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Professors’ list of Great Books | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6605 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 33 of 40 14 May 2014 at 3:54am | IP Logged | ||
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Very simple - it's for literature lovers, not language learners. The person who started the site probably reads only translations and thinks "knowing" a language is a binary thing, so it's enough to say in which language each book is written.
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| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5017 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 34 of 40 14 May 2014 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd never divide the euroamerican or european tradition among the "western" and "eastern" Europe or even more subgroups and neither do many scholars, based on the textbooks. We are one large entity even though there is a lot of diversity inside of it. The Russian literature was influenced by the French literature a lot (whole culture was at some point), the Greeks were a major influence on the Romans and so on. Any line drawn in between various European cultures, languages and countries is going to cut some of the very important ties.
It is totally different when it comes to, for example, Asian literature. The ties were rare and weak in the past it's quite a different world. I agree it is really hard to find the canons of various countries. THe lists highschoolers need to read are something that should be easily findable but it is not. :-( Fortunately, wikipedia and such sources can help, at least in the beginnings of your adventure. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5353 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 35 of 40 14 May 2014 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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These lists are by necessity idiosyncratic, and should not be regarded as final, authoritative or exhaustive. Fortunately, there is an incredible richness to discover in many languages, particularly those less explored and translated.
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| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5968 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 36 of 40 15 May 2014 at 2:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Goodreads has some good lists, although they don't purely consist of classics. For example, here's one for Turkish literature:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/4989.Best_Turkish_Litera ture 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4897 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 37 of 40 15 May 2014 at 4:23am | IP Logged | ||
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There's a difference between great books and canonical works - those that have survived
for generations, and that have had a wide impact on thought, history, culture, philosophy, the arts etc. For instance, I think that David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas was one of the best English- language books I've read in the past decade. However, I don't think it's necessarily canonical - meaning, I don't think it had any great impact on the world, or would be required reading for anyone wanting to be culturally literate. I think this is one of the reasons that the Prof's lists, and others, only list works over 100 years old - it gives us time to measure the impact. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lykeio Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4252 days ago 120 posts - 357 votes | Message 38 of 40 15 May 2014 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Canons are malleable though and inherently full of crap, Arguelles' included. Lists
like the other one linked often seem based on "reputation" or "what ought to go in" as much as any concentrated thought. I particularly love the token inclusion of a few ancient and non European books though regardless of genre, style, or context. Oh look the Mahabharata is there...except noone with a bit of Sanskrit would recommend that on stylistic grounds. It's awful. They've at least got one Kalidasa play, one of the greatest exponents of the language , but the selection itself is stereotypical and beyond narrow. I've brought up ancient Greek canonisation before, probably only a few pages back, but once more it seems pertinent. Ask anyone what their favourite tragedy is or what they feel to be the best and they'll say "Medea" despite it doing poorly in its own time and subsequent Roman obsession being the secret to its success. In fact most given "canons" of ancient Greek literature vary heavily from sensible reconstructions of what the great Greek stylists and schools of their own time thought to be great. What then is the point of such lists? they fail to give an accurate rendering of what the literature's home cultures tended to think. To maybe render onto paper what we think important? Perhaps but one can't help but feel the person to get something from the epic of Gilgamesh is not the same to put Jane Austen, pulp in its day, on the list. I hate these lists because they're inevitably ill formed (after all creating a universal list of "best literature" is an impossible and poorly conceived plan) and basically just an example of snobbish behaviour: "look how learned we are". So much literary criticism essentially comes down to the politics of taste. Sod all that. If you want to find out about the literature in a given language pick up a book geared to that. If you want a massive cross cultural cannon pay each culture/language/literary tradition enough respect to pick up books specialised in these areas. Don't caricature and don't do anything half arsed. Beyond that? beyond that the only canon that matters is the one you build for yourself after years of reading. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5968 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 39 of 40 15 May 2014 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | ||
Just because an endeavor can't be done on an entirely objective basis, doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. It's more about the debate itself than creating a golden list which will stand until the end of time. And if lots of people enjoy debating the best literature, music, art, sports teams, airplanes, etc., where's the harm in that? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dmaddock1 Senior Member United States Joined 5441 days ago 174 posts - 426 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Esperanto, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 40 of 40 15 May 2014 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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There's some truth to your view Lykeio, but it is as much a caricature as the canons you criticize. Picking up a book geared to the literature of a non-native language is not so easy--especially if it is not a literary powerhouse like English/French/German. The task is doubly hard if you're a learner.
People are eager to criticize such endeavors as intellectual snobbery and dictating taste (which occasionally they are), but this is not 1875. The vast majority of "pro-canon" folks would say that they are a guide, not an absolute. Nevertheless, I submit that any given reading list covering a specific literary tradition will be largely the same, provided it is compiled by a sufficiently informed individual. For example, a representative list of Italian literature that doesn't include Dante (or an English one that doesn't have Shakespeare) is uninformed. Period. It has fundamentally failed sufficiently to represent the literary tradition it purports to describe. A description of these literatures without these writers is a poor description. Granting this point, everything else is bickering about numbers and boundaries. And as a learner interested in becoming educated in a foreign literary culture, I think they are more important, not less. I want to know what books native speakers think are the best--in style, cultural and historical relevance, etc. As others have noted, Prof. Arguelles' lists are an attempt to be more inclusive in this regard, not less. As I alluded to earlier, the problem is not that a canon dictates rigid rules from which we can't escape, but that they are often hard to read (for a language learner anyway). The missing component is how to tackle it. Usually, this happens naturally over the course of your education which is why it would be nice to know what grade students typically read various books. A specialized book on one literary tradition: 1. is often hard to find or, 2. doesn't address how native speakers actually learn their own literary culture. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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