English 101
Read the article: 21st Century Students Demand a More Balanced and Inclusive Canon and then write a formal response that reflects on your own experiences as a reader using some of what you learned about literary criticism in this module. What do you think? Does the idea of a “canon” matter?
ANSWER
Literary Criticism
After reading the article, 21st Century Students Demand a More Balanced and Inclusive Canon, the first thought that comes to mind is how this feature or tradition of a certain group of people determining canonical works of literature could be used to mute free mindedness and liberal thinking. Often I have read an old book and then I have to keep searching commentaries on the internet because I fail to understand, how it is that the book had never been mentioned before in my social circles and even on the web. At that point, I sit in horror wondering how it would be if such a book is forgotten and no one ever gains anything from it. This is the approach the entire idea of canonical writers suggests, that some works are more important than others making it right to forget the ones they deem unimpressive.
Literature as a work of art appeals to each individual differently. That means that it is unfair to give a person or a group of people the mandate to determine what represents a culture and what does not. Instead of 21st Century Students demanding a more inclusive canon, I would strongly recommend they do away with it altogether. Early in my life whenever I tried to write a book or a story, I would judge myself and my work on the standards of writers and their styles that would be deemed canonical. I wrote as if they were behind me watching me type from over my shoulder. It was not easy. This is the reason writers must keep off from implementing standards of what is canonical and what is not. Writing just as reading is a freedom that no one should alter. Canon does not matter.
