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Critical Theory And The Literary Canon

Author: E. Dean Kolbas

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-03-09

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 0429980825

Kolbas stakes out new territory in assessing the war over literary canon formation, a subject that contemporary polemicists have devoted much ink to. Throughout this succinct manuscript, Kolbas ranges through the sociology and politics of culture, aesthetic theory, and literary theory to develop his point that texts not only must should be situated in the historical and material conditions of their production, but also evaluated for their very real aesthetic content. One reason the is an important issue, Kolbas contends, is that the canon is not simply enclosed in the ivory tower of academia; its effects are apparent in a much wider field of cultural production and use. He begins by critiquing the conservative humanist and liberal pluralist positions on the canon, which either assiduously avoid any sociological explanation of the canon or treat texts as stand-ins for particular ideologies. Kolbas is sympathetic to the arguments of Bourdieu et. al. regarding positioning the canon in a wider "field of cultural production" than the university, but argues that theirs are purely sociological explanations of aesthetics (i.e., there is no objective aesthetic content) that ignore art's autonomous realm, which he argues -- a la Adorno -- exists (if only problematically). Ultimately, he argues that critical theory, particularly the arguments of Adorno on aesthetics, offers the most fruitful path for evaluating the canon, despite the approach's clear flaws. His vision is a sociological one, but one that treats the components of the canon as possessing objective aesthetic content, albeit content that shifts in meaning over history.

The Role of the Literary Canon in the Teaching of Literature

Author: Robert Aston

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-05-12

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 1000078922

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This book investigates the role of the idea of the literary canon in the teaching of literature, especially in colleges and secondary schools in the United States. Before the term "canon" was widely used in literary studies, which occurred in the second half of 20th century when the canon was first seriously viewed as politically and culturally problematic, the idea that some literary texts were more worthy of being studied than others existed since the beginning of the discipline of the teaching of literature in the 1800s. The concept of the canon, however, extends as far back as to Ancient Greece and its meaning has evolved over time. Thus, this book charts the changing meaning of the idea of the literary canon, examining its influence specifically in the teaching of literature from the beginning of the field to the 21st century. To explain how the literary canon and the teaching of literature have changed over time and continue to change, this book constructs a theory of canon formation based on the ideas of Michel Foucault and the assemblage theory of Manuel DeLanda, illustrating that the literary canon, while frequently contested, is integral to the teaching of literature yet changes as the teaching of literature changes.

Politics and Aesthetics of the Literary Canon

Author: Eugene Dean Kolbas

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13:

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Canon Vs. Culture

Author: Jan Groak

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-06-17

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1134818025

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Canon Vs. Culture explores the consequences of one of the main educational shifts of the last quarter century-- the changes from academic inquiry conducted through a selected list of accepted authorities to an investigation of the cultural operations of an entire society.

Critical Theory and the Novel

Author: David Bruce Suchoff

Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780299140847

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A study of the historical origins of cultural criticism in the novel since the mid-19th century, using the critical theory of the Frankfurt School to declare the critical force of mass culture as crucial to the making of the modern novel. Discusses how mass audiences and politics presented problems to major novelists and how they responded in their writings and lives. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Uses of the Canon

Author: Howard Felperin

Publisher:

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13:

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An important contribution to the current rethinking of "English," and to the reconsideration of Shakespeare's role within it, this book focuses on the emergence of the New Historicism, clarifying a number of key positions in the criticism of the past fifteen years. The essays subject many of New Historicism's most challenging claims to rigorous analysis, distinguish sharply between its American and British versions, and assess the causes and consequences of its politicization of literary studies. The theoretical and political issues at stake in current debates are clearly examined, and the uses served by the canonical texts at their center are re-examined within a broad cultural and historical perspective. Offering fresh readings of a number of classic texts--including Hamlet, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, Shakespeare's sonnets, More's Utopia, Donne's poetry, and Conrad's Heart of Darkness--this overview of contemporary critical theory and practice provides a deepened understanding of the complex and changing functions of the canon itself.

Critical Explorations of Young Adult Literature

Author: Victor Malo-Juvera

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-12-06

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 1000769992

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Recognizing the determination of a canon as an ongoing process of discussion and debate, which helps us to better understand the concept of meaningful and important literature, this edited collection turns a critical spotlight on young adult literature (YAL) to explore some of the most read, taught, and discussed books of our time. By considering the unique criteria which might underpin the classification of a YAL canon, this text raises critical questions of what it means to define canonicity and designate certain books as belonging to the YAL canon. Moving beyond ideas of what is taught or featured in textbooks, the volume emphasizes the role of adolescents’ choice, the influence of popular culture, and above all the multiplicity of ways in which literature might be interpreted and reflected in the lives of young readers. Chapters examine an array of texts through varied critical lenses, offer detailed literary analyses and divergent interpretations, and consider how themes might be explored in pedagogical contexts. By articulating the ways in which teachers and young readers may have traditionally interpreted YAL, this volume will extend debate on canonicity and counter dominant narratives that posit YAL texts as undeserving of canonical status. This text will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, academics, professionals, and libraries in the field of young adult literature, fiction literacy, children’s literacy and feminist studies.

Cultural Capital

Author: John Guillory

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 435

ISBN-13: 0226830594

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"Since its initial publication in 1993, John Guillory's Cultural Capital has been a signal text for understanding the compilation and codification of what was once known, unassailably, as the literary canon. Cultural Capital challenges the putative objectivity of aesthetic judgment and exposes the unequal distribution of symbolic and literary knowledge on which "culture" had long been based. Now, as the "crisis of the canon" has evolved into the "crisis of humanities," Guillory's groundbreaking, incisive work has never been more relevant and urgent. As scholar and critic Merve Emre writes in her introduction to this new edition: "Exclusion, selection, reflection, representation-these are the terms on which the canon wars of the last century were fought, and the terms that continue to inform debates about, for instance, decolonizing the curriculum and the rhetoric of antiracist pedagogy.""--

Literary Theory and Poetry

Author: David Murray

Publisher: B.T. Batsford

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13:

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Modern literary theory has opened up a variety of new approaches to reading texts of all kinds, however these have been applied mainly to works of prose fiction. This volume contains a collection of essays which attempts to apply these theoretical techniques to works of poetry.

History, Literature, Critical Theory

Author: Dominick LaCapra

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2013-05-15

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0801467764

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In History, Literature, Critical Theory, Dominick LaCapra continues his exploration of the complex relations between history and literature, here considering history as both process and representation. A trio of chapters at the center of the volume concern the ways in which history and literature (particularly the novel) impact and question each other. In one of the chapters LaCapra revisits Gustave Flaubert, pairing him with Joseph Conrad. Other chapters pair J. M. Coetzee and W. G. Sebald, Jonathan Littell's novel, The Kindly Ones, and Saul Friedlander's two-volume, prizewinning history Nazi Germany and the Jews. A recurrent motif of the book is the role of the sacred, its problematic status in sacrifice, its virulent manifestation in social and political violence (notably the Nazi genocide), its role or transformations in literature and art, and its multivalent expressions in "postsecular" hopes, anxieties, and quests. LaCapra concludes the volume with an essay on the place of violence in the thought of Slavoj Zizek. In LaCapra's view Zizek's provocative thought "at times has uncanny echoes of earlier reflections on, or apologies for, political and seemingly regenerative, even sacralized violence."