Parse with me

[radiantfracture]

If you were to read the following two sentences, the subject being Gilgamesh and its effect on the English literary tradition:

Into a canon based in the Bible and the Greek and Latin classics, a religious and a secular canon with a highly developed culture of reception and interpretation grown up around it, entered a new text that belonged, as it were, in both currents and in neither. It was millennia older than either, with elements in common with each, which unsettled our understanding and gave us a sense of the extending, shadowy backstories of our traditions. (Schmidt 4)

--would you say that "both currents" refers to the Bible and the Greek/Latin tradition?

{rf}

Comments

[juushika]

FWIW I don't see this divide; I parsed it as "the Bible and the Greek and Latin classics form a canon (which I am trying to avoid calling western canon) which is both religious and secular and has a highly developed..." etc etc

It mostly just feels like a messy way to avoid referring a lump of "Western canon" ... while still contrasting Gilgamesh to/differentiating it from that canon.

[davidgillon]

I'd interpret "a religious and a secular canon" as specifically saying two canons, not one.

[radiantfracture]

a messy way to avoid referring a lump of "Western canon"

This is a compelling assessment.