Expanding the Canon
Baden Rosales
Dr. Weise
Sunday May 21, 2023
AP Literature and Composition
Expanding the Canon
The western canon exemplifies the quality of work that writers ought to try and reach and provides us with a list though which we can see a history of various political philosophies and cultural conflict expressed through heroes and villains become iconic. The value in this list comes from the works themselves, therefore the quality of the literature that makes up the canon is paramount. This naturally leads to a cautious if not exclusionary attitude when considering new additions. Gatekeeping is essential, standards must be set and held to as without them meaning is lost as anything becoming everything and nothing ceases to be defined. This attitude is exemplified in Harold Bloom’s “Elegy for the Canon” wherein he lays out his criteria for the catalog. Bloom’s main determinate of a work’s viability in the canon is its aesthetic. He states, “one only breaks into the canon by aesthetic strength,” as he denies entry to works of the “worthiest causes” such as feminism and what may be generalized as intersectionality. He vehemently opposes the entry of “politically correct” works simply for being so holding closely to his traditional framework. While he does not outright reject all relating literature and leaves the door open through the individual’s aesthetic his reductive tone indicates he has done so personally. While Bloom does not hold power over who enters the cannon (this being writers themselves) his voice has power and rejecting so much on the basis that it is feminist or explores racial concerns would be a great blunder.
For there to be to value in a canonical list of literary works such list must expand as to not fade from relevancy. While as Bloom states it must also resist the demands of the ever-changing cultural landscape, overall trends must be observed, or the list reduces itself to a fantasized version of history. The literature of today must be relevant to the issues of our time or otherwise be entertainment with no ideas of its own. While it would be equally tragic to see the canon bending completely to the will of the public—which would surely result the catalog’s causality—to exclude all works present in these conversations would be revisionist. The conceit of these works will be central to the cultural conflict of the given time otherwise you tread the same ground. While some themes of course span generations over eons they must be interpreted through a “current” lens. There is little value in repetition—we may enjoy some motifs and cliches, but stories retold are but entertainment.
Bloom highlights specifically a “strangeness” required in a work to considered for entry into the canon. This is the intangible undefinable feeling one gets reading a work. It is everything in between the words that makes it special. The emotional response readers get from work the visceral connection formed in reading truly exceptional literature is needed to separate writing good writing from truly great. This quality of strangeness comes from the author, from letting themselves bleed into the work. The author’s vulnerability is felt in the intimacy of a work. This necessitates honesty and self-refection, one must write what they know. So when feminist authors writes their beliefs, fears, and ideology should be in work or fail to authentic. Helene Cixous writes in The Laugh of the Medusa, “I have been amazed more than once by a description a woman gave me of a world all her own which she had been secretly haunting since early childhood.” In this article Cixous advocates for women writing themselves and writing often. For too long has the female voice been silenced so its new ability to be heard should not be taken for granted. She finds great power in the female perspective that has to break from the male dominated history of literature, “If woman has always functioned "within" the discourse of man, a signifier that has always referred back to the opposite signifier which annihilates its specific energy and diminishes or stifles its very different sounds, it is time for her to dislocate this within, to explode it, turn it around, and seize it; to make it hers, containing it, taking it in her own mouth, biting that tongue with her very own teeth to invent for herself a language to get inside of.” This notion of “making it hers” and “inventing” is the key in creating work with aesthetic value and the ethereal strangeness Bloom requires. He makes himself clear in the Elegy when he writes, “ALL STRONG literary originality becomes canonical” this perspective is then continuously undermined through his dismissive nature towards the very perspectives offering unique voices. His thinly veined distain for the current culture slips as he writes how the tradition, “cannot be ideological or place itself in the service of any social aims, however morally admirable (. . .) Whatever the Western Canon is, it is not a program for social salvation (. . .) To read in the service of any ideology is not, in my judgment, to read at all.” In trying to maintain the history of the catalog he has shut himself off from the works best fit to enter by his own standards. While as previously agreed that a level of gatekeeping is necessary in the arts but this requires more self-awareness to one’s biases than Bloom demonstrates. While his benchmarks are fair and standards reasonable in ignoring work based on its perspective is the great flaw in Bloom’s argument.
It's not to say that Harold Bloom only read or respected male authors but that in recent decades with the push to diversify academia—for the sake of diversity—that his resentment grew. We know that Bloom held high regard certain authors deemed progressive so in rationalizing the contradiction I must infer that it is the changing culture that taints his beliefs. Jane Austen is considered feminist today for her belief in equality between he sexes and she has received the highest praise Bloom can offer: a comparison the William Shakespeare, “When Shakespeare wishes to, he can make all his personages, major and minor, speak in voices entirely their own, self-consistent and utterly different from one another. Austen, with the similar illusion of ease, does the same.” (Bright Book of Life via Literary Hub) While he compares her talents to that of his favorite Shakespeare I hesitate to think what would happen should her novels have been released today with the “feminist” label. While Bloom is and was never the final determiner of what enters the canon his word carries much weight, so it is important to pick apart his position. Having been so widely read and immersed within literature his conclusions on aesthetic value are useful. He provides a great structure by which we may consider new works to be added to the catalog in his strong defense he risks losing credibility. We must take all that we can from Bloom while separating the prejudice. His defense went too far and risks jeopardizing his own work as the canon’s greatest advocate. It is too easy to hear few of the poor words Bloom had for progressive movements in recent years and then throw out the rest of what he built. The canon is too important.
The fact is Bloom’s distain for some of the politically correct, social justice, woke push in recent times is under stable but expose his flaws none the less. As with any movement or wave a lot of the material produced holding these ideals is not great. But most of anything at any time isn’t even good. That’s why we constantly search for the those pieces in which we can truly connect with ourselves and world. This is conjecture but Bloom seems to have lost himself in the defense of the canon leading to a great oversight of a number pieces. To continue with the feminist line would be to include The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood who appears on the list for only Surfacing. The Handmaid’s Tale shows all that speculative fiction can do as it examines a near-future world similar to our own that has seen a theocratic power take over the United States resulting women forced into reproductive slavery. It tackles a great number of issues relevant today such as reproductive rights, patriarchal structures, and religious extremism. All of which are discussed today and are popular topics within literature but its not the novelty of the topic but the perspective and way in which it is explored which is important. It is still the works aesthetic value grounding us but the unique value Cixous believed in comes out giving it a special quality. Other works absent from Bloom’s list include Toni Morrison’s Beloved which is both feminist and shows “African American culturism” the two movements Bloom calls out as being forced on the canon all while lacking substance stating the canon must resist even in “face of the worthiest causes.” Yet Beloved lacks not in its great thematic depth exploring personal and shared trauma all though a nonlinear structure—an abundance of aesthetic is clear. Part of what makes both these works so important today is how they inform us decades on from publication as their themes are more relevant than ever. The concern of these works was certainly ahead of their time in many ways as their impact continues to be felt. The continued importance of these works is seen in efforts to ban them from the education system. Toni Morrison’s work has been banned in a number of states. Farah Griffin writes for the Washington Post, “[Banning Morrison] is less about the comfort of teenage readers and more about parents trying to elide the harsh truths and realities of our nation’s history.” This is what great literature does, it challenges us, makes us uncomfortable all through the written word.
This is not an indictment of Harold Bloom and his work, this critique comes from a shared love and appreciation of literature and its history. In wishing to preserve the past the future must too be accepted or it will all fade from relevance. Every author wrote about the troubles of their time just because certain ideals are pushed more heavily on academia today does not mean it is wrong to include them in the canon. Shakespeare explored matters of succession and absolute power his Julius Creaser while living under a monarchy the conflict of his time is perfectly relevant to his work. It makes it what is just as topics of feminism and intersectionality will define many works on the late 20th and 21st century. The matters of these works should be relevant to the ongoing culture conflict as literature is apart of conversation itself. It is informed by it and can in some cases rise to define much of the conversation—we see protests using The Handmaid’s Tale costume to embody their feminist message. It is vital that canon doesn’t shut itself off from the world around it and continues to embrace the cultural conflict of the time while maintaining its high bar for aesthetic.
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Works Cited:
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. New York: Everyday Library, 2006.
Bloom, Harold. The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. Riverhead Books, 1995.
Bloom, Harold. December. “How Jane Austen Created a Shakespearean World in Pride and Prejudice.” Literary Hub, 20 Dec. 2021, lithub.com/how-jane-austen-created-a-shakespearean-world-in-pride-and-prejudice/.
Cixous, Hélène, et al. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Signs, vol. 1, no. 4, 1976, pp. 875–93.
JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173239.
Griffin, Farah Jasmine. “Perspective | Banning Toni Morrison’s Books Doesn’t Protect Kids. It Just Sanitizes Racism.” The Washington Post, 28 Oct. 2021, www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/28/beloved-toni-morrison-virginia/.
Morrison, T. Beloved. New York: Random House, 1987.
