The Canon

[common_refusals]

But an "aesthetic worth valuation system" is necessary to determine what works are used in the more interesting pursuits. If not, we enter a nihilistic abyss. Aesthetic value is irrelevant in choosing the african-american and queer works you study? Why do you study them then? 

 

Two Espressos isn't saying our entire project should be to categorize and rank works based on aesthetic value. I believe he's saying, as literary scholars, aesthetic value should play a role in determining which works we choose to study; otherwise, we just become second-rate social scientists. 

 

ETA: This was in response to Trip Willis.

 

Ha, as an anthropologist-turned-literary scholar/theorist I find this pretty hilarious. Nothing worse than becoming one of those second-rate social scientists...

[Two Espressos]

But an "aesthetic worth valuation system" is necessary to determine what works are used in the more interesting pursuits. If not, we enter a nihilistic abyss. Aesthetic value is irrelevant in choosing the african-american and queer works you study? Why do you study them then? 

 

Two Espressos isn't saying our entire project should be to categorize and rank works based on aesthetic value. I believe he's saying, as literary scholars, aesthetic value should play a role in determining which works we choose to study; otherwise, we just become second-rate social scientists. 

 

ETA: This was in response to Trip Willis.

 

Rupert Pupkin nailed it.  Much more cogent and incisive than I could have done.

 

I'm not saying that aesthetics need be our primary concern at all.  But we need to get our aesthetic house in order, so to speak, before we can do other things.  And yes, there's always the danger that the sociologically inclined among us veer towards becoming "second-rate social scientists."

 

To Swagato: I don't think that the digitalization of works makes categorical differentiation moot.  Even if you're reading an online novel, you're still reading words.  And while genre/medium-bending works exist, that's no reason to disregard separate canons by medium.  Also, Swagato, I'm curious as to what you think about Greenaway's asseveration that cinema has yet to be born, partly due to the fact that most films come from the written word (scripts), rather than the visual, so we've just been getting bastardized filmic novels, plays, etc.  I think his ideas are relevant here to some extent.

[intextrovert]

I do not believe that we must have separate canons for separate mediums of expression, for the simple reason that medium-specificity is dead. Gone. The digital has erased that. In this context, you should definitely read Rosalind Krauss on the "post-medium condition." Medium specificity is not tenable in an era when letter, sound, and image can all be collapsed to binary bits of data. 

 

This argument sort of reminds me of how so many scholars of technology in the 1990s were talking about "the end of geography" because the internet was supposed to obliterate all borders and connect the world into "one world village." And now it's twenty years later and we're like, oh shit, actually geography still matters a lot, because it turns out space is a fundamental aspect of human experience. So are the modes in which we perceive things. Just because we have different types of media now, and are capable of combining media in new and interesting ways, doesn't mean we've rendered media irrelevant. It's important to be able to think about what different types of media are capable of doing.

 

As far as the canon goes, it's important because literary history is important. It's also important to interrogate it, and do recovery work to challenge it, and let it evolve in that way. But let's not pretend we have no aesthetic measures, or that some texts don't do more interesting things than other texts. We just shouldn't try to make some objective, monolithic scale on which those texts can be judged.

 

(btw, there are, in fact, people who would pick some version of #3 at least in certain contexts, but don't ask me to explain it because I don't get it.)

Edited March 17, 2013 by intextrovert

[Swagato]

How do you determine what works you study? Whatever you happen to stumble upon? If we've entered a "post-medium condition," why not read your grandpa farting as a "text"? 

That is exactly what we're trying to do, right now! We're (at least in my field, but I sense this is a conversation occurring more widely) coming to terms with the fact that we are, beyond doubt, in a post-medium condition. The question inevitably arises: how then do we (re-)define our objects of study? Stanley Cavell's notion of automatism has often been raised in these debates. The automatism of a technology of a medium not only indicates the possibilities of that medium/tech, but also opens up opportunities for transgressing those possibilities in various ways. If you can provide a cogent argumentative framework to justify the textuality of your grandfather's farting, power to you--by all means, study it. 

 

Pluralism is a good thing.

 

And Two Espressos: I definitely think Greenaway is onto something, and his sentiment that cinema has not yet been born/been invented has been repeated both before him and after him by many other theorists and film/video artists (André Bazin, J-L Godard, etc.). This relates back to Cavellian automatism, really, and we've been moving away from textual (literary) underpinnings for the past two decades or so. First the historical turn to reposition film and cinema within a more expansive art historical/moving-image tradition, and then a turn toward affective/sensual approaches. 

[Two Espressos]

That is exactly what we're trying to do, right now! We're (at least in my field, but I sense this is a conversation occurring more widely) coming to terms with the fact that we are, beyond doubt, in a post-medium condition. The question inevitably arises: how then do we (re-)define our objects of study? Stanley Cavell's notion of automatism has often been raised in these debates. The automatism of a technology of a medium not only indicates the possibilities of that medium/tech, but also opens up opportunities for transgressing those possibilities in various ways. If you can provide a cogent argumentative framework to justify the textuality of your grandfather's farting, power to you--by all means, study it. 

 

Pluralism is a good thing.

 

And Two Espressos: I definitely think Greenaway is onto something, and his sentiment that cinema has not yet been born/been invented has been repeated both before him and after him by many other theorists and film/video artists (André Bazin, J-L Godard, etc.). This relates back to Cavellian automatism, really, and we've been moving away from textual (literary) underpinnings for the past two decades or so. First the historical turn to reposition film and cinema within a more expansive art historical/moving-image tradition, and then a turn toward affective/sensual approaches. 

 

I know almost nothing about film/media studies, but I thought Greenaway was onto something as well!  Good to hear, from a film/art guy, that I wasn't off-base.  I don't think we're turning away from the written though: writing is still and possibly will always be the most widespread and important medium of communication.  The kinds of theoretical/philosophical and methodological issues that I work with strictly concern written texts, which should explain some of my aforementioned thoughts about these things.

 

And I think the issues Rupert Pupkin and I mentioned above still stand.  Aesthetic concerns cannot be ignored, and the fact that one could so convincingly argue for reading fast food menus, cereal boxes, farts, etc. provides strong evidence that we're doing something wrong.

Edited March 17, 2013 by Two Espressos

[ComeBackZinc]

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I have to point out that there is a vast critical apparatus that considers pop art in our media and online. That's much less true of traditionally "high" art, like novels and especially ballet, opera, experimental fiction, orchestral music, etc. People are always looking for some vague notion of respect for pop art and fandom, but I think they're looking to the stars for something that doesn't really exist. The war was over long ago, and pop art won. The highbrow alternatives might not exist much longer.

[TripWillis]

I feel like I've been misunderstood. I am not suggesting we ignore aesthetics; what I'm saying is that it is not sustainable nor desirable to have a transcendental barometer for aesthetics. What I mean by "aesthetic worth valuation system" is something akin to how scholars approached things like classics in the 19th century through modernist criticism in the early 20th century. And that system can be very fascist and can also look through aesthetics in a way that keeps them detached from politics and culture, very convenient for neo-classical aesthetes like T.S. Eliot, whose politics were fascist. I think we should just be wary about any aesthetic approach that claims to be singular in focus, that suppresses texts, and that does not reflect on its own self-selection. Also, I study a lot of literary works that could be described as "paraliterature," and you would be surprised what kind of power they have and what you can find out about their aesthetics when you really engage with them. Texts exist outside any arbitrary system we devise anyway. And, in saying you favor a canon based entirely on a first criterion of aesthetic value determined by critic A, preceding any other approach, are you saying you also favor the active suppression of other texts, and why?

 

I definitely object to the earlier characterization of certain scholars as "second rate social scientists." I find that label insulting to social scientists more than anything.

 

Could not agree more with Keely though about actively debating "the canon" or talking about the concept of the canon, especially in pedagogy. It's not going away, so best to make the debate apparent and not just to teach the books without any sort of grounding. Not sure what you mean by "more empirically" though. What does a canon have to do with empiricism, and whose empiricism, and to what end? Sorry, I'm always skeptical about literary arguments that deal with working toward a better empiricism because I feel like once you wade into that territory you get into this murky thing of literary scholars trying to act like scientists instead of being the conscience of scientists, which I think is better.

 

Edit: In other words, I'm with Hegel in resisting the way scientific logic cannibalizes all other forms of inquiry. I love science; I'm in favor of it; I just think that its useless if you don't apply the same analytical rigor to its epistemes that you do everything else. See Foucault, also.

Edited March 17, 2013 by TripWillis

[This_madness]

My MA thesis revolved around TV and poetry. I had to include poetry, but I didn't mind because I was able to devote an entire chapter to my favorite poet, Gwendolyn Brooks. However, I feel like my chapter analyzing the rhetoric surrounding the abortion narrative in Degrassi: The Next Generation was my most significant chapter. Why? Because I felt that analyzing how the stories of abortion are censored and circulated, how they resist the political spectacle, and how they affirm or complicate the assumptions surrounding abortion really fucking matters. Looking at how we tell the stories of abortion in public spheres not only supplied me with a wealth of material to analyze, it also, I believe, could have real, tangible effects on the political and interpersonal discourse surrounding abortion. I'm not saying that literature also doesn't have that power; I'm saying that texts from all sorts of medium do.

 

Furthermore, it's critical to acknowledge how our definition of texts are evolving. Let me just quickly assume that the definition of great literature is the telling of a great story that also grapples with significant philosophical questions. Given that definition, if I were asked, what was the greatest piece of literature to emerge in the past five years, I would say Mad Men. The language, the stories, the characters, the symbolism, the grappling: it's all there. Yes, it's a TV show, but how is a weekly episodic telling of a story for popular culture any different from A Tale of Two Cities? How we tell stories and create texts is changing, and I believe we can both celebrate and teach the canon while reaching out to other forms of text for rich and significant literary study.

 

Proflorax, I think we might be intellectual twins. I don't know much about Mad Men, but I've argued on numerous occasions that The Wire is just as great, if not greater, than any work of literature to emerge in the 21st century. I even wrote a term paper stating as such for a contemporary literature course.

 

Also, I'd love to read your thesis sometime! Is it available online anywhere? 

[NowMoreSerious]

The quality of the arguments for or against the value of a literary work should stand by itself.  Again, there either is or there is not such a thing as good and bad literature.  It's a tautology.  If we're going to say that there isn't such a thing as good and bad literature, then your selection of texts is completely arbitrary.  There'd be nothing wrong with teaching fast food menus and cereal boxes in your classes as your "texts."

 

 

I would say there isn't such a thing as "good" or "bad" literature, and further that this doesn't mean that selection of texts is arbitrary. Texts are taught for many many reasons other than some systemic valuation based on "good" or "bad."

It just bores me to rank literature, especially since the established rankings are almost entirely based on a context of empire and ideological control. Personally, it's just impossible for me to seal myself in a bubble and pretend this isn't the case.

Texts are enjoyed, studied, written about or used in a classroom for reasons much more varied and complicated than their "aesthetic value"--if we can even say such a thing exists in a vacuum.

[NowMoreSerious]

But an "aesthetic worth valuation system" is necessary to determine what works are used in the more interesting pursuits. If not, we enter a nihilistic abyss. Aesthetic value is irrelevant in choosing the african-american and queer works you study? Why do you study them then? 

 

Two Espressos isn't saying our entire project should be to categorize and rank works based on aesthetic value. I believe he's saying, as literary scholars, aesthetic value should play a role in determining which works we choose to study; otherwise, we just become second-rate social scientists. 

 

ETA: This was in response to Trip Willis.

First of all, what is a nihilistic abyss and why should I be avoiding it instead of possibly exploring it's productive capacities?

I also don't understand what aesthetic value is in your context. If by aesthetic value you are implying that the canon is a set of texts that have been deemed, in some objective way, as having special aesthetic value than I would call shenanigans.

[Rupert Pupkin]

I would say there isn't such a thing as "good" or "bad" literature

 

/end profession.

 

If Paradise Lost can't be deemed superior to anything else other than in the context of empire and ideological control, we've lost the plot.

Edited March 17, 2013 by Rupert Pupkin

[NowMoreSerious]

/end profession.

 

If Paradise Lost can't be deemed superior to anything else other than in the context of empire and ideological control, we've lost the plot.

I understand there are contexts outside of empire and ideological control, but are there contexts that operate independently of empire and ideological control. I'd say no.

What plot?

[TripWillis]

I understand there are contexts outside of empire and ideological control, but are there contexts that operate independently of empire and ideological control. I'd say no.What plot?

Damnit, I accidentally down voted you when I meant to upvote. I blame the canon.

[Two Espressos]

I would say there isn't such a thing as "good" or "bad" literature

 

This sort of attitude is so pernicious.  Making value judgments isn't a bad thing; for example, if we agree on anything, it's that close reading is good, whereas its opposite-- careless, absent-minded reading-- is bad.  We can make judgments about literary value as well without it being totally arbitrary or merely a function of our race, class, ideology, etc.  Surely Shakespeare is more worth reading in a literary context than, say, the menu board at Taco Bell?

 

/end profession.

 

If Paradise Lost can't be deemed superior to anything else other than in the context of empire and ideological control, we've lost the plot.

 

Indeed.  We're doomed.

[Rupert Pupkin]

It must suck to go through life constantly suspicious and skeptical of everything, never open to the intensified moments of consciousness a great work of art can give you. Is it really so bad to let yourself experience a work of art, to say "this work touched me in a unique way," rather than explaining those feelings away and exposing it of some wrongdoing? 

 

What is the result of this skeptical framework? What happens when you finally surmount the boogeymen who have been trying to brainwash you with Shakespeare? What are the ends of a literary criticism driven entirely by suspicion? Because we've been doing it for several decades now and, quite frankly, I don't really feel a lot of vigor left in the project.

[NowMoreSerious]

This sort of attitude is so pernicious.  Making value judgments isn't a bad thing; for example, if we agree on anything, it's that close reading is good, whereas its opposite-- careless, absent-minded reading-- is bad.  We can make judgments about literary value as well without it being totally arbitrary or merely a function of our race, class, ideology, etc.  Surely Shakespeare is more worth reading in a literary context than, say, the menu board at Taco Bell?

 

 

Indeed.  We're doomed.

-There are value judgements and then there are value judgements. Value judgements based on subjective notions masquerading as objective aesthetic valuations always make me very suspicious. And the fact that one or another enforcer (individual or institution) of these subjective notions is not aware of their role makes no difference to me.

Close reading and absent minded reading aren't the only options. And I'd also argue that some absent minded reading might be just as important as some "close" reading. I've seen some things identified as "close reading" that were very absent minded and tunnel visioned.

Shakespeare versus a Taco Bell menu. I guess it depends on what literary context you are talking about. I love Shakespeare, personally, too. One of my favorite authors of all time is Chaucer, so I'm not just somebody against older literature. But a Taco Bell menu might tell us a lot about culture that, in some contexts, a Shakespeare play cannot. I mean, just on a personal level, when I am drunk on a Friday night, a Taco Bell menu speaks to me personally in a way that Twelfth Night can't, and that isn't just because blurry vision makes it difficult to read Norton Editions.

Edited March 17, 2013 by NowMoreSerious

[TripWillis]

It must suck to go through life constantly suspicious and skeptical of everything, never open to the intensified moments of consciousness a great work of art can give you. Is it really so bad to let yourself experience a work of art, to say "this work touched me in a unique way," rather than explaining those feelings away and exposing it of some wrongdoing?    What is the result of this skeptical framework? What happens when you finally surmount the boogeymen who have been trying to brainwash you with Shakespeare? What are the ends of a literary criticism driven entirely by suspicion? Because we've been doing it for several decades now and, quite frankly, I don't really feel a lot of vigor left in the project.

I think you're willfully characterizing my approach inaccurately, so it's hard to speak to your concerns. I let myself experience works of art, but I'm also a critic, and criticism is part of what makes those experiences worthwhile for me. Criticism that is worth anything involves interrogation and intervention, not replication. This doesn't mean I subvert all texts I read.

[Bennett]

I voted for--and will argue for--the "revised" canon. Let me say straight up: obviously the canon has been (partially) constructed on racist, sexist, classist and imperialist lines. It is the product of a racist, sexist, classist and imperialist society. Our choices of the canon will be colored by that; the writings of canonical (and for that matter, non-canonical) authors will be colored by that; we can't escape our historical embeddedness. That said, I will make three arguments for the preservation of a (revised, self-critical) canon, two of them pragmatic and one philosophical.

 

1.) Pragmatically, and once more with feeling: we can't escape our historical embeddedness. Certain texts have had a tremendous influence on our cultural and political development; the impact of the bible (e.g.) colors not just literary texts from Chaucer to Toni Morrison, but also the most fundamental categories in which we think. Even or especially if we wish to transform these modes of thinking (as I do), we need to know what it is we're trying to transform; applying "analytical rigor to epistemes" implies some knowledge of the epistemes we're analyzing, and I would call those works "canonical" which have had a huge role in shaping them.   

 

2.) Again pragmatically, and in all seriousness: what's the alternative? Insofar as an academic discipline is defined (externally) by boundaries and (internally) by a common body of knowledge, I'm not sure what becomes of "literature" as a discipline when we eradicate the canon entirely. (Of course we can--and should--apply a Foucauldian critique to the whole notion of "discipline," but that doesn't mean we can escape the problem.) Without any notion of a common body of knowledge, we become diverse "area specialists" analyzing incommensurable phenomena through incommensurable lenses; what then constitutes literature as a coherent field? There's a tension here between expansiveness and (in)coherence.

 

In recent years, I think we've resolved this tension by replacing a common object of study with a common theoretical framework; what allows the scholar of south-east Asian literature to speak to the scholar of graphic novels is their common knowledge of Foucault or Derrida or whatever. And, I mean, this sort of resolves the problem, but only by replacing a "canon" of (largely) dead European novelists with a "canon" of dead European theorists. The irony being: a) we've canonized the very figures who set out to deconstruct the canon, and we're now analyzing the literatures of various subaltern figures through the lens of an extremely Euro-centric theory, which is arguably still an imperialist project!

 

3.) Philosophically, I do think we need to hold onto some notion of aesthetic value--and, in contrast to some of the earlier commenters, I think this (i.e., aesthetics) is actually very interesting. Many people have pointed out that there aren't any universally objective criteria through which to establish what constitutes aesthetic value, and that's precisely the point. I mean, if you go back to Kant, you see him struggling with how to make sense of the whole notion of "beauty": on the one hand, it isn't subject to binding empirical laws (x defines the beautiful, object a possesses x, therefore object a is beautiful), on the other, he wants to keep the notion of beauty seperate from that of taste, which he sees as entirely subjective and non-binding. (I.e., I might prefer milk chocolate and you might prefer dark, but it's kind of silly to argue about which is objectively better: it's entirely a question of personal preference.)

 

Kant wants to say that "beauty" is something different than either objective knowledge or subjective taste--and I think he's right. That is, when I say something is beautiful I am making a claim without determinate knowledge which is nevertheless seeking for some sort of universality or "objectivity" beyond mere personal preference. For Kant, though, this is an "objectivity" which upends the usual sense of the term, because a) it's one which emerges immanently from the artwork as opposed to being applied to it externally, and it's one that can't be preemptively determined but only emerges in and through intersubjective debate. In other words, the notion of dynamism and mutability is already enshrined in the very notion of aesthetic judgment! (In that sense, yes, the cannon should shift and change.)

 

TripWillis, I am with you on the fact that literary scholars should not try to act like scientists, with you on Hegel, and with you on critically analyzing the scientific episteme(s). But to deny any merit to aesthetic "value" seems to slip into a hardcore positivism at the moment of critiquing it, suggesting that any notion which can't be empirically determined should be precipitously banished. In contrast, I think the notion of aesthetic value should be maintained precisely because it points to aporias in the scientific episteme (and, relatedly, in Kant's critical project):  i.e, to values that seem "meaningful" and yet cannot be empirically determined. (I think this is also the moment where art becomes entwined with ethics and politics: all things banished from the realm of empirical truth, which then take refuge in a newly-constituted, autonomous art as the other of reason.)

 

I could go on, but the point is: a Taco Bell menu might at times be more personally relevant than Shakespeare, I might be able to make as interesting a "reading" of it as Shakespeare, and it might serve as well as Shakespeare as an object of ideology-critique. But I think Shakespeare is indeed more beautiful than the Taco Bell menu, and I have no problem with the seeming coerciveness of that claim. (Sometimes coerciveness is not a bad thing: we try to convince each-other: otherwise what's the point?) Because to dismiss the whole notion of aesthetic value is to ignore what makes art art--what makes it something other than a Taco Bell menu--and I think that's the "value nihilism" which I and others have been finding so disturbing. 

[Bennett]

whoops. Auto-correct turned all my point b's into smiley faces... which is kind of funny. 

[TripWillis]

I voted for--and will argue for--the "revised" canon. Let me say straight up: obviously the canon has been (partially) constructed on racist, sexist, classist and imperialist lines. It is the product of a racist, sexist, classist and imperialist society. Our choices of the canon will be colored by that; the writings of canonical (and for that matter, non-canonical) authors will be colored by that; we can't escape our historical embeddedness. That said, I will make three arguments for the preservation of a (revised, self-critical) canon, two of them pragmatic and one philosophical.

 

1.) Pragmatically, and once more with feeling: we can't escape our historical embeddedness. Certain texts have had a tremendous influence on our cultural and political development; the impact of the bible (e.g.) colors not just literary texts from Chaucer to Toni Morrison, but also the most fundamental categories in which we think. Even or especially if we wish to transform these modes of thinking (as I do), we need to know what it is we're trying to transform; applying "analytical rigor to epistemes" implies some knowledge of the epistemes we're analyzing, and I would call those works "canonical" which have had a huge role in shaping them.   

 

2.) Again pragmatically, and in all seriousness: what's the alternative? Insofar as an academic discipline is defined (externally) by boundaries and (internally) by a common body of knowledge, I'm not sure what becomes of "literature" as a discipline when we eradicate the canon entirely. (Of course we can--and should--apply a Foucauldian critique to the whole notion of "discipline," but that doesn't mean we can escape the problem.) Without any notion of a common body of knowledge, we become diverse "area specialists" analyzing incommensurable phenomena through incommensurable lenses; what then constitutes literature as a coherent field? There's a tension here between expansiveness and (in)coherence.

 

In recent years, I think we've resolved this tension by replacing a common object of study with a common theoretical framework; what allows the scholar of south-east Asian literature to speak to the scholar of graphic novels is their common knowledge of Foucault or Derrida or whatever. And, I mean, this sort of resolves the problem, but only by replacing a "canon" of (largely) dead European novelists with a "canon" of dead European theorists. The irony being: a) we've canonized the very figures who set out to deconstruct the canon, and we're now analyzing the literatures of various subaltern figures through the lens of an extremely Euro-centric theory, which is arguably still an imperialist project!

 

3.) Philosophically, I do think we need to hold onto some notion of aesthetic value--and, in contrast to some of the earlier commenters, I think this (i.e., aesthetics) is actually very interesting. Many people have pointed out that there aren't any universally objective criteria through which to establish what constitutes aesthetic value, and that's precisely the point. I mean, if you go back to Kant, you see him struggling with how to make sense of the whole notion of "beauty": on the one hand, it isn't subject to binding empirical laws (x defines the beautiful, object a possesses x, therefore object a is beautiful), on the other, he wants to keep the notion of beauty seperate from that of taste, which he sees as entirely subjective and non-binding. (I.e., I might prefer milk chocolate and you might prefer dark, but it's kind of silly to argue about which is objectively better: it's entirely a question of personal preference.)

 

Kant wants to say that "beauty" is something different than either objective knowledge or subjective taste--and I think he's right. That is, when I say something is beautiful I am making a claim without determinate knowledge which is nevertheless seeking for some sort of universality or "objectivity" beyond mere personal preference. For Kant, though, this is an "objectivity" which upends the usual sense of the term, because a) it's one which emerges immanently from the artwork as opposed to being applied to it externally, and it's one that can't be preemptively determined but only emerges in and through intersubjective debate. In other words, the notion of dynamism and mutability is already enshrined in the very notion of aesthetic judgment! (In that sense, yes, the cannon should shift and change.)

 

TripWillis, I am with you on the fact that literary scholars should not try to act like scientists, with you on Hegel, and with you on critically analyzing the scientific episteme(s). But to deny any merit to aesthetic "value" seems to slip into a hardcore positivism at the moment of critiquing it, suggesting that any notion which can't be empirically determined should be precipitously banished. In contrast, I think the notion of aesthetic value should be maintained precisely because it points to aporias in the scientific episteme (and, relatedly, in Kant's critical project):  i.e, to values that seem "meaningful" and yet cannot be empirically determined. (I think this is also the moment where art becomes entwined with ethics and politics: all things banished from the realm of empirical truth, which then take refuge in a newly-constituted, autonomous art as the other of reason.)

 

I could go on, but the point is: a Taco Bell menu might at times be more personally relevant than Shakespeare, I might be able to make as interesting a "reading" of it as Shakespeare, and it might serve as well as Shakespeare as an object of ideology-critique. But I think Shakespeare is indeed more beautiful than the Taco Bell menu, and I have no problem with the seeming coerciveness of that claim. (Sometimes coerciveness is not a bad thing: we try to convince each-other: otherwise what's the point?) Because to dismiss the whole notion of aesthetic value is to ignore what makes art art--what makes it something other than a Taco Bell menu--and I think that's the "value nihilism" which I and others have been finding so disturbing. 

 

I'm actually very much in agreement with everything you said. I don't even have a problem with the investigation of aesthetic value; I just, and this is similar to what you said, think it needs to intervene in its own process and it needs to not be beholden to what it deems an objective system. The canon cannot be disposed of, but the canon project, as it stood/stands, tried to pose artificial constraints on aesthetics that aren't desirable or sustainable. 

 

Edit: As far as the taco bell thing goes, that started as a straw man and I don't feel like touching it. I feel kind of bummed with the way that no one except Bennett has actually taken the time to engage with this question beyond "canon wars" talking points.

Edited March 17, 2013 by TripWillis

[Drol Noryb]

This sort of attitude is so pernicious.  Making value judgments isn't a bad thing; for example, if we agree on anything, it's that close reading is good, whereas its opposite-- careless, absent-minded reading-- is bad.  We can make judgments about literary value as well without it being totally arbitrary or merely a function of our race, class, ideology, etc.  Surely Shakespeare is more worth reading in a literary context than, say, the menu board at Taco Bell?

 

I definitely would not say that we can't make aesthetic judgments ie. "Paradise Lost is a major aesthetic achievement." I just think the question isn't very interesting. I'd much rather ask, "How does Paradise Lost function as a piece of culture?"--for good or ill. Aesthetics are a part of that for sure, but it's not for the purpose of declaring some superior "canon" of work. Even so, if I make the aesthetic judgment that reality TV is trash (which I do), I think there still could be enormous value to a critical study of reality TV (as there could be for the pop culture of any era). Do canonical works suffer if we consider these things? I don't really think so...

And if we're talking about teaching literature, pushing the canon is often a vestige of the imperial origin of the English canon which I mentioned in an earlier post. Whether we're talking about imperial India or teaching lit today, I don't think the purpose of English education is to make students more "cultured," but to build a critical literacy for use with many different kinds of texts.

 

/end profession.

 

If Paradise Lost can't be deemed superior to anything else other than in the context of empire and ideological control, we've lost the plot.

 

But aesthetic decisions are often tied to political and ideological realities, including empire. Something like Culture and Imperialism by Said makes this point while still explicitly not dismissing the aesthetic value of the texts he analyzes. I certainly wouldn't call this second-rate social science.

[TripWillis]

I wonder if A&E or Discovery are going to make a show called CANON WARS.

[bluecheese]

I'm a bit mentally exhausted from both writing my thesis, and then proceeding to do a bunch of research for the google doc on the funding forum... but I'll respond in short.

 

I'm skeptical of this rhetoric about reading texts that are "foundational" to thinking - I don't see anyone mentioning key economic texts, for example (it all seems to come back to Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the biblical texts). If we're going to talk about what is foundational for thinking - classical literature, economic theory, philosophical tracts, writings relevant to any of the world's religions, popular works, etc. are all game in terms of the formation of ideas.

 

To stupidly bite the "taco bell" bait: I think just an interesting reading can be taken out of a taco bell menu as can from a Shakespeare play [especially in our era of industrialized food, poor labor conditions, health epidemics, etc. --there is a lot going on behind, in, and around that menu]. Reading a Shakespeare play will let you fit in better in an English department. I'm not saying this because I haven't gotten anything out of thinking about Shakespeare plays (I TAed Shakespeare just a few semesters ago for a rather famous Shakespeare scholar... if that matters) - rather, I'm interested in the argument being made. Why are you researching something? To be simplistic: what's at stake?

 

I tend to think the cannon is important insofar as we exist in a discipline that is full of people who are invested in the cannon because the discipline has taught them to be invested in it. It's this thing that exists and is always in need of re-formation. I guess I have very little faith in "literature" as an abstract thing. Sure, I value complicated texts that say interesting things about the state of thinking in a particular era and interesting readings of those texts--but I also value interesting readings of ANY text.

 

I don't think that everything needs to be taught (or read) in a formalist context--if there is some key point or idea that can be taken from a text in order to fuck up one's own thinking (in the best possible way), then teach, read, write about, etc. that text. 

Edited March 17, 2013 by bluecheese

[TripWillis]

I'm a bit mentally exhausted from both writing my thesis, and then proceeding to do a bunch of research for the google doc on the funding forum... but I'll respond in short.

 

I'm skeptical of this rhetoric about reading texts that are "foundational" to thinking - I don't see anyone mentioning key economic texts, for example (it all seems to come back to Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the biblical texts). If we're going to talk about what is foundational for thinking - classical literature, economic theory, philosophical tracts, writings relevant to any of the world's religions, popular works, etc. are all game in terms of the formation of ideas.

 

To stupidly bite the "taco bell" bait: I think just an interesting reading can be taken out of a taco bell menu as can from a Shakespeare play [especially in our era of industrialized food, poor labor conditions, health epidemics, etc. --there is a lot going on behind, in, and around that menu]. Reading a Shakespeare play will let you fit in better in an English department. I'm not saying this because I haven't gotten anything out of thinking about Shakespeare plays (I TAed Shakespeare just a few semesters ago for a rather famous Shakespeare scholar... if that matters) - rather, I'm interested in the argument being made. Why are you researching something? To be simplistic: what's at stake?

 

I tend to think the cannon is important insofar as we exist in a discipline that is full of people who are invested in the cannon because the discipline has taught them to be invested in it. It's this thing that exists and is always in need of re-formation. I guess I have very little faith in "literature" as an abstract thing. Sure, I value complicated texts that say interesting things about the state of thinking in a particular era and interesting readings of those texts--but I also value interesting readings of ANY text.

 

I don't think that everything needs to be taught (or read) in a formalist context--if there is some key point or idea that can be taken from a text in order to fuck up one's own thinking (in the best possible way), then teach, read, write about, etc. that text. 

Another good contribution. Well said.

 

Edit: BTW, this whole debate affected me so much it made me change my avatar.

Edited March 17, 2013 by TripWillis

[ProfLorax]

Proflorax, I think we might be intellectual twins. I don't know much about Mad Men, but I've argued on numerous occasions that The Wire is just as great, if not greater, than any work of literature to emerge in the 21st century. I even wrote a term paper stating as such for a contemporary literature course.

 

Also, I'd love to read your thesis sometime! Is it available online anywhere? 

That is really funny you mention The Wire. I spent a few minutes deciding between The Wire and Mad Men because I hit "post!" My thesis is not available online or anything cool like that, and that is probably a good thing. The ideas were all sound, but I rushed to finish it, so I'm happy that it is currently hiding out in the library basement. However, I am thinking of re-approaching abortion rhetoric once I am back in school!