I wrote a little poem called The Canon during my university days. A Canon typically defines the acceptable, standard set of literature for a specific genre. English Literature in academia has an accepted list of stories, poems and plays which an English Lit student must read to understand Western culture and civilization.
As required by my professors, I used my dog-eared Norton Anthology of English Literature to analyze Shakespeare, Milton, Woodsworth, Shelly, Faulkner, and a hundred other famous writers in the Anglo-Saxon world.
After a while I began to wonder what on earth made English departments make long-suffering students read and understand this literature. How could reading all these works give me insights into human behaviour that I didn’t already know? Turns out it does. Reading all these novels, poems, short stories led me to understand this shared culture we call Western civilization. But, as I continued to think about all this, have these works brought us any closer to understanding the meaning of life or how we can do better at creating a society that is good for all? I am not so sure.
This led to this poem I wrote one night after a day of classes at University.
The Canon
Corpse, have you considered your own body?
You the hallowed, holy, hearty Carcass
Called the sacred “Norton Anthology”.
Looking through smoked glass believing it clear,
The panes of the Norton dimly show “truth”;
Something so longed for; allusive as air.
From Frye’s archetypical book of Books,
From whose panes English Culture
He said derives now its “origin, strength and core”;
“What is Truth?” asked a now troubled solder;
He for all the Robe’d inquisitors;
Was this Pilate-without-oars given ear?
This record of their interrogation
Leaves English, perhaps all Human culture
Wanting - for a man gave him no answer.
“What is Truth?” For an answer came a
Silence that seems louder than we can hear,
Louder than at least you Norton can hear.
Thus for Milton, Woodsworth, Shelly or Blake,
If Western culture’s “greatest influence”
Remained silent at the Soldier’s request
How can robes of the honoured academy
Find answers from inferior minds who
“Through Eden took their Solitary Way”
Corpse, have you considered your own body?