Canonicity, Creativity, and the Unlimited Revelation of Literature

Abstract

Literary-critical discussions of classic literary texts such as the Bible, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Confessions, and the Divine Comedy, have often aimed to demonstrate the high degree of creativity at work in such great of Western tradition. This creativity resists definitive for - mulation: it proves to be inseparable from the ongoing tradition in which these books continue to live through constant re-interpretation. They thereby assert their — their perennial relevance. Canonicity in this sense is not immobile or exclusive of innovation: it calls rather for continually new, creative interpretations or applications of classic texts in contemporary contexts. The critical writing I advocate is an attempt to elicit and display the creativity of such works as, in good part, embed- ded in and flowing from this type of canonicity. In particular, I stress the re-origination of these works — and the regeneration of culture that they foster—precisely in and through ongoing interpretation in the course of history . 1 All of the works named above are among those commonly recognized as the most canonical in Western literature. Great Books courses have come under attack in recent decades for enshrining the model of a closed canon that has been challenged from various quarters, particularly in the name of genders or ethnicities or geographical regions or socioeconomic classes of humanity that have apparently been excluded. I will not un- dertake an apology for the (or rather a) Western canon. 2 I have elsewhere examined the concept of canonicity and the open kind of universality that it ideally embodies (see Franke 2011a). Here I argue that the canon, as exemplified by the above works, is distinguished precisely by its ability