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100-718: The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages is a 1994 book about Western literature by the American literary critic Harold Bloom , in which the author defends the concept of the Western canon by discussing 26 writers whom he sees as central to the canon. Bloom argues against what he calls the "school of resentment", which includes feminist literary criticism , Marxist literary criticism , Lacanians , New Historicism , Deconstructionists , and semioticians . The Western Canon includes four appendices listing works that Bloom at

200-683: A canon ensured a book's preservation as the best way to retain information about a civilization. In contemporary use, the Western canon defines the best of Western culture . In the ancient world, at the Alexandrian Library , scholars coined the Greek term Hoi enkrithentes ["the admitted", "the included"] to identify the writers in the canon. Although the term is often associated with the Western canon, it can be applied to works of literature, music and art, etc. from all traditions, such as

300-615: A canon of literature is the question of authority; who should have the power to determine what works are worth reading? Charles Altieri , of the University of California, Berkeley , states that canons are "an institutional form for exposing people to a range of idealized attitudes." It is according to this notion that work may be removed from the canon over time to reflect the contextual relevance and thoughts of society. American historian Todd M. Compton argues that canons are always communal in nature; that there are limited canons for, say

400-537: A commonplace writer"). Such classification were initiated with the Greeks' ranking their cultural works, with the word canon (ancient Greek κανών, kanṓn: "measuring rod, standard"). Similarly, early Christian Church Fathers declared as canon the authoritative texts of the New Testament , preserving them given the expense of vellum and papyrus and mechanical book reproduction. Thus, being included in

500-421: A critical attitude, the "canon" served to demythologize the conventional pieties of the American bourgeoisie and provided the student with a perspective from which to critically analyze American culture and institutions. Ironically, the same tradition is now regarded as oppressive. The texts once served an unmasking function; now we are told that it is the texts which must be unmasked. One of the main objections to

600-487: A form of fictional character was born named the " Byronic hero ", who is known to be rebellious in character. The Byronic hero "pervades much of his work" and Byron is considered a reflection of the character he created. Greek and Roman mythology was prevalent in the works of British Romantic poets including Byron, Keats and Shelley . However, there were poets who rejected the notion of mythological inspiration, including Coleridge, who preferred to take inspiration from

700-455: A general reevaluation of women's historical and academic contributions in response to the belief that women's lives and contributions have been underrepresented as areas of scholarly interest. However, in Britain and America at least women achieved major literary success from the late eighteenth century, and many major nineteenth-century British novelists were women, including Jane Austen ,

800-444: A group of metaphysic literary figures, metaphysical referring to a branch of philosophy which tries to bring meaning to and explain reality using broader and larger concepts. In order to do this, the use of literary features including conceits was common, in which the writer makes obscure comparisons in order to convey a message or persuade a point. The term metaphysics was coined by poet John Dryden , and during 1779 its meaning

900-581: A group of poets known as "revelatory poetics". The narrative which grew more prominent in English literature due to this movement towards Johannine theology incorporated an increase of spiritual themes, with "supernatural forces" and an "enchantment narrative" guiding the writings of the time. Johannine theology focused on the "divine" nature of Christ and disregards the materialistic and human aspect acknowledged in Catholic texts. It has been argued that

1000-523: A hostile view was expressed that emphasis on their importance had been an attempt by Eliot and his followers to impose a 'high Anglican and royalist literary history' on 17th-century English poetry. The American critic Yvor Winters suggested in 1939 an alternative canon of Elizabethan poetry , which would exclude the famous representatives of the Petrarchan school of poetry, represented by Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser . Winters claimed that

1100-584: A literary style labeled as magic realism , which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations. Some of his works are set in a fictional village called Macondo (the town mainly inspired by his birthplace Aracataca ), and most of them explore the theme of solitude . On his death in April 2014, Juan Manuel Santos , the President of Colombia, described him as "the greatest Colombian who ever lived." Mario Vargas Llosa , (b. 1936)

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1200-408: A literature survey class, or an English department reading list, but there is no such thing as one absolute canon of literature. Instead, there are many conflicting canons. He regards Bloom's "Western Canon" as a personal canon only. The process of defining the boundaries of the canon is endless. The philosopher John Searle has said, "In my experience there never was, in fact, a fixed 'canon'; there

1300-485: A more simplistic vernacular compared to the common Petrarchan diction, with imagery derived mainly from God. Donne was known for the metaphysical conceits integrated in his poetry. He used themes of religion, death and love to inspire the conceits he constructed. A famous conceit is observed in his well-known poem " The Flea " in which the flea is utilised to describe the bond between Donne and his lover, explaining how just as multiple bloods are within one flea, their bond

1400-501: A narrow interpretation of the West, dominated by British and American culture, at least under contemporary circumstances, prompting demands for a more diversified canon amongst the hemisphere. A classic is a book, or any other work of art, accepted as being exemplary or noteworthy. In the second-century Roman miscellany Attic Nights , Aulus Gellius refers to writers as "classicus... scriptor, non proletarius" ("A distinguished, not

1500-475: A new genre of literature in 18th-century France of books of conduct for girls and unmarried women. Pieces by authors including Marie-Antoinette Lenoir, Louise d'Épinay and Anne-Thérèse de Lambert all shared the same role of shaping young French women to lead successful and progressive lives. However, this form of education for women during the 18th century has been observed to be more oppressive than empowering. The War of Spanish Succession (1701–1714) led to

1600-609: A profound influence on medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity into the Renaissance , and his views were not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics . In metaphysics, Aristotelianism profoundly influenced Judeo-Islamic philosophical and theological thought during the Middle Ages and continues to influence Christian theology , especially

1700-450: A small dose of ancient Western classics and a few non-English works from other Western European countries. At the same time, they concur that such a group is pretty standard for the Western canon as understood by most Western European scholars. "School of resentment" is a pejorative term coined by Bloom and expounded upon in his work. It is used to describe related schools of literary criticism that have gained prominence in academia since

1800-538: A structured rhyme format; and the pastoral mode, a genre of literature which is significantly attributed to English poet Edmund Spenser , who created collections of poetry which portrays an idealistic version of rural living. Spenser has been "dubbed 'the English Virgil '" due to his influence on this particular genre. Significant texts from 16th-century early modern England were primarily religious in context and include: The Spanish Golden Age spanned over

1900-615: A student's education, such as Plato's Republic , or Dante's Divine Comedy . Such programs often focus exclusively on Western culture. Their employment of primary texts dictates an interdisciplinary approach, as most of the Great Books do not fall neatly under the prerogative of a single contemporary academic discipline. Great Books programs often include designated discussion groups as well as lectures, and have small class sizes. In general students in such programs receive an abnormally high degree of attention from their professors, as part of

2000-458: A time "when Britain was struggling to prove the value of its own visual culture". The art gave inspiration and "shaped the aesthetic" of Romantic literature for writers including the likes of author Mary Shelley . The diversity and lack of standard seen in the work of infamous Italian artists including Michelangelo and Raphael allowed Romantic writers to celebrate new forms and ways of expression. English essayist William Hazlitt articulated how

2100-579: Is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature . One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, his books have sold over thirteen million copies in sixty-three languages, making him the country's best-selling writer. Pamuk is the author of novels including The White Castle , The Black Book , The New Life , My Name Is Red , Snow , The Museum of Innocence , and A Strangeness in My Mind . He

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2200-547: Is a Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, essayist, college professor, and recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature . Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a larger international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom . Upon announcing

2300-458: Is a heroically brave, formidably learned and often unbearably sad response to the present state of the humanities." The novelist A. S. Byatt wrote: Bloom's canon is in many ways mine. It consists of those writers all other writers have to know and by whom they measure themselves. A culture's canon is an evolving consensus of individual canons. Canonical writers changed the medium, the language they were working in. People who merely describe what

2400-790: Is a list of books considered to be "essential", and it can be published as a collection (such as Great Books of the Western World , Modern Library , Everyman's Library or Penguin Classics ), presented as a list with an academic's imprimatur (such as Harold Bloom 's ), or be the official reading list of a university. In The Western Canon Bloom lists "the major Western writers" as Dante Alighieri , Geoffrey Chaucer , Miguel de Cervantes , Michel de Montaigne , William Shakespeare , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , William Wordsworth , Charles Dickens , Leo Tolstoy , James Joyce and Marcel Proust . A university or college Great Books Program

2500-525: Is a program inspired by the Great Books movement begun in the United States in the 1920s by John Erskine of Columbia University , which proposed to improve the higher education system by returning it to the western liberal arts tradition of broad cross-disciplinary learning. These academics and educators included Robert Hutchins , Mortimer Adler , Stringfellow Barr , Scott Buchanan , Jacques Barzun , and Alexander Meiklejohn . The view among them

2600-508: Is argued by author P. M. Oliver that the theology which was indoctrinated in the poetry of revelatory poets including John Donne was expanded on and created by the poets themselves. Prominent forms of literature which shaped and contributed to this era of Reformation include significantly structured prose and poetry, including the Spenserian stanza ; the sonnet , which is a form of poem easily distinguishable by its fourteen-line form with

2700-404: Is considered to be the Western canon . The list of works in the Western canon varies according to the critic's opinions on Western culture and the relative importance of its defining characteristics. Different literary periods held great influence on the literature of Western and European countries, with movements and political changes impacting the prose and poetry of the period. The 16th Century

2800-461: Is happening now don't last. Mine includes writers I don't necessarily like. D. H. Lawrence , though I hate him in a way, Jane Austen , too. Piotr Wilczek and Adam Czerniawski  [ pl ] criticized Bloom's narrow interpretation of the concept of the West, significantly underrepresenting and even ignoring works from countries he was not familiar with, such as Poland. They interpret his list as dominated by British and American culture, with

2900-404: Is inseparable. The Enlightenment era was a time of progression which spanned over the 18th century across many western countries. Upon recent years, this time of "enlightenment" was split into two degrees of progression, both a "moderate" and "radical" form, and was observed to be less harmonious across regions in its nature than previously thought. Literature has been produced to comment on

3000-471: Is known for the creation of Renaissance literature, while the 17th century was influenced by both Baroque and Jacobean forms. The 18th century progressed into a period known as the Enlightenment Era for many western countries. This period of military and political advancement influenced the style of literature created by French, Russian and Spanish literary figures. The 19th century was known as

3100-702: Is the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University , where he teaches writing and comparative literature . Born in Istanbul , Pamuk is the first Turkish Nobel laureate. He is also the recipient of numerous other literary awards. My Name Is Red won the 2002 Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger , 2002 Premio Grinzane Cavour , and 2003 International Dublin Literary Award . Octavio Paz Lozano (1914–1998)

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3200-488: Is usually defined as comprising all scholars who wish to enlarge the Western Canon by adding to it more works by authors from minority groups without regard to aesthetic merit and/or influence over time, or those who argue that some works commonly thought canonical promote sexist , racist or otherwise biased values and should therefore be removed from the canon. Bloom contended that the school of resentment threatens

3300-623: The Lyrical Ballads is claimed to have "marked the beginning of the Romantic Movement". There was known to be two waves of British Romantic authors; Coleridge and Wordsworth were grouped into the first wave, while a more radical and "aggressive" second wave of authors included the likes of George Gordon Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley . Due to the adamant aggression of Byron in his poetic works which advocated for an anti-violence revolution and world in which equality existed,

3400-468: The Bible to produce significantly religious-inspired works. British 19th-century Romanticism developed literature which focused on the "self-organisation of living beings, their growth and adaption into their environments and the creative spark that inspired the physical system to perform complex functions". There are observed close ties between medicine , a concept which was experiencing innovation during

3500-634: The Brontë family , Elizabeth Gaskell , and George Eliot . There were also three major female poets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson . In the twentieth century there were also many major female writers, including Katherine Mansfield , Dorothy Richardson , Virginia Woolf , Eudora Welty , and Marianne Moore . Notable female writers in France include Colette , Simone de Beauvoir , Marguerite Yourcenar , Nathalie Sarraute , Marguerite Duras and Françoise Sagan . Much of

3600-578: The Chinese classics . With regard to books, what makes a book "classic" has concerned various authors, from Mark Twain to Italo Calvino , and questions such as "Why Read the Classics?", and "What Is a Classic?" have been considered by others, including T. S. Eliot , Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve , Michael Dirda , and Ezra Pound . The terms "classic book" and Western canon are closely related concepts, but are not necessarily synonymous. A "canon"

3700-511: The Middle East , and South America. Writers from Africa, Turkey, China, Egypt, Peru, and Colombia, Japan, etc., have received Nobel prizes since the late 1960s. Writers from Asia and Africa have also been nominated for, and also won, the Booker prize in recent years. Susan Hardy Aitken argues that the Western canon has maintained itself by excluding and marginalising women, whilst idealising

3800-831: The Neoplatonism of the Early Church and the scholastic tradition of the Roman Catholic Church . Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as "The First Teacher" ( Arabic : المعلم الأول ). His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics . The vast body of Christian philosophy is typically represented on reading lists mainly by Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas . The academic canon of early modern philosophy generally includes Descartes , Spinoza , Leibniz , Locke , Berkeley , Hume , and Kant . Major philosophers of

3900-421: The Renaissance include Niccolò Machiavelli , Michel de Montaigne , Pico della Mirandola , Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno , Marsilio Ficino and Gemistos Plethon . The seventeenth century was important for philosophy, and the major figures were Francis Bacon , Thomas Hobbes , René Descartes , Blaise Pascal , Baruch Spinoza , John Locke and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz . Major philosophers of

4000-589: The Semanario de Salamanca and the Diario de Madrid  [ es ] . Numerous women who contributed to the Spanish Enlightenment period include poet Margarita Hickey , author Frasquita Larrea , and poet María Gertrudis Hore . During the 18th century, Russia was experiencing expansions in military and geographical control, a key facet of the Enlightenment period. This is reflected in

4100-516: The Western hemisphere , such works having achieved the status of classics . Recent discussions upon the matter emphasise cultural diversity within the canon. The canons of music and visual arts have been broadened to encompass often overlooked periods, whilst recent media like cinema grapple with a precarious position. Criticism arises, with some viewing changes as prioritising activism over aesthetic values, often associated with critical theory, as well as postmodernism . Another critique highlights

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4200-483: The humanities ). Knox used the intentionally "provocative" title "The Oldest Dead White European Males" as the title of his lecture and his subsequent book of the same name, in both of which Knox defended the continuing relevance of classical culture to modern society. Defenders maintain that those who undermine the canon do so out of primarily political interests, and that such criticisms are misguided and/or disingenuous. As John Searle , Professor of Philosophy at

4300-591: The neoclassical movement of the 18th century through drama and poetic forms of literature. Only until the 20th century, however, was the Spanish Enlightenment period properly acknowledged by scholars, with past research regarding the Spanish Enlightenment period as a "time of foreign imitation". The Spanish Enlightenment held impact on women in Spain, with more women publishing literature, becoming members as well as subscribers to publications including

4400-468: The wider African diaspora of writers in Britain, France, Latin America, and Africa. This correlated largely with the shift in social and political views during the civil rights movement in the United States. The first global recognition came in 1950 when Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Literature. Chinua Achebe 's novel Things Fall Apart helped draw attention to African literature . Nigerian Wole Soyinka

4500-430: The 17th century was the use of metaphysical conceits , in which the poet uses "unorthodox language" to describe a relatable concept. It is beneficial when trying to bring light to concepts that are difficult to explain with more common imagery. John Donne was a prominent metaphysical poet of the 17th century. Donne's poetry explored the pleasures of life through strong use of conceits and emotive language. Donne adopted

4600-488: The 1970s and which Bloom contended are preoccupied with political and social activism at the expense of aesthetic values. Broadly, what Bloom termed "schools of resentment" approaches associate with Marxist critical theory , including African-American studies , Marxist literary criticism , New Historicist criticism, feminist criticism and post-structuralism —specifically as promoted by Jacques Lacan , Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault . The "school of resentment"

4700-485: The 1990s the concept of the Western canon was vehemently condemned, just as earlier Modern Library lists had been criticized as "too American," Modern Library responded by preparing new lists of "100 Best Novels" and "100 Best Nonfiction" compiled by famous writers, and later compiled lists nominated by book purchasers and readers. Some intellectuals have championed a "high conservative modernism" that insists that universal truths exist, and have opposed approaches that deny

4800-532: The 19th century, and Romantic English literature. British Romanticism also had influences from 13th-/16th-century Italian art as a consequence of British artists who resided in Italy during the time of Bonaparte's invasion dealing paintings to London clients from medieval to the High Renaissance Italian periods. The exposure to these artworks influenced British literature and culture during

4900-478: The 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy said it had been given to Vargas Llosa "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat". Many philosophers today agree that Greek philosophy has influenced much of Western culture since its inception. Alfred North Whitehead once noted: "The safest general characterization of

5000-602: The Chinese answer to Franz Kafka or Joseph Heller . He is best known to Western readers for his 1987 novel Red Sorghum Clan , of which the Red Sorghum and Sorghum Wine volumes were later adapted for the film Red Sorghum . In 2012, Mo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work as a writer "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary". Orhan Pamuk (b. 1952)

5100-618: The European intellectual filter. This view of African-American literature as a tool in the struggle for African-American political and cultural liberation has been stated for decades, most famously by W. E. B. Du Bois . Since the 1960s the Western literary canon has been expanded to include writers from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. This is reflected in the Nobel Prizes awarded in literature. Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972)

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5200-693: The European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato ." Clear, unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers to Early Islamic philosophy , the European Renaissance , and the Age of Enlightenment . Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens . He is widely considered

5300-880: The French control over Spain. This influenced their cultural identity and, therefore, the Enlightenment period held an impact on Spanish literature in the 18th century. The court of Madrid during the 18th century saw an increase in influence from the French and the Italian, with literary influences derived increasingly from authors during the English Enlightenment period. English authors who are stated to hold influence on Spanish "Ilustrados" include John Locke , Edmund Burke , Edward Young and Thomas Hobbes . New takes on literature began to emerge during this time, led by poets including Ignacio de Luzán Claramunt and Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos , who contributed greatly to

5400-659: The Native or Plain Style anti-Petrarchan movement had been undervalued and argued that George Gascoigne (1525–1577) "deserves to be ranked […] among the six or seven greatest lyric poets of the century, and perhaps higher". Towards the end of the 20th century the established canon was increasingly disputed. In the twentieth century there was a general reassessment of the literary canon , including women's writing , post-colonial literatures , gay and lesbian literature , writing by racialized minorities, working people's writing, and

5500-580: The Romantic era, in which the style of writing was influenced by the political issues of the century, and differed from the previous classicist form. Western literature includes written works in many languages: Early modern England was the time of reformation, in which a " Protestant aesthetic" was developed, while the Church of England attempted to separate their notoriety with the Pope and move away from

5600-718: The Souls of Today's Students (1987), argues that moral degradation results from ignorance of the great classics that shaped Western culture. Bloom further comments: "But one thing is certain: wherever the Great Books make up a central part of the curriculum, the students are excited and satisfied." His book was widely cited by some intellectuals for its argument that the classics contained universal truths and timeless values which were being ignored by cultural relativists . Classicist Bernard Knox made direct reference to this topic when he delivered his 1992 Jefferson Lecture (the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in

5700-593: The University of California, Berkeley, has written: There is a certain irony in this [i.e., politicized objections to the canon] in that earlier student generations, my own for example, found the critical tradition that runs from Socrates through the Federalist Papers , through the writings of Mill and Marx , down to the twentieth century, to be liberating from the stuffy conventions of traditional American politics and pieties. Precisely by inculcating

5800-468: The author, Spinoza , rejected the Jewish and Christian religions for their lack of depth in teaching. Spinoza discussed higher levels of philosophy in his treatise, which he suggested was only understood by elitists. This text is one of many during this period which attributed to the increasing "anti-religious" support during the time of Enlightenment. Although the book held great influence, other writers of

5900-440: The authors who considered themselves Romantics only created two-dimensional imitations of the works of German Romantic authors. The poetry of the Romantic era of Italy was focused greatly on the motif of nature. Romantic poets drew inspiration from ancient Greek and Latin poetry and mythology , while poets of this time period also sought to create a sense of unity within the country with their writings. Political disunity

6000-700: The best in the Spanish language , he was awarded the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature . García Márquez started as a journalist, and wrote many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories, but is best known for his novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing

6100-480: The central figures of the British renaissance canon remain, Edmund Spenser , Sir Philip Sidney , Christopher Marlowe , William Shakespeare , Ben Jonson , and John Donne . Spenser , Donne , and Jonson were major influences on 17th-century poetry. However, poet John Dryden condemned aspects of the metaphysical poets in his criticism. In the 18th century Metaphysical poetry fell into further disrepute, while

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6200-455: The claim that because blacks had no written traditions they were bearers of an inferior culture." African-American writers were also attempting to subvert the literary and power traditions of the United States. Some scholars assert that writing has traditionally been seen as "something defined by the dominant culture as a white male activity." This means that, in American society, literary acceptance has traditionally been intimately tied in with

6300-424: The core of canon music and remains mostly unchanged to our days. It integrates a huge body of works starting from the 17th century and are reproduced on an ensemble of all acoustic musical instruments that were common in that century's Europe. The term "classical music" did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to distinctly canonize the period from Johann Sebastian Bach to Ludwig van Beethoven as

6400-444: The course of the 16th century and was a time of development and acceleration in the arts and literature in Spain. This acceleration of poetry , drama and prose forms of literature was partly due to the increase in contact that Spain gained to other European nations including Italy. During this time, a prominent Spanish poet arose named Garcilaso de la Vega . He utilised literary devices seen in foreign nations within his work, and

6500-568: The course of the 1920s, Eliot did much to establish the importance of the metaphysical school, both through his critical writing and by applying their method in his own work. However, by 1961 A. Alvarez was commenting that "it may perhaps be a little late in the day to be writing about the Metaphysicals. The great vogue for Donne passed with the passing of the Anglo-American experimental movement in modern poetry." Two decades later,

6600-419: The cultural productions of historically marginalized groups. This reassessment has resulted in a whole scale expansion of what is considered "literature", and genres hitherto not regarded as "literary", such as children's writing, journals, letters, travel writing, and many others are now the subjects of scholarly interest. The Western literary canon has also expanded to include the literature of Asia, Africa,

6700-525: The curriculum at the University of Chicago . University president Robert Maynard Hutchins and his collaborator Mortimer Adler developed a program that offered reading lists, books, and organizational strategies for reading clubs to the general public. An earlier attempt had been made in 1909 by Harvard University president Charles W. Eliot , with the Harvard Classics , a 51-volume anthology of classic works from world literature. Eliot's view

6800-428: The development of 19th-century British Romanticism . These revolutions birthed a new genre of authors and poets who used their literature to convey their distaste for authority. This is seen in the works of poet and artist William Blake , who used primarily philosophical and biblical themes in his poetry, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth , also known as the " Lake Poets ", whose literature including

6900-582: The different versions of "Enlightenment" that spawned across Europe during the 18th century. Henry Farnham stated in his book The Enlightenment in America that the "Moderate Enlightenment […] preaches balance, order and religious compromise", whereas the "Revolutionary Enlightenment" attempted to "construct a new heaven and earth out of the destruction of the old". Significant texts which shaped this literary period include Tractatus Theologico-Politicus , an anonymously published treatise in Amsterdam in which

7000-479: The early modern era , had a distinct Biblical influence which only began to be rejected during the Enlightenment period of the 18th century. European poetry during the 17th century tended to meditate on or reference the scriptures and teachings of the Bible , an example being orator George Herbert 's "The Holy Scriptures (II)", in which Herbert relies heavily on biblical ligatures to create his sonnets . The Jacobean period of 17th-century England gave birth to

7100-451: The early period of feminist literary scholarship was given over to the rediscovery and reclamation of texts written by women. Virago Press began to publish its large list of 19th and early 20th-century novels in 1975 and became one of the first commercial presses to join in the project of reclamation. In the twentieth century, the Western literary canon started to include African writers not only from African-American writers , but also from

7200-907: The eighteenth century include George Berkeley , Montesquieu , Voltaire , David Hume , Giambattista Vico , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Denis Diderot , Immanuel Kant , Edmund Burke and Jeremy Bentham . Important nineteenth century philosophers include Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), Giuseppe Mazzini , Arthur Schopenhauer , Auguste Comte , Søren Kierkegaard , Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels and Friedrich Nietzsche . Major twentieth century figures include Henri Bergson , Edmund Husserl , Bertrand Russell , Martin Heidegger , Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jean-Paul Sartre , Simone de Beauvoir , and Simone Weil , Michel Foucault , Pierre Bourdieu , Jacques Derrida and Jürgen Habermas . A porous distinction between analytic and continental approaches emerged during this period. Classical music forms

7300-586: The existence of universal truths. Yale University Professor of Humanities and famous literary critic Harold Bloom also argued strongly in favor of the canon, in his 1994 book The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages , and in general the canon remains as a represented idea in many institutions. Allan Bloom (no relation), in his highly influential The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished

7400-679: The first contemporary writers of Arabic literature , along with Tawfiq el-Hakim , to explore themes of existentialism . He published 34 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts, and five plays over a 70-year career. Many of his works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films. Kenzaburō Ōe (1935–2023) was a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature . His novels, short stories, and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory , deal with political, social, and philosophical issues, including nuclear weapons , nuclear power , social non-conformism , and existentialism . Ōe

7500-730: The interest in Elizabethan poetry was rekindled through the scholarship of Thomas Warton and others. However, the canon of Renaissance poetry was formed in the Victorian period with anthologies like Palgrave's Golden Treasury . In the twentieth century T. S. Eliot and Yvor Winters were two literary critics who were especially concerned with revising the canon of renaissance English literature. Eliot, for example, championed poet Sir John Davies in an article in The Times Literary Supplement in 1926. During

7600-485: The lack of restriction, and ample artistic liberty and freedom seen through the artworks of Raphael inspired poets of the Romantic era. Michelangelo's artworks, which "embodied the sublime", were reflected in the literature of Dante and Shakespeare , with constant analogies being made at the time comparing the two. Western canon The Western canon is the embodiment of high-culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly cherished across

7700-462: The literature of the time period. Satire and the panegyric had influenced the development of Russian literature as seen in the Russian literary figures of the time including Feofan Prokopovich , Kantemir, Derzhavin and Karamzin . Spanish literature of the 18th century, apart from being influenced by the Enlightenment period, was influenced by the literary concept of the " sublime ". The "sublime"

7800-445: The most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, especially the Western tradition . Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher . His writings cover many subjects – including physics , biology , zoology , metaphysics , logic , ethics , aesthetics , rhetoric , linguistics , politics and government—and constitute the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy . Aristotle's views on physical science had

7900-541: The nature of the canon itself and may lead to its eventual demise. Philosopher Richard Rorty agreed that Bloom is at least partly accurate in his description of the "school of resentment", writing that those identified by Bloom do in fact routinely use "subversive, oppositional discourse" to attack the canon specifically and Western culture in general. Yet "this school deserves to be taken seriously—more seriously than Bloom's trivialization of it as mere resentment." Western literature The best of Western literature

8000-501: The overall aim of fostering a community of learning. Over 100 institutions of higher learning, mostly in the United States, offer some version of a Great Books Program as an option for students. For much of the 20th century, the Modern Library provided a larger convenient list of the Western canon. The list numbered more than 300 items by the 1950s, by authors from Aristotle to Albert Camus, and has continued to grow. When in

8100-419: The reader into the mind of the speaker. The Romantic era for literature was at its pinnacle during the 19th century and was a period which influenced western literature. Italian writers of the 19th century, including the likes of Leopardi and Alessandro Manzoni , detested being grouped into a "category" of writing. Therefore, Italy was home to many isolated literary figures, with no unambiguous meaning for

8200-534: The sense of "national redemption" is reflected heavily in the works of Italian Romantics, including Ugo Foscolo , who wrote the story The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis , in which a man was forced to commit suicide due to the political persecutions of his country. Historical events including the European Revolution , within which the French revolution is claimed to be most significant, contributed to

8300-471: The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church . Johannine literature, being "hymnic, densely troped and symbolic, structured, inspired", became the inspiration for many poets of the period. A group of poets bloomed from this reformation, the rejection of the Pope and moving away from Roman Catholic Church. Amongst these were the most significant John Donne , George Herbert and Thomas Traherne , and constituted

8400-692: The term "Romanticism" itself. This was explained in the writings of Pietro Borsieri, in which he depicted the term Romanticism as being a literary movement that was self-defined by the writers. Contrastingly, it was noted by writers of the time, including Giuseppe Acerbi , how Italian Romantics were merely mimicking the trends seen in foreign nations in a hasty way which lacked the depth of foreign writers. Authors including Ludovico di Breme , Ermes Visconti  [ it ] and Giovanni Berchet did classify themselves as Romantics, however they were critiqued by others, including Gina Martegiani, who wrote in her essay "Il Romanticismo Italiano Non Esiste" of 1908 that

8500-427: The time considered canonical, stretching from the earliest scriptures to Tony Kushner 's Angels in America . Bloom later disowned the list, saying that it was written at his editor's insistence and distracted from the book's intention. Bloom defends the concept of the Western canon by discussing 26 writers whom he sees as central to the canon: Norman Fruman of The New York Times wrote that " The Western Canon

8600-411: The time rejected Spinoza's views, including theologian Lambert van Valthuysen. The time of enlightenment and advancement meant that both sacred and secular authors were pushing women to be at a higher level of literary knowledgeability. France was attempting to improve the education of young women and therefore have this be seen as a reflection of the advancement of society. This led to the emergence of

8700-473: The very power dynamics which perpetrated such evils as racial discrimination. By borrowing from and incorporating the non-written oral traditions and folk life of the African diaspora , African-American literature broke "the mystique of connection between literary authority and patriarchal power." In producing their own literature, African Americans were able to establish their own literary traditions devoid of

8800-421: The works of European men. Where women's work is introduced it can be considered inappropriately rather than recognising the importance of their work; a work's greatness is judged against socially situated factors which exclude women, whilst being portrayed as an intellectual approach. The feminist movement produced both feminist fiction and non-fiction and created new interest in women's writing. It also prompted

8900-466: The writings of Saint John the Evangelist, which was considered an integral part of Johannine theology, coincided with Pauline theology during the early modern era to hold influence over the English literature of the time. Author Paul Cefalu claims this form of "high Christology" was seen in the writings of John Donne, when he states that the "Gospel of Saint John containes all Divinity". However, it

9000-401: Was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read. Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature . He is regarded as one of

9100-402: Was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize , the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature , and the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature . Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century and one of

9200-626: Was able to, therefore, replace the stanza forms originally used in Spain with Italian meters and stanza forms. The poet was influenced by Petrarchan imagery and the works of Virgil , and was used as inspiration by subsequent poets of the time. Garcilaso integrated a variety of mythological allusions into his works, in which he took inspiration from the Italian Renaissance of the mid-16th century. Prose and poetic literature within western regions, most prominently in England during

9300-474: Was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994 for creating "an imagined world , where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today". Guan Moye (b. 1955), better known by the pen name "Mo Yan", is a Chinese novelist and short story writer. Donald Morrison of the U.S. news magazine TIME referred to him as "one of the most famous, oft-banned and widely pirated of all Chinese writers ", and Jim Leach called him

9400-451: Was extended to represent a group of poets of the time, then called " metaphysical poets ". Major poets of the time included John Donne , Andrew Marvell and George Herbert . These poets used wit and high intellectual standards while drawing from nature to reveal insights about emotion and rejected the romantic attributes of the Elizabethan period to birth a more analytical and introspective form of writing. A common literary device during

9500-544: Was prevalent in 19th-century Italy, reflected in the Risorgimento . After the Neapolitan Revolution of 1799, the term "Risorgimento" was used in the context of a movement of "national redemption" as stated by Antonio Gramsci . The one facet which held Italy together during this time of political disunity was the poetry and writings of the time period, as suggested by Berchet. The desire for freedom and

9600-548: Was rather a certain set of tentative judgments about what had importance and quality. Such judgments are always subject to revision, and in fact they were constantly being revised." One of the notable attempts at compiling an authoritative canon for literature in the English-speaking world was the Great Books of the Western World program. This program, developed in the middle third of the 20th century, grew out of

9700-428: Was that the emphasis on narrow specialization in American colleges had harmed the quality of higher education by failing to expose students to the important products of Western civilization and thought. The essential component of such programs is a high degree of engagement with primary texts, called the Great Books. The curricula of Great Books programs often follow a canon of texts considered more or less essential to

9800-427: Was the first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1986, and American Toni Morrison was the first African-American woman to win, in 1993. Some early Afro-American writers were inspired to defy ubiquitous racial prejudice by proving themselves equal to European American authors. As Henry Louis Gates Jr., has said, "it is fair to describe the subtext of the history of black letters as this urge to refute

9900-414: Was the linkage between Spanish Neoclassical poetry and Romantic poetry prevalent during the 18th century, and was a concept of literary, rhetorical and philosophical value. Longinus described the literary devices that the sublime creates as those that allowed the reader to experience something similar to the speaker. He had created a style of language that was not used to persuade, but merely to transport

10000-466: Was the same as that of Scottish philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle : "The true University of these days is a Collection of Books". ("The Hero as Man of Letters", 1840) The canon of Renaissance English poetry of the 16th and early 17th century has always been in some form of flux and towards the end of the 20th century the established canon was criticised, especially by those who wished to expand it to include, for example, more women writers. However,

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