Everyone Wants A Prodigy To

In Fact, It Is Shakespeare Who Gives Us The Map Of The Mind. It Is Shakespeare Who Invents Freudian Psychology. Freud Finds Ways Of Translating It Into Supposedly Analytical Vocabulary.

We Possess The Canon Because We Are Mortal And Also Rather Belated. There Is Only So Much Time, And Time Must Have A Stop, While There Is More To Read Than There Ever Was Before. From The Yahwist And Homer To Freud, Kafka, And Beckett Is A Journey Of Nearly Three Millennia. Since That Voyage Goes Past Harbors As Infinite As Dante, Chaucer, Montaigne, Shakespeare, And Tolstoy, All Of Whom Amply Compensate A Lifetime's Rereadings, We Are In The Pragmatic Dilemma Of Excluding Something Else Each Time We Read Or Reread Extensively.

No Poem, Not Even Shakespeare Or Milton Or Chaucer, Is Ever Strong Enough To Totally Exclude Every Crucial Precursor Text Or Poem.

If We Read The Western Canon In Order To Form Our Social, Political, Or Personal Moral Values, I Firmly Believe We Will Become Monsters Of Selfishness And Exploitation.

...the Bible Itself Is Less Read Than Preached, Less Interpreted Than Brandished. Increasingly, Pastors May Drape A Limply Bound Book Over The Edges Of The Pulpit As They Depart From It. Members Of The Congregation Carry Bibles To Church Services; The Paster Announces A Long Passage Text For His Sermon And Waits For People To Find It, Then Reads Only The First Verse Of It Before He Takes Off. The Book Has Become A Talisman.