“Inclusion in Today’s Literary Canon”

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Stephen King is a creative and massively popular author of horror fiction with the ability to make his readers squirm. Rated one of the best writers since early 1970s due to his prolific work, which is immensely intriguing. Stephen King is acknowledged for producing a novel each year or more. Some of his best sellers comprise the “The Shinning” (1977), “Salem Lost” (1975), “Carrie” (1974), and “Dead Zone” (1979). Even though, Stephen King’s writing style is bizarre and bloodcurdling, his characters have become iconic, because he has acquired a technique that makes him masterful. Additionally he has written several books that have become number one sellers. His books have spawned a multimedia franchise laying a basis for TV shows, movies, and best-selling novels.

King has an infinite number of short stories, published novels and movies created from his originality. Additionally, he keeps the use of vibrant and vivid detail that is set in a pragmatic each day place (Bloom 54). King was born in Portland Maine in 1947 (Schweitzer 9). Commonly known as the master of horror, his books have been published in over 35 countries and translated into 33 different languages (Schweitzer 25). He adds a dazzling effect in his work more than the standard easy-to-read bestsellers thus making his books fly off the shelves.

I choose to nominate Stephen King, an established author as one of the Today’s Literacy Cannons for several reasons. Despite being one of today’s masterful writers and best-selling authors, he combines elements of the science fiction, paranormal, detective themes, and psychological thrillers into his stories, he has developed a skill that makes him masterful. Stephen King has a point about maintaining his audience in suspense. E...

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...er or of Dante, of Chaucer or of Rabelais, is to augment one’s own growing inner self. Reading deeply in the Canon will not make one a better or a worse person, a more useful or more harmful citizen. The mind’s dialogue with itself is not primarily a social reality. (Bloom)

“All that the Western Canon can bring one is the proper use of one’s own solitude, that solitude whose final form is one’s confrontation with one’s own mortality.”(Bloom)

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. The Western Canon. New York: Riverhead Books, 1994.

Hoppenstand, Gary, Ray, Browne. The Gothic World of Stephen King. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1987.

Joshi S.T. The Modern Weird Tale. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2001

Schweitzer, Darrell. Discovering Stephen King. Mercer Island: Starmont House, 1985:102-108. Print

http://www.stephenking.com/index.html

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