Literary studies in almost all parts of
the world involve a system of valuation of literary texts and authors.
Consequently, some texts and authors are canonised and established as
"standards" in every literature on suppression of rest of
"non-standard" texts.
Traditionally, some qualities like test of time, aesthetic standard and
representation of real life are regarded as benchmarks of value judgement of
literary texts and authors. Nevertheless, such systems of judgements are most
of the times suspected to be false as they apparently exclude many of texts
with different qualities and they base the judgements upon few select critics.
Due to exclusion of many texts and authors as decided by few critics, value
judgements in literature are under the questions of accuracy and credibility.
Not the mass of general readers, but
some established institutional authorities determine standard of literatures.
These authorities are most of the times institutions of knowledge like
universities and academies. Few academicians dominate the judgement process. As
human beings with subjective perspectives, their valuation is based on their
impressions of and attitude toward the texts. They evaluate the texts based on
how they feel about them and what they consider to be determiner of value in
literature. Explaining ideas of the British philosopher David Hume, Waugh
writes, "…any interpretation will already involve a projection of my
implicit assumptions about the value of literature per se, and therefore about the value of the particular text I have
before me" (74). Thus, judging the value of any text is subjective as the
critic projects his/her perception of values into that text. As subjective
human judgements, thus, literary valuations can be questioned from the
perspectives other than one employed.
Canonisation is often a reflection of
political ideologies. Many of the Marxist critics have, thus, criticised
standards of literature as they represent value systems of established
political classes. For a Marxist critic Terry Eagleton, the canon is an
instrument of institutionalised social political power and the belief that some
autonomous aesthetic values exist in literature is an ideological construct
(Waugh 71). Eagleton's claim is confirmed by changes seen in definition of
canons through various periods of history. As soon as the governing system
changes in a country, the definition of literary canon also automatically
changes there. It is because the larger political system defines what is
valuable and what is not.
Many recent schools of criticism
including Marxism, feminism, post-colonialism and Afro-American criticism give
a backlash against canonisation. Paul Lauter, a professor of literature at
Trinity College writes, "The literary canon as we have known it is a
product in significant measure of our training in male, white, bourgeois
cultural tradition" (qtd. in Green and LeBihan 274). Feminist, Marxists and post-colonialists
argue that a canon is defined as a set of literatures that conform to
ideologies of ruling social groups including patriarchy, bourgeoisie class and
Eurocentic people. Thus, a canon cannot represent real and objective value
judgements acceptable for all as they say.
But ironically, those theories that
attack canonisation – including Marxism, Afro-American criticism and feminism –
have themselves built Marxist, Afro-American and feminist canons; that further
proves that canonisation is highly political. To counter established canon –
that is believed to be defined by patriarchal European white ruling class – such
theories have promoted counter-canons based on shared identities. And, for
them, such canons are weapons to battle against establishments that exclude
them. For a literature to be a canon for Africa, for example, "an African
sensibility is to be admitted" (Ojaide 3). Ojaide further explains that
such a canon "aims at countering the Western image of Africa in cultural
and socio-political perspectives" (11). So, African canon also includes
what an American or European canon rejects. The same quote from Ojaide also
means that all writings by Africans cannot be included in an African canon –
they need to have aimed at "countering the Western image". Thus, it
is not impossible that an African canon excludes many literatures within Africa
itself that many not support this countering mission. Thus, counter canon is at
the same time against canon and much more like a new canon, which is as
exclusive and discriminatory as what it tries to attack.
It can be argued that literatures indeed
have aesthetic qualities that make them canons. One of such qualities can be the
test of time. But this quality itself is not sufficient for establishing the value
of any text because it is debatable that whether test of time gives value or
vice versa. Waugh writes, "This text is valuable because it has passed the
test of time, but it has passed the test of time because it is valuable"
(75). This circularity for her is never escapable. The same circularity is
applicable in relationship between "significance of form" and
"greatness of art" as Clive Bell has discussed (Waugh 75). Thus
claiming test of time or significance of form as the sole bases for value
judgement is falsified.
There have been excessive debates on
authenticity, accuracy and credibility of value judgements in literatures for
the last many decades. The influential critic FR Leavis viewed that there must
be some definitive aesthetic values in literatures in a utilitarian and
technologically driven age. For him, critics need to define and establish those
values. But, several other critics including Northrop Frye and AJ Ayer state
that value based judgements ruin a true significance and value of literature.
Thus, they should be evaluated not with value based judgements, but with its
own systematic methodology (Waugh 75-76). Frye writes, that the ground should be cleared
of "all the literary chit-chat which makes the reputations of poets boom
and crash in an imaginary stock-exchange" (qtd. in Waugh 76). This
never-ending debate in history itself is evident that value judgement is always
under a big question in the arena of literary studies.
The value of value judgement has been
more problematic in the age of postmodernism where significance of every value
in every sector is questioned. Postmodernism believes that there is no any
objective value thus trying to define aesthetic qualities of literature itself
is problematic. Thus, contemporary debates on canonicity of literatures have
shifted their focus from aesthetics per
se to identity politics of various social groups (Waugh 80). In the same
line, the Israeli polysystem theorist Itamar Even-Zohar has claimed, "Canonicity is no inherent feature of textual
activities on any level: it has
nothing to do with value judgements and is no euphemism for 'good' versus 'bad' literature" (qtd. in Zepetnek
96-97). As the time is moving toward uncertainty of values, literary canonicity
has been questioned from many more perspectives.
The debate that whether values are
determined by objective aesthetic qualities or subjective political authorities
is perhaps a never ending one because some critics try to present subjective
judgements as objective evaluations based on intrinsic qualities of the text.
Nevertheless, the history of value judgements has already proved that evaluation
of literary texts cannot be independent of sociopolitical contexts and academic
authorities. Rather sociopolitical contexts and academic authorities that
completely depend on subjective judgements are what govern canonisation.
Awareness of this operation always leads to questions against validity of
valuations. Evaluation and canonisation of literary texts are, thus, always
under such question marks that no one can easily erase off.
Work Cited
Green,
Keith and Jill LeBihan. Critical Theory
and Practice: A Coursebook. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Ojaide,
Tanure. "Examining Canonisation in
Modern African Literature". Asiatic 3.1 (2009): 1-20.
Waugh,
Patricia. "Value: Criticism, Canons and Evaluation". An Oxford Guide: Literary Theory and
Criticism. Ed. Patricia Waugh. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. 70-81.
Zepetnek,
Steven Tötösy de. "Canonization and Translation in Canada: A Case
Study". Erudit 1.1 (1988): 93-102.
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