Disputing the Canon Essay -- The Loss of the Creature Walker Percy Ess

Disputing the CanonI was in the opera hat of settings when I realize that Shakespeare was indeed great. My freshman year in high school, I had position class with an esteemed teacher, Mr. Brozahailed as the Paul D. Schreiber High School Shakespeare aficionado, present of Schreibers Annual Shakespeare Day, and, perhaps most heart-warming of any, a self-proclaimed Shakespeare lover whose posters of The get up could be found as wallpaper in his small office. How happy I thought I was. Indeed, if I wanted to appreciate Hamlet, I was in the right hands.But how misled I actually wasat least, in Walker Percys eyes. In his essay, The button of the Creature, Percy recalls a scene from The tinder Is a Lonely Hunter the girl hides in the bushes to hear the Capehart in the big house play Beethoven. Perhaps she was the lucky one afterwards all. Think of the unhappy souls inside, who manipulate the record, worry ab step up the scratches, and most of all worry about whether they are gett ing it, whether they are bona fide music lovers. What is the best way to hear Beethoven sitting in a becoming silence around the Capehart or eavesdropping from an azalea bush? (521) Percy here contrasts two variant approaches to viewing artthe girl who informally and spontaneously encounters the work of art, out of context, as opposed to the unhappy souls inside who formally prepare themselves for a kind of pre-packaged listening experience. Percy wonders which is bettera question meant for the readers pondering. But his essay offers his answer we can only truly see or hear a piece of art by the tumble of those facilities which were designed to help the sightseer (514). Perhaps Percy is rightit might sire been better if my experience with Hamlet had been an accide... ...uch great heights to which I may leap, so many undiscovered territories awaiting my arrival.Works CitedBloom, Harold. The Western Canon. Harcourt, 1994.Borges, Jorge Luis Joyce, James Shakespeare, William. capi tal of South Carolina Encyclopedia. 6th ed. 2000.Gould, Stephen Jay. Womens Brains. Encounters Essays for Exploration and Inquiry. 2nd ed. Ed. Pat C. ignitor II and Robert DiYanni. New York McGraw-Hill, 2000. 305-10.Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings. Ed. Raymond Guess and Ronald Speirs. Trans. Ronald Speirs. New York Cambridge UP, 1999.Percy, Walker. The Loss of the Creature. Ways of Reading. Ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. BostonBedford, 1996.Winterson, Jeanette. The Semiotics of Sex. Encounters Essays for Exploration and Inquiry. 2nd ed. Ed. Pat C. Hoy II and Robert DiYanni. New York McGraw-Hill, 2000. 642-51.