This essay examines varying theories on the nature and essences of classical texts from the Western literary canon. These ideas range from the notion that the classic is a single work, to viewing these great works as accommodating multiple meanings over time, to the belief that their distinguishing feature is their ability to relate identifiable and universal themes that transcend readers' particular circumstances. In exploring these three perspectives, it becomes clear that The Bible fulfills the requirements for classical designation and should therefore be regarded as a seminal part of the West's literary heritage. Finally, this paper discusses the educational implications for teaching Scripture as classical text in the high school classroom.

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Revision of the the author's thesis (doctoral)--Cambridge University. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-178) and index.

Thesis (M.A.) in English--University of Maine, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-93).

Revision of the the author's thesis (doctoral)--Cambridge University. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-178) and index. Electronic text and image data Mode of access: Intranet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2001. / Available in film copy from University Microfilms International. Vita. Thesis advisor: Lewis R. Gordon. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 242-266). Also available online.

Most inquiries into the nature of literary value have focused on how the academy shapes literary taste and determines the reputation of individual authors. This thesis examines how ideas of literary canon can impact a writer at the creative level. Michael Ondaatje's interest in the cultural significance of authorship makes him ideal for this topic of study. The first essay discusses how Ondaatje's repeated quotation of his own texts can be viewed as a metafictional commentary on the anxieties of literary innovation. It shows how the idea of literary influence and the author's relationship to the canon can be embodied as a formal and thematic characteristic of the literary text. The second essay shows how Ondaatje responds to traditional conceptions of the English-Canadian canon as an editor of a national anthology of short fiction. Early national anthologists beginning with E. H. Dewart in his Selections from Canadian Poets (1864) consolidated a set of evaluative criteria that reflected aspects of nineteenth-century English-Canadian nationalism. This essay examines two national anthologies that represent an alternative to this tradition. John Simpson's The Canadian Forget Me Not for MDCCCXXXVII (1837) is a representation of popular nineteenth-century bourgeois literary taste that predates this legitimating rhetoric. Michael Ondaatje's From Ink Lake (1990) renders an ironic commentary on this hundred-year-old legacy of canon formation.

Revision of the author's Thesis (doctoral)--Cambridge University. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-178) and index.

Revision of the author's Thesis (doctoral)--Cambridge University. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-178) and index.

No description available.