Literature 101: The Western Canon and You

Top ten most read pieces of literature in high school English class, in order:

1. Romeo and Juliet
2. Macbeth
3. Huck Finn
4. Julius Caesar
5. To Kill A Mockingbird
6. The Scarlet Letter
7. Of Mice and Men
8. Hamlet
9. The Great Gatsby
10. Lord of the Flies

Why, you might ask, are these the most popular books for high schoolers to read? The answer is a simple one. As I learned today in my teaching young adult literature class, the reason is this: they've been taught before. In other words, there are lesson plans available. Teachers have little work to do when teaching these books. Strategies and activities have been planned out for them.

All of these books were written by men, save Harper Lee's, and all of them were written before the 20th Century, save F. Scott Fitzgerald's. Each book features male main characters, save Nathaniel Hawthorne's, but that is hardly a positive depiction of women. Characteristics such
as these are found in nearly all examples of canon literature. For many years, it was rare if books written by authors who do not fit the description of wealthy white dead guy were even considered for school reading. Nowadays, we at least have some teachers striving for multicultural education. This doesn't mean abandoning the canon literature as a whole, however, but instead means an incorporation of non-canonical texts into the curriculum. Moderation. We can educate youths with texts that have so pervasively become a part of the American experience (particularly in terms of coming of age), but we can also include those works written by marginalized authors. The reasons for this are clear: in our changing society and with the increasingly cosmopolitan worldview developed by the global culture, educating children solely with canonical texts will not expose them to various cultures that exist in our world already.

That being said, I want to further explore why I chose the Penguin list. As I said in my first post, these lists seem rather silly. Who has the authority to make them? Who even made them, anyways? How were these books determined to be The Best? Now, many of the books on my list are not part of the Western canon. I don't believe that The Story of the Eye would be found there. However, many of them fit the description of the typical canonical text.

I'm still unsure why I picked this list. I like Penguin books and find the Penguin publishing group to be reputable and successful in its endeavors. I also, as silly as it may sound, really like the separation of the books into categories. I think that this list is a good place to start for me, especially because I am so aware of the importance of multiculturalism: there is no danger in me forgetting that other works are equally as important, some more so, than traditional canon texts.

Does anyone know of a more cosmopolitan book list out there? Perhaps a bit of research will lead to a reorganization of my book list. Perhaps I'll end up making my own. For now, who knows! In the meantime...

Laudanum ahoy.