Intrinsic qualities to discern the greatness of some writers compared to others? I wish there were, but I doubt it. Values are relative, and each generation rebuilds the canon. Yet, Cervantes or Faulkner are 'better' than any comercial best seller of nowadays. And yes, it should be possible to say why.

My criterion for whether a writer is great concerns whether the writer produces something timeless or something that is socially and culturally relative. A writer that produces timeless material is great; a writer that produces socially and culturally relative material is, at best, useful to their time and place.

If you check out various lists of the Greatest Writers, what is striking is how much agreement there is between the different lists.

I'm thankful for the response, but find my uncertainty is as great as ever. Doesn't agreement on lists indicate attending the same/similar educational institutes or within different education institutes propagating acceptance of those lists? All awarding bodies in the UK publish the same writers for analysis and understanding. What exactly is 'timeless', cultural approval perhaps? But how is that formed, what are the various forces that underlie such approval? As a teacher, I often fear that the writers I teach express the bland or inexact demands of awarding bodies. What perhaps will change in terms of future literature and our acceptance of it with the gathering influence of the internet and its democratic motivations-one piece of written work is equal to another? Perhaps it is right? I found this today in a literary magazine, an example of good literature (with imaginary capitals and underlining):

I came here, cap in hand,

as if a beggar to the day

or reverant soul before his maker.

I wish I could have stayed away

for the change I found there

and the change in me.

An interesting and witty poem, but one of my students wrote on school gossip technically equal to this yesterday and I can certainly find its equal on the internet within five minutes. The above poem has been sanctioned by a literary magazine (perhaps, without devaluing either, the editor and writer are acquainted, or the piece reflects the editor's own), while the latter exist in unashamed anomynity. The above poem is literature, equal efforts disposable squiggles.The construction of 'great writing' and 'great writers' is I suggest complex and subject to numerous social forces.

Impossible to separate politics and influence from estimations of greatness. Look what happened to Christopher Marlowe. Arguably he was no less than Shakespeare, and far bolder and more radical politically. The canon is a myth; public esteem is a wildfire, neither to be described nor directed other than by the inscrutable wind.

Thanks for that Jim, because often I feel I stand alone on this matter. I do believe that proper research should be conducted, ferreting out the flaws in the very notion of a canon.

There are two modern writers I teach, both of whom I consider immensely overrated and provide reasons to my students as to why I believe that. Nevertheless, I am more interested in those promoting these writers-middle-class, affirming not challenging, meeting (but only just) an academic list of literary tropes, good writing but no more. The promoters tend to be teachers and education awarding bodies.

I agree that “proper research should be conducted,” but what would constitute that? I work in poetry, and as part of my research am interested in evaluation criteria. We also run a think tank from our home in Cognition and the Arts (myrifield.org). If you would like to pursue your question in more detail, please write [email protected] and I’ll send you more links and relevant material. Your questions are germane and we’d value your experience.

Attempting to create hierarchies of texts and organizing them into a canon is hardly a new phenomenon - it was one of the central tasks of F.R. Leavis's mid-twentieth-century criticism, for instance. At the same time, challenging that kind of hegemony is hardly a new phenomenon either - see David Damrosch and the debates in the late 1990s/early 2000s over the growth of "world literature."

Personally, I think it's a rather childish debate, on both sides. I strongly support the idea that there are unknown texts that can have great literary value, and that should be studied in the university, but I equally think it is a disservice to students to neglect teaching them the texts that have had the greatest impact on our culture, however political or biased that influence might be. It is very much possible to do both.

As I.A. Richards, the early twentieth-century critic who was largely responsible for founding the field, writes: "It is less important to like 'good' poetry and dislike 'bad' than to be able to use them both as a means of ordering our minds." I think that's an excellent guideline. Whenever choosing texts for students to read, therefore, I consider both aspects of this question: which texts (famous or otherwise) will stimulate them into ordering their minds, and which texts will provide them with the necessary cultural context to be able to do that?

I am reminded here of Philip Dicks' work and the creation of myth through or with poor writing, and wonder if we should equally develop this sense of literature. But, I equally wonder if the corresponding analytical dissection of relationship and mood, strongly evident in modern novels, is really to be preferred and if so, who by? Who is ordering our concepts of 'great literary value' and why should this attract our attention any more than other literature or writings? Problem is, raising new concepts and paradoxes (Leavis' ideas were after all in line with his self projection) gets no nearer the nub of the matter-simply raises additional concerns. We need to decide or investigate from where these constructs have arisen.

I certainly agree with Prof. Mathews - the student must be the focus; however, I am not sure any instructor should usurp the role of ordering their minds. Nonetheless any course must have structure, and lively debate about the virtues - and comparative virtues - of literature is the core mission, quite apart from debates over any particular enshrined canon. So I agree that the debate over whether or what as to the canon must be subservient to the goal of sparking lively and more pertinent debate on specifics. Process, not conclusion.

My concerns there are the same, Jim. Peter appears to be saying that authority on literary matters can be concluded in the lecture room, in something of an arbitary fashion. My question involves more than teaching practices of course and truthfully I cannot see how this resolves matters. Does the lecturer chose? Isn't this the same problem but more greatly confined?

I didn't say anything about the instructor "ordering" the minds of the students. The passage from Richards that I cited refers to the use of literature to order/structure/organize our *own* minds, something that students should surely learn how to do with the guidance (not the ordering/command) of the instructor. That is surely what is potentially empowering about the practice of reading literature.

From one perspective, that means it is indeed somewhat arbitrary which text is used for this process. Most literary texts have something of value from which the student can learn. However, it is also a reality that there are some texts that have historically had more influence than others, and I think it is also empowering for students to learn about texts that carry that cultural weight.

In one of my classes this semester, for example, I am teaching Rachel Kadish's novel The Weight of Ink (2017), a brand new novel that explores historical themes of history, memory, anti-Semitism, gender, and so on. It also contains many crucial references to Shakespeare, whom all of the students have heard of, naturally, but none of them have a read a single line of his. They therefore feel lost - and disempowered - by this lack of contextual knowledge.

It's for precisely this reason that I argue for a balance: teach non-canonical texts, certainly, because there is a lot to be learnt from them, but also teach culturally important texts because even the non-canonical texts draw heavily from them. Both strategies are designed to empower and enable the student to think for themselves.

Again, Peter, this is a teaching issue, a valuable one too that concerns the development of students and their ability to handle text. Nevertheless, it does not actually concern, except in a periferal sense, the issues raised by my question but surely sidesteps them? One of my points is that I could equally teach a student's written work in the same context as you are teaching a lauded modern novel, to which you or someone else has ascribed qualities, or teach from written work on the internet that may tomorrow be gone. The processes involved in why you or your university/school/college teach a particular work as emblemic of cultural issues (who says?) when certainly other works-a transitory but well-written (by my understanding) poem that may touch on numerous cultural facets not touched on by the novel in question (facets agreed with by lecturer and university authorities as being within a writing tradition or existing within agreed ideologies perhaps?) but of equal relevance. The poem by my student examined school gossip in a manner that demonstrated gossip moving speedily through the school with short sentences piled up one after the other. Should I teach that rather than an officially sanctioned culturally emblemic work (who says?) exhibiting possibly safe or simply agreed-upon facets?

Let me take this one step further. On internet sites a piece of writing is judged good if it is more popular than other pieces of writing. Of course this is an unsatisfactory process. Nevertheless, work considered literature is so described by institutions, agents and critics. The final arbitrator is considered Time, which apparently filters out writing in a hierarchical basis, forgetting somehow all the publishers, printers, teachers, lecturers, universities who have put their seal on the matter..

This is weitghty debate especially if we look at literatures which are not from the West or are written in other languages. Of course the "canon wars" are real and not imaginary. One only has o look at the staples in English Department literature courses, Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer and a few female white writers. However, I agree with the writer that waht appeals to me is a piece of work that is "socially and culturally relevant" to a wide range of audience. Fo that reason, I will add George Orwell's Animal Farm as "timeless"along side Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart"" althought both are writing from two diverse cultures.

Peter, I apologize for my misconstruing you and the I.A. Richards quote about ordering the minds. Anyhow there certainly needs to be some structure and some idea of the reading list developing the students' critical capacities. In addition one of the rewards of teaching is to excite not only the students, but the teacher as well. It makes for better dialogue. I do agree with Peter's idea of cultural relevance, and I am not anywhere close to an adherent of deconstruction. I was in a graduate class on Joyce and Beckett a long time ago wherein the students got to choose the third early 20th century author to read. I do not remember the alternatives Prof. Marvin Magalaner gave us, but we all agreed on E.M. Forster. That was empowering and might in some circumstances suggest a hybrid resolution to the canonical controversy.

In my opinion, good writer must do something new for literature, his creation must must be the step in the literature's development.

Professor Derek Attridge, of York University, argues that 'affirmative criticism'-that which celebrates/congratulates good books-is a form of activism since 'it subverts the academy'd hermeneutics of suspicion'.

'the fixation on elite institutions turns such activism into a top-down, elite affair.' RATIK ASOKAN: Eccentric Margins.

What is so difficult about looking at the processes rather than simply accepting the status quo?

The greatness or baseness of a literary experience is largely subjective, leading to our many diverse areas of research. If there was a uniform standard of greatness there would be a single curriculum that would brook no opposition and all who made the attempt would be laughed or forced out of the classroom. A great many may share the experience of a work's greatness leading to widespread acclaim, but no work will be great to all. There are great innovators, just as there are great examples of pastiche. It is not a sign of a lack of intelligence or taste to have preference for works that are familiar or to enjoy going beyond the norm or generally acknowledged 'comfort zone' of one's location or establishment. I would enjoy teaching literature from a vast distance in both time and space from my home country, the works of ancient Hellas. Thank you Maude for offering an Englishman as a solution to a complaint about the prominence of the literature of white men in English classes, that provided a much needed laugh that I was not otherwise able to find today.

Literary canons are as controversial as they are useful, however, the cultural path to be taken to teach literature has to be determined somehow. It would be instructive to have institutions and establishments at different levels illuminate what factors were considered and what factors are being considered today to determine canonical works. It is obvious and has been well asserted that works that are sometimes left out deserve significant attention and anyone in a position even as a teacher or a member of a committee that has a say in what is read or what is rated can remedy that in his/her own little way while we seek the defining answers to the questions of how to set acceptable, universal and inclusive standards for determining canons. This would be a difficult task but it is worthwhile. My last line is: populating any list with a host of works from any one people or geographical location and culture is a disservice and an under-representation of humanity to say the least.

I'm totally agree with doctor

Peter D. Mathews.