Si Dieu n’existant pas” the old Voltaire sawhorse goes, “il fraudait l’inventir.” Such is the case with the Alternate Canon of English Literature. Indeed, in many places it is far easier to identify the truth (always lower case, subjective– as how can beings in the process of self-observation ever exit and exist as a class above, as an Ur-object of the process?) only by teasing out the contradictions of the un-truth that exists within. For that reason, the editors of this list have spared no expense in building an alternate list of classic Literature. Where the works are obscurantist, they are also hermeneutic. Where they are unavailable, this list ensures a short description. Where the work is preposterous to the observer bound by a slave’s devotion to the assumption that “the truth shall set you free”, you will find the higher assertion that it is better to know for sure the lie than worry about the truth.
This slender, annotated list, is a sleek companion to comment upon and enhance the classical canon of literature. By no means does it intend to detract or propose a true alternative. Without a mainstreaming, there is no alternation. But this alternate canon comes closer to the platonic ideal through the simple and repeatable fact that none of these works exist, per se, and are therefore as close as humanly possible to human forms.
This list begins in the far reaches of history, with companion works to “Caedmon’s Hymn” and Beowulf, and stretches to approximately the end of the world, which by all proper historical measurements happened at least twice in the current century. In the interest of veracity, this list takes up the well-documented argument that the world ended on or around the start of the two thousandth year. It is there, and with those late entries into the canon- minor though they all are- that this list ends.
-The Editors.
A Short Catalog of the Alternate Canon 