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Although the introduction of the term multi-cultural canon might give rise to all sorts of musings on the dynamics of cultural elements in literature, it is nevertheless clear that, in this particular setting, its aim is just to help us form a notion of what, in our multi-cultural Holland, may be called classical youth literature. I myself would suggest expanding the term, from multi-cultural canon to world canon, because although multi-cultural may sound quite less ethnocentric than, for instance, WesternEuropean, the allusion is still to those cultures that we here in Western-Europe get to deal with-a somewhat arbitrary criterion anyway.
So, what I understand by the term multi-cultural canon is, primarily, a canon of classical world literature, whether or not such happen to be known here in the Netherlands. Such a canon would consequently not only include the classical works that became the foundation of Western culture, like the Iliad, the Odyssey, and other Greek classics; the Jewish Bible; and the Icelandic Edda, but just as well for instance the Quran, the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh Epic, the Hindu Mahabharata and Ramayana, the mythical Chinese adventure Journey to the West-with as great hero the Monkey King, who we sometimes come across in this country displaying his prowess in the Chinese puppet theater-the Turkish shadow-play characters Haçivat and Karagöz, and Australian Aboriginal folk tales.
Neither would I limit the term classical world literature only to written literature, but I would also include oral traditions: songs, dances, folk theater, shadow plays, as well as folk tales like fables, fairy tales, dilemma tales, myths, and legends. Such tales often constitute the groundwork ofthat which is now considered the canon of classical literature, and might therefore be labeled protoclassical. Although many folk tales have been put down in writing, the majority may very well not be. But the unwritten nature of such tales does not render them any less classical. They derive classicality from some other source.
What Makes a Classic?
The question that logically follows is, What makes a classic? The well-known Dutch dictionary Van Dale Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal by Groot Van Dale answers with the following definition:
1. Pertaining to Greek or Roman antiquity.
2. Excellent, outstanding, exemplary in its kind, accepted or adequate as model, to...