Joel Swagman (Reviews / TESOL): Blogging the Canon

This index is arguable superfluous. After all, I already have an index for the classic books I've read, which contains all these same books. But I've decided to go ahead and make this list anyway.

I suppose the primary purpose behind this list is just my love of making lists. I like going back through and looking at what I've written on this blog, and finding new ways to organize it. It's easy and brainless work, but it also makes me feel like I'm being productive. (It takes me a couple cups of coffee in the morning before I'm fully awake and productive, so creating lists like this is the prefect thing to do when I'm still waking up and want to feel like I'm being semi-productive).

But aside from that, the impetus for this list comes from Steve Donoghue's Youtube series The Western Canon Starter Kit. Steve Donoghue makes the point that if you are going to make a project of reading the classics, then you should do it systematically and linearly. Start with the earliest classics, and work your way forward from there.

Up until now, I've been trying to read the classics in a haphazard way. Grab Dostoevsky one month, try Don Quixote the next, etc. But now, influenced by Steve, I want to try to do this project systematically. Start at the beginning, and work my way forward.

To that end, I want to create an index that organizes the classics chronologically, so I can see where the gaps in my reading are.

For example, looking at this list now, I can see the first thing I probably need to work on is Akkadian literature (The Enuma Elis, and The Code of Hammurabi). Then, after that, it's onto the Greek World. I've already got Homer finished, but I've not done Homer's contemporary, Hesiod.

Then onto the dramatists. Aeschylus would be the first dramatist. I've read a couple-of his plays, but I need to finish off the rest of plays before moving on to make a project of Sophocles.

Et cetera. Having a list like this makes it very easy for me to see the gaps, and then try and fill them up.

And, perhaps I flatter myself here but, once this list fills out a bit, I'm hoping it might be useful to other readers. Other people will be able to see the list and perhaps use it to help them organize their own reading syllabus.

Steve Donoghue (in one of his many videos) says that you can easily read all the surviving works of the ancient world in a year or two. But that's Steve Donoghue. At my pace, I'm going to be stuck in the ancient world for quite some time. Perhaps I'll never finish the ancient world. But that's okay. Any project of self-education is as much about the journey as it is the end goal. I may not learn everything, but I'll learn some things, and I'll be enriched by what I do learn.

Because I anticipate being stuck in the ancient world for quite some time, I originally thought I'd just create a list just for the ancient world, and leave out anything after the fall of the Roman Empire. But then I thought I might as well just put it all in while I'm here. (See again my love of making lists.)

Other Notes:

* I've taken the name "Blogging the Canon" from this blog here. I've been a fan of that blogger for many years--ever since I discovered him in 2010--so I thought I'd take the name as a tribute to him. He seems to have largely abandoned the project, so I will take up the mantle.

(That blogger was also middle-aged when he started the project. Perhaps there's something about becoming middle-aged and wanting to make a project of reading through the classics. When you're younger, you always assume that you'll get around to all those classics someday. Once you hit middle-age, you realize that time is rapidly running out. It's now or never.)

* I've defined the Early Modern Period as 1789 to 1918. This is based on the concept of The Long 19th Century (W) which usually goes from The French Revolution to the beginning of World War I. I've extended this by 4 years so that it also includes the end of World War I--that way I can also sneak in the Russian Revolution and the German Revolution. (There was a time once when I thought I might try to specialize in this era of history, so I used to use these dates to define the scope of my intended studies.)

The modern period, then, is anything from 1919 and after.

The closer we get to the present day, the more difficult it is to decide what is a true classic. Personally I have a hard time regarding any thing published after I was born as a "classic", but there seems to be universal consensus that Beloved (1989) is a classic. (It's on the school curriculum and everything. Blogging the Canon also included it.) So I can't very well leave Beloved off the list. And The Handmaid's Tale (1985) is also universally regarded as a classic nowadays.

So where to draw the line? It seems a little silly to include The Flashman Books as classics, but Everyman's Library seems to think they are--they include Flashman in their Everyman Classic line of books. (I've seen these "classic" Flashman editions on the shelves in bookstores in Australia.) And, I guess to a certain extent it's fair enough. After all, the original Flashman was published all the way back in 1969. How many books from 1969 are still in print nowadays? It's a classic of sorts, right?

Harry Potter also seems a bit silly to include, and yet, Steve Donoghue, in one of his many videos, makes the point that of all the YA literature currently in print, Harry Potter is the only one that's certain to survive into the next century. So it's also a modern classic, of sorts.

Actually, when you consider that the vast majority of books published go out of print after one year, anything from the 20th Century that is still being printed and talked about has already kind of passed the test of time. Granted, a lot of these books won't be remembered in another 200 years. But I'm not living 200 years in the future, I'm living now and talking about what the culture is now.

So, for the purposes of this list, I'm going to be generous about the definition of 20th Century classics.

Anything published after the year 2000, however, is out. 2000 is the cut-off.

...with one exception. If I'm listing works by an individual author, and that author has published books both before 2000 and after, and I've reviewed at least one of those books from before 2000 on this blog, then I'll also include the other books from after 2000 under that author's name.

Comic books are not generally included, unless I can add them to the name of an author already on this list. (So Neil Gaiman's Sandman books get included because I've already included Neil Gaiman as one of the canonical authors of the modern period.)

* I've listed the author's in order of the year born, just because that was the easiest and simplest way to do it. With author's whose work spans two periods (like H.G. Wells), I've included them in the period in which they started writing.

* Lest anyone think I'm under-read, I should say that this list is only the classics I've read since I started my book review project in 2006. It's not all the classics I've read in my entire life. If I were to include the classic books I read in high school and college, I'd be able to add a few more books to this list. But my rule is that if I haven't reviewed it on this blog, it doesn't count. However, now that I've started my rereading project, I'm hoping to go back and reread a lot of those books from my younger days, and then I will add them to this list.

Addendum: Alternative Canons

The Chinese Canon

* Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en

* Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong

Joel Swagman (Reviews / TESOL)

Monday, June 24, 2024

Blogging the Canon

The Ancient World

Akkadian Literature

Jewish Literature

The Greeks

Greek Literature

Greek History

The Romans

Roman History

The Renaissance

16th Century

17th Century

18th Century

Early Modern Period: 1789-1918

The Modern Period: 1919 to Present

Addendum: Alternative Canons

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