Canonical Authors and the Identity Values in the High School Curriculum

Abstract

The school literature is the most important object in transmittind, configurating and consolidating the value system of a people. The school curriculum is not anymore a simple list of authors and works, its’ structure is more complex keeping in mind the triple status of the Romanian Language and Literature in the Romanian school system – as official tongue of the state, as a school language and a school study subject. However, the list of canonical authors is significant for the curriculum’s authors vision about the value system that the community intends to develop at the future generations. In this respect, two visions are confronted about the Romanian Language and Literature curriculum: the traditional one, that insists on some literary values that cannot be repealed, and the other one, a (post)modern vision that emphasises the pleasure of the reading/of the text and on the student’s needs. Regardless of the position of the curriculum author, it is fundamental that the studied literary works propose not only aesthetic values, but also ethic and identity values. For this reason, the options cannot be random. Something that has been learnt as a human model, studied during literature classes stays as a mental program for the lifetime.

This paper is aims to identify a series of ethic and identity values as the can be found in the texts studied by high school students through the list of canonical authors, showind as well how the disappearence or the insertion of some writers and literary works have an impact on collective mind.