Word: canonizes
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...observant, and that was fine. But even the most fervently secular Israelis used to have a degree of familiarity with classical Jewish literature, for instance, beginning with the Hebrew Bible. Whether or not the words were divinely inspired was unimportant. What mattered was that they were part of a canon of texts that were crucial to the formation of Jewish identity...
...ever there was a monument to the Western Canon, Paine Hall is it. High above the audience, in proud brass letters, the names of the Great Composers--Beethoven, Schubert, Bach--remind us that we are in a temple of culture, to be enlightened by the best music from the best minds in history. The literal presence of these great names only emphasized the question posed by last Sunday's concert: is that tradition still alive, and does John Harbison belong...
Christopher Durang '71 is a playwright of extremes. His plays and musicals combine sophisticated literary allusion and bawdy sexual humor. He parodizes and satirizes such revered institutions as religion, the family, and the literary canon. According to Durang, the only rule in writing is "whatever you write about, you must have a strong reaction to it." Ironically, the one institution Durang seems to have no strong opinion about is his alma mater--Harvard...
Despite their renegade perspective, Durang's works are quickly becoming a part of the late-20th century canon. His plays are shelved next to W.E.B. DuBois at Lamont, and are sandwiched between Lord Dunsanay and Marguerite Duras in encyclopedias of drama. Yet for Durang, the bigger pay-off is the popularity of his plays among drama students. "I'm very flattered by that and then when I get a bad review, it makes me think, oh good, then the play isn't ended just because a critic didn't like...
Durang doesn't try to rationalize the paradoxes of his work, which can be at once high-brow and happily vulgar, at once a send-up of the literary canon and an addition to that canon. He acknowledges, too, that there is a double edge to his satire of societal institutions, a vilification belying a genuine disappointment in their failures. The measly contradictions of his plays, says Durang, come naturally and reflect the impulsiveness of his creative process. "I start off with the rules to a particular universe, which are really crack-pot. I just sort of expect people...