Textbook survey for why authors are included in a "literary canon"
August 6, 2023 7:18 PM Subscribe
I feel like my knowledge of literary history is poor and want to rectify this. To give an example, people talk about Joyce. But why? I haven't read any of his canonical works, and would like to be more familiar. Of course, I could read them. And some day I would like to. But honestly that won't really tell me why Joyce is such a big name unless I was already well read in literature and attentive to style and other things. I want something easy and explicitly instructive. I would love just a textbook survey that would tell me how Joyce, Woolf, Hemingway, Faulkner, and all sorts of authors fit into the canon. I know the idea of a canon and who is included is problematic. But some group of people thought some writers were important enough to include. I'd love an overview covering all these writers and what they are thought to bring to the table. Is there anything like this? Could even be more limited if it has to be (writers of a certain period, certain style, certain language).
You want the Norton Reader of English Literature - don't feel pressure to get the most recent version, older versions will be much cheaper and will still give you an overview of 'the canon.'
posted by coffeecat at 7:42 PM on August 6, 2023 [15 favorites]
posted by coffeecat at 7:42 PM on August 6, 2023 [15 favorites]
A shortcut would be to get the Cliffs Notes or Spark Notes -- or, heck, even the wikipedia page -- for each of the authors (or their "biggest" work/s) whose name you have heard, and carefully read the section about the author's/book's impact. You will only get the boilerplate explanation that a student is supposed to regurgitate into an exam book, but that's a place to start.
And THEN read the book/play/poem, and see what your personal reaction -- emotional, intellectual, moral -- is to it: did it interest you? Did it outrage you? Did it make you confused? Is your reaction maybe different than what someone would have had when the work was new -- that is, did it change the landscape simple by coming into existence?
The Cliffs Notes gives you the critics' reaction, and that's a framework for where it fits with other works across time. Your own reaction tells you what the work means to you -- and something that "regular" people don't always feel confident about is that both things are important!
posted by wenestvedt at 7:53 PM on August 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
And THEN read the book/play/poem, and see what your personal reaction -- emotional, intellectual, moral -- is to it: did it interest you? Did it outrage you? Did it make you confused? Is your reaction maybe different than what someone would have had when the work was new -- that is, did it change the landscape simple by coming into existence?
The Cliffs Notes gives you the critics' reaction, and that's a framework for where it fits with other works across time. Your own reaction tells you what the work means to you -- and something that "regular" people don't always feel confident about is that both things are important!
posted by wenestvedt at 7:53 PM on August 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
Note that not all anthologies give decent context from a critic's note for each work: some of them just are a doorstop full of excerpts, with no supporting notes about what the hell you're reading. These should be avoided in favor of even larger anthologies, which have a decent introductory note for every work that sets you up to know a little bit about it.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:55 PM on August 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by wenestvedt at 7:55 PM on August 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
The subject of the Canon, what should be included, and whether it should even exist, is subject to ongoing debate. For example, if you look at the Critical Reception section of the Wikipedia entry for Middlemarch, you see that opinions on it were very mixed and muddled for nearly a century before was it canonized — by some at least — as the greatest English novel.
That Wikipedia entry helpfully links to The Great Tradition by F.R. Leavis, a mid twentieth century book of literary criticism that argues specifically for what should and shouldn’t be included in the English canon. That book is dated, but might be the sort of thing you’re looking for.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 7:58 PM on August 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
That Wikipedia entry helpfully links to The Great Tradition by F.R. Leavis, a mid twentieth century book of literary criticism that argues specifically for what should and shouldn’t be included in the English canon. That book is dated, but might be the sort of thing you’re looking for.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 7:58 PM on August 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Although it's almost certainly out of date, and definitely has the "great man" and cultural short-sightedness you mention, I still find Clifton Fadiman's The New Lifetime Reading Plan useful for this type of question. He gives an introduction to each book and explains its historical place.
posted by OrangeDisk at 8:21 PM on August 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by OrangeDisk at 8:21 PM on August 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
For many (or most?) writers and works in the canon, there is an episode (or more) of In Our Time where you can hear three academics discuss what's interesting or significant about the person or work.
posted by polecat at 9:19 PM on August 6, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by polecat at 9:19 PM on August 6, 2023 [13 favorites]
Another relevant feature of the Norton anthologies is that they include a series of historical overviews to provide context for lit that was considered canonical. That background helps underscore why certain texts were considered representative.
posted by abraxasaxarba at 10:28 PM on August 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by abraxasaxarba at 10:28 PM on August 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
My understanding of the pre-1965 canon is built entirely on reading an A-Level English Literature guide dating from approximately 1976. It was useless on colonial and post-colonialism, and much more focused on British literature than I think you would like, but did genuinely give me a good sense of what people considered important and why so. I think the equivalent would be a textbook for a college first year survey course?
posted by plonkee at 4:19 AM on August 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by plonkee at 4:19 AM on August 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'd recommend English Literature: A Very Short Introduction (and in fact the whole Very Short Introduction series from Oxford University Press). It gives you a great overview of the traditional literary canon. Once you know and understand that, you've got a basis to think about which writers have been left out and why.
posted by guessthis at 5:47 AM on August 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by guessthis at 5:47 AM on August 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
Joyce is a bad example, because if you read Ulysses or Finnegan’s Wake, it’ll be immediately obvious what makes them significant.
But I think people overthink things when it comes to literature. Think about “low art” that you know well - movies, pop music, comic books. There’s a canon for all of those, too, and you can usually see why certain works were canonized while others weren’t. Why is “Goodfellas” a classic but “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” mostly forgotten? There are a lot of reasons, which, if you’ve ever seen either movie, you can probably discuss in detail. Why are the Velvet Underground held in such high regard? If you’ve listened to a lot of rock music pre- and post-Velvets, you can just feel why they’re important. Literature is the same way. But also, it’s very easy to watch films or listen to movies without reference to any notion of a canon, and likewise with literature. The canon is just kind of a shortcut so you don’t have to watch “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” if you’re looking for a good movie.
Generally speaking, there are three ways to become part of a canon: be really good, be really original in a way that influences later artists, or both. “Thriller” was really good. “Nevermind” was really influential. Etc. Note that standards of quality change over time, so something that seemed really good to earlier generations might seem mediocre now (I’m thinking specifically of Tom Brown’s School Days, which seems to have been widely acclaimed as recently as the 50s but is now just meh), but that also leads to rediscovered masterpieces (Middlemarch was mentioned above, Moby-Dick, the poptimist reappraisal of pop music).
posted by kevinbelt at 6:30 AM on August 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
But I think people overthink things when it comes to literature. Think about “low art” that you know well - movies, pop music, comic books. There’s a canon for all of those, too, and you can usually see why certain works were canonized while others weren’t. Why is “Goodfellas” a classic but “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” mostly forgotten? There are a lot of reasons, which, if you’ve ever seen either movie, you can probably discuss in detail. Why are the Velvet Underground held in such high regard? If you’ve listened to a lot of rock music pre- and post-Velvets, you can just feel why they’re important. Literature is the same way. But also, it’s very easy to watch films or listen to movies without reference to any notion of a canon, and likewise with literature. The canon is just kind of a shortcut so you don’t have to watch “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” if you’re looking for a good movie.
Generally speaking, there are three ways to become part of a canon: be really good, be really original in a way that influences later artists, or both. “Thriller” was really good. “Nevermind” was really influential. Etc. Note that standards of quality change over time, so something that seemed really good to earlier generations might seem mediocre now (I’m thinking specifically of Tom Brown’s School Days, which seems to have been widely acclaimed as recently as the 50s but is now just meh), but that also leads to rediscovered masterpieces (Middlemarch was mentioned above, Moby-Dick, the poptimist reappraisal of pop music).
posted by kevinbelt at 6:30 AM on August 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
The key ingredient in the discernment that kevinbelt is talking about is the perspective that comes from having read tons of stuff over time -- which, of course, is what our questioner TheLinenLenin is asking about catching up on.
Another tack to take might be to get the Very Short Introduction book on English Literature and read it -- and then pick out some actual books to read. That slim book will act as a map that guides you to these books and then on to the next one.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:55 AM on August 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Another tack to take might be to get the Very Short Introduction book on English Literature and read it -- and then pick out some actual books to read. That slim book will act as a map that guides you to these books and then on to the next one.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:55 AM on August 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
The OP's list suggests that the OP wants to understand canonical modernism in some kind of meta discussion of early 20th century English literature. They aren't asking about Homer, Chaucer and Shakespeare, they're specifically asking why these modernist authors are considered canonical and they sense how these authors developed experiments in literary style that became foundational. OP, what you're asking about has more to do with Picasso than with literature per se. I don't have a book to recommend, but I would suggest finding an overview of modernism rather than reading a survey of all of English literature.
posted by lesser whistling duck at 8:21 AM on August 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by lesser whistling duck at 8:21 AM on August 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
One attempt to answer the question is the book by the famous scholar Harold Bloom, called The Western Canon. I haven't read it but I know by reputation that Bloom is aiming for a very conservative, Eurocentric, dead white males only (or mostly) version of the canon.
Another recent book that might be useful and written at a more introductory level is A Little History of Literature by John Sutherland. I own this one and I think it's a nice beginner text.
If we're doing a smaller area, like literary modernism, then I would recommend Malcolm Bradbury's book Modernism: A Guide to European Literature 1890-1930, for one older and established view.
posted by demonic winged headgear at 8:42 AM on August 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Another recent book that might be useful and written at a more introductory level is A Little History of Literature by John Sutherland. I own this one and I think it's a nice beginner text.
If we're doing a smaller area, like literary modernism, then I would recommend Malcolm Bradbury's book Modernism: A Guide to European Literature 1890-1930, for one older and established view.
posted by demonic winged headgear at 8:42 AM on August 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
I think the equivalent would be a textbook for a college first year survey course?
Simply grabbing the AP English syllabi and a few A-Level syllabi and seeing what's there might be easier, to be honest. Other than the Norton Anthology I'm not sure there's a canonical (heh) textbook.
posted by hoyland at 9:35 AM on August 7, 2023
Simply grabbing the AP English syllabi and a few A-Level syllabi and seeing what's there might be easier, to be honest. Other than the Norton Anthology I'm not sure there's a canonical (heh) textbook.
posted by hoyland at 9:35 AM on August 7, 2023
as an antidote to the extremely Western ideal of canon, I'd suggest reading a primer on postcolonial literary studies which recontextualizes the extremely narrow and white supremacist idea of what constitutes 'canon'
it's covered a bit in this essay here but also more broadly in chapter 5 of The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies
posted by paimapi at 9:55 AM on August 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
it's covered a bit in this essay here but also more broadly in chapter 5 of The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies
posted by paimapi at 9:55 AM on August 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Generally speaking, there are three ways to become part of a canon: be really good, be really original in a way that influences later artists, or both
I think this is perhaps very simplistic, ahistorical, and doesn't acknowledge the existence of the gatekeepers of culture (ie media companies and academic institutions and, in the art world, the rich)
posted by paimapi at 10:01 AM on August 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
I think this is perhaps very simplistic, ahistorical, and doesn't acknowledge the existence of the gatekeepers of culture (ie media companies and academic institutions and, in the art world, the rich)
posted by paimapi at 10:01 AM on August 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
As demonic winged has said, the one book you want might be Bradbury.& McFarlane's Modernism: A Guide to European Literature 1890–1930.
WWI was a pan- European disaster and avant-garde reactions to it became the core of modernism across all the arts in Europe (see Pound's High Selwyn Mauberley especially).
Several of the early 20th century canonical modernist authors in English knew and promoted each other (Yeats, Pound, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Eliot, Joyce -- this is a friend network, they were not all friends with each other), and there are very readable books about their histories together (Kenner, The Pound Era; Simpson,
Three On The Tower: The Lives And Works of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams; Longenbach, Stone Cottage: Pound, Yeats, and Modernism). They also fell together by being in, and sometimes editing, the same little magazines (The Dial, transition, Poetry, etc -- see https://www.openculture.com/2017/03/a-digital-archive-of-modernist-magazines-1890-to-1922.html). Similar novels and poems were created by non-English writers, not in this network or influenced by it (Proust, Musil, Mann, Witkiewicz, Bulgakov), so some general post-WWI cultural attitudes lay behind what happened.
And then this bunch finally became canonical because a community of readers, writers, and teachers named them "Modernists" and got them widely read and taught as "high literature" (whatever that was, it became a mark of distinction and cultural capital for those who had familiarity with it).
posted by diodotos at 10:51 AM on August 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
WWI was a pan- European disaster and avant-garde reactions to it became the core of modernism across all the arts in Europe (see Pound's High Selwyn Mauberley especially).
Several of the early 20th century canonical modernist authors in English knew and promoted each other (Yeats, Pound, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Eliot, Joyce -- this is a friend network, they were not all friends with each other), and there are very readable books about their histories together (Kenner, The Pound Era; Simpson,
Three On The Tower: The Lives And Works of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams; Longenbach, Stone Cottage: Pound, Yeats, and Modernism). They also fell together by being in, and sometimes editing, the same little magazines (The Dial, transition, Poetry, etc -- see https://www.openculture.com/2017/03/a-digital-archive-of-modernist-magazines-1890-to-1922.html). Similar novels and poems were created by non-English writers, not in this network or influenced by it (Proust, Musil, Mann, Witkiewicz, Bulgakov), so some general post-WWI cultural attitudes lay behind what happened.
And then this bunch finally became canonical because a community of readers, writers, and teachers named them "Modernists" and got them widely read and taught as "high literature" (whatever that was, it became a mark of distinction and cultural capital for those who had familiarity with it).
posted by diodotos at 10:51 AM on August 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Worth checking in at this point with the poster, and see whether they're actually asking about modernists in particular, or English lit in general (and the names they included were just examples)?
posted by wenestvedt at 1:52 PM on August 7, 2023
posted by wenestvedt at 1:52 PM on August 7, 2023
Harold Bloom is mentioned above, he was the eminent old-guard Western Canon-guy in the late 20th century, and his list of 26 fave authors is at the top of the Wiki article on The Western Canon, along with a bit of criticism.
posted by ovvl at 4:00 PM on August 7, 2023
posted by ovvl at 4:00 PM on August 7, 2023
Reading the Past, Writing the Future: A Century of American Literacy Education and the National Council of Teachers of English might interest you? It's by NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English (the professional association of English teachers in the US)) authors, and traces the origins of the association and its work and advocacy for curricular reform, including what made the (white, western) canon.
posted by Snowishberlin at 12:23 PM on August 8, 2023
posted by Snowishberlin at 12:23 PM on August 8, 2023
Worth checking in at this point with the poster, and see whether they're actually asking about modernists in particular, or English lit in general (and the names they included were just examples)?
yeah, I was wondering that too. OP, are you asking about writers from just the 20th Century or something, or from the beginning of time? So, for instance, are you also wondering why everyone raves about Shakespeare and Chaucer?
Also, fair warning that "why do we care about [this particular author]" can often be a hotly-debated topic, especially with more modern authors. So there may not be one single scholarly perspective about "why is Joyce important" - hell, you may find a couple of scholarly perspectives that argue "in reality, Joyce is dogshit and you can skip reading him". But hearing that perspective can actually be kind of fun. When I was in high school I stumbled upon a book called "Fifty Works of English And American Literature We Can Do Without", where the author completely trashed the reputations of some of the big famous classic books that I'd been hearing about all my life. It was REALLY fun to read, and offered a kind of reality check that just because something was on the canon, the canon was just sort of a collective opinion, and you know what they say about opinions...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:17 AM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
yeah, I was wondering that too. OP, are you asking about writers from just the 20th Century or something, or from the beginning of time? So, for instance, are you also wondering why everyone raves about Shakespeare and Chaucer?
Also, fair warning that "why do we care about [this particular author]" can often be a hotly-debated topic, especially with more modern authors. So there may not be one single scholarly perspective about "why is Joyce important" - hell, you may find a couple of scholarly perspectives that argue "in reality, Joyce is dogshit and you can skip reading him". But hearing that perspective can actually be kind of fun. When I was in high school I stumbled upon a book called "Fifty Works of English And American Literature We Can Do Without", where the author completely trashed the reputations of some of the big famous classic books that I'd been hearing about all my life. It was REALLY fun to read, and offered a kind of reality check that just because something was on the canon, the canon was just sort of a collective opinion, and you know what they say about opinions...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:17 AM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
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posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:30 PM on August 6, 2023 [6 favorites]