Untitled - Sexey's School Moodle

evolution through the first three millennia of curricular decisions and canon-revising
debates.
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The word “canon” finds its origin in the Greek word kanon which means “reed”
or “rod,” used as an instrument of measure. In turn, it seems particularly fitting that the
first “canonizer” would be one of the most prominent figures in western culture. In
ancient Greece, Plato ventured to select from a list of texts those he thought most worthy
of being read and distributed to the citizens of his beloved Republic: “So our first job,
apparently, is to oversee the work of the story-writers, and accept any good story they
write, and reject all the others” (50). Plato proposed a set of rigid criteria for he believed
that literature should serve educational purposes, inspire and enlighten, as well as portray
the moral and social ideals of a utopian society. Thus, he condemned literature that he
considered untruthful, immoral, blasphemous, irreverent to the gods, or subversive in any
way (51-52). He even suggested banning, censoring, or altering texts that did not fit the
social agenda of creating an ethical and upright citizenry: “… a very great deal of
importance should be placed upon ensuring that the first stories they hear are best adapted
for their moral improvement” (51). Even though Plato considered Homer to belong to
the “grander” ilk of story-writers (50), he deplored the fact that the actions of the gods
were not always portrayed so idealistically as they should have been:
…we shouldn’t connive at Homer or any other poet making the
stupid mistake of saying about the gods, “Two jars sit on Zeus’
threshold: one is full of good destinies, but the other is full of
wretched destinies”, and that if Zeus mixes the two up together and
doles them out to someone, that person “sometimes meets with the
bad, sometimes with the good”, whereas if he doesn’t mix them up,
but allots the pernicious ones to someone to an unadulterated form,
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