Traditional English and Literary Canon
Introduction
In the past twenty years, the controversy over the literary canon has generated a wide range of critical commentary, from editorials and polemics in journals and newspapers to theories and case studies in seminars and symposia. By some accounts, the Western canon—the corpus of works comprising the "classics" of art and literature, the very summit of cultural achievement in the West—once thought of as timeless and universal, is now being undermined by the combined forces of feminism, multiculturalism, popular culture, and relativistic literary theories that have occupied schools and universities since the 1960s. The conventional notion of the canon as a closed corporation of accepted forms has been called into radical debates and questions ( 1981).
Primarily, the main goal of this paper is to determine some of the reasons why traditional English literary canon is being challenged. Herein, the concept of literary canon will be discussed.
Traditional English Literary Canon
Canon comes from the Greek word “Kanon” which signifies a measuring rod or a rule. Then this meaning was extended to indicate a list or a catalogue. The word canon has been used in different perspectives and it was late utilised in a literary application. Literary canon implies to the list of works which are accepted by experts as authentically written by a specific author ( 1983). In particular, some notable canon were Chaucer canon and the Shakespearean canon and also refers to other literary works that have been attached to an author, but on evidence implies to be inadequate or invalid, as fictional. Throughout the year, the term literary canon has come to be known in the works. These canonical writers are known to be the most kept in print at any given time and most oftenly and fully discussed and challenged by various literary critics and most likely to be integrated in anthologies and became part of college courses with titles like “Great American Writers.”
The social process in which a certain author come to be inferred and recognizes as a canonical writer is often called canon formation. Herein, the elements of this formative process can be considered as disputed and complex. However, it seem transparent that this process involves, among other ideas, the wide accord of scholars, critics and authors have a diverse perspective and sensibilities; the frequent reference of an author within the dialogue of a cultural community, the constant influence of and reference to a certain author in the work of other writer and the extensive assignment of an author or text included in school and college curricula (2000). These factors are of course regarded as mutually interactive and each needs to be sustained and continued over a considerable period of time.
Previous scholarship on canon-making in early modern England has tended to fall into five broad categories: reception histories of particular author's works, such as Shakespeare's; case studies of seminal events in the formation of English literature, such as the publication of self-canonizing gestures like 's The (1579) or 's (1616); surveys of changing tastes or habits of literary "appreciation"; histories of literary theory and particular critical practices; and literary histories such as 's (1970) or 's : (1993) that focus on canon-making efforts within specific periods,
Reasons for Challenges
The eighteenth century, it is commonly assumed, inaugurated the formation of the English literary canon. It is during this period that the modern terms of value first entered critical discourse: the concept of aesthetics was introduced by in 1735; , writing in 1768, adapted the term canon to refer for the first time to a selection of poets and orators; and the word literature, long used to designate erudition among a broad range of polite learning, grew increasingly specialized in its meaning so as to become by the end of the century the most prevalent term given to imaginative writings ( 1991).
The emergence of these conceptual categories went hand in hand with significant changes in critical practice, including what identified as "the awakening of the historical sense and modern self-consciousness" that led to the development of literary history as a discipline, culminating during the period with the publication of 's (1774-81).
's (1941) argument, has suggested that 's work ought to be seen alongside (1779-81) as answering a larger cultural need for an "ordered" canon of English letters: "What the public demanded, and what it eventually received, was a history of English poetry, or a survey of English poets, that would provide a basis for criticism by reviewing the entire range of the art. responded to a national desire for an evaluation of what English poets had achieved ... English literary history was shaped by the need for a definition of the superiority of the national character."
The classical canon stood as a pedagogical model of rhetorical eloquence and as an ideological model of poetry-making in the service of empire-building. As to the status and utility of the indigenous canon, Defoe's rehearsal of contemporary opinion in (1718) is typical of two centuries' worth of English criticism in the way it itemizes the palpable benefits of literary production: "How much the World is obliged to the famous Writings of Milton for the Foundation of Divine Poetry; Poetry in general is improved from the Writings of Chaucer, Spencer, and others; Dramatic Entertainments perfected by Shakespeare, our Language and Poetry refined by ; the Passions raised by ; the Inclination moved by ; and the World diverted by s, (not to mention the Perfections of , and several others of this Age) I leave to the determination of every impartial Reader."
's (1718) catalogue is also typical in the way it projects ultimate evaluative authority onto a rhetorical fiction, in this case the "impartial reader." The narrow prescriptions of the earliest professional critics — — were merely an extreme version of this presentist thinking, insofar as they presumed the possibility of literary "perfection" or correctness being achieved in "this Age" (though in emphasizing critical method, these critics were beginning to measure value objectively). On the margins of this canon, then, were a vast diversity of works once esteemed by previous generations of English readers — including, at one time or another, the works of — yet whose utility and value in relation to the present could no longer be readily affirmed. The canon was something to be produced, not reproduced.
The conventional notion of the canon as a “closed corporation or hierarchy of accepted forms” ( 1981) has been called into radical question. As an alternative, recent theorists challenge that canons “are politically self-interested, ideologically motivated, historically relative and culture-specific” (1987) and may mask ideas and principles that are sexist, racist and also totalitarian.
It is said that the boundaries of a canon still remains indefinite and insider such boundaries, some of the authors are central while the others are marginal. An earlier author who has been in the fringe of the canon for so long or even outside it, are sometimes moved to a position of eminence. Nonetheless, an author shows notable resistance to being disestablished by criticisms and challenged by the changing literary preferences and criteria.
It can be said that one could possible infer the nature of the challenges about the canon by merely considering etymology with its focus on evaluations and measures, rules and the rules, certified interpretation and authorized texts. As mentioned, the traditional English Literary canon has been challenged by many critics or those who are portrayed on critiquing that canon. The challenges of the literary canon have been categorized into two divisions, the horizontal and vertical models. Herein, the critics are challenging the canon to open up.
One of the challenges of the canon can be called horizontal challenges because it takes the logic of the canon as establishing internal and external, the center and margin, and contend that this logic has had harmful consequences in what has been involved, what has been placed outside the canon and what has been marginalized. The horizontal challenged on the canon is due to the notion that it is overwhelmingly composed of works by white, male, English authors, in which the majority of whom were — or have been viewed as being heterosexual. It is said that those who are making this challenge agree that the issue is either the exclusion of some authors who do not fit this model or paradigm, or, more vitally, that whole categories of authors have been excluded.
Hence, the premise is to add individual authors or to add to the canon selected writers from groups who are marginalized or placed outside the canon; those that include women, or English authors which may include Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, and even gays and lesbians.
On the other hand, the vertical challenge for literary canon concentrates on the logic of the canon as an ideology having higher and lower stratum or ranks. The bias dispute here is not only the differentiation between the center and the margin inside canon like Chaucer, Milton and Shakespeare as the central three English literary authors, for instance, entitled to a course each, but with greater categorical issues by which only high culture seems eligible and suitable for the canon, like Moby Dick is canonical and Uncle Tom’s Cabin is not considered as one. Those critics who proposed this challenged are trying to find ways on dissolving high-low distinction.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the traditional English literary canon has been challenged by its critics because of different reasons. One of the major reasons is to open up canon horizontally and vertically. In addition, it can also be said that since Canonical work such as Huckleberry Finn indulges in the stereotypical "objectifying" of blacks, Native Americans, women or others, a double effect results; like, the canon begins to look less sacrosanct and is thus readied for expansion to include works by long-dead representatives of those same groups and their contemporary descendants are offered a reason for entering into an academic dialogue that had previously slighted them. In this manner, critics have been challenging the traditional canon to be changed by new ideologies.
Reference
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