Text Typology
Canons

Canons are neither texts nor editorial assemblages in the usual sense; they are publicly known higher-order entities whose criterion of admission is the approval of some cultural or governmental authority. Texts, including accumulations and performanced repertoires, imply the question "Who is in charge of this specific tradition?" Canons, on the other hand, imply the question "Who is in charge of the culture?"

Canons may include texts of any type, including whole repertoires, such as the Chinese Shr within the Confucian Canon, or the Psalms within the Old Testament. Belief and control of belief is one aim of canons, though the beliefs in question need not be religious in character. The term "canon" is much abused (the "Shakespeare canon" is better called the "Shakespeare corpus"), as is the related term "classic," but it is useful when not abused. Canons tend to change slowly, mostly by addition: Single canonical texts no longer in current favor are usually simply disregarded (like the problematic Gospel of Mark within the New Testament) rather than formally expelled. The parallel with bodies of law, and especially with constitutional law, is helpful: inactive provisions are not removed from the statute books, but legal practitioners know, largely by continually updated annotated versions of the statutes, that those provisions no longer have legal force. Canons tend to inhibit textual growth processes. The closure of canons tends to limit further textual advance in that area, and to shift the cultural energy of text makers into commentaries or an apocryphal literature. See the thoughtful and suggestive analysis by Henderson.

• Five Classics. A Han form of the Chinese Confucian canon, which was fixed at an imperially sponsored conference in 051. It comprised, in citation order, the Yi divination text, the Shu (Documents) and Shr (Poetry) repertoires, the Li, a body of ritual texts, and the Spring and Autumn chronicle of Lu. The inventory of the canon, and the listing order of its texts, had both been subject to change since the early efforts of Sywndz (c0310-c0235). The formative power for canons passed from the school heads of the Warring States period to the heads of government with the establishment of the Empire in 0221. Scholars might recommend, but only government could enact.
• Successive Expansions of the Han canon were the Nine Classics of c625, the Twelve Classics of c839, and finally the Thirteen Classics of c1190, the form of the canon which is still dominant at the present time.

Classical Chinese Texts is Copyright © 1993- by E Bruce and A Taeko Brooks

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