Abstract
From the discussion so far, the influence of strong predecessors and previous canonical thinkers suggests again that originality and a detached newness are not so straightforwardly a means of liberation. The defense of the idea that originality is only possible from working within a tradition still rests on a narrow theory of influence as tantamount to power. The fraught nature of trying to achieve a degree of originality is proof of the power wielded by the Greats over later writers (hence influence and potentially oppressive power are one and the same). Within twentieth century literary criticism, the decline of the popularity of influence studies is due to this limited—but dominant—theory of influence. Accounting for the confluence of the late twentieth century attacks on canonical thought and the decline of traditional influence studies, all too briefly, involves assessing both political and methodological critiques of the canon of Western literature, by those whom Harold Bloom would call ‘resenters’.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See Joseph North, Literary Criticism: A Concise Political History (Harvard, Harvard University Press, 2017), for a critique of the ‘“historicist/contextualist” paradigm’ consensus in literary studies, and thus the history of the heterogeneous approaches to canonical thought presented here.
- 2.
P. Shaw, ‘The Assault on the Canon,’ The State of Letters, Vol. 102, No. 2 (Spring, 1994), pp. 257–270, p. 270.
- 3.
M. Krieger quoted in P. Shaw, ‘The Assault on the Canon,’ The Sewanee Review, Vol. 102, No. 2 (1994), pp. 257–270, p. 257.
- 4.
On the subject of hegemony and canonization see, for example, Dominick LaCapra, ‘Canons. Texts, and Contexts,’ in L. Kramer, D. Reid, and W. Barney (eds.), Learning History in America: Schools, Cultures, and Politics (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1994).
- 5.
N. Frye, Anatomy of Criticism. Four Essays (New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1957), pp. 23–24.
- 6.
Ibid.
- 7.
P. Lauter, ‘History and the Canon,’ Social Text, No. 12 (1985), pp. 94–101, p. 94.
- 8.
Ibid. p. 95.
- 9.
Ibid. p. 96.
- 10.
Ibid. p. 101.
- 11.
Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker, ‘General Introduction’, in The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines: Britain and Ireland 1880–1955, ed. Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker (Oxford, OUP, 2009), pp. 1–26.
- 12.
P. Shaw, ‘The Assault on the Canon,’ p. 270.
- 13.
Ibid. p. 258.
- 14.
Ibid. p. 259 (emphasis in original).
- 15.
Ibid. p. 266.
- 16.
Ibid. p. 268.
- 17.
E. R. Anderson, ‘Defining the Canon,’ PMLA, Vol. 116, No. 5 (Oct. 2001), pp. 1442–1443.
- 18.
Ibid. p. 1443. Emphasis in original.
- 19.
J. Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 18.
- 20.
Ibid. Emphasis in original.
- 21.
J. Clayton and E. Rothstein, ‘Figures in the Corpus: Theories of Influence and Intertextuality’, in J. Clayton and E. Rothstein (eds.), Influence and Intertextuality in Literary History (Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), p. 3.
- 22.
G. Allen, Intertextuality (London, Routledge, 2000), p. 69.
- 23.
M. Orr, Intertextuality (Cambridge, Polity, 2003), p. 60.
- 24.
Owen Aldridge, Anna Balakian, Claudio Guillén and Wolfgang Bernard Fleischman, ‘The Concept of Influence in Comparative Literature: A Symposium,’ Comparative Literature Studies (1963), pp. 143–152, p. 144.
- 25.
Susan Bassnett, ‘Influence and Intertextuality: A Reappraisal,’ Forum for Modern Language Studies, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Jan. 2007), pp. 134–146.
- 26.
Ibid. p. 136. Here, Bassnett is referring to J. L. Lowes, The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the Ways of the Imagination (New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1955). Bassnett also recognizes her early comparison of James Joyce and Italo Svevo failed to heed Rene Welleck’s prescient warning that ‘Nobody has ever been able to show that a work of art was “caused” by another work of art, even though parallels and similarities can be accumulated. A later work of art may not have been possible without a preceding one, but it cannot have been caused by it.’ See R. Wellek, ‘The Name and Nature of Comparative Literature’, in Discriminations (London, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1970), p. 35.
- 27.
Ibid. p. 139.
- 28.
Ibid. pp. 139–141.
- 29.
Ibid. p. 141.
- 30.
E. Pound, ‘A Retrospect’, in Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, ed. T. S. Eliot (New York, New Directions, 1954), pp. 3–14, p. 5.
- 31.
Bassnett , Influence and Intertextuality, p. 143.
- 32.
Ibid. p. 146.
- 33.
Aldridge et al., The Concept of Influence in Comparative Literature, pp. 150–151.
- 34.
Ibid. p. 144.
- 35.
Ibid.
- 36.
Ibid. p. 146.
- 37.
B. Cozunsen, ‘A Critical Contribution to the Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Tesatamenti: Jude and Hesiod,’ in L. V. Rutgers et al. (eds.), The Use of Sacred Books in the Ancient World (Leuven, Peeters, 1998).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Welburn, D. (2020). The Canon of Western Literature. In: Canon Controversies in Political Thought. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41361-3_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41361-3_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-41360-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-41361-3
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)