I think it's more relevant to this discussion to question what use the Western Canon is, rather than whether it exists or not.

I think its value is what it has always been - it allows a common set of cultural references. In this wise, it's not that different than the way this community uses ME shows as common tongue. It binds, it fosters jokes, it breeds the language, it provides allusions and parallels.

(I also don't dispute its existence, but will also fight to the death about what is or is not on the list.)

That's the fun of it! Unless you're Deb, then it's not fun, just aggravating.

Does the WC have relevance to the books you read in your ordinary habits (and how)?

What canon can often do is give you the cultural context in which a work was created. Knowing that Pound edited Eliot's "The Wasteland" and reading Pound you can see his influence on that work, and how it was shaped. You can also see Pound's influence on Yeats, helping to bring W.B.'s poetry in to the 20th century. Longer term, it's essential to have read something like King Lear to understanding Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood. Lear influenced her writing, and Wise Blood is (in part) in dialogue with Shakespeare.

Can you enjoy a book that was influential, but has aged badly?

Sometimes. A work that is only of its time tends to reveal the biases and mechanics of its era and those cultural assumptions. The same way that looking at the advertising of a different era will tell you a great deal about the cultural presumptions of that time. My poetry professor said you could learn more from second-rate poetry because genuine works of genius defined their own rules. Whereas the second-tier stuff (by his estimation) exposed the gears and how the poetic effects were put together.

Does ignorance of a segment of the WC necessarily impair your ability to enjoy/benefit from another novel?

See my comments re: Lear/Wise Blood.

I can say that for me as someone who loves to read and write, reading 'canonical' work critically, knowing exactly what I did or didn't like and why, has improved how I read.

See, that makes sense to me. It's not personally where I live, as a reader or a writer - as I just said somewhere else, I probably ought to have a forehead tat or a teeshirt that says "Just tell me a fucking story!" - but that's a reason I can understand.

It's just that my reaction to fiction - I really ought to clarify, I am all about the crit when it comes to nonfiction - is completely visceral, and that's not something I ever want to change.

I love it, or loathe it. My stomach, where the Chinese say the soul lives, moves around because of it. I dream about it, or find myself wondering what the characters do ten years down the line. Things like that.

It's a mantra, of sorts.

That's the fun of it! Unless you're Deb, then it's not fun, just aggravating.

Not aggravating, love. Alien and bizarre, and the few times I've tried it, hours I will never, ever get back in this life.

Why do I have to read something critically?

Well, although sometimes Milton is thrilling, I find that it's a whole nother way of thinking about Paradise Lost, knowing that he was so influential in making the Adam-and-Eve story a story about how Eve was a slutty, corruptible moron. You know, the Bible story is what it is, but the Western Civ. interpretation of that scene -- from the "fruit" being an apple to a million subtle shadings -- is filtered, in a lot of ways, through Milton.

My mother likes to call Milton a villain, for this reason. Anyway, critical reading is what helps me understand that, until he did it that way, Eve-blaming was not nearly as explicit as it has been in discourse since then.

I think the overall meaning of cultural canonicity is whether the reference to a work feels alive, appropriate, or dead and stuffy and irrelevant (or else completely obscure). The ones we're still talking about as a culture at large, lo these many years later, are the ones that are somehow still alive in their descendants, like grandparents passing on their genes (except in much more haphazard fashion).

Not aggravating, love. Alien and bizarre, and the few times I've tried it, hours I will never, ever get back in this life.

Not aggravating then - like math!

Not aggravating then - like math!

Hey! (Nilly's not here to defend math, so I have to.)

Not aggravating then - like math!

Nope, math is aggravating. This is more puzzling. Nutty's nice and clear on it, but my brain simply isn't structured to follow those paths.

(and I'm ducking out on the conversation entirely for awhile, because Fed Ex just brought me pass-pages for Famous Flower to check out. Deadlines! Woot!)

You are involved in theater aren't you juliana? Most people I know who love Camino have either seen it or have staged-or thought about staging- it.

Precisely. I don't think I would enjoy it as much if I couldn't see it in my head. Same with Arthur Miller's After The Fall.

What canon can often do is give you the cultural context in which a work was created.

I do like knowing context, but I confess I've never thought of canon as providing same. Perhaps because that's not how it was taught to me.

erika, how far are you into Infinite Jest? Like I said, Z's been bugging me to give it another try, but I finally gave up. Of course, now that I'm halfway through Gravity's Rainbow and enjoying myself (if utterly confused at times), I may have to try it again.

I do like knowing context, but I confess I've never thought of canon as providing same.

Here's an example I am hip-deep into: Jane Austen read sir Walter Scott. We know that. She also had some things to say about the reading and believeing in romances in Sense and Sensibility, when the younger sister was all swooping emotions and drama, and NSM with the hardheadedness. So, until this week, I'd never read any Walter Scott and was only about 80% sure of what Austen meant when she referred to him in S&S.

It turns out that Scott was the template for eleven billion crap adventures in the medieval style, but knowing that he was a template was worthwhile.

Another example: Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre is in some ways a prototype for the hero of romance novels to this day. Except that Mr. Rochester also sang, was goofy, and said lots of mushy endearments, attributes that have since deserted your standard romance hero.

Aww, I wrote a whole paragraph on cultural literacy, and closed it out when I thought I heard my boss coming. I really don't feel like re-writing it, so I'll just say that a general context is useful.

But, and this is that crazy kid reader coming out of me, for many of my very favorite books, I don't need it. I'll use 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' as an example, as it is my most favoritest book on the face of the planet. I don't need to know the political conditions of early 20th century Brooklyn to enjoy it (and indeed, I didn't when I read it at 12 years old). All I need to know is that there's a girl named Francie, and I'm going to learn all about her world. The author does all that work for me, and as Deb would say, all I've got to do is sit back and be told a story.