Because Canon sets limits and it is like pouring one's work into a mold. It brings the art back to the era of 'mimesis' (imitating, following set standards) instead of 'poiesis' (creation)

 Mr Jae Park

The concept of a canon in an educational context needs to pay attention. Underlying this view are of course implicit theoretical views about the nature of reading and about judging quality.

Dear Kiran

I am unfamiliar with your 'specific' context. Perhaps that which affects Abohar, I assume. It  is apparently different from other places. Tell us more, then.

Just an example, we  Confucian Asia have had 'curricular' canon in literature education based on Confucius classics for centuries. The system was abandoned in the late 19th and early 20th century, precisely during the time that Western enlightenment brought the idea that following dated canons delimits creativity, hence plays against now 'republican' dream of modernization.

If you look at your own context carefully, I am almost sure that you might find some intriguing discourses of this type. I agree that this deserves more scholarly attention.

The notion of a canon (or selection of great works) has become problematic because of the difficulty of deciding the criteria for deciding what should be included (and excluded). Older canons tend to be the preserve of dead, white males: they tended to exclude women and blacks (or people of colour) and so were rightly objected to as instances of cultural imperialism. But canons are difficult to escape. Just think how many newspapers or blogs or magazines publish stories based upon 'the hundred best....films/operas/symphonies/novels/pop songs...of the last ten/50/100 years'. They offer interesting objects for discussion as long as they are not taken too seriously as the pronouncement of universal and permanent value

Griggs & Montogomery Sir

Thanks a lot for your input. Your answers were really helpful. Regards

Dear Kiran, 

Your question is specific, but the elaboration is not . While a number of researchers have put in scholarly comments, the posts do not seem to be relevant to what you mean to say. The literary canon is a completely theoretical categorization of works by the competent persons. It may also have political implications, - for example, the Marxist literature, the feudal literature, the royal literature (Oedipus Rex by Sophocles and Agamemnon by Aeschylus). We have also Medieval literature, Victorian literature, Modern literature, Colonial literature, Heroic literature and the like. Canonization is not the author's business; it is the domain of the critics.

Below is an essay which you may delight in:

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The term "literary canon" refers to a classification of literature. It is a term used widely to refer to a group of literary works that are considered the most important of a particular time period or place. For example, there can be a canon composed of works from a particular country, or works written within a specific set of years, or even a collection of works that were all written during a certain time period and within a certain region. In this way, a literary canon establishes a collection of similar or related literary works.

Of course, there are many ways in which literary works can be classified, but the canon seems to apply a certain validity or authority to a work of literature. When a work is entered into the canon, thus canonized, it gains status as an official inclusion into a group of literary works that are widely studied and respected. Those who decide whether a work will be canonized include influential literary critics, scholars, teachers, and anyone whose opinions and judgments regarding a literary work are also widely respected. For this reason, there are no rigid qualifications for canonization, and whether a work will be canonized remains a subjective decision.

Literary canons, like the works that comprise them and the judgments of those who create them, are constantly changing. Literature is affected by the experiences and thoughts of writers and readers. Literature, therefore, changes in the context of changing experience and thought. This context is important to the make-up of a literary canon. More often than not, it is those works that are considered contextually relevant that gain entry into the canon. This means that the literary work is relevant to ongoing trends or movements in thought and art, or address historical or contemporary events, etc.

Often, the popularity of a literary work is based not only on the quality, but the relevance of its subject matter to historical, social, and artistic context. A popular or respected literary work usually deals with what people are most interested in, and this interest weighs in on whether or not the work is canonized. While the text of a literary work does not change over time, the meaning extrapolated from it by readers, and thus the attention paid to a literary work may change. As people’s thoughts and experiences change, a literary work may move in and out of interest and contextual relevance. Over time, literary canons will reflect these changes, and works may be added or subtracted from the canon.

To make matters more ambiguous, the popular definition of a literary canon also changes over time. This change, like the changing inclusions of literary canons, can be credited to subjectivity. For example, one popular definition of a canon refers to religious validity, implying that the canonized works are officially recognized by a church, and are considered religiously appropriate. Within this definition, however, the canon remains a basis for judgment, a standard that must be met for canonization of a literary work to be considered. In this way, regardless of the exact definition of a literary canon, or the works of which it is comprised, the canon still implies an “otherness” to works it excludes, and an authority to works it includes.

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Sibaprasad

Good and also challenging question. I endorse smart views expressed by @D. Katherine Griggs.

I must object that, in some sense, canon IS the domain of the author as well as the critic. In 19th century England, women authors were denigrated and had difficulty finding publishers: the 'canon', those works that were considered culturally relevant, stylistically acceptable, ideologically acceptable, and so forth and so on -- the works that critics, publishers, university professors gave the nod to, identified as written by males, and were more than likely written in a recognizably 'male' fashion (yes, a gendered distinction has been identified by researchers). Thus, George Eliot adopted her now-famous pen name. In order to be published, and therefore read - certainly true of the pre-web days, and most likely still true now - authors must meet both critics and audience half-way, so as not to be 'othered' and rejected.

Actually the way a writer rejects canon is not the same way a critic does. The former simply rejects accepted norms, or a way of writing, in order to be able to express her/his own creativity; the author rejects the norms and the values that were accepted in the past (more often than not by the previous generation of writers). The critic, on the other hand, is more interested in education and curricula and problematizes the way  syllabi are chalked out (to put it bluntly). The problem of a writer is how to be original, the problem of the critic is how to match the liteary works of the past (not only those of the previous generation) to contemporary society.

I deconstructed the notion of canon for my thesis and I totally agree that it privileges  a white male (also upper-class heterosexual) point of view. However, I have another question to add to the debate. I was studying film transposition and I noticed that the canon tends to place literature as superior to film. Within film, arthouse cinema is regarded as superior to commercial cinema, and English-spoken commercial cinema is regarded as superior to non-English commercial cinema.

I would love to hear your opinions about this.

It is a very insightful take, Katherine. I totally agree with you.

Many thanks for replying so quickly

In literature, the assumption, which has some basis in fact, is that the canon reflects the social construct of a world in which "dead white male authors" are given more credence than writers of color, women writers, etc.  This of course reflects historical reality, as can easily be seen if one compares (for example) the texts included in the Norton anthologies of literature from ca. 1970 to those of today.  What often happens is that a new canon of recognized works ends up replacing the old canon, which I suspect represents a system of publication rights, marketing strategies, etc.  I attach an essay I wrote that addresses some of the problems surrounding the concept of the canon.

a canon from the Arabic Qanoon which is probably persian of origin has the flavor of an edict coming from above or outside and is not subject to debate. A scientific law of nature قانون طبيعي is subject to debate and refutation. Science is safer

D. Katherine Griggs,

Writers reject canon is continual problem that I support your answer.

The problem is that we cannot regard an issue in a simple way. One can think and express simply only when one has comprehended the issue. Otherwise, discussion on a topic would lead us get us more confused.

The problem is that we cannot regard an issue in a simple way. One can think and express simply only when one has comprehended the issue. Otherwise, the discussion on a topic would get us more confused and lead us nowhere.

Alessandro Vescovi

I support your answer.Thanks a lot.

I like Katherine's phrase "useless scales of value rather than interest in the various concerns or interests of the work." This implies that the work itself has a purpose, the purpose that drove the author to write, though the postmodern mindset seems to insist that such purposes are "fallacies." Part of the canonization process has to do with cultural/political power structures including works whose purpose either supports or in some important way avoids critiquing the root assumptions of that power. This leads to dismissing the works of women and writers of color as "identity driven"--as if the spurious quality of "non-identity" (what Eliot called "impersonality") were a valid mark of good literature. Is a chair valuable only because of its Platonic "chairness"? Well, writers deserving a place in the always evolving canon had better bring their own chairs and make sure their names are firmly emblazoned on the toprails....

Hi, Nanette,

would add to this the fashion of including some representative writers from a country for which the dominant culture has some hidden agenda.  I am thinking of including dissident writers who challenge governments that the dominant culture does not like while at the same time the canon is not including writers who challenge social and political conditions in countries that the dominant culture finds congenial.  We saw a shift in the a number of stories from Central and Eastern Europe after 1990 in anthologies of world literature.

The region virtually disappeared from world literature anthologies, whereas we had more stories from eastern Europe during the Cold War.  Mostly writers who could be viewed as dissident or challenging.

Did the quality of those Eastern European fiction writers and their stories suddenly drop?

Was the quality of the those stories, in some cases, buoyed up because we needed the writers for instrumental reasons?  Was it possible to give any meaningful evaluation of stories that was untouched by Cold War instrumental uses of literature?  (A HUGE question.)

Was it fair to take away the Eastern European writers to include other parts of the world previous and unjustly not given enough presentation by cutting the more heavily into the Eastern European contemporary writers and stories? 

I thought that the balance in presenting between Central- and  Eastern Europe and W. Europe, the US, and British Commonwealth suddenly shifted far towards the latter: US and British Commonwealth and W. Europe after 1990.  This is in tandem to the shift away from the mania in the US for the films of the same region during the Cold War--foreign film festivals used to really hype the Eastern European films.  Now we barely hear from these formerly "extremely cinematically gifted" countries around Central and Eastern Europe.

A Hungarian-born colleague also noticed this shift and we were even trying to put together some supplement to the standard "world anthologies."

My point is that these shifts may not be consciously happening, but they are devastating to those countries now going invisible.  I don't know if anyone wishes to make a study of these questions.  The  canon is involved.

Gloria Lee McMillan madam,

Your answer is adequate & lead to my Research in right track. Thanks a lot.

Thanks, Kiran!  I am glad you found the answer of some use.

Respectfully,

Gloria