The English term canon comes from the Greek κανών, meaning “rule” or “measure.”  Many people have heard of the biblical canon or canon law.  Literary critics use the term canon to refer to a particular body of works tradition has told us are more important or worth of study than others.  These are works of high quality and, often, high value to a particular literary movement and/or a way of life.

Friendship, too, is a way of life.  Now that we’ve come to the close of our semester studying friendship literatures, we have produced a rough draft of our own canon of friendship texts.  These are texts we have made, read, or found valuable, and we’ve chosen to make this canon available to other students, scholars, and interested observers online.

Part of our work has been to collect and cull texts from the classroom and beyond for an Annotated Bibliography.  An equally important component of our work has been the production of personal texts we felt should be included alongside other, more established works.

We hope you’ll find something here that speaks to you.  Even more, we hope you’ll speak back to us.  Please feel free to suggest additions to our bibliography or to submit your own work to our canon project.