From: rauchway@leland.Stanford.EDU (Eric Andrew Rauchway)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 15:22:14 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.220641.24761@athena.cs.uga.edu> heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath) writes:
>
>	Y'know, its kinda funny. All this talk about "the canon", and
>Yet I don't think any of us has an idea exactly which literary works
>the thing contains.   Sure we can all name a few that are probably on
>there, and some of us will argue loudly for those we think should also
>belong. But what's it really made up?  Which works are definitely a
>part of the canon?

BINGO!  In making this point, Terrance Heath has hit the straw man on the head.
Nobody really knows what's in the canon, they just, Potter Stewart-like, think
they know a canonical work when they see one.

Problem is, there *is* no official English Literature Canon Maintenance
Committee.  Who's to blame?

Well, there are all those sort of egregiously pretentious and stuffy 
Great Books series, which, as Terrance noted a while back, tend to be 
mighty pale and male in their constituent authors. . . But who buys those
anyway?  I mean really, these are the things that are kind of like that 
Franklin Mint Civil War chess sets.  They look nice in the living room
but don't see a whole lotta use.  (Okay, everyone may now impugn my taste
for suggesting that the FMCW chess set looks nice.  I was trying to be
_generous_, fer crine out loud.)

More accurate canonical representation manifests in the compilation
of the Norton anthologies of English literature.  Now them as knows will
inform you that if anyone is a canonicalist it is that select group of 
English lit profs what compiles the Norton books.

What will a quick look at the TOC tell you?  Well, prior to the sixteenth
century there's little attribution aside from Geoffrey Chaucer.  But the 
16th century, we will note, contains Mary Herbert, Lady Mary Wroth, and HM 
Queen Elizabeth I.  Not paisan, we know, but at least women.  In the 17th 
you get Aemilia Lanyer, Lady Anne Halkett, Dorothy Osborn, & so on.  The 
representation of women throughout the early period -- up to the 18th
century -- while slim, is extant.  

The romantic period is where we get Dorothy Wordsworth and the redoubtable
Mary Wollstonecraft.  Victorians include Eliz. Barrett Browning, Emily
Bronte, Christina Rossetti and a whole section on the issue of women's role in
Victorian society.  The trend continues with Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, 
and so on.  

Now this is *ENGLISH* literature -- not American.  But Norton's anthology 
of short fiction, to pick an example, includes Richard Wright, Edith
Wharton, Flannery O'Connor, and many others including our old
favorite Alice Walker.

True, blacks are not well represented until we look at 20th
century America, but then they pop up pretty solidly.  Women are regulars
from the 16th century on.  Since homosexuals are not always uncloseted
or easy to label, it's hard to say, but there are some prominent
names that stand out here and there.

In short, the officially sanctioned canon of English literature is a lot
more open than some people think.  Admittedly, there are still issues of
how teachers choose which stories to teach and so forth, but items
appearing in the Norton Anthologies are carefully chosen by a committee
of English lit professors who are looking for great works.

So any takers?  Who believes me that the canon we've been kicking around
in r.a.b. is a straw man and that the actual field of endeavor is
a lot more open?

Eric Rauchway                    /      My opinions are mine, and not those
rauchway@leland.stanford.edu     /      of the department or university.

Department of History                  Stanford University

*****Those who do not remember history are doomed to flunk my class.*****



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