Editing Western canon (section)

====Contemporary anthologies of renaissance literature====
The preface to the [[Wiley-Blackwell|Blackwell]] anthology of ''Renaissance Literature'' from 2003 acknowledges the importance of online access to literary texts on the selection of what to include, meaning that the selection can be made on basis of functionality rather than representativity".<ref>''Michael Payne & John Hunter (eds). Renaissance Literature: an anthology''. Oxford: Blackell, 2003, {{ISBN|0-631-19897-0}}, p. xix</ref> This anthology has made its selection based on three principles. One is "unabashedly ''canonical''", meaning that Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson have been given the space prospective users would expect. A second principle is "non-canonical", giving female writers such as [[Anne Askew]], [[Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland|Elizabeth Cary]], [[Emilia Lanier]], [[Martha Moulsworth]], and [[Lady Mary Wroth]] a representative selection. It also includes texts that may not be representative of the qualitatively best efforts of Renaissance literature, but of the quantitatively most numerous texts, such as homilies and erotica. A third principle has been thematic, so that the anthology aims to include texts that shed light on issues of special interest to contemporary scholars.

The Blackwell anthology is still firmly organised around authors, however. A different strategy has been observed by ''The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse'' from 1992.<ref>''David Norbrook & H. R. Woudhuysen (eds.): ''The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse''. London: Penguin Books, 1992, {{ISBN|0-14-042346-X}}</ref> Here the texts are organised according to topic, under the headings ''The Public World'', ''Images of Love'', ''Topographies'', ''Friends, Patrons and the Good Life'', ''Church, State and Belief'', ''Elegy and Epitaph'', ''Translation'', ''Writer, Language and Public''. It is arguable that such an approach is more suitable for the interested reader than for the student. While the two anthologies are not directly comparable, since the Blackwell anthology also includes prose and the Penguin anthology goes up to 1659, it is telling that while the larger Blackwell anthology contains work by 48 poets, seven of which are women, the Penguin anthology contains 374 poems by 109 poets, including 13 women and one poet each in Welsh, [[Siôn Phylip]], and Irish, [[Eochaidh Ó Heóghusa]].