English Literary Canon at a Glance
Generally, the word “canon” refers to any group of writings that has been established as authentic; more specifically, those books of the Christian Bible that are accepted as Scripture. The term is used to describe collectively those works of a particular author that have been proven or are considered genuine, such as the canon made up of William Shakespeare’s thirty plays. Currently “canon” is often used to identify the classical and contemporary literature authorized by schools and universities as the core of literary study.
The word “canon” was derived from Greek word which was used to denote a list or catalogue then came to be applied to the list of books in Bible. The Greek word “kanon”, signifying a measuring rod or a rule, was extended to denote a list or catalogue, then came to be applied to the list of books in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament which were designated by church authorities as comprising the genuine Holy Scriptures.
The religious terminology of the word “canon” was later extended to secular works: the canon of literature. The canon of literature, on the other hand, emerges by way a gradual and unofficial consensus; is tacit rather than explicit. Then canonical status was afforded to a number of books from the classical to the modern period written by a number of authors such as Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Austen and Dickens. These writers are venerated throughout literary history as writers of the classics; not only are they worthy of serious academic attention, they have also become “celebrated names” holding some measure of universal acclaim. This is also called canon formation.
Canon formation, or the process by which literary texts become legitimated, was traditionally understood as a "natural" process in which the "best" literature inevitably prevails in the test of time (e.g., Brooks, 1975). Concomitantly, the canon was envisioned as an archive of "the best that has been thought and known" (Bertens,2). In Arnold’s view, the process of canon formation was governed by objective aesthetic laws; texts entered the canon by virtue of their unanimously recognized. The process of canon formation generally, and the canonical status of any particular text, was assumed to be based solely on the literary merits and attributes of the text itself.
In the past 30 years, however, literary scholars have begun to question the simplicity of these traditional assumptions and worked to develop more socially contextualized models of canon formation. Newer models in literary criticism have shifted attention away from an exclusive interest in inherent textual attributes toward a broader focus on "the complex of circumstances" surrounding evaluations of texts. Researchers have begun to examine the historically specific cultural, political, and critical assumptions and rhetoric which position, interpret, and this create texts for readers. Butler writes, “And we have to acknowledge that reading a book sets up a transaction between author and reader, changing all the time as readers change” (24). There has been an increased recognition that canon formation is a social process and that part of the very cultural work canons perform is to deny or at least obscure the transitory and social nature of literary valuations. Although cultural sociology has great relevance for this work, the field has not paid adequate attention to the concrete and specific processes of canon formation and canonical change.
The literary canon of a country or a group of people is comprised of a body of works that are highly valued by scholars and others because of their aesthetic value and because they embody the cultural and political values of that society. Works belonging to the canon become institutionalized over time by consistently being taught in the schools as the core curriculum for literary study. As critic Herbert Lindenberger, among others, has pointed out, “… the process of canon formation and evolution is influenced by cultural and historical change, and the English and American canons have regularly undergone revision throughout the centuries”(141). In the twentieth century, for example, the English and American canons in the United States were "challenged in the 1920s by Jewish intellectuals like Lionel Trilling and Oscar Handlin who became important Ivy League scholars, and again in the 1960s, when sweeping cultural change brought the concerns of women, minorities, gays, and Marxist liberals to the forefront of literary study" (141).
Most recently, a reexamination of the American and English literary canons took place in the 1980s. Within academe, the European white male author model had already been thoroughly criticized during the 1960s and 1970s. Many works by women, gays, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and non-Europeans had made their way into college literature courses. However, the question of their permanent status as canonical works still remained to be decided: should they become a required and consistent part of the college curriculum, informed by the literary canon? This question has been hotly debated both by academics and non-academics since the early 1980s. The Modern Language Association sponsored special sessions on the canon during their annual conventions; scholars hotly debated the issue.
Just how far back the literary canon can be traced is a matter of some debate. Deconstructive, feminist, Marxist or new-historicist have questioned the process of canon formation and established literary canon too. Walder, Dennis writes:
The women's movement and the rise of feminism, have been responsible for the new thinking about language that has had such a profound effect upon literary studies over the last half-century. This effect may be discerned initially as the motive for displacing the traditionally accepted texts of the 'canon', although that has become part of a larger movement to challenge orthodoxy into accepting what have been increasingly identified as marginalized voices- whether by the procedures of pedagogy or by the politics of institutions. (5)
The debate often focuses on the practical issue of what books to assign in college curricula, especially in required core-course in the humanities and in western civilization. Such debates created canon mono to poly.
While the issue of which works belong in the English and American literary canon has not been permanently settled, a spectrum of opinion has gradually emerged. Some conservative scholars insist that the classics of English and American literature taught since the beginning of the nineteenth century must remain at the core of the canon since they represent the notion of tradition. These critics would exclude noncanonical works on the basis that they are marginal and do not represent the best literary achievement of the culture. On the other end of the spectrum are radical scholars who would almost completely replace the classics of the canon with noncanonical and documentary works.
The majority of scholars fall somewhere in the middle, however, in that they advocate keeping a modest core of classics in the canon but supplementing it with the best of literature by women and minorities. With the aim of carrying on and refining this debate, critics have written much about inclusion criteria for both American and English works. Scholars like Lillian S. Robinson, Nina Baym, and Anette Kolodny have injected questions of gender and empowerment into the canon debate. There has also been discussion about the political aspects of the canon, with critic such as Frank Kermode focusing on postcolonial aspects of minority literature. He assumes that “ the literary canon is a load-bearing element of the existing power structure, and believes that by imposing radical change on the canon you can help to dismantle the power structure” (28).
In conclusion, there are many ways in which literary works can be classified, but the literary canon seems to apply a certain validity or authority to a work of literature. When a work is entered into the canon, thus canonized, it gains status as an official inclusion into a group of literary works that are widely studied and respected. Those who decide whether a work will be canonized include influential literary critics, scholars, teachers, and anyone whose opinions and judgments regarding a literary work are also widely respected. For this reason, there are no rigid qualifications for canonization, and whether a work will be canonized remains a subjective decision.
Works Cited
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. India: Prisma Books Pvt Ltd, 1993.
Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory The Basic. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Butler, Marilyn. “Repossing the Past.” Literature in the Modern World. Ed. Dennis Walder.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Corse, Sarah M and Monica D. Griffin. “Cultural Valorization and African American
Literary History: Reconstructing the Canon”. Sociological Forum. Vol. 12, No. 2,
1997.
Walder, Dennis. "Introduction". Literature in the Modern World. Ed. Dennis Walder.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Hornby, A S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Ed. Sally Wehmeier. 6th ed. 2000.
Kermode, Frank. “Canon and Period”. Literature in the Modern World. Ed. Dennis Walder.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Lindenberger, Herbert. “The Canon Debate: Some Comments on the State of the Art”.
CanonFormation Revisited. Ed. Rakefet Sela-Sheffy. New York: 2002.
Stevens, Charlotte. "The Literary Canon". The Literary Encyclopedia. 10 January 2007.
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