Critical Theory and the Literary Canon

by Kolbas,E. Dean

• ISBN13: 9780813398136
• ISBN10: 0813398134
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2001-04-13
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Kolbas stakes out new territory in assessing the war over literary canon formation, a subject that contemporary polemicists have devoted much ink to. Throughout this succinct manuscript, Kolbas ranges through the sociology and politics of culture, aesthetic theory, and literary theory to develop his point that texts not only must should be situated in the historical and material conditions of their production, but also evaluated for their very real aesthetic content. One reason the is an important issue, Kolbas contends, is that the canon is not simply enclosed in the ivory tower of academia; its effects are apparent in a much wider field of cultural production and use. He begins by critiquing the conservative humanist and liberal pluralist positions on the canon, which either assiduously avoid any sociological explanation of the canon or treat texts as stand-ins for particular ideologies. Kolbas is sympathetic to the arguments of Bourdieu et. al. regarding positioning the canon in a wider "field of cultural production" than the university, but argues that theirs are purely sociological explanations of aesthetics (i.e., there is no objective aesthetic content) that ignore art's autonomous realm, which he argues -- a la Adorno -- exists (if only problematically). Ultimately, he argues that critical theory, particularly the arguments of Adorno on aesthetics, offers the most fruitful path for evaluating the canon, despite the approach's clear flaws. His vision is a sociological one, but one that treats the components of the canon as possessing objective aesthetic content, albeit content that shifts in meaning over history.

Author Biography

E. Dean Kolbas received his doctorate from Cambridge University. He now lives and writes in the Boston area.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	1	(10)
Part One History, Politics, and Culture
Canons Ancient and Modern	11	(14)
Antiquity and the Middle Ages	12	(5)
Modern Literary Canonizing	17	(4)
Canonical and Cultural Crises	21	(4)
The Contemporary Canon Debate	25	(34)
Justifying the Western Canon	26	(10)
Opening the Canon	36	(8)
Representation and Pragmatism	44	(12)
Conclusion: Ideological Proximity	56	(3)
Cultural Reproduction	59	(24)
The Familiarity of Canonical Works	61	(11)
Canon Formation and Social Relations	72	(7)
Whither Aesthetics?	79	(4)
Part Two Critical Aesthetic Theory
Critical Theory and Canonical Art	83	(20)
Aesthetic Autonomy and Radical Critique	84	(8)
The Dialectic of Aesthetics and Politics	92	(6)
Historical Content and Canonical Change	98	(5)
Subverting the Canon: Sociology, New Historicism, and Cultural Studies	103	(22)
The Anti-Aesthetic Impulse of the Sociology of Art	104	(9)
New Historicism and Aesthetic Heteronomy	113	(6)
The Extorted Reconciliation of Cultural Studies	119	(6)
The Boundaries of a Critical Theory of Canon Formation	125	(14)
Limited Literary Horizons?	126	(7)
Canonical Reproduction and the Limits of Critical Theory	133	(6)
Conclusion: A Canon of Art, a Politics of Ends	139	(6)
Notes	145	(22)
References	167	(12)
Index	179