The Canon

“The creator of Sir John Falstaff, of Hamlet, and of Rosalind also makes me wish I could be more myself. But that, as I argue throughout this book, is why we should read, and why we should read only the best of what has been written.” -Harold Bloom

As a student of English as well as an avid reader the issue of canon becomes very conflicted for me. This always seems to come up for me, at least internally, whenever I talk to...well, anyone outside of the academy about books. I can't remember how many times I've been talking to someone about some abstract idea and it comes up in the course of the conversation that a book they had read had been particularly insightful on the topic. The subsequent conversation goes something like this:
-Have you ever read [book] by [author]?
-No I haven't heard of it.
-Oh, you gotta read it. [author] talks all about [subject in context]. Its a great book. You would like it...

At this point in the conversation I have two options; 1) take the high road and tell the person that I will definitely look it up. I don't like being insincere but I don't want to burst their bubble since the topic is clearly exciting to them. 2) If I have the time and the listening ear of my audience I expound my philosophy on selecting books as outlined at length here:

When I was very young my grandmother set aside a set of old paperbacks for me that she had bought years before for my mother. The set fit perfectly inside of a plastic case, each book fitting evenly next to the other to form a complete collection. The set consisted of childhood classics like Black Beauty and Treasure Island, a set undoubtedly designed to introduce a young audience to what is termed generally 'Classic Literature.' I think one of the important aspects of this set (sadly lost, now) was that its construction attempted to collect the essential representatives of literature in one compact space, building, to me, an odd hierarchy of literature, as if there were a certain number of important books that one must read in order to be considered 'well-read.'

To a certain extent I will agree that there are certain books that are unanimously part of what we now call The Canon; we can't imagine American Literature without Mark Twain and we can't conceive of British Literature without Shakespeare. But it is 'everything else' that becomes difficult to define. My bookshelf represents one person's attempt at defining this thing called 'Canon' but it is something different to everyone. The same attempt is made by numerous book publishers, as can easily be seen in some of the supposedly 'complete' collections printed by Everyman's Library, Penguin Classics, and The Modern Library. New critical modes have even further eroded this concept of Canon with theories like New Historicism placing the legal records of an English burgh on par with The Second Shepherd's Play as literary artifacts. As a result we, as readers, have to learn to lower our noses when a supposedly non-literary person suggests a book since, who knows? It may just be important.

That said: If I will return to Harold Bloom's suggestion above that we should only read the best of what is written, I am forced to admit that literary texts do tend to form a sort of hierarchy and be it a result of Westernization or academic preference Shakespeare is on top and Marlowe will forever be in his shadow; Fenimore Cooper simply cannot live up to Twain's brand of Americana. Whenever I am placed in the awkward situation above I am subsequently forced to admit two things: the first silently, that I am very aware where the book being suggested is on the literary totem-pole, and the second out-loud, that with my particularly long list of books to read (many more of which are on Bloom's list merely as a factor of my chosen profession) I highly doubt that I'll ever have a moment to read a book about a drug-addict's recovery or the history of a 60's folk musician hangout (apologies to Taylor and John).