Western canon
Traditional literary masterpieces
The Western canon is the body of literature, philosophy, art, and music traditionally considered essential to Western culture and education.
It typically includes works from ancient Greece and Rome through modern Europe and America—Homer, Shakespeare, Beethoven, and their peers.
She studied the Western canon in her humanities course.
The concept has been contested since the late twentieth century, with critics arguing it overrepresents white male European perspectives while excluding women, non-Western voices, and marginalized groups.
- classicsWorks of lasting value
- Great BooksEssential literary works
- required readingAssigned essential literature
- ancient GreeceClassical Mediterranean civilization
- Latin literatureWritten works in Rome's tongue
intertextuality · Eurocentrism · Renaissance humanism · humanities · archetypes · homer · Aristotle · cultural identity · literary legacy · touchstone · philosophy · art · history · Shakespeare · music · paradigm · Milton · timeless
- Western civilizationphilosophy, history, literature, classics, art history
- Literary CanonShakespeare, Homer, Dante, Tolstoy, Dickens
- HomerHomer, Iliad, Odyssey, Odysseus, Achilles
- Cicero's Legacyoratory, eloquence, persuasion, public speaking, argumentation
Western canonworld literature
Fiction and poetry globally
African literature · Asian literature · Latin American literature
Western canonmarginalized voices
Speakers from excluded communities
slave narratives · silenced voices · underground literature · women's literature · queer literature
Western canonoral tradition
Culture passed by speech
folk literature · popular fiction · mass culture · pulp fiction · genre fiction
canon, Westernization, westerner, westernmost, Western, westernise, westernised, westernisation, westernising