How Literary Canon Is Formed?
Different issues concerning literary canon have interested me for a long time. What is the literary canon? How is it formed? Why should we (if we should at all) read classical literature? This post is just the first step in my attempt to find answers to these questions.
What is actually the literary canon and classics?
There are several ways of defining the canon and those which I collected here seemed to me the most comprehensive and — equally important — comprehensible.
Broadly speaking, canonization is a process of choosing the texts that will become the object of interpretation.
This choice simultaneously elevates the chosen texts into a position of censorship over other texts. The study and interpretation of other texts may even be forbidden because if their claim to validity is canceled, the authority of the chosen texts is more likely to be stabilized. «Just as the canon does not exist for its own sake, the ascription of authority requires a negative foil to underpin its authenticity» [Iser: 13].
Compagnon claims, that the concept of classical meant something exemplary, something that can serve as a model, something authoritative [Compagnon: 273]. Authors that were characterized as classics formed each a norm of some genre. Not arbitrarily, but because the ideal they exemplified was obvious to the retrospective look of the literary critics. So, the classics has always marked some phase, the highest point of some style between the previous and the following one. Classics has always been justified, it developed through rational assessments [Compagnon: 285].
Finally, the shortest definition I found, and the one which seemed to be the most interesting for me states that
«the Canon, a word religious in its origins, has become a choice among texts struggling with one another for survival» [Blum: 20].
As for me, I would have combined all these definitions in order to define the canon, because each of them contains some specific and very important idea that tends to be missed in all the other definitions.
What are the functions of the canon?
You might be surprised (at least I have never thought of the literary canon having any functions at all…), but the canon performs several important tasks.
Firstly, the classics is sort of a benchmark with the help of which the correctness of literary communication processes can be measured. That is why literary groups, critics and not only them so often appeal to classical literature. Reference to the samples and authorities of the past became an effective means of self-determination for groups with specific membership and interests [Dubin: 9–10].
Second, because there was a special attitude to the classics as something of increased value, it meant that classical samples were not to be a matter of discussion.
Classics has therefore become a symbol of universal, integral on the contrary to everything specialized as partial, utilitarian [Dubin: 10].
Finally, classical literature remains the guarantor of conventional integrity and sustainability of the literary system. The system is so to say integrated with regard to the values which are qualified and maintained as central, nuclear for the system. These values are provided exactly by the classics [Dubin: 28].
What influences the formation of the canon?
The literary canon is not an absolutely stable thing, it «varies obviously — as well an unobviously — from age to age and reader to reader. <…> What makes a strong impression on the public at one time, ceases to interest it at another» [Fowler: 213].
Moreover, there are actually several literary canons in each of our lives: «The current canon sets limits to our understanding of literature, in several ways. The official canon is institutionalized through education, patronage, and journalism. But each individual has also his personal canon, of works he happens to know and value. These two groupings have no simple inclusive relation. Most of us fail to respond to some official classics; on the other hand, through superior judgment or through benefit of learning we may be able to go beyond the socially determined canon in ways that are not merely eccentric. Someone must be first to see merit in an experimental work, or to revalue a neglected one» [Fowler: 213].
Several criteria play a crucial role in the formation of the canon.
Censorship and book accessibility
There can be different reasons for which book distribution can be limited. Restrictive censorship which narrows the literary canon (especially such genres as satire and political novels), warehousing costs, and difficulties concerning manuscripts transmission — all this of course affects the formation of canon, because [Fowler: 215].
Genre
Fowler* states, that in different epochs some genres were considered to be more canonical than others [Fowler: 216]. In other words, «…we have to allow for the fact that the complete range of genres is never equally, let alone fully, available in any one period. Each age has a fairly small repertoire of genres that its readers and critics can respond to with enthusiasm. And the repertoire easily available to its writers is smaller still: the temporary canon is fixed for all but the greatest or strongest or most arcane writers. Each age makes new deletions from the repertoire. But the repertoire of active genres has always been small and subject to proportionately significant deletions and additions. In the early eighteenth century, for example, novel and georgic rose in the hierarchy and were extended, while epic was deleted» [Fowler: 226–227].
*Alastair Fowler (1930–2022) — a Scottish literary critic and editor and literary scholar.
Aesthetic value of the text
Even if there are no limitations to the publication of the text and if the genre in which the text was created is supposed to be canonical for this particular epoch, it does not mean of course that the text will definitely become classical. The aesthetic value of the text I think is the most important criterion by which the text can be defined as classical.
These quotes in my opinion in a good and laconic way explain why and how the aesthetic value of the text contributes to the literary work becoming canonical:
«All strong literary originality becomes canonical» [Blum: 25].
«One breaks into the canon only by aesthetic strength, which is constituted primarily of an amalgam: mastery of figurative language, originality, cognitive power, knowledge, exuberance of diction» [Blum: 29].
«One ancient test for the canonical remains fiercely valid: unless it demands rereading, the work does not qualify» [Blum: 30].
«The issue is the mortality or immortality of literary works. Where they have become canonical, they have survived an immense struggle in social relations, but those relations have very little to do with class struggle. Aesthetic value emanates from the struggle between texts: in the reader, in language, in the classroom, in arguments within a society. Very few working-class readers ever matter in determining the survival of texts, and left-wing critics cannot do the working class’s reading for it. Aesthetic value rises out of memory, and so (as Nietzsche saw) out of pain, the pain of surrendering easier pleasures in favor of much more difficult ones» [Blum: 38].
I guess, these are not the only criteria which affect the formation of the canon, but these three are for sure extremely important.
How is canon formed?
You might not be expecting this answer, but… it is formed randomly.
F. Kermode states, that «there is an element of chance in canonicity» [Kermode: 34]. «We ourselves make canons by attending closely to texts and contexts, but there may be among those texts some we choose not to attend to and which remain there by inertia. Other works may have some claim to be treated as canonical but aren’t» [Kermode: 34].
The thing is, there is no special preservative which keeps a text being classical. It just happens so, that…
«…somebody at some point must have thought these were good things, and so began the history of their success. This person need not be a professional scholar, and very often isn’t <…>. But once retrieved, the works are kept alive by conversation, eventually supported by serious scholarship» [Kermode: 34].
That is how the texts one might would have never ever known about can become classical. Of course, each text has its own story of becoming classics, but I found this Kermode’s idea curious anyway.
What do changes in the canon mean then (as we have discovered earlier, the canon is not a stable thing)? Kermode states, that they «reflect changes in ourselves and our culture. It is a register of how our historical self-understandings are formed and modified» [Kermode: 36].
One more thing. Remember, I said before, that classics has become somewhat a symbol of universal, integral? That is why the formation of the idea of literary classics in modern European culture is associated with the formation of universalistic, secularized ideas about the world and humans, the concepts of universal mind, universal nature and world history. With such a configuration of ideas it becomes possible to talk about cultural continuity between the exemplary past and the modernity.
The classics all the time constitutes in relation to the values and interests of different groups of founders and interpreters of tradition.
Over time classics loses its substantive definition and becomes a form which is abstracted from any objectivity [Dubin: 25].
That’s it. I find the issue of text becoming classical extremely intriguing and immense for the exploration. Of course, in this post I was only able to briefly outline the main issues which the studying of the canon includes. The more I read about it, the more information there turns out to be and it is just impossible to stop. I would be glad to read your opinions on this problem and learn some more answers to the question of how a text becomes classical.
P.
Literature:
- Blum H. The Western Canon. New York, 1994. 578 p.
- Compagnon A. Demon of Theory. Moscow, 2001. 336 p.
- Dubin B. The Idea of Classics And Its Social Functions // Dubin B. The Classics, After and Nearby. Moscow, 2010. 345 p.
- Kermode F. Pleasure and Change. The Aesthetics of Canon. Oxford, 2004. 109 p.
- Fowler A. Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes. Oxford, 1982. 365 p.
- Iser W. The Range Of Interpretation. New York, 2000. 206 p.
If you enjoyed this post, you can look through some other texts I wrote here:
