nobody to brag to. Comes with the territory as soon as you depart from the likes of Homer, Herodotus, and Sophocles.

Hope that helps, but feel free to ask anything else. If you're on the fence about any of those historians (or others which didn't even earn a mention) I can offer a more thorough rundown of their topic/style/worth, and some of my favorite passages from them to see if you like them.

this sounds dumb and all but do you have any contacts? like skype, email, etc?

because i really enjoy talking to you and i feel as though we have similar interests in literature so i think it would be nice to talk. plus your advice has been incredibly helpful.