According to George Landow, “the American Heritage Dictionary has eleven separate definitions of the term canon, the most relevant of which is ‘an authoritative list, as of the works of an author’ and ‘a basis for judgment; standard; criterion.’”
Both of these senses of “canon” are contained within the definition of the literary canon—those works that have been singled out by critics and audiences to have lasting artistic value. Landow continues:
Belonging to the canon confers status—social, political, economic, aesthetic—none of which can easily be extricated from the others. Belonging to the canon is a guarantee of quality, and that guarantee of high aesthetic quality serves as a promise, a contract, that announces to the viewer, “Here is something to be enjoyed as an aesthetic object. Complex, difficult, privileged, the object before you has been winnowed by the sensitive few and the not-so-sensitive many, and it will repay your attention. You will receive pleasure; at least you’re supposed to, and if you don’t, well, perhaps there’s something off with your apparatus.”
It is clear in the preceding that Landow is somewhat critical of the idea of a literary canon. Though he correctly notes that it is not just critics (“the sensitive few”) but general readers and fans (“the not-so-sensitive many”) who determine what will continue to be read and cherished in the future.
Landow continues:
Works in the canon get read, read by neophyte students and supposedly expert teachers. It also means that to read these privileged works is a privilege and a sign of privilege. It is also a sign that one has been canonized oneself—beatified by the experience of being introduced to beauty, admitted to the ranks of those of the inner circle who are acquainted with the canon and can judge what belongs and does not.
“Privilege” is often a bad word in academia, and this is how Landow uses it. It implies a select few, a cognoscenti, who determine what we read, now and into the future.
There are two important things that need to be emphasized at this point about the canon:
1. Any canon changes over time and space. That is, what is considered canonical at one point in time, and in one place, is different in other times and places. What was canonical in nineteenth-century England is not necessarily canonical today in England, or in the United States. Ever hear of Charles Lamb or his work Essays of Elia? Probably not, but in the nineteenth century every school child or university student in English-speaking countries would have been able to quote Lamb by memory.
2. Canon is as much about exclusion as inclusion. Until recently, women and people of color were not included in the English literary canon. Now they are, due to the diligent efforts of many critics and scholars, both women and men, caucasians and people of color. In fact, the last fifty years, particularly in literature departments, are informally known as the “canon wars” because of the sometimes fierce debate about who should be in the literary canon. Of course, to make space for these women and people of color in the canon, some of the old writers have gotten displaced (see my comment about Charles Lamb above).
For some literary critics, most of what we read this semester would not be considered canonical, just because it is electronic. You would no doubt agree that some of the works we have read do not have much artistic or literary value. But quite a few are quite brilliant and deserve to be read by people in the future. The reason why the subject of the canon has been raised in this class is because we are now re-forming the literary canon to include digital works. Critics will have their favorites, but so too will common readers and, especially, students. When critics and readers eventually agree about a work, that will make it canonical.
All of you are part of this process of canon formation. Particularly in a world in which social networking is so prevalent, your opinions matter and help shape what future students will read in literature courses.
Though we haven’t discussed it much, the revision of the literary canon is at the heart of what is called digital humanities. The humanities more generally refer to the exploration of the human condition in the arts and the social sciences. Digital humanities refers to the application of computer and communications technologies to the work of scholars and teachers working in the arts and social sciences, particularly universities.
The Centre for Humanities Computing at King’s College, London University defines Digital Humanities this way:
The digital humanities comprise the study of what happens at the intersection of computing tools with cultural artefacts of all kinds. This study begins where basic familiarity with standard software ends. It probes how these common tools may be used to make new knowledge from our cultural inheritance and from the contemporary world. It equips students to analyze problems in terms of digital methods, choose those best for the job at hand, apply them creatively and assess the results. It teaches students to use computing as an instrument to investigate how we know what we know, hence to strengthen and extend our knowledge of the world past and present. (taken from the Digital Humanities page at Miami University of Ohio)
It seems likely that there will always be an audience for digital literature in universities. In fact, university students probably comprise the main audience for digital literature, in courses like ENGL278W. This is also true of literature in general: today, it is in school that most people read literature. In this sense, it will be university classes more than anything else that will determine the canon of digital literature.
Finally, we have also encountered the idea of the canon in the context of the canon vs. fanon debate in fan wikis.
In this sense canon is official source material developed by the official author or authors of a given fictional universe. For instance, for the Star Wars universe, this would be primarily George Lucas, but also the screenwriters who worked on screenplays and those who have written the novelizations of the films. elaborations in interviews, blogs, etc.).
Fanon is non-official source material (often filling in gaps in characters and stories in canon) which goes viral, becomes common knowledge in fan circles, and may eventually become canon if the canonical authors recognize it as such. On this page you can read more about the difference between canon and fanon, and some examples of fanon which became canon:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Fanon
The interesting thing about all this, in terms of this class, is that even fictional universes have a consensus of what is true in that universe, and what is not. That is, a fictional world can have agreed-upon or canonized truths. Meanwhile, unapproved fictions within the fictional world are untrue, or fanon. But when fanon fictions are canonized as canonical truths for a given fictional world. Also important is that, in the case of fan wikis, it is fans who drive the process, not the canonical authors.
Works Cited:
George Landow, “The Literary Canon”
http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/canon/litcan.html
Digital Humanities (Miami University of Ohio)
http://www.units.muohio.edu/technologyandhumanities/field.htm
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