What makes a \u201cgood\u201d book? Is it character development? Is it a riveting story line? Is it the choice of setting? In American Literature this week, we had a discussion on the literary canon and how exclusive it is, and it really piqued my interest in this idea that one book should be held above another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A literary canon is defined as \u201ca body of books, narratives and other texts considered to be the most important and influential of a particular time period or place<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0or \u201ca collection of works by which others are measured in terms of literary skill and value<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0The term canon can be used in many different areas of literature; from the Biblical canon, which assigns works to the Christian tradition, to the Shakespearean canon, which organizes works by the author, in this case Shakespeare. However, the basic use of a canon is as a \u201cyardstick\u201d in order to measure literature in terms of value and validity. The Western canon<\/a> is most likely what you have grown up learning in school. This includes authors such as Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Ovid, Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, John Milton, William Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, Leo Tolstoy, Sigmund Freud, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, T.S. Eliot, and many more.\u00a0 I would hope that you have heard of at least one, if not all, of these on this list; otherwise, I would like to know where you received your education from, because I would be quite worried for you and your fellow students. These are the writers who have been deemed worthy of being taught through the ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember reading The Iliad <\/em>and The Odyssey <\/em>in grade school, maybe 8th<\/sup> grade, and my teachers would use the readings as an opportunity to get us involved. We would each choose a character to be and would read out loud in that character for that chapter. Also, I remember that year for the school-wide gingerbread-house-making competition my English teacher, some of my friends, and I created a scene from The Iliad <\/em>instead of making a normal gingerbread house. Shout out to Covenant Classical School for making classical education enjoyable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what makes a book \u201cbad?\u201d In recent history many classic and modern books have been challenged by schools, teachers, or parents to be removed from libraries and schools. Some books<\/a> that have been challenged include The Catcher in the Rye <\/em>by JD Salinger, The Great Gatsby <\/em>by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Grapes of Wrath <\/em>by John Steinbeck, To Kill a Mockingbird <\/em>by Harper Lee, Of Mice and Men <\/em>by John Steinbeck, Animal Farm <\/em>by George Orwell, The Lord of the Rings <\/em>trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, the Harry Potter <\/em>series by J.K. Rowling, and so many more. Reasons for these books being challenged include racial slurs, sexual content, profanity, and political issues.\u00a0But novels are not the only ones being scrutinized<\/a>. Dr. Seuss\u2019s Hop on Pop <\/em>was challenged in 2013 by fathers in Toronto because the picture book \u201cencourages children to use violence against their fathers,\u201d and Shel Silverstein\u2019s collection of poems A Light in the Attic<\/em>, was challenged by parents because it \u201cglorified Satan, suicide, and cannibalism, and also encouraged children to be disobedient and encourages children to break dishes so they don\u2019t have to dry them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have grown up being taught that there is an ultimate truth and a difference between right and wrong. However, when it comes to literature, I may have to turn from my learning. Of course, there may be some works that are absolutely awful and downright vulgar, but the books that are on these lists tend to be works that I would consider necessary for a child\u2019s education. I could not imagine my life without the lessons I learned from The Iliad<\/em>, The Odyssey<\/em>, To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em>, Animal Farm<\/em>, The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, and many others. Sometimes the point of a book is to be shocking in a way that evokes a feeling of pity and empathy for a character or a group of people. That does not mean that the book is \u201cbad.\u201d Just because a book does not completely line up with your belief system does not mean that it should not be taught. Just because a book \u201coffends\u201d you does not mean that it needs to be pulled from every shelf. Personally, I think today\u2019s society focuses too much on what offends them and not enough on what helps others, but that could take up an entire blog post on its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moral of the story: don\u2019t be a snowflake. Read something shocking today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rebecca Reese What makes a \u201cgood\u201d book? Is it character development? Is it a riveting story line? Is it the choice of setting? 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