Academic literature on the topic 'Canon (Literature)'

Abstract This article deals with recent Danish literature in the light of the discussion about canons occasioned by the publication of the two ministerial canons: Undervisningskanon (Educational Canon, 2004) and Kulturkanon (Cultural Canon, 2006). The article argues that recent Danish literature challenges traditional work categories and the concept of the author on which the two canons are based, and discusses which works and texts in recent Danish literature ought to belong to a future canon.

In this article, I explore the relationship between the reproduction of hegemonic discourses of national representation in the reception of literature in translation and processes of canonization. I argue that World Literature as a paradigm hinders our efforts of overcoming the burdens of canonization. As a case study, I analyze the implications of building and reproducing a canon of Japanese literature in translation in the United States for the way Japan has been represented in public discourse in the last thirty years. I will focus on the reception of Murakami Haruki as the contemporary representative of the canon of Japanese literature in translation. My goal is to examine how the circumstances of Japanese literature in translation perpetuate mechanisms of canonization in their engagement and legitimation of an ongoing logic of representation that is non-confrontational with agents in power. I aim to test the extent to which studying the reception of East Asian literature in translation can help us promote a broader discussion on the appropriateness of such frameworks in our understanding of the contemporary literary phenomenon.

Abstract The canon is a concept with a long history. The religious canon was eventually re-established on secular grounds, where it was comprehended in the categories of official literary (general) and personal (individual) canons, educational canon (reading lists) being correlated to the concept of tradition (canon as selective tradition) and the classics (canon as synchronicity, the classics as diachronicity). These aspects have different features in each national literature, particularly in Ukrainian literature. The necessity of standards and hierarchical classifications remains important after postmodernism, when new concepts, such as corps, collection, postcanon, succeed or keep up with the concept of the canon.

To understand the transformation of canons and the struggle with them, we may productively explore fanfiction, a particular reader's, viewer's, and author's practice, within non-professional and non-commercial texts based on the plots and heroes of other people's works. Fanfiction is a paradoxical phenomenon: it is wholly based on a specific canon — collectively selected film and literary texts, moves by worship, emotional attachment, and attention, while initially working as a criticism of the canons and changing the canons. Canon is not only a research concept but also an intra-cultural designation of the original work as the basis of a fan text. Fans also create their canon — “fanon”, a set of characteristic plot solutions and ways to change characters established in fanfiction. The article examines the intersections of the cultural canon of high and popular culture, the national literary canon, and the canon and the fanon in the understanding of fans with different types of attitudes to the canons — disintegration, transformation, struggle, re-creation. The argument is based on a critical analysis of the research literature with a focus on metaphors that help authors describe the relationship of fiction writers with the canons and on the experience of empirical research about fanfiction devoted to samples of popular culture (“Harry Potter” franchise, “Doctor Who” series, “Sherlock” series, and others), fanfiction and sequels to novels by Jane Austen, the British writer of the 19th century, and fanfiction devoted to Russian classical literature.

Canon or the classic refers to the best and most representative works in a literary or cultural tradition, and the rise of world literature now provides an opportunity for scholars of different literary traditions, particularly non-Western and the less well-known and insufficiently studied “minor” traditions, to introduce and present the canonical works they know best to form a canon of world literatures. World literature is not just all the works that happen to circulate beyond their culture of origin, but the collective body of the best canonical works from various literary traditions that circulate to constitute what we call world literature.

This work considers the question of canon as a „place of power“ and the position of literature in relation to the ideological dictates of the so-called „social reality“. In this sense, it discusses the general social, cultural, and poetic patterns on which the canon is based, that is, the canons in the most representative anthologies of recent Bosnian-Herzegovinian poetry in the last thirty years. Understanding canonization as a model of ideological impact in the production of „literary facts“, the paper explores the attitude of anthologists towards the composite integrity of Bosnian-Herzegovinian literature and at least three poietic formulas involved in the struggle for „cultural meaning“ („poetry of re-ethnicization“, „poetry of false universalism“, „poetry of differences“). The literary canon, monolithic in socialist society and reduced by political censorship, was first nationalized and later, especially in the post-war period, decentralized and turned into alternative canons. Anthologies of Bosnian- Herzegovinian poetry distinctly follow the mentioned evolution, and in that way contribute to the stratification of the canon and the breaking of its „hegemony“.

Abstract Scholarly debate about world literature often relegates non-fiction as secondary to fiction. This article argues that non-fiction is as important as fiction, and uses the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award as a case study. Although the FT award focuses on business, it has a wider cultural impact influencing academia, global media, and literature. After seventeen years, the award’s consistent quality of longlisted books has created a canon that has genuine literary value. My analysis of the award demonstrates that the finalists and winners have been concentrated in terms of author’s country of work, author’s profession, and primary subject. This concentration can be partly explained by the dominance of the US in the publishing of business books as well as by the mechanics of the award’s selection process. The FT award also prompts a discussion about the merits of a literary award that embraces both fiction and non-fiction.

For various reasons, the canon of literary works to be read in school has been criticized in recent years. The status of the canon, both as a concept with hierarchical connotations and as a particular set of texts, has been affected by developments in literary scholarship as well as by political views and new educational goals. However, teaching literature without the regulative idea of a canon is not very satisfactory. If we wish to select a limited number of literary texts to be taught in secondary schools, some consensus would be necessary about the functions of literature as well as about didactic goals, which in turn are related to concepts of morality and political exigencies. For instance, one may decide to teach not only a national ‘great tradition’, but to introduce a European perspective by incorporating works from abroad into the curriculum, if necessary in translation. In view of the fact that Europe is a multicultural community, it is of long-term interest to guarantee the pluriformity of any school canon of literature.

On the occasion of the millennium it seems appropriate to reflect yet once more on the subject of the canon, if only to set the canon debate of the 1980s in relation to the longue durée of Western writing. There is a lesson in the fact that the turn of the millennium evoked a pervasive sense of anticlimax. History follows another and more elusive rhythm than the cycles of the calendar or the expectations of short-lived human beings. In retrospect, the debates of the 1980s greatly overestimated the stakes and possible consequences of “opening the canon,” not because there were no stakes or consequences, but because the concept of the canon belonged to the order of a mythical time, the order of millennial expectations. If it was never true that the canon was irrevocably closed to the revision and reordering of its supposed monuments, this is not to say that the tendency of verbal artifacts to solidify into monuments does not need to be resisted and that the struggle to prevent the schools from becoming the agents of this monumentalization must sometimes take the form of mythical antagonism.

The article was inspired by the World Congress of Lithuanian Writers held in Vilnius, in May 2019, during which the literary canon was discussed – not only in Lithuania, but abroad as well: what determines the entry of some books into the school canon, their assessment with literary prizes, various nominations, and why other books remain less noticed by readers and / or literary critics. The theme of this article was further highlighted by the heated debate on the elections of the Book of the Year that took place throughout the autumn (and is still ongoing). Various top five, top ten, top twelve lists, debates over the update of the contents of the curriculum of secondary schools inevitably raise the issue of the literary canon. Therefore, it is considered that perhaps the problem is not what falls or does not fall into the literary canon, but rather how much power society gives to the literary canon itself. The main tasks of the research: to introduce the main theoretical aspects of the literary canon; to discuss the issue of literary canon and women’s creative works; to identify the dominants of the literary canon in the diaspora. The article discusses the issue of the literary canon precisely in women’s literature that was created and is still being created in the diaspora. Research sources: various literary and cultural presses of the Lithuanian diaspora in the US (Aidai (The Echoes), Darbininkas (The Worker), Draugas (The Friend), Gabija, Naujienos (The News) etc.), Literatūros lankai (Literary Folios) (Buenos Aires, 1952-1959), the book by Vladas Kulbokas Lithuanian Literary Criticism in Exile (Rome, 1982). The main reason for this discussion of (non)canonization of women’s literature is that statistically female authors write more on emigration topics. There were more women writers outside Lithuania in the second wave of emigration (DPs); more women than men give a sense to their exile experience even today. The article emphasizes that women’s involvement in public life has never been either simple or natural. Even greater challenges awaited the creating women in 1944, when they moved to the West – Germany, Austria, and from 1949 – to the US, Canada, Australia. Questions are raised as to how and why public attitudes towards the writing, creative woman have changed; how the community of the Lithuanian diaspora, influenced by a new context, new economic and political conditions in the US, thought about new creative challenges, what kind of goals and objectives were set for it. If feminization processes call for rebellion against the dominant (male) canon, if today we are talking about not a single existing canon, but rather about canons, if it is emphasized that the canon is nonetheless a changing thing related with a system of certain time values, then the canon may not exist at all and it cannot exist? The article also actualizes modern migration processes and their reflections in literature (created both in Lithuania and abroad, outside Lithuania; written not only in Lithuanian but also in English) as well, opens new possibilities for reading and interpreting women’s works – and above all – the article dedicated to the World Lithuanian Year, seeks to create a dialogue field that can help deepen the understanding of today’s (e)migration.