by Marco Fiori

Created on: April 12, 2009   Last Updated: April 13, 2009

If we are to believe critic Harold Bloom, all we need to survive in literary discussion is Dante and Shakespeare. The subjective base concerning the canonisation of literature has long plagued the school of thought. What a seventy-eight year old considers classical' will intrinsically differ from a twenty-something's viewpoint. Literature is a constantly changing entity. To come to a clear understanding, we must first decide what the classics' are.

Contemporary literature aside, (that means anything post World War II), a literature degree will place the Modernists as the last classical period.' T.S. Eliot and Woolf have produced enough waves in literature to allow for their inclusion. Victorian fiction, the birth of the novel (commonly attributed to Defoe's Moll Flanders), and the Romantics successfully enter the hall of fame.' Obviously, The Western Canon is what we are using in these reflections. Postcolonial scholars will have you believe that the issue of classical narrative is vastly defunct.

Chronological sidetracking aside, we can venture further back to the Renaissance's idea of archetypal writing: Homer, Aristotle, Plato and the Greek playwrights (Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles) all have their position .Then there is the matter of Shakespeare, and the bible (with Dante's Inferno as a relevant offshoot). The key question for twenty-first century readers is: what do the above works actually present us?

We are currently living in such a fast paced world built around the transfer of electronic information that literature's worth is constantly put into question. For one, reading the classics promptly grounds us in intellectual understanding. It provides the reader with the foundation of westernised thought, philosophy and power relations. It is a grand narrative that has only recently become obsolete, (if we are to believe Lyotard's Postmodern Condition).

Secondly, they provide us with a historical evaluation of past cultures. Where else would you see an accurate depiction of Ancient Greek life? Would we really know as much about the Elizabethan period if it wasn't for the works of Shakespeare? No. An interest in the classics' is vital if you are to partake in discussion. In fact, without a rudimentary understanding, one would fail to fit into our culture.

We live in a world that has grown up with the issues presented in such works. We have not even touched upon popular classics' like Lolita, Lord of the Rings or Fight Club. Cinema and our modern culture would be void of interest if it wasn't for the classics.

Subconsciously, our entire personas are built on classical literature. Our views on idealised love, religion, race, social interaction -it all stems from the canon. The validity of classical literature has come into question the last ten years, but for anyone wishing to understand the world we live in, the classics' are an unavoidable resource.

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