New List of 25 (April 2024)

First version of this site was from July 2011. Now it is April 2024. I have been reading some canonical works on  and off, but I haven't been looking at canonical text lists for some time.

 

Recently I was studying some college course catalogs. Most colleges academic year has 30 weeks - either semesters (each 15 weeks) or trimesters (each 10 weeks). So really for a year-long course a selection of a list of 24 works best - can do in chunks of 12 (for semesters) or chunks of 8 (for trimesters). For a year-long course of canonical texts, there needs to be weeks allowed for Intro - why study canonical texts; social process of how texts become canonical; and probably some closing reflections on take-aways from the year-long study. The last week of a term should also be finals / essay writing. So something like 24 works make sense.

 

With the benefits of time distance (of not looking at canonical text lists for some time), plus playing around with generative AI (ChatGPT), I come up with a new list that looks a little bit different from before.

As a I live more in the US, I guess my insistence on Western < half of world diminishes.

 

Brief comments on some of them:

• Plato - Complete Works (not just the Republic)
• Shakespeare - Hamlet in course, First Folio as the selected text
• Marx - Capital; other texts would be supplemental
• Samyutta Nikaya - Buddhism is the 3rd (but much smaller) global religion; textual tradition is dispersed; but this most likely contain the kernel of Buddha's initial teachings
• Augustine: Confessions or On the Trinity (hard to choose)
• al-Tabari: Histories (rather than Quranic commentaries); want to include a text at the foundation period of Islamic disciplines
• Tale of Genji: only female author selected; earliest novel (a global form) which also includes in the text short lyrical poetry in the East Asian tradition)
• Homer: I always have some bias towards Iliad over Odyssey
• Eusebius: he wrote the foundational history of early Christianity
• Kant: Critique of Pure Reason; Kant's value as the core modern western philosopher is truly a time-tested canon formation process, made clear in modern US academia in their course offerings
• Voltaire: Essays on Manner (his world history work); actually hard to select a French author - but French clearly had a critical role in post-1500 Western tradition
• al-Ghazzali: Revival of Religious Sciences
• Shankara: Commentaries on Brahma Sutra
• Rg Veda - foundational religious poetry, probably closest window into Indo-European "pagan" core
• Shijing / Classics of Odes - hard choice vs. Tang poetry which is more commonly read; but does show even earliest poetry texts do not need to be religious
• Wang Bi Ji - Wang Bi wrote the definition commentaries on both Laozi (Dao De Jing) and Zhou Yi (Classics of Change) (plus he commented on the Analects which doesn't pass down except in very small fragments)
• Lastly, I personally find Zhiyi (founder of Tiantai Sect) probably the most accomplished thinker in the East Asian tradition (Tendai is also foundational in Japanese Buddhism). This is the only one that is clearly not currently a primary canonical text on the level of others selected in the list. But one I would advocate to be canonized even more. Also, the currently most canonical texts of him Commonly accepted as his main works are his commentaries on the Lotus Sutra (Fahua Xuanyi) and his system of mediation (translated by Swanson in 3 volumes not long ago as Clear Serenity, Quiet Insight). But these are notes probably severly edited by his disciple Guanding. His actual last major work was actually his Commentaries on Vimalakirtinirdesasutra. This text is what I am advocating to be in the list of canonical texts of 25. (Vimalakirtinirdesasutra is much more interesting than the Lotus Sutra anyways.) But clearly this is my personal quirk. In fact, every teacher of canonical texts probably have their personal favorite to add as the 25 text in a year-long course.

 

While this list does not go out of the way to include sub-traditions (e.g. Shiite Islam or Orthodox Christian etc.), it does give prominence to secondary languages of a tradition:

- Latin in Greco-Roman

- Persian in Islamic

- Pali in South Asian

- Japanese in East Asian

- Of course, English, German and French are all present in modern western; and Hebrew, Greek, Latin and even Italian in the Christian tradition. 

 

Now back to my first reading of Marx's Capital. 

Ok, actually, on the site I have done multiple version of lists like a ~25 text lists.

Let's see what are different.

 

First, vs. what is on the site as a derivative list of the main List of 150.

https://lawpark.jimdofree.com/list-of-150/derivative-lists/list-of-25/

 

Changes from the old list:

- Four Books Commentaries (Zhu Xi) - cut

- Wenxuan - replaced with Classics of Odes

- Tang poetry - replaced with Tale of Genji

- Ramanuja - cut

- Kalidasa - replaced with Rg Veda

- Ferdowsi - replaced with Hafez

- Amir Khusrau - cut

- Gibbon - replace with Voltaire

- Descartes - replace with Marx

 

The three cuts replaced with:

- Homer, Virgil, Eusebius

 

So shift is away from non-Western towards western classical / Christian. Eusebius is the suspect one. Maye Tang poetry shouldn't be out?

 

Second, in May 2014 (almost exactly a decade ago), in the series of "Rethinking Criteria", there was also implicitly a list of 25.

https://lawpark.jimdofree.com/2014/05/01/rethinking-criteria-of-list-coming-up-with-a-short-east-asian-reading-list/

https://lawpark.jimdofree.com/2014/05/02/rethinking-criteria-shorter-south-asian-reading-list/

https://lawpark.jimdofree.com/2014/05/02/rethinking-criteria-shorter-cwana-reading-list/

https://lawpark.jimdofree.com/2014/05/03/rethinking-criteria-shorter-western-list/

 

Changes from the old list:

- Four Books Commentaries (Zhu Xi) - cut

- Su Shi - replaced with Classics of Odes

- Kalidasa - cut

- Amir Khusrau - cut

- Shanama - replaced with Hafez

Added are:

- Virgil, Eusebius, Kant

 

Again, Eusebius is the suspicious one, maybe Su Shi shouldn't be out?

 

Third, in 2015 (Feb and Dec), I did a List of 28.

https://lawpark.jimdofree.com/2015/02/21/list-of-28-revised/

https://lawpark.jimdofree.com/2015/12/31/progressive-lists-of-6-16-28/

 

Changes from the old list:

- Cervantes - cut

- Tolstoy - cut

- Ferdowsi - replaced with Hafez

- Kalidasa - cut 

- Zhu Xi (Four Books Commentaries) - cut 

- Su Shi- cut

 

Added are:

- Eusebius, Zhiyi

 

Zhiyi is clearly a bit of personal choice. Eusebius is the other weak link in the current list - which I try to have a "history" for each tradition.

 

Among the texts deprioritized, 

- The East Asian / Chinese tradition I am partial, among Tang poetry, Su Shi and Zhu Xi, if I were to save a text it would be Su Shi, but his time (Song dynasty) is same as Tale of Genji.

- From the South Asian ones Kalidasa and Amir Khusrau. Amir Khusrau is easier to drop. Kalidasa is the prime kavya author, reason he gets drop is it seems like he was elevated as the British wants to compare him wtih Shakespeare (also drama / poetry author). At the current vintage point, even with the interest in getting modern Indian languages (Hindi/Urdu, Bengali) represented, somehow I am still more inclined to include Gandhi than Premchand or Tagore. Really doesn't matter what language Gandhi chose to write in.

- Cervantes, Tolstoy: both are novels but the priority went to Tale of Genji (early, female author)

 

So, if I need to edit the new list of 25, the only real tempting choice is to replace Eusebius with Gandhi.

 

But Eusebius was in many sense a foundational Christian scholar, and his historical projects are truly influential (and is the starting point of most later historians) in the Christian late antiquity and middle ages.