Practice question · Multiple choice
Tradition is described as an active labour rather than a passive inheritance. What follows from this distinction when a new work joins the canon?
Hints
- Does an active process simply append an item to an existing queue?
- How does the introduction of a novel voice affect our reading of past texts?
Show the answer
C. It reorders the relationships among existing works
Why
Conceiving tradition as passive assumes existing standards remain unchanged or merely expand by accretion. Instead, an active tradition requires labour because assimilating a genuinely new text fundamentally shifts how earlier masterworks are understood.
Practise The Canon, Tradition and the Idea of a Classic
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