New update for this article! I revised it over the winter break and it was chosen as a winner of Writopia’s Youth Essay Writing Conference 2021: A Celebration of Critical Thinking Across Disciplines. Super excited to feature its new version here on the site!
(Document form: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RHSHxJ9WWzC7Oe96ymP8UgX-oTpUhIdCmoEg2gCd6_g/edit?usp=sharing)
In an age of encroaching technological development, educational institutions constantly remind children, adults, and especially adolescents to resist their devices and read a book. However simple the command may seem, the challenge of what book to begin continues to grow with every year, since, as literary critic Harold Bloom captured it, “there is literally not enough time to read everything, even if one does nothing but read” (Bloom 15). We can generalize the little time that humans spend on earth into two actions: reflecting on the past and forging the future. Choosing which classics to read nowadays, an act which falls under the former action, has become increasingly complicated as the number of contemporary works continues to grow and the ideas of archaic scholars seem more distant than ever before. Since teachers have a limited amount of engaged time with their students in a society that urges youth to become accustomed to new technology, we need to make sure that we use our time in classrooms in a way that matters. Disagreements over what exactly to study in the 21st century is natural, for our society has undergone an enormous turn towards accepting and realizing new ideas with regard to multiculturalism, inclusivity, and democratization among others. The progressive texts of only a few decades ago thus appear moderate and conventional compared to what is being generated today.
However, students in school have always studied the classics because of the lessons and thoughts that they offer the human community. To simplify the endless list of books that have been written since ideas could be recorded on paper, scholars divide the literary canon into the works that deserve inclusion in our curricula based on their longstanding influence in a variety of categories, including philosophy, societal change, literary excellence, and aestheticism. In recent years, a necessary debate has arisen over the relevance of some of these books and the geographic and cultural homogeneity of their authors. While some scholars, such as Harold Bloom, advocate for traditionalism, others demand change to reflect the diversity of contemporary authorship. By analyzing both perspectives, one can see that both arguments can coexist. The conversation about whether one scholarly curriculum is better than another is endless because each work that is chosen offers some value. The pitfall that must be avoided, however, is choosing solely canonical or contemporary texts in the construction of one’s curriculum. We should strive to achieve a balance between a closed set of timeless books while introducing a more diverse set of texts to reach a more global understanding within an academic curriculum.
First, we must examine the origins and initial criteria for a book to enter the canon before deconstructing the argument of where it will be in the coming years. The mid-18th century was a time when scholars reassessed literature, with novels, plays, and poems of high literary merit being brought to the forefront of their consideration. As a result, the decisions of which authors would define the ideal literary canon were being made in order to preserve the vocabulary used by previous writers in a generation of emerging writers who took on new styles (Kramnick 1087). It is during this epoch that “mid-century critics found the linguistic distance and aesthetic difficulty of Shakespeare and Spenser… important elements of what made these writers canonical” (1090), solidifying these two and Milton as the three mandatory figures to be studied at the educational level. The aesthetic beauty and immaculate prose and meter of Shakespeare’s plays impelled scholars of the mid-18th century to establish his work as the goal that writers needed to strive for, and readers generally agreed (1098). Shakespeare’s global influence following his lifetime was enough to demonstrate to literary critics of the following centuries that his work would compose a significant part of the evolving literary canon, and to this day, he continues to hold his place in that realm.
Yet the conflicts that are arising over what should be prioritized in education are not due to Shakespeare’s prevalence in the academic curriculum, but more over the untouchable and distinguished label that certain literary critics have designated to a set of canonical texts. A growing number of university professors and academics view Harold Bloom’s work, which sharply critiques the increasingly progressive viewpoints of modern writers, as negligent of the cosmopolitan approach that the humanities should take. Bloom’s explanation for his compilation of noteworthy books of the past is that “[a]esthetic choice has always guided every secular aspect of canon formation” (Bloom 22). He is indirectly asserting that modern authors lack aesthetic quality, which is a problematic argument that fails to consider evolving tastes in readership. John Guillory, a professor of English at New York University, offers a possible explanation of the reasons behind this shift in the introduction to his book, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation. He explains that “what is called canon formation is best understood as a problem in the constitution and distribution of… literary production and consumption” (Guillory ix). As language evolves and readers direct their interests to more contemporary topics, certain texts become less accessible for newer generations who might feel more attached to writers of different genders or a broader range of racial and socioeconomic backgrounds (ix). Conservative scholars, however, tend to align with Bloom in upholding the antique beauty and timelessness of certain canonical works, creating a divide with more progressive academics who are against forming a rigid curriculum.
The acceptance of multiculturalism and the recognition that the Western canon is extremely limited in its diversity of authorship is where the most obvious division between conservative and liberal scholars can be seen. Embracing change in the 21st century also means recognizing that Bloom’s canon is “predicated on the occlusion of the nonliterary, non-European, and, arguably, political dimension of all literature” (Mukherjee 1028). Understanding that there is more to the Western canon than just the European authors included in it is, obviously, a necessary part of having a global understanding of how literary forms evolved over time. In recent years, scholars with specific ideological perspectives have attempted to reassess the works of the canon through new lenses, whether that be feminist approach to the Bible or a new historicist interpretation of Milton’s epic poems. This process involves the connection of multiple disciplines and time periods to draw meaning from an older text. Bloom, in his typical fashion, calls these people “partisans of resentment” who “deny Shakespeare’s unique eminence” (Bloom 24). The difficulty nowadays is in trying to find middle ground between scholars such as Bloom and those who seek to reinterpret the works of the past. Professors are determining the degree to which they should amalgamate contemporary works and ancient texts, and unfortunately, this discussion frequently turns to polarization (Guillory 8). The political side of the canonical debate— whether authors of different ethnicity, social class, and geographic background should be included— is one that is heavily centered around the concept of an outward image (8). Reformers who disagree with the canon that Bloom offers generally want more representation from people of color in order to account for the literature that these people have produced despite the barriers that hinder their accessibility to the publishing industry. Reconciling these two opinions is the challenge that critics and professors face today.
So is it possible to incorporate modern viewpoints into the homogeneity of the Western Canon, and how long until this collection of books ceases to hold enough importance to be studied in the first place? In universities today, Shakespearean classes, to pick an example of a canonical author, exist in many forms. What is most important is giving students the choice of how they want to approach their studies of such a renowned author while emphasizing that they should seek a balance within their curriculum. The first step to addressing the stark divide in the canonical debate is by giving students the option to pick courses that analyze the author’s literary structure, as well as some that provide a modern approach to the distant language of the past. The latter of these courses can draw from a variety of departments, including History, Gender Studies, and Sociology. Within each curriculum, students must be exposed to a well-thought blend of modern and canonical works that allows for an appreciation of each and an understanding of historical continuity. Classes should provide some exposure of modern viewpoints to readers who want to appreciate the renowned authors for their literary talent, since it is important to understand how a text’s meaning can change with the passage of time. In this way, students can compare the classics with modern literature without completely ignoring one, giving them the option to decide which historical epochs they would like to spend more time studying.
It is important to add that educators have always had varying viewpoints about this issue of balance. William Shea, a professor from the University of South Florida, focused his book about the canonical crisis on John Dewey, a leading figure in the educational debate of the 20th century. Dewey believed that “[w]ith a canon… democracy is finished, and authoritarianism, at first intellectual and then political, reigns” (294). His solution was to turn schools “away from rote and ruler and to ‘experience,’ to common working on common problems” (298). We should consider combining his viewpoint with the idea that certain classics are worth reading because of the value they bring into current progress and thought. By recognizing the faults in canonical texts, instead of making them an untouchable ideal, ordinary readers and scholars can appreciate the traditional work while adapting it to newer societal values. Readers must understand the uniformity in the authorship of the canonical works while simultaneously studying a more diverse set of texts to account for both sides of the spectrum and establish a more global view of literary thought.
It must be conceded, however, that there are critics who have a different approach to minority representation in canonical work: that their exclusion carries a historical significance. John Guillory grapples with the multiple sides of the debate, pointing out that “it is relatively easy to see why it has seemed necessary to many progressive critics to present certain texts by minority authors as intrinsically non canonical, as unassimilable to the traditional canon.” (Guillory 9). Some critics support the idea that “the noncanonical must be conceived as the actively excluded, the object of a historical repression” (9, emphasis mine). Indeed, the profound and complex nature of the struggles that a marginalized author may have faced in the publication of their work can be made more powerful with their active exclusion from the canon; individual appreciation can have more value than a group study in certain circumstances.
In order to properly come to a conclusion as to how we should create a balanced academic curriculum, we must discuss the relevance of the canon since it has had a prominent place in scholarly criticism and reflection for the past few centuries. Down the road, what a certain text will mean to a completely different civilization is beyond today’s citizens’ control, since “the corpus that constitutes world literature at any given time is variable” (Mukherjee 1036). Referring to the global assessment of literary works, Mukherjee concludes that “[i]n the end, the question and concept of the classic is perhaps always that of the outsider,” (1040) being those from another place or time period. Different historical epochs have placed varying emphasis on the importance of literature, and a time of radical change in the 21st century could mean a new approach to embarking on canonical studies. In his “Elegiac Conclusion” to The Western Canon, Bloom argues that the “strongest poetry is cognitively and imaginatively too difficult to be read deeply by more than a relative few of any social class, gender, race, or ethnic origin” (520). His point, partly in response to the movement to make literary texts universally accessible to all students, is exclusive and does not consider the idea of flexible interpretation that is possible with cross-disciplinary studies. A hopeful idea that he presents, however, is that “[o]ur common hope, tenuous but persistent, is for some version of survival. Confronting greatness as we read is an intimate and expansive process” (524). While past literary feats can appear difficult to contemporary readers who try to tackle them, they must continue to challenge themselves with a text since this creates a valuable process of deep comprehension. Studying the classics should not indicate an “entrenched cultural privilege,” since these works should be made available to everyone (Mukherjee 1035). A hopeful outlook for the future of the liberal arts is that the previous written works of older generations will remain in circulation for readers to reinterpret and challenge. Such a process will encourage reflection and inspiration even in times of rapid change, though it is up to today’s society to define what exactly this means for a modern readership.
Even if societal values will continue to change with the passage of time, we constantly need to seek a balance between studying an older set of texts and introducing new interpretations to allow for continuity within literary studies. The question of what is outdated and what should replace it applies to every institution and profession, from the visual and auditory arts to historical and scientific development. However, as defined by the Stanford Humanities Center, “the humanities can be described as the study of how people process and document the human experience,” so scholars in this department will always be faced with the additional challenge of representing the future of the human community. The choice of which books, authors, and ideologies will be studied in the contemporary era, as well as the ones that should be purposely refuted, makes literature and its criticism a significant process that affects everybody. Future generations of readers, which includes nearly everyone on Earth, will be heavily influenced by the literary criticism of today. Thus, education based on the past with constant reassessment of the present is the most efficient way to choose from the endless list of books that have been written. Citizens across the world can only hope that this combination of old and new will provide balance and recognition of all sides of the human experience across the span of time.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold. The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. 1st ed, pp. 15-42, 517-528, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1994.
Despite Harold Bloom’s somewhat close-minded view of literary criticism, his “Elegy for the Canon” and “Elegiac Conclusion” to begin/end one of his most well-known books contains a well rounded summary of the different perspectives and approaches to viewing the Western Canon. His perspective is that many ideologies which thrive in academic realms today, like feminism and Marxism, are based on the most traditional and archaic works that first made up the canon and that politics should not have a place in its formation. Throughout the essay, I demonstrated how it was necessary to expand beyond his unflinching perspective to include other ways of interpreting the literary canon through more inclusive, realistic approaches.
Guillory, John. Cultural Capital: the Problem of Literary Canon Formation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Similarly to Harold Bloom, John Guillory firmly states that the canonical debate happening now should remain far from politics, and that the problem has to do with what he calls “Cultural Capital.” Production and consumption of the literature included in the Western Canon is what is causing a crisis over its continuity, and trying to force wide representation of multiple groups into the canonical works might not be considering the power of purposeful non inclusion.
Kramnick, Jonathan Brody. “The Making of the English Canon.” PMLA, vol. 112, no. 5, 1997, pp. 1087–1101. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/463485.
More historical than opinionated, Kramnick’s “The Making of the English Canon” describes the scholars of the 18th century who laid the standards for the Western Canon that are still studied today, making this source more of informational background than anything else.
Mukherjee, Ankhi. “‘What Is a Classic?": International Literary Criticism and the Classic Question.” Pmla-Publications Of The Modern Language Association Of America, vol. 125, no. 4, 2010, p. 1026-1042.
The question of “What is a Classic?” is asked by Mukherjee through her analysis of multiple sources. She compiles the idea of many authors, including Harold Bloom and John Guillory, about the flexibility of the canon and adds her own input which somewhat contradicts the former. Ultimately, she looks at the views of authors such as Eliot and their opinions on canonical formation and believes in the idea of the “outsider.”
Shea, William M. “John Dewey and the Crisis of the Canon.” American Journal of Education, vol. 97, no. 3, 1989, pp. 289–311. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1085168.
William Shea’s article focuses on John Dewey’s perspective, a former president of Columbia University and a famous literary critic. Specifically, he aligns closely with Dewey’s idea of how one must experience the canonical texts and dedicate less time to forming a “sacred” compilation of the works that must be prioritized in academic institutions.
"What Are the Humanities?" Stanford Humanities Center, shc.stanford.edu/what-are-the- humanities. Accessed 1 Aug. 2019.
This webpage offers a broad overview of the discipline of the humanities in a way that allowed me to tie together my various points about the literary curriculum in the conclusion. It was written by a university, which makes it relevant to the argument that I bring up about how institutions will be affected by changes we make in the canon for years to come.