Edward
Edward
Aug 31, 2018 · 2 min read

The party thought-experiment is meant to be about a long standing tradition that is in conversation with itself, it’s not about culture or race. In fact, Augustine was an African and he constitutes a central spot in any canon — no one disagrees with that. Machado de Assis is almost always included as well.

I’m not sure why social justice came across as being a passing phase, but I can assure you that is not what I meant at all. I even write about how books can be used for social justice in this article: https://medium.com/enlightenment-project/can-books-make-you-a-better-citizen-a26d6fe2c21f But using books like this is a far-cry from what reading literature as literature used to mean. I don’t see why books shouldn’t be used like this in history classes, though.

What I meant was that there’s a massive difference in using books to find predetermined viewpoints, a task which is often done when interpreting literature with an eye for social justice, and analyzing Hamlet for what it really is.

And I don’t disagree, old works are obviously not totally disconnected from their time, but it’s also somewhat reductionistic (and rather unhelpful, if you’d ask me) to only understand Hamlet as the cause of Late Elizabethan politics. New Historicism is great and all, but what it really ends up doing is acting as a false equalizer. The same history and politics underpin Hamlet and probably Every Man in His Humour, but I’m sure most will agree with me that Hamlet is somehow and for some reason widely read today, whereas Jonson is left to academia.

And I do agree that the constitution of a complete canon is often in flux at the periphrery, but the central figures haven’t been in flux since the 19th century. Shakespeare has been seen as a figure of literary importance since Jonson posthumously published his works and since Milton wrote poems on him. Even if these points were found to be disputed, it remains that some of his literary works are just so memorable and complex that they have remained popular for ages. The same can’t be said for every single message piece written today.

    Edward

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    Edward