Editing Western canon

{{Short description|Cultural classics valued in the West}}
{{Use British English|date=April 2025}}
{{Original research|date=December 2021}}
[[File:Parnaso 09.jpg|thumb|[[Dante Alighieri|Dante]], [[Homer]] and [[Virgil]] in [[Raphael Sanzio|Raphael]]'s ''[[The Parnassus|Parnassus]]'' fresco (1511), key figures in the Western canon]]
[[File:Cropped image of Sappho from Raphael's Parnassus.jpg|thumb|right|Detail of [[Sappho]] from Raphael's ''Parnassus'' (1510–11), shown alongside other poets. In her left hand, she holds a scroll with her name written on it.]]
[[File:Pablo Picasso, 1910, Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier), oil on canvas, 100.3 x 73.6 cm, Museum of Modern Art New York..jpg|thumb|[[Picasso]], ''Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier)'' (1910), oil on canvas, 100.3 × 73.6&nbsp;cm, [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York]]

The '''Western canon''' is the embodiment of [[High culture|high-culture]] literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly cherished across the [[Western culture|Western world]], such works having achieved the status of [[classic]]s.

Recent discussions upon the matter emphasise cultural diversity within the canon.<ref>{{Cite web |title=SLE challenges the boundaries of the Western canon |url=https://stanforddaily.com/2024/01/26/can-a-course-on-the-western-canon-serve-a-diverse-student-body/ |access-date=2024-07-24 |website=www.stanforddaily.com |date=26 January 2024 |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |title=Review: Foundational Myths of Multiculturalism and Strategies of Canon Formation |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44029759 |access-date=2024-07-24 |website=www.jstor.org |jstor=44029759 |language=en-US}}</ref> The canons of music and visual arts have been broadened to encompass often overlooked periods, whilst recent media like cinema grapple with a precarious position. Criticism arises, with some viewing changes as prioritising activism over aesthetic values, often associated with critical theory, as well as [[postmodernism]].<ref name="Wilczek-2006">{{Cite book |last=Wilczek |first=Piotr |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7CIZAQAAIAAJ&q=%22CZY+ISTNIEJE+KANON+LITERATURY+POLSKIEJ |title=Literatura polska w świecie |date=2006 |publisher=Wydawnictwo Gnome |isbn=978-83-87819-05-7 |editor-last=Cudak |editor-first=Romuald |pages=13–23 |language=pl |chapter=Czy istnieje kanon literatury polskiej?}}</ref> Another critique highlights a narrow interpretation of the West, dominated by British and American culture, at least under contemporary circumstances, prompting demands for a more diversified canon amongst the hemisphere.<ref name="Wilczek-2006" />

==Literary canon==
===Classic book===
[[File:William Shakespeare by John Taylor, edited.jpg|thumb|[[Chandos portrait]] of the English playwright and poet [[William Shakespeare]]]]
{{main|Classic book}}
A [[classic]] is a book, or any other work of art, accepted as being exemplary or noteworthy. In the second-century [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] [[miscellany]] ''[[Attic Nights]]'', [[Aulus Gellius]] refers to writers as "classicus... scriptor, non proletarius" ("A distinguished, not a commonplace writer").<ref name="Gellius">{{cite book |last1=Gellius |first1=Aulus |title=Noctes Atticae| pages = Book 19, Par. 8, Line 15|url=https://archive.org/details/auligelliinocte02gellgoog |access-date=5 November 2018 |archive-url=https://archive.org/details/auligelliinocte02gellgoog/page/n3 |archive-date=March 25, 2008|language=la}}</ref> Such classification were initiated with the Greeks' ''ranking'' their cultural works, with the word ''[[wikt:canon|canon]]'' (ancient Greek κανών, kanṓn: "measuring rod, standard").<ref>{{Cite book |editor-last=Gorek |editor-first= Jan |title=Canon Vs. Culture {{!}} Reflections on the Current Debate |chapter=The Origin of the Concept of a Canon and Its Application to the Greek and Latin Classics |first=George A. |last=Kennedy |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pLVFOkXrAR4C&pg=PA105 |publisher=Routledge |date=2016 |isbn=9781138988064}}</ref> Similarly, early [[Christianity|Christian]] Church Fathers [[Biblical canon|declared as ''canon'']] the authoritative texts of the [[New Testament]], preserving them given the expense of [[vellum]] and [[papyrus]] and mechanical book reproduction. Thus, being included in a ''canon'' ensured a book's preservation as the best way to retain information about a civilization. In contemporary use, the Western canon defines the best of [[Western culture]]. In the ancient world, at the [[Alexandrian Library]], scholars coined the Greek term {{Transliteration|GRC|Hoi enkrithentes}} ["the admitted", "the included"] to identify the writers in the canon. Although the term is often associated with the Western canon, it can be applied to works of literature, music and art, etc. from all traditions, such as the [[Chinese classics]].

With regard to books, what makes a book "classic" has concerned various authors, from [[Mark Twain]] to [[Italo Calvino]], and questions such as "Why Read the Classics?", and "What Is a Classic?" have been considered by others, including [[T. S. Eliot]], [[Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve]], [[Michael Dirda]], and [[Ezra Pound]].

The terms "classic book" and Western canon are closely related concepts, but are not necessarily synonymous. A "canon" is a list of books considered to be "essential", and it can be published as a collection (such as ''[[Great Books of the Western World]]'', [[Modern Library]], [[Everyman's Library]] or [[Penguin Classics]]), presented as a list with an academic's imprimatur (such as [[Harold Bloom]]'s<ref>{{cite book|author=Bloom, Harold|title= The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages|url=https://archive.org/details/westerncanonbook00bloorich|url-access=registration|location= New York|publisher= Harcourt Brace & Company|date= 1994|isbn= 9780151957477}}</ref>), or be the official reading list of a university. In ''[[The Western Canon]]'' Bloom lists "the major Western writers" as [[Dante Alighieri]], [[Geoffrey Chaucer]], [[Miguel de Cervantes]], [[Michel de Montaigne]], [[William Shakespeare]], [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]], [[William Wordsworth]], [[Charles Dickens]], [[Leo Tolstoy]], [[James Joyce]] and [[Marcel Proust]].

===Great Books Program===
[[Image:Great Books.jpg|thumb|The ''[[Great Books of the Western World]]'' in 60 volumes]]
A university or college [[Great Books]] Program is a program inspired by the Great Books movement begun in the United States in the 1920s by [[John Erskine (educator)|John Erskine]] of [[Columbia University]], which proposed to improve the higher education system by returning it to the western [[liberal arts]] tradition of broad cross-disciplinary learning. These academics and educators included [[Robert Maynard Hutchins|Robert Hutchins]], [[Mortimer Adler]], [[Stringfellow Barr]], [[Scott Buchanan]], [[Jacques Barzun]], and [[Alexander Meiklejohn]]. The view among them was that the emphasis on narrow specialization in American colleges had harmed the quality of [[higher education]] by failing to expose students to the important products of Western civilization and thought.

The essential component of such programs is a high degree of engagement with primary texts, called the Great Books. The curricula of Great Books programs often follow a canon of texts considered more or less essential to a student's education, such as Plato's ''Republic'', or Dante's ''Divine Comedy''. Such programs often focus exclusively on Western culture. Their employment of primary texts dictates an interdisciplinary approach, as most of the Great Books do not fall neatly under the prerogative of a single contemporary academic discipline. Great Books programs often include designated discussion groups as well as lectures, and have small class sizes. In general students in such programs receive an abnormally high degree of attention from their professors, as part of the overall aim of fostering a community of learning.

Over 100 institutions of higher learning, mostly in the United States, offer some version of a Great Books Program as an option for students.<ref>{{cite web|last=Casement|first=William|title=College Great Books Programs|url=http://www.coretexts.org/college-great-books-programs/#tz|publisher=The Association for Core Texts and Courses (ACTC)|access-date=May 29, 2012|archive-date=November 16, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121116234705/http://www.coretexts.org/college-great-books-programs/#tz|url-status=dead}}</ref>

For much of the 20th century, the [[Modern Library]] provided a larger convenient list of the Western canon.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Giddins |first=Gary |date=1992-12-06 |title=Why I Carry a Torch For the Modern Library |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/06/books/why-i-carry-a-torch-for-the-modern-library.html |access-date=2024-07-22 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> The list numbered more than 300 items by the 1950s, by authors from Aristotle to Albert Camus, and has continued to grow. When in the 1990s the concept of the Western canon was vehemently condemned, just as earlier Modern Library lists had been criticized as "too American," Modern Library responded by preparing new lists of "100 Best Novels" and "100 Best Nonfiction" compiled by famous writers, and later compiled lists nominated by book purchasers and readers.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/|title=Top 100 « Modern Library|website=www.modernlibrary.com}}</ref>

===Debate<!--'Dead white male', 'Dead white males', 'Dead white man', and 'Dead white men' redirect here-->===
{{anchor|Dead white men}}
Some intellectuals have championed a "high conservative modernism" that insists that universal truths exist, and have opposed approaches that deny the existence of universal truths.<ref>Gerald J. Russello, ''The Postmodern Imagination of Russell Kirk'' (2007) p. 14</ref> [[Yale University]] Professor of Humanities and famous literary critic [[Harold Bloom]] also argued strongly in favor of the canon, in his 1994 book ''[[The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages]]'',  and in general the canon remains as a represented idea in many institutions.<ref name="Searle"/> [[Allan Bloom]] (no relation), in his highly influential ''[[The Closing of the American Mind|The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students]]'' (1987), argues that moral degradation results from ignorance of the great [[classics]] that shaped Western culture. Bloom further comments: "But one thing is certain: wherever the Great Books make up a central part of the curriculum, the students are excited and satisfied."<ref>Allan Bloom (2008), p. 344.</ref> His book was widely cited by some intellectuals for its argument that the classics contained universal truths and timeless values which were being ignored by [[cultural relativism|cultural relativists]].<ref>{{cite book|last=M. Keith Booker|title=Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics: A–G|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JcFC4oiDmpgC&pg=PA180|year=2005|publisher=Greenwood|pages=180–181|isbn=9780313329395}}</ref><ref>Jeffrey Williams, ed. ''PC wars: Politics and theory in the academy'' (Routledge, 2013)</ref>

[[Classicist]] [[Bernard Knox]] made direct reference to this topic when he delivered his 1992 [[Jefferson Lecture]] (the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the [[humanities]]).<ref name="jefflect">[http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/jefflect.html Jefferson Lecturers] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111020121101/http://www.neh.gov///whoweare/jefflect.html |date=2011-10-20 }} at NEH Website (retrieved May 25, 2009).</ref>  Knox used the intentionally "provocative" title "The Oldest Dead White European Males"<ref>Nadine Drozan, [https://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/06/style/chronicle-879492.html  "Chronicle"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', May 6, 1992.</ref> as the title of his lecture and his subsequent book of the same name, in both of which Knox defended the continuing relevance of [[Classics|classical]] culture to modern society.<ref>Bernard Knox, ''The Oldest Dead White European Males and Other Reflections on the Classics'' (1993) (reprint, W. W. Norton & Company, 1994), {{ISBN|978-0-393-31233-1}}.</ref><ref name="Lehmann">[[Christopher Lehmann-Haupt]], [https://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/29/books/books-of-the-times-putting-in-a-word-for-homer-herodotus-plato-etc.html "Books of The Times; Putting In a Word for Homer, Herodotus, Plato, Etc."], ''[[The New York Times]]'', April 29, 1993.</ref>

Defenders maintain that those who undermine the canon do so out of primarily political interests, and that such criticisms are misguided and/or disingenuous. As [[John Searle]], Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, has written:
{{Blockquote|There is a certain irony in this [i.e., politicized objections to the canon] in that earlier student generations, my own for example, found the critical tradition that runs from [[Socrates]] through the [[The Federalist Papers|''Federalist Papers'']], through the writings of [[John Stuart Mill|Mill]] and [[Karl Marx|Marx]], down to the twentieth century, to be liberating from the stuffy conventions of traditional American politics and pieties. Precisely by inculcating a critical attitude, the "canon" served to demythologize the conventional pieties of the American bourgeoisie and provided the student with a perspective from which to critically analyze American culture and institutions. Ironically, the same tradition is now regarded as oppressive. The texts once served an unmasking function; now we are told that it is the texts which must be unmasked.<ref name="Searle">Searle, John. (1990) "[https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/12/06/the-storm-over-the-university/ The Storm Over the University]", ''The New York Review of Books'', December 6, 1990.</ref>}}

One of the main objections to a canon of literature is the question of authority; who should have the power to determine what works are worth reading?

[[Charles Altieri]], of the [[University of California, Berkeley]], states that canons are "an institutional form for exposing people to a range of idealized attitudes." It is according to this notion that work may be removed from the canon over time to reflect the contextual relevance and thoughts of society.<ref>{{cite web|author=Pryor|first=Devon|date=2007|title=What is a Literary Canon? (with pictures)|url=http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-a-literary-canon.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071226223217/http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-literary-canon.htm|archive-date=2007-12-26|website=wisegeek.org}}</ref> American historian [[Todd M. Compton]] argues that canons are always communal in nature; that there are limited canons for, say a literature survey class, or an English department reading list, but there is no such thing as one absolute canon of literature. Instead, there are many conflicting canons. He regards Bloom's "Western Canon" as a personal canon only.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Compton|first=Todd M.|date=2015-04-19|title=INFINITE CANONS: A FEW AXIOMS AND QUESTIONS, AND IN ADDITION, A PROPOSED DEFINITION|url=http://toddmcompton.com/infinitecanonsprint.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150427142930/http://toddmcompton.com/infinitecanonsprint.htm|archive-date=2015-04-27|website=toddmcompton.com}}</ref>

The process of defining the boundaries of the canon is endless. The philosopher [[John Searle]] has said, "In my experience there never was, in fact, a fixed 'canon'; there was rather a certain set of tentative judgments about what had importance and quality. Such judgments are always subject to revision, and in fact they were constantly being revised."<ref name="Searle"/> One of the notable attempts at compiling an authoritative canon for literature in the English-speaking world was the ''[[Great Books of the Western World]]'' program. This program, developed in the middle third of the 20th century, grew out of the curriculum at the [[University of Chicago]]. University president [[Robert Maynard Hutchins]] and his collaborator [[Mortimer Adler]] developed a program that offered reading lists, books, and organizational strategies for reading clubs to the general public.<ref>Adler, Mortimer Jerome (1988). ''Reforming Education'', Geraldine Van Doren, ed. (New York: MacMillan), p. xx.</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Great Books of Robert Maynard Hutchins and Mortimer Adler |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110810105020932 |website=Oxford Reference |access-date=June 13, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=History of the Great Books Foundation |url=https://www.greatbooks.org/nonprofit-organization/history/ |website=Great Books |access-date=June 13, 2024}}</ref> An earlier attempt had been made in 1909 by [[Harvard University]] president [[Charles W. Eliot]], with the [[Harvard Classics]], a 51-volume anthology of classic works from world literature. Eliot's view was the same as that of Scottish philosopher and historian [[Thomas Carlyle]]: "The true University of these days is a Collection of Books". ("The Hero as Man of Letters", 1840)

===In the English-speaking world===

==== British renaissance poetry ====

{{main|Elizabethan literature|Metaphysical poets}}
The canon of Renaissance English poetry of the 16th and early 17th century has always been in some form of flux and towards the end of the 20th century the established canon was criticised, especially by those who wished to expand it to include, for example, more women writers.<ref name="Waller-2013">{{cite book|last1=Waller|first1=Gary F.|title=English Poetry of the Sixteenth Century|date=2013|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-0582090965|pages=263–270|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L9gFBAAAQBAJ&q=Waller,+Gary.+English+Poetry+of+the+Sixteenth+Century&pg=PR4|access-date=30 March 2016}}</ref> However, the central figures of the British renaissance canon remain, [[Edmund Spenser]], Sir [[Philip Sidney]], [[Christopher Marlowe]], [[William Shakespeare]], [[Ben Jonson]], and [[John Donne]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Bednarz|first=James P.|title=English Poetry|url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399301/obo-9780195399301-0209.xml|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141018190048/http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399301/obo-9780195399301-0209.xml|archive-date=2014-10-18|access-date=2020-10-12|website=Oxford Bibliographies|language=en}}</ref> [[Edmund Spenser|Spenser]], [[John Donne|Donne]], and [[Ben Jonson|Jonson]] were major influences on 17th-century poetry. However, poet [[John Dryden]] condemned aspects of the metaphysical poets in his criticism. In the 18th century [[Metaphysical poetry]] fell into further disrepute,<ref>"Life of Cowley", in Samuel Johnson's ''Lives of the Poets''</ref> while the interest in [[Elizabethan literature|Elizabethan poetry]] was rekindled through the scholarship of [[Thomas Warton]] and others. However, the canon of Renaissance poetry was formed in the Victorian period with anthologies like Palgrave's ''[[Golden Treasury]]''.<ref>Gary F. Waller, (2013). ''English Poetry of the Sixteenth Century''. London: Routledge. p. 262</ref>

In the twentieth century [[T. S. Eliot]] and [[Yvor Winters]] were two literary critics who were especially concerned with revising the canon of renaissance English literature. Eliot, for example, championed poet [[Sir John Davies]] in an article in ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]'' in 1926. During the course of the 1920s, Eliot did much to establish the importance of the metaphysical school, both through his critical writing and by applying their method in his own work. However, by 1961 [[A. Alvarez]] was commenting that "it may perhaps be a little late in the day to be writing about the Metaphysicals. The great vogue for Donne passed with the passing of the Anglo-American experimental movement in modern poetry."<ref>Alvarez, p. 11</ref> Two decades later, a hostile view was expressed that emphasis on their importance had been an attempt by Eliot and his followers to impose a 'high Anglican and royalist literary history' on 17th-century English poetry.<ref name="ODNB">Brown & Taylor (2004), ''ODNB''</ref>

The American critic [[Yvor Winters]] suggested in 1939 an alternative canon of [[Elizabethan poetry]],<ref>''Poetry'', LII (1939), pp. 258–272, excerpted in Paul. J. Alpers (ed): ''Elizabethan Poetry. Modern Essays in Criticism''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.</ref> which would exclude the famous representatives of the [[Petrarchan|Petrarchan school]] of poetry, represented by Sir [[Philip Sidney]] and [[Edmund Spenser]]. Winters claimed that the Native or Plain Style ''anti-Petrarchan'' movement had been undervalued and argued that [[George Gascoigne]] (1525–1577) "deserves to be ranked […] among the six or seven greatest lyric poets of the century, and perhaps higher".<ref>''Poetry'', LII (1939), pp. 258–272, excerpted in Paul. J. Alpers (ed): ''Elizabethan Poetry. Modern Essays in Criticism''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967: 98</ref>

Towards the end of the 20th century the established canon was increasingly disputed.<ref name="Waller-2013"/>

===Expansion of the literary canon in the 20th century===
In the twentieth century there was a general reassessment of the [[literary canon]], including [[Women's writing in English|women's writing]], [[post-colonial literature]]s, [[LGBT literature|gay and lesbian literature]], writing by racialized minorities, working people's writing, and the cultural productions of historically marginalized groups. This reassessment has resulted in a whole scale expansion of what is considered "literature", and genres hitherto not regarded as "literary", such as children's writing, journals, letters, travel writing, and many others are now the subjects of scholarly interest.<ref name=Blain/><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Buck |editor1-first=Claire |title=The Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature |publisher=Prentice Hall |year=1992 |page=vix}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Salzman |first=Paul |chapter=Introduction |title=Early Modern Women's Writing |publisher=Oxford UP |year=2000 |pages=ix–x}}</ref>

The Western literary canon has also expanded to include the literature of Asia, Africa, the [[Middle East]], and South America. Writers from Africa, Turkey, China, Egypt, Peru, and Colombia, Japan, etc., have received Nobel prizes since the late 1960s. Writers from Asia and Africa have also been nominated for, and also won, the [[List of winners and shortlisted authors of the Booker Prize for Fiction|Booker prize]] in recent years.

==== Feminism and the literary canon ====
{{See also|Écriture féminine|List of American feminist literature|List of feminist literature|List of feminist poets}}
[[File:Sartre and de Beauvoir at Balzac Memorial.jpg|thumb|[[Jean-Paul Sartre]] and [[Simone de Beauvoir]] at [[Balzac]] Memorial ]]

Susan Hardy Aitken argues that the Western canon has maintained itself by excluding and marginalising women, whilst idealising the works of men.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hardy Aiken |first1=Susan |title=Women and the Question of Canonicity |journal=College English |date=1986 |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=289–292}}</ref> Where women's work is introduced it can be considered inappropriately rather than recognising the importance of their work; a work's greatness is judged against socially situated factors which exclude women, whilst being portrayed as an intellectual approach.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hardy Aiken |first1=Susan |title=Women and the Question of Canonicity |journal=College English |date=1986 |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=290–293}}</ref>

The feminist movement produced both feminist fiction and non-fiction and created new interest in women's writing. It also prompted a general reevaluation of women's [[Women's history|historical]] and academic contributions in response to the belief that women's lives and contributions have been underrepresented as areas of scholarly interest.<ref name=Blain>{{cite book |author=Blain, Virginia |author2=Clements, Patricia |author3=Grundy, Isobel |title=The feminist companion to literature in English: women writers from the Middle Ages to the present |year=1990 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=0-300-04854-8 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/feministcompanio00blai/page/ vii–x] |url=https://archive.org/details/feministcompanio00blai/page/ }}</ref>

However, in Britain and America at least women achieved major literary success from the late eighteenth century, and many major nineteenth-century British novelists were women, including [[Jane Austen]], the [[Brontës|Brontë family]], [[Elizabeth Gaskell]], and [[Mary Ann Evans|George Eliot]]. There were also three major female poets, [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]],<ref name="Leighton">{{cite book|author=Angela Leighton|title=Elizabeth Barrett Browning|url=https://archive.org/details/elizabethbarrett00leig|url-access=registration|access-date=22 October 2011|year=1986|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-25451-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/elizabethbarrett00leig/page/8 8]–18}}</ref> [[Christina Rossetti]] and [[Emily Dickinson]].<ref name="Bloo9">Bloom (1999), 9</ref><ref>Ford (1966), 122</ref> In the twentieth century there were also many major female writers, including [[Katherine Mansfield]], [[Dorothy Richardson]], [[Virginia Woolf]], [[Eudora Welty]], and [[Marianne Moore]]. Notable female writers in France include [[Colette]], [[Simone de Beauvoir]], [[Marguerite Yourcenar]], [[Nathalie Sarraute]], [[Marguerite Duras]] and [[Françoise Sagan]].

Much of the early period of feminist literary scholarship was given over to the rediscovery and reclamation of texts written by women. [[Virago Press]] began to publish its large list of 19th and early 20th-century novels in 1975 and became one of the first commercial presses to join in the project of reclamation.

====African-American authors====
In the twentieth century, the Western literary canon started to include African writers not only from [[African-American literature|African-American writers]], but also from the [[African diaspora|wider African diaspora]] of writers in Britain, France, Latin America, and Africa. This correlated largely with the shift in social and political views during the [[civil rights movement]] in the United States.  The first global recognition came in 1950 when [[Gwendolyn Brooks]] was the first African American to win a [[Pulitzer Prize]] for Literature. American [[Toni Morrison]] was the first African-American woman to win the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]], in 1993.

Some early African-American writers were inspired to defy ubiquitous [[Racism|racial prejudice]] by proving themselves equal to [[European American]] authors. As Henry Louis Gates Jr., has said, "it is fair to describe the subtext of the history of black letters as this urge to refute the claim that because blacks had no written traditions they were bearers of an inferior culture."<ref name = "Stryz_p140">"The Other Ghost in Beloved: The Specter of the Scarlet Letter" by Jan Stryz from ''The New Romanticism: a collection of critical essays'' by Eberhard Alsen, p. 140, {{ISBN|0-8153-3547-4}}.</ref>

African-American writers were also attempting to subvert the literary and power traditions of the United States. Some scholars assert that writing has traditionally been seen as "something defined by the dominant culture as a white male activity."<ref name = "Stryz_p140"/> This means that, in American society, literary acceptance has traditionally been intimately tied in with the very power dynamics which perpetrated such evils as racial discrimination. By borrowing from and incorporating the non-written oral traditions and folk life of the [[African diaspora]], African-American literature broke "the mystique of connection between literary authority and [[patriarchal]] power."<ref>Quote from Marjorie Pryse in "The Other Ghost in Beloved: The Specter of the Scarlet Letter" by Jan Stryz, from ''The New Romanticism: a collection of critical essays'' by Eberhard Alsen, p. 140, {{ISBN|0-8153-3547-4}}.</ref> In producing their own literature, African Americans were able to establish their own literary traditions devoid of the European intellectual filter. This view of African-American literature as a tool in the struggle for African-American political and cultural liberation has been stated for decades, most famously by [[W. E. B. Du Bois]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Mason|first=Theodore O. Jr.|date=1997|title=African-American Theory and Criticism|url=http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/free/african-american_theory_and_criticism-_1.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000115080159/http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/free/african-american_theory_and_criticism-_1.html|archive-date=2000-01-15|access-date=2005-07-06|website=The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism}}</ref>
[[File:WoleSoyinka2015.jpg|thumb|Nobel laureate [[Wole Soyinka]] in 2015.]]

====Latin America====
[[File:Gabogarciamarquez1.png|thumb|left|[[García Márquez]] signing a copy of ''[[One Hundred Years of Solitude]]'' in [[Havana]], Cuba]]
[[Octavio Paz Lozano]] (1914–1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1981 [[Miguel de Cervantes Prize]], the 1982 [[Neustadt International Prize for Literature]], and the 1990 [[Nobel Prize in Literature]].

[[Gabriel García Márquez]]<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/garcia+marquez "García Márquez"]. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref>  (1927–2014) was a [[Colombian people|Colombian]] novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century and one of the best in the [[Spanish literature|Spanish language]], he was awarded the 1972 [[Neustadt International Prize for Literature]] and the 1982 [[Nobel Prize in Literature]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1982/ | title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1982 | access-date=18 April 2014}}</ref>

García Márquez started as a journalist, and wrote many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories, but is best known for his novels, such as ''[[One Hundred Years of Solitude]]'' (1967), ''[[The Autumn of the Patriarch]]'' (1975), and ''[[Love in the Time of Cholera]]'' (1985). His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style labeled as [[magic realism]], which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations. Some of his works are set in a fictional village called [[Macondo]] (the town mainly inspired by his birthplace [[Aracataca]]), and most of them explore the theme of [[solitude]]. On his death in April 2014, [[Juan Manuel Santos]], the President of Colombia, described him as "the greatest Colombian who ever lived."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/19/gabrielgarciamarquez-colombia|title=Gabriel García Márquez: 'The greatest Colombian who ever lived'|first=Ed|last=Vulliamy|newspaper=The Observer |date=19 April 2014|via=www.theguardian.com}}</ref>

[[Mario Vargas Llosa]], (1936-2025)<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mario+vargas+llosa "Vargas Llosa"]  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141231151539/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mario%2Bvargas%2Bllosa |date=December 31, 2014 }}. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref> is a Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, essayist, college professor, and recipient of the 2010 [[Nobel Prize in Literature]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/perus-mario-vargas-llosa-wins-nobel-literature-prize-2100592.html|title=Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa wins Nobel Literature Prize|newspaper=[[The Independent]] | location=London|date=October 7, 2010}}</ref> Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a larger international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the [[Latin American Boom]].<ref>{{Citation |title=Library of Congress to Honor Mario Vargas Llosa |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-16-041/library-of-congress-to-honor-mario-vargas-llosa/2016-03-08/}}</ref> <!--<ref>{{Harvnb|Boland|Harvey|1988|p=7}} and {{Harvnb|Cevallos|1991|p=272}}</ref> These "citations" are unusable since no detail provided. --> Upon announcing the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the [[Swedish Academy]] said it had been given to Vargas Llosa "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".<ref>{{cite web|title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 2010|publisher=Nobelprize|date=October 7, 2010|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2010/|access-date=October 7, 2010}}</ref>

==Canon of philosophers==
{{disputed|date=December 2021}}
{{see also|List of important publications in philosophy}}
[[File:Plato Silanion Musei Capitolini MC1377.jpg|thumb|[[Plato]]. Luni marble, Roman copy of the portrait made by [[Silanion]] ca. 370 BC for the Academia in Athens]]

Many [[philosopher]]s today agree that Greek philosophy has influenced much of [[Western culture]] since its inception. [[Alfred North Whitehead]] once noted: "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to [[Plato]]."<ref>Alfred North Whitehead (1929), ''[[Process and Reality]]'', Part II, Chap. I, Sect. I.</ref> Clear, unbroken lines of influence lead from [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] and [[Hellenistic philosophy|Hellenistic philosophers]] to [[Early Islamic philosophy]], the European [[Renaissance]], and the [[Age of Enlightenment]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20141031222017/http://kevinscharp.com/Kevin%20Scharp%20-%20%20Diagrams.htm Kevin Scharp (Department of Philosophy, Ohio State University) – Diagrams].</ref>

[[Plato]] was a [[philosopher]] in [[Classical Greece]] and the founder of the [[Platonic Academy|Academy]] in [[Ancient Athens|Athens]]. He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, especially the [[Western philosophy|Western tradition]].<ref>"...the subject of philosophy, as it is often conceived—a rigorous and systematic examination of ethical, political, metaphysical, and epistemological issues, armed with a distinctive method—can be called his invention" ({{cite web |last=Kraut |first=Richard |title=Plato |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/ |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |publisher=Stanford University |date=11 September 2013 |access-date=3 April 2014 }})</ref><ref>Cooper, John M.; Hutchinson, D. S., eds. (1997): "Introduction".</ref>

[[Aristotle]] was an [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] [[philosopher]]. His writings cover many subjects –&nbsp;including [[Physics (Aristotle)|physics]], [[Aristotle's biology|biology]], [[zoology]], [[metaphysics]], [[logic]], [[ethics]], [[aesthetics]], [[rhetoric]], [[linguistics]], politics and government—and constitute the first comprehensive system of [[Western philosophy]].<ref name="philosophy1972">Bertrand Russell, ''A History of Western Philosophy'', Simon & Schuster, 1972.</ref> Aristotle's views on [[Aristotelian physics|physical science]] had a profound influence on medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from [[Late Antiquity]] into the [[Renaissance]], and his views were not replaced systematically until [[Age of Enlightenment|the Enlightenment]] and theories such as [[classical mechanics]]. In metaphysics, [[Aristotelianism]] profoundly influenced [[Judeo-Islamic philosophies (800–1400)|Judeo-Islamic philosophical and theological thought]] during the [[Middle Ages]] and continues to influence [[Christian theology]], especially the [[Neoplatonism]] of the [[Early Church]] and the [[Scholasticism|scholastic]] tradition of the [[Roman Catholic Church]]. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as "The First Teacher" ({{langx|ar|{{big|المعلم الأول}}}}). His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of [[virtue ethics]].

[[Boethius]]' ''[[On the Consolation of Philosophy]]'' ({{langx|la|De consolatione philosophiae}}) is often acclaimed as a central work from [[Late Antiquity]], at the cusp of the [[early medieval period]], that remained influential throughout the [[Middle Ages]].  Of Boethius, it has been said that "[along] with [[Augustine]] and [[Aristotle]], he is ''the'' fundamental philosophical and theological author in the Latin tradition";<ref>{{Citation |last=Marenbon |first=John |title=Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius |date=2021 |work=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/boethius/ |access-date=2024-12-17 |edition=Winter 2021 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}</ref> [[Edward Gibbon]] wrote of the ''Consolatione'' that it is "a golden volume not unworthy of the leisure of [[Plato]] or [[Cicero|Tully]]",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gibbon |first=Edward |title=The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire |year=1782 |edition=2nd |volume=4 |publication-date=1845 |language=en |chapter=Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy, Part III |chapter-url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25717/25717-h/25717-h.htm#linknote-39.97}}</ref> and [[Bertrand Russell]] wrote that, by merit of the same, Boethius "would have been remarkable in any age; in the age in which he lived he is utterly amazing."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |title=History of Western Philosophy |year=1961 |location=London, England |page=366 |language=en}}</ref>

The vast body of [[Christian philosophy]] is typically represented on reading lists mainly by [[Augustine of Hippo]] and [[Thomas Aquinas]]. The academic canon of [[early modern philosophy]] generally includes [[Descartes]], [[Spinoza]], [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz|Leibniz]], [[John Locke|Locke]], [[George Berkeley|Berkeley]], [[David Hume|Hume]], and [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]].<ref>Aloysius Martinich, Fritz Allhoff, Anand Vaidya, ''Early modern philosophy: essential readings with commentary''. Oxford : Blackwell, 2007</ref>

===Renaissance philosophy===
Major philosophers of the [[Renaissance]] include [[Niccolò Machiavelli]], [[Michel de Montaigne]], [[Pico della Mirandola]], [[Nicholas of Cusa]] and [[Giordano Bruno]], [[Marsilio Ficino]]<ref>Steadman, Ian. "Should We Forget the Thinker in the Text? Marsilio Ficino and the Challenges of Canon Formation." PhilArchive (2020). Accessed October 24, 2024. https://philarchive.org/archive/STESFT-4.</ref> and [[Gemistos Plethon]].<ref>The following work discusses the importance of Neoplatonism as an essential part of the western canon: Hermes in the Academy: Ten Years’ Study of Western Esotericism at the University of Amsterdam. Accessed October 24, 2024. https://www.amsterdamhermetica.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Hermes-in-the-Academy.pdf.</ref>

===Seventeenth-century philosophers===
[[File:Leviathan frontispiece cropped British Library.jpg|thumb|Frontispiece of [[Hobbes]]'s ''[[Leviathan (Hobbes book)|Leviathan]]'']]
The seventeenth century was important for philosophy, and the major figures were [[Francis Bacon]], [[Thomas Hobbes]], [[René Descartes]], [[Blaise Pascal]], [[Baruch Spinoza]], [[John Locke]] and [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz]].<ref name="Britannica-2024">{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Western-philosophy|title=Western philosophy|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|date=22 March 2024 }}</ref>

===Eighteenth-century philosophers===
Major philosophers of the eighteenth century include [[George Berkeley]], [[Montesquieu]], [[Voltaire]], [[David Hume]], [[Giambattista Vico]],<ref>Bloom, Harold. The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. Appendixes. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994. © 1994 by Harold Bloom</ref> [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]], [[Denis Diderot]], [[Immanuel Kant]], [[Edmund Burke]] and [[Jeremy Bentham]].<ref name="Britannica-2024"/>

===Nineteenth-century philosophers===
{{unreferenced section|date=February 2024}}
Important nineteenth century philosophers include [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] (1770–1831), [[Giuseppe Mazzini]],<ref>Körner, Axel (July 2009). "The Risorgimento's literary canon and the aesthetics of reception: some methodological considerations." Nations & Nationalism, 15(3), 410-418.</ref> [[Arthur Schopenhauer]], [[Auguste Comte]], [[Søren Kierkegaard]], [[Karl Marx]], [[Friedrich Engels]] and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]].
[[File:Zentralbibliothek Zürich Das Kapital Marx 1867.jpg|thumb|upright|The first volume of [[Marx]]'s ''[[Capital: Critique of Political Economy|Das Kapital]]'', 1867]]

===Twentieth-century philosophers===
{{unreferenced section|date=February 2024}}
Major twentieth century figures include [[Henri Bergson]], [[Edmund Husserl]], [[Bertrand Russell]], [[Martin Heidegger]], [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]] and [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], [[Simone de Beauvoir]], and [[Simone Weil]], [[Michel Foucault]], [[Pierre Bourdieu]], [[Jacques Derrida]] and [[Jürgen Habermas]]. A porous distinction between [[Analytic philosophy|analytic]] and [[Continental philosophy|continental]] approaches emerged during this period.

==Music==
[[File:Johann Sebastian Bach.jpg|left|thumb|[[Johann Sebastian Bach]] ]]
Classical music forms the core of canon music and remains mostly unchanged to our days. It integrates a huge body of works starting from the 17th century and are reproduced on an ensemble of all acoustic musical instruments that were common in that century's Europe.

The term "classical music" did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to distinctly canonize the period from [[Johann Sebastian Bach]] to [[Ludwig van Beethoven]] as a golden age. In addition to Bach and Beethoven, the other major figures from this period were [[George Frideric Handel]], [[Joseph Haydn]] and [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]].<ref>[[Rushton, Julian]], ''Classical Music'', (London, 1994), 10</ref> The earliest reference to "classical music" recorded by the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' is from about 1836.<ref name="Music 2007">"Classical", ''The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Music'', ed. Michael Kennedy, (Oxford, 2007), ''Oxford Reference Online''. Retrieved July 23, 2007.</ref>

In [[classical music]], during the nineteenth century a "canon" developed which focused on what was felt to be the most important works written since 1600, with a great concentration on the later part of this period, termed the [[Classical period (music)|Classical period]], which is generally taken to begin around 1750. After Beethoven, the major nineteenth-century composers include [[Felix Mendelssohn]], [[Franz Schubert]], [[Robert Schumann]], [[Frédéric Chopin]], [[Hector Berlioz]], [[Franz Liszt]], [[Richard Wagner]], [[Johannes Brahms]], [[Antonín Dvořák]], [[Anton Bruckner]], [[Giuseppe Verdi]], [[Giacomo Puccini]], [[Camille Saint-Saëns]],
[[Gustav Mahler]], and [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky]].<ref>"Ten Top Romantic Composers".''Gramapne'' [https://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/top-10-romantic-composers].</ref>

In the 2000s, the standard concert repertoire of professional orchestras, chamber music groups, and choirs tends to focus on works by a relatively small number of mainly 18th- and 19th-century male composers. Many of the works deemed to be part of the musical canon are from genres regarded as the most ''serious'', such as the [[symphony]], [[concerto]], [[string quartet]], and [[opera]]. [[Folk music]] was already giving [[art music]] melodies, and from the late 19th century, in an atmosphere of increasing [[nationalism]], folk music began to influence composers in formal and other ways, before being admitted to some sort of status in the canon itself.

Since the early twentieth century [[non-Western music]] has begun to influence Western composers. In particular, direct homages to [[Java]]nese [[gamelan music]] are found in works for western instruments by [[Claude Debussy]], [[Béla Bartók]], [[Francis Poulenc]], [[Olivier Messiaen]], [[Pierre Boulez]], [[Benjamin Britten]], [[John Cage]], [[Steve Reich]], and [[Philip Glass]].<ref>"[http://www.coastonline.org/mml/topic/topicsSearch_detail.php?id=312 Western Artists and Gamelan]", ''CoastOnline.org''.  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140307082145/http://www.coastonline.org/mml/topic/topicsSearch_detail.php?id=312 |date=2014-03-07 }}</ref> Debussy was immensely interested in non-Western music and its approaches to composition. Specifically, he was drawn to the Javanese gamelan,<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Rest Is Noise|last=Ross|first=Alex|publisher=Fourth Estate|year=2008|isbn=978-1-84115-475-6|location=London|pages=41}}</ref>  which he first heard at the [[Exposition Universelle (1889)|1889 Paris Exposition]]. He was not interested in directly quoting his non-Western influences, but instead allowed this non-Western aesthetic to generally influence his own musical work, for example, by frequently using quiet, unresolved dissonances, coupled with the damper pedal, to emulate the "shimmering" effect created by a gamelan ensemble. American composer Philip Glass was not only influenced by the eminent French composition teacher [[Nadia Boulanger]],<ref>{{citation|first=Richard|last=Kostelanetz|year=1989|editor-first=Richard|editor-last=Kostelanetz|title=Writings on Glass|chapter=Philip Glass|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley, Los Angeles; London|page=109|isbn=0-520-21491-9}}</ref> but also by the Indian musicians [[Ravi Shankar]] and [[Alla Rakha]], His distinctive style arose from his work with Shankar and Rakha and their perception of rhythm in Indian music as being entirely additive.<ref>{{citation|first=Joan|last=La Barbara|year=1989|editor-first=Richard|editor-last=Kostelanetz|title=Writings on Glass|chapter=Philip Glass and Steve Reich: Two from the Steady State School|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley, Los Angeles; London|pages=40–41|isbn=0-520-21491-9}}</ref>
[[File:The Concert A22894.jpg|thumb|Musicians of the late Renaissance/early Baroque era ([[Gerard van Honthorst]], ''The Concert'', 1623)]]

In the latter half of the 20th century the canon expanded to cover the so-called [[Early music]] of the pre-classical period, and [[Baroque music]] by composers other than Bach and [[George Frideric Handel]], including [[Antonio Vivaldi]], [[Claudio Monteverdi]], [[Domenico Scarlatti]], [[Alessandro Scarlatti]], [[Henry Purcell]], [[Georg Philipp Telemann]], [[Jean-Baptiste Lully]], [[Jean-Philippe Rameau]], [[Marc-Antoine Charpentier]], [[Arcangelo Corelli]], [[François Couperin]], [[Heinrich Schütz]], and [[Dieterich Buxtehude]]. Earlier composers, such as [[Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina]], [[Orlande de Lassus]] and [[William Byrd]], have also received more attention in the last hundred years.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Overview of Baroque Instrumental Music {{!}} Music Appreciation 1 |url=https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-musicappreciationtheory/chapter/overview-of-baroque-instrumental-music/ |access-date=2023-07-04 |website=courses.lumenlearning.com}}</ref>

The absence of women composers from the classical canon was brought to the forefront of musicological literature in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Even though many [[women composers]] have written music in the common practice period and beyond, their works remain extremely underrepresented in concert programs, music history curriculums, and music anthologies. In particular, musicologist Marcia J Citron has examined "the practices and attitudes that have led to the exclusion of women composers from the received 'canon' of performed musical works."<ref name=Citron>Citron, Marcia J. "Gender and the Musical Canon." CUP Archive, 1993.</ref> Since around 1980 the music of [[Hildegard von Bingen]] (1098–1179), a German Benedictine abbess, and Finnish composer [[Kaija Saariaho]] (born 1952) has begun to enter the canon. Saariaho's opera ''[[L'amour de loin]]'' has been staged in some of the world's major opera houses, including The [[English National Opera]] (2009)<ref>{{cite news | author=Fiona Maddocks|authorlink=Fiona Maddocks | url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/jul/12/rusalka-glyndebourne-opera-review-coliseum | title=Singin' through the pain | work=The Guardian | date=2009-07-11 | access-date=2016-12-26}}</ref> and in 2016 the [[Metropolitan Opera]] in New York.

The classical ensemble canon very rarely integrates musical instruments that are not acoustic and of western origins, it stayed apart from the wide use of electric, electronic and digital instruments that are common in today's popular music.

==Visual arts==
{{more citations needed section|date=June 2018}}
[[File:Capitoline Venus - Palazzo Nuovo - Musei Capitolini - Rome 2016.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Capitoline Venus]] ([[Capitoline Museums]]), an [[Antonine]] copy of a late [[Hellenistic]] sculpture that ultimately derives from [[Praxiteles]].]]
{{main|Art history}}
The backbone of traditional Western [[art history]] are [[artwork]]s commissioned by wealthy patrons for private or public enjoyment. Much of this was religious art, mostly [[Roman Catholic art]]. The [[classical art]] of Greece and Rome has, since the Renaissance, been the fount of the Western tradition.

[[Giorgio Vasari]] (1511–1574) is the originator of the artistic canon and the originator of many of the concepts it embodies.  His ''[[Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects]]'' covers only artists working in Italy,<ref>With nods in the text to [[Jan van Eyck]] and [[Albrecht Dürer]], but not lives.</ref> with a strong pro-Florentine prejudice, and has cast a long shadow over succeeding centuries.  Northern European art has arguably never quite caught up to Italy in terms of prestige, and Vasari's placing of [[Giotto]] as the founding father of "modern" painting has largely been retained.  In painting, the rather vague term of [[Old master]] covers painters up to about the time of [[Francisco Goya|Goya]].

This "canon" remains prominent, as indicated by the selection present in art history textbooks, as well as the prices obtained in the [[art trade]]. But there have been considerable swings in what is valued. In the 19th century the [[Baroque]] fell into great disfavour, but it was revived from around the 1920s, by which time the [[Academic art|art]] of the 18th and 19th century was largely disregarded. The [[High Renaissance]], which Vasari regarded as the greatest period, has always retained its prestige, including works by [[Leonardo da Vinci]], [[Michelangelo]], and [[Raphael]], but the succeeding period of [[Mannerism]] has fallen in and out of favour.

In the 19th century the beginnings of academic art history, led by German universities, led to much better understanding and appreciation of [[medieval art]], and a more nuanced understanding of classical art, including the realization that many if not most treasured masterpieces of sculpture were late Roman copies rather than Greek originals. The European tradition of art was expanded to include [[Byzantine art]] and the new discoveries of [[archaeology]], notably [[Etruscan art]], [[Celtic art]] and [[Upper Paleolithic art]].

Since the 20th century there has been an effort to re-define the discipline to be more inclusive of art made by women; vernacular creativity, especially in printed media; and an expansion to include works in the Western tradition produced outside Europe.  At the same time there has been a much greater appreciation of non-Western traditions, including their place with Western art in wider global or [[Eurasia]]n traditions. The [[decorative arts]] have traditionally had a much lower critical status than [[fine art]], although often highly valued by collectors, and still tend to be given little prominence in undergraduate studies or popular coverage on television and in print.

===Women and art===
{{main|Women artists}}
[[File:Blue and Green Music by Georgia O'Keeffe, 1921.jpg|thumb|upright|left|''[[Blue and Green Music]]'' (1921), [[Georgia O'Keeffe]], oil on canvas]]
English artist and sculptor [[Barbara Hepworth]] [[Order of the British Empire|DBE]] (1903&nbsp;– 1975), whose work exemplifies [[Modernism]], and in particular modern sculpture, is one of the few female artists to achieve international prominence.<ref name=gale>Gale, Matthew [http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/dame-barbara-hepworth-1274 "Artist Biography: Barbara Hepworth 1903–75"] Retrieved 31 January 2014.</ref> In 2016 the art of American [[modernist]] [[Georgia O'Keeffe]] has been staged at the [[Tate Modern]], in London, and is then moving in December 2016 to [[Vienna]], Austria, before visiting the [[Art Gallery of Ontario]], Canada in 2017.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ago.net/art-gallery-of-ontario-partners-with-tate-modern-to-present-georgia-okeeffe-retrospective-in-summer-2017|title=Art Gallery of Ontario partners with Tate Modern to present Georgia O'Keeffe retrospective in summer 2017 – AGO Art Gallery of Ontario|website=www.ago.net|access-date=2016-11-29|archive-date=2020-09-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924150951/http://www.ago.net/art-gallery-of-ontario-partners-with-tate-modern-to-present-georgia-okeeffe-retrospective-in-summer-2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>

====Historical exclusion of women====
Women were discriminated against in terms of obtaining the training necessary to be an artist in the mainstream Western traditions. In addition, since the Renaissance the [[Nude (art)|nude]], more often than not female,{{citation needed|date=November 2018}} has had a special position as subject matter. In her 1971 essay, "[[Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?]]", [[Linda Nochlin]] analyzes what she sees as the embedded privilege in the predominantly male Western art world and argues that women's outsider status allowed them a unique viewpoint to not only critique women's position in art, but to additionally examine the discipline's underlying assumptions about gender and ability.<ref name="Nochlin women artists">{{cite book|last=Nochlin|first=Linda|author-link=Linda Nochlin|chapter=[[Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?]]|title=Women, Art and Power and Other Essays|year=1971|publisher=Westview Press|url=<!-- |access-date = 2014-11-28 -->}}</ref> Nochlin's essay develops the argument that both formal and social education restricted artistic development to men, preventing women (with rare exception) from honing their talents and gaining entry into the art world.<ref name="Nochlin women artists" />

In the 1970s, feminist art criticism continued this critique of the institutionalized sexism of art history, art museums, and galleries, and questioned which genres of art were deemed museum-worthy.<ref>{{cite book |last1= Atkins |first1= Robert |year= 2013|title= Artspeak: A Guide to Contemporary Ideas, Movements, and Buzzwords, 1945 to the Present |edition= 3rd|location= New York|publisher= Abbeville Press |isbn= 9780789211507 |oclc=855858296}}</ref> This position is articulated by artist [[Judy Chicago]]:
"[I]t is crucial to understand that one of the ways in which the importance of male experience is conveyed is through the art objects that are exhibited and preserved in our museums. Whereas men experience presence in our art institutions, women experience primarily absence, except in images that do not necessarily reflect women's own sense of themselves."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Chicago|first1=Judy|author-link1=Judy Chicago|last2=Lucie-Smith|first2=Edward|author-link2=Edward Lucie-Smith|title=Women and Art: Contested Territory|url=https://archive.org/details/womenartconteste0000chic|url-access=registration|year=1999|publisher=Watson-Guptill Publications|location=New York|isbn=0-8230-5852-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/womenartconteste0000chic/page/10 10]}}</ref>

==Sources containing canonical lists==
[[File:Classical music composers montage.JPG|right|thumb|350px|A montage of composers, all of whom have notable pieces in the canon of [[classical music]]. From left to right:<br />Top row: [[Antonio Vivaldi]], [[Johann Sebastian Bach]], [[George Frideric Handel]], [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]], [[Ludwig van Beethoven]]<br />second row: [[Gioachino Rossini]], [[Felix Mendelssohn]], [[Frédéric Chopin]], [[Richard Wagner]], [[Giuseppe Verdi]]<br />third row: [[Johann Strauss II]], [[Johannes Brahms]], [[Georges Bizet]], [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky]], [[Antonín Dvořák]]<br />bottom row: [[Edvard Grieg]], [[Edward Elgar]], [[Sergei Rachmaninoff]], [[George Gershwin]], [[Aram Khachaturian]]]]

===English literature===
* [[Modern Library 100 Best Novels]] – English-language novels of the 20th century
* [[Library of America]], classic American literature

===International literature===
* ''[[Bibliothèque de la Pléiade]]''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.la-pleiade.fr|title=La Pléiade|website=www.la-pleiade.fr}}</ref>
* [[Everyman's Library]] (Modern works)
* ''[[Great Books of the Western World]]''
* ''História da Literatura Ocidental'' (in Portuguese) by [[Otto Maria Carpeaux]]
* [[Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century|''Le Monde''{{'s}} 100 Books of the Century]] – books of the 20th century
* [[Modern Library]]
* [[Oxford World's Classics]]
* [[Penguin Classics]]
* [[John Cowper Powys]]: ''One Hundred Best Books'' (1916)<ref>{{Gutenberg book|no=12914|name=One Hundred Best Books|author=[[John Cowper Powys]]|year=1916}}</ref>
* Verso Books' [[List of Radical Thinkers releases|Radical Thinkers]]
* {{ill|ZEIT-Bibliothek der 100 Bücher|de}} – ''[[Die Zeit]]'' list of 100 books

====American and Canadian university reading lists====
* [[Brigham Young University]]'s Honors Program's Great Works List<ref>{{cite web |title=Revised Great Works Requirement Program |pages=1{{ndash}}25 |access-date=14 March 2023 |url=http://honors.byu.edu/sites/default/files/student_files/RevisedGreatWorksRequirementPacket6.04.2013.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131007154443/http://honors.byu.edu/sites/default/files/student_files/RevisedGreatWorksRequirementPacket6.04.2013.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=7 October 2013|date=7 October 2013}}</ref>
* [[Bard College]]'s Language & Thinking program, a series of seminars on great books taken on by all incoming freshmen<ref>{{cite web|url=http://languageandthinking.bard.edu/2011-anthology|title=Language and Thinking Anthology|publisher=Bard College|access-date=July 11, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130123030235/http://languageandthinking.bard.edu/2011-anthology/|archive-date=January 23, 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* [[St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe)#Great Books program|St. John's College Great Books reading list]] (established by [[Scott Buchanan]] and [[Stringfellow Barr]])
* [[Baylor University]]'s Great Texts Reading List<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.baylor.edu/unsc/|title=University Scholars|website=University Scholars &#124; Baylor University|date=19 April 2023 }}</ref>
* The [[Harvard Classics]]

====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]].

===German literature===

====Best German Novels of the Twentieth Century====
The [[Best German Novels of the Twentieth Century]] is a list of books compiled in 1999 by [[Literaturhaus München]] and [[Bertelsmann]], in which 99 prominent German authors, literary critics, and scholars of German ranked the most significant German-language novels of the twentieth century.<ref name=Headlines>{{cite web |date=1999|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010607003313/http://www.literaturhaus.at/headlines/1999/01/142/ |archive-date=June 7, 2001 |title=Musils ''Mann ohne Eigenschaften'' ist 'wichtigster Roman des Jahrhunderts'|url = http://www.literaturhaus.at/headlines/1999/01/142/|publisher= LiteraturHaus |language= de|access-date= August 21, 2012}}</ref> The group brought together 23 experts from each of the three categories.<ref>Wolfgang Riedel, "Robert Musil: ''Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften''" in ''Lektüren für das 21. Jahrhundert: Schlüsseltexte der deutschen Literatur von 1200 bis 1900'', ed. Dorothea Klein and Sabine M. Schneider, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2000, {{ISBN|3-8260-1948-2}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ce_Bu0Zv-sEC&dq=Musil+Mann+ohne+Eigenschaften+Thomas+Mann+Der+Zauberberg+Bertelsmann&pg=PA265 p. 265] {{in lang|de}}</ref> Each was allowed to name three books as having been the most important of the century. Cited by the group were five titles by both [[Franz Kafka]] and [[Arno Schmidt]], four by [[Robert Walser (writer)|Robert Walser]], and three by [[Thomas Mann]], [[Hermann Broch]], [[Anna Seghers]], and [[Joseph Roth]].<ref name=Headlines/>

{{lang|de|[[Der Kanon]]}}, edited by [[Marcel Reich-Ranicki]], is a large [[anthology]] of exemplary works of German literature.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.derkanon.de/interviews.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090518013603/http://www.derkanon.de/interviews.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=18 May 2009|title=Interviews|date=18 May 2009}}</ref>

===French literature===
See [[French literature#Key texts|key texts of French literature]]
* [[Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century|''Le Monde''{{'s}} 100 Books of the Century]]

===Canon of Dutch Literature===
The [[Canon of Dutch Literature]] comprises a list of 1000 works of [[Dutch-language literature]] important to the cultural heritage of the [[Low Countries]], and is published on the [[Digital Library for Dutch Literature|DBNL]]. Several of these works are lists themselves; such as early dictionaries, lists of songs, recipes, biographies, or encyclopedic compilations of information such as mathematical, scientific, medical, or plant reference books. Other items include early translations of literature from other countries, history books, first-hand diaries, and published correspondence. Notable original works can be found by author name.

===Scandinavia===

====Danish Culture Canon====
The [[Danish Culture Canon]] consists of 108 works of cultural excellence in eight categories: [[architecture]], [[visual arts]], [[design|design and crafts]], [[film]], [[literature]], [[music]], [[performing arts]], and [[children's culture]]. An initiative of [[Brian Mikkelsen]] in 2004, it was developed by a series of committees under the auspices of the [[Ministry of Culture (Denmark)|Danish Ministry of Culture]] in 2006–2007 as "a collection and presentation of the greatest, most important works of Denmark's cultural heritage."  Each category contains 12 works, although music contains 12 works of score music and 12 of popular music, and the literature section's 12th item is an anthology of 24 works.<ref>[http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/denmark.php?aid=41 "Denmark/ 4. Current issues in cultural policy development and debate"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150407161125/http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/denmark.php?aid=41 |date=2015-04-07 }}, Compendium: Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe. Retrieved 11 January 2013.</ref><ref>[http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Kunst_og_kultur/Litteratur/Genrebegreber/Kulturkanon "Kulturkanon"], ''Den Store Danske''. {{in lang|da}} Retrieved 11 January 2013.</ref>

====Sweden====
[[Världsbiblioteket]] (''The World Library'') was a [[Sweden|Swedish]] list of the 100 best books in the world, created in 1991 by the Swedish literary magazine ''[[Tidningen Boken]]''. The list was compiled through votes from members of the [[Svenska Akademien]], [[Swedish Crime Writers' Academy]], librarians, authors, and others. Approximately 30 of the books were Swedish.

====Norway====
* [[Bokklubben World Library]].

===Spain===
For the [[Spanish culture]], specially for the [[Spanish literature]], during the 19th and the first third of the 20th century similar lists were created trying to define the literary canon. This canon was established mainly through teaching programs, and literary critics like [[Pedro Estala]], [[Antonio Gil y Zárate]], [[Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo]], [[Ramón Menéndez Pidal]], or [[Juan Bautista Bergua]]. In the last decades, other important critics have been contributing to the topic, among them, [[Fernando Lázaro Carreter]], [[José Manuel Blecua Perdices]], [[Francisco Rico]], and [[José Carlos Mainer]].

Other Spanish languages have also their own literary canons. A good introduction to the Catalan literary canon is ''La invenció de la tradició literària'' by [[Manel Ollé]], from the Open University of Catalonia.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ollé |first1=Manel |title=La invenció de latradició literària |publisher=Universitat Oberta de Catalunya |url=http://openaccess.uoc.edu/webapps/o2/bitstream/10609/48681/5/Ordre%20i%20c%C3%A0non%20a%20la%20literatura%20catalana_M%C3%B2dul4_La%20invenci%C3%B3%20de%20la%20tradici%C3%B3%20liter%C3%A0ria.pdf |language=ca}}</ref>

* ''[[Biblioteca de Autores Españoles]]'', BAE ([[Manuel Rivadeneyra]], [[Buenaventura Carlos Aribau]], 1846–1888)
* ''[[Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles]]'' ([[Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo]], ed. [[Bailly-Baillière]], 1905–1918); the same author selected ''Las cien mejores poesías de la lengua castellana'', Victoriano Suárez, 1908<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.camagueycuba.org/cienpoesias/|title=Las Cien Mejores Poesías (Líricas) de la Lengua Castellana – Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo|website=www.camagueycuba.org}}</ref>
* ''[[Clásicos Castellanos]]'' ([[Ramón Menéndez Pidal]], Centro de Estudios Históricos, eds. La Lectura, and [[Espasa Calpe]], 1910–1935)<ref>Antonio Marco García, [http://cvc.cervantes.es/literatura/aih/pdf/10/aih_10_3_009.pdf ''Propósitos filológicos de la colección «Clásicos Castellanos» de la editorial La Lectura (1910–1935)''], AIH, Actas, 1989.</ref>
* ''[[Las mil mejores poesías de la lengua castellana]]'' ([[Juan Bautista Bergua]])
* ''[[Mil libros]]'' ([[Luis Nueda]], [[Antonio Espina]], since 1940 —not limited to the books in Spanish—)
* ''[[Floresta de la lírica española]]'' ([[José Manuel Blecua Teijeiro]], Antología Hispánica, Gredos, 1957)
* [[Centro Virtual Cervantes]] ([[Instituto Cervantes]], online, since 1997)
* ''[[Biblioteca Clásica]]'' ([[Francisco Rico]], [[Real Academia Española]], [[Círculo de Lectores]], 2011)
* ''[[Les millors obres de la literatura catalana]]'' ([[Joaquim Molas]], [[Josep Maria Castellet|Edicions 62]], and [[La Caixa]])

== See also ==
{{columns-list|colwidth=30em|
* {{Annotated link |Africana philosophy}}
* {{Annotated link |Artistic canons of body proportions}}
* {{Annotated link |Atlantic Canada's 100 Greatest Books|''Atlantic Canada's 100 Greatest Books''}}
* {{Annotated link |Catalogue raisonné}}
* {{Annotated link |Censorship}}
** {{Annotated link |List of books banned by governments}}
* {{Annotated link |Chinese classics}}
** {{Annotated link |Chinese philosophy}}
* {{Annotated link |Great Conversation}}
* {{Annotated link |Indian literature}}
* {{Annotated link |Indian philosophy}}
* {{Annotated link |List of Nobel laureates in Literature}}
* {{Annotated link |Literary fiction}}
* {{Annotated link |Postcolonial Literature}}
* {{Annotated link |Western culture}}
* {{Annotated link |Western education}}
* {{Annotated link |Women's writing in English}}
* {{Annotated link |World literature}}
}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book | last1 = Hirsch | first1 = E. D. | last2 = Trefil | first2 = James | last3 = Kett | first3 = Joseph F. | author-link1 = E. D. Hirsch | author-link2 = James Trefil | title = The dictionary of cultural literacy | publisher = Houghton Mifflin | location = Boston | year = 1988 | isbn = 9780395437483 | title-link = E. D. Hirsch#Cultural Literacy |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | last = Guillory | first = John | author-link=John Guillory |title = Cultural capital the problem of literary canon formation | publisher = University of Chicago Press | location = Chicago | year = 1993 | isbn = 9780226310442  |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | last = Knox | first = Bernard | author-link = Bernard Knox | title = The oldest dead white European males and other reflections on the classics | publisher = W.W. Norton | location = New York | year = 1994 | isbn = 9780393312331  |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | last = Bloom | first = Harold | author-link = Harold Bloom | title = The Western canon: the books and school of the ages | publisher = Riverhead Books | location = New York | year = 1995 | isbn = 9781573225144 | title-link = The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages  |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | last = Owens | first = W. R. | title = Shakespeare, Aphra Behn, and the Canon | publisher = [[Routledge]] in association with the [[Open University (UK)|Open University]] | location = New York | year = 1996 | isbn = 9780415135757  |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | last = Bloom | first = Harold | author-link = Harold Bloom | title = Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human| url = https://archive.org/details/shakespeare00bloo | url-access = registration | publisher = Riverhead Books | location = New York | year = 1998 | isbn = 9781573227513  |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | last = Ross | first = Trevor | title = The making of the English literary canon from the Middle Ages to the late eighteenth century | publisher = McGill-Queen's University Press | location = Montreal Que | year = 1998 | isbn = 9780773520806  |ref=none}}
* Kolbas, E. Dean (2001). ''Critical Theory and the Literary Canon'', Boulder: Westview Press. {{ISBN|0813398134}}
* {{cite book | last = Morrissey | first = Lee | title = Debating the Canon: A Reader from Addison to Nafisii | publisher = Palgrave Macmillan | location = New York | year = 2005 | isbn = 9781403968203 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/debatingcanonrea0000unse  |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | editor-last1 = Brzyski | editor-first1 = Anna | date = 2007 | title = Partisan Canons | publisher = Duke University Press | isbn = 9780822341062 | url = https://www.dukeupress.edu/partisan-canons  |ref=none}}
* {{citation | last = Owens | first = W. R. | contribution = The Canon and the curriculum | editor-last1 = Gupta | editor-first1 = Suman | editor-last2 = Katsarska | editor-first2 = Milena | title = English studies on this side: post-2007 reckonings | pages = 47–59 | publisher = [[Plovdiv University|Plovdiv University Press]] | location = Plovdiv, Bulgaria | year = 2009 | isbn = 9789544235680 | postscript =  |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | last = Gorak | first = Jan | title = The making of the modern canon: genesis and crisis of a literary idea | publisher = Bloomsbury Academic | location = London | year = 2013 | isbn = 9781472513274  |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | last = Carpeaux | first = Otto Maria | author-link = Otto Maria Carpeaux | title = Historia da literatura ocidental | trans-title = The History of Western Literature | publisher = [[Grupo Leya|LeYa]] | language = pt | location = Rio de Janeiro | year = 2014 | oclc = 889331083| isbn= 9788544101179 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | last = Aston |first=Robert J. |date=2020  |title=The role of the literary canon in the teaching of literature |location=New York |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780367432621 |ref=none}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote|Canon}}
*[http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/greatbks.html "Great Books Lists: Lists of Classics, Eastern and Western": this has numerous lists, including Harold Bloom's]
*[http://toddmcompton.com/infinitecanonsprint.htm Compton, "''Infinite Canons: A Few Axioms and Questions, and in Addition, a Proposed Definition. A response to Harold Bloom''"]
* [http://www.ditext.com/searle/searle1.html John Searle, "The Storm Over the University," ''The New York Review of Books'', December 6, 1990]

{{Western culture}}
{{Classical education|state=collapsed}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Western Canon}}
[[Category:Literature]]
[[Category:Western culture]]
[[Category:Philosophy of education]]