Canonical readings and emerging ones: notes for an ongoing discussion

Abstract

This paper presents some results of the project University and School for a European Literary Canon (ELiCa), concerning the texts belonging to the 'official' or '"pedagogical' literary canon of high school students, together with the students' own reading preferences, which we might call their "personal canon, in the fields of national as well as European literature. From the information obtained, the author extracts a series of notes relative to various problems affecting the teaching of literature at the pre-university level. Basically, these problems concern the superposition of the national canon on the literary canon of the so-called "historical nationalities', the new cultural reality of young people which calls for a different approach to reading and to the exposure of literary contents - and, finally, the need for constant updating by teachers, as readings appreciated by students call for the removal of possible prejudice and the keeping of an open mina towards new texts, which are not to be refused vurelv for the sake of beina new.