Debating the literary canon

**_Please note that the print issue featuring this article is mistaken and the arguments presented below are attributed correctly_**

FOR – Az Butterfield
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It’s trendy to not like the literary canon, isn’t it? It makes you feel like you subvert the mainstream, doesn’t it? Yes, I’m talking to you, you wang, sitting there in your ironic glasses with no actual glass in them and your cable knit sweater with a picture of Donald Duck on it.

Just like pop music, clothes that fit and proper attention to personal hygiene, the literary canon is widely dismissed by those more concerned with being alternative than they are reasoned argument.

Of course, this now means that others flock to proclaim their disinterest in canon fiction in an attempt to be as cool as people who spend upwards of six hours a day on the internet looking at pictures of cats. You’re wrong. You’re wrong about the cats, and you’re wrong about the canon. Here’s why.

The literary canon is an unbelievably useful tool for deciding what texts to waste our time on. There are a lot of books out there. If I had to guess, I’d say that in the five or six hundred years alone there have been literally hundreds of books written in the English language. HUNDREDS. Do you want to read them all? Me neither, and the canon is a useful way of determining what’s actually worth perusing.

With all the crap that gets published and somehow manages to top the best-seller’s list, the world of fiction can be difficult to navigate; allow the canon to be your map and your compass – supervising you across the sea of fetid human excrement that is The Twilight Saga and anything ever ‘written by’ Katie Price. When you read something generally agreed to be a part of the canon, you’re more or less assured that, regardless of whether you personally agree with or even like what you read, you’ll get something out of it.

Whether that’s a sense of enjoyment, escapism or fury, these are books so powerful that one-way or another they’ll elicit some reaction in you. You may very well dislike Pope’s ‘Rape of the Lock’, but you’re at least likely to expand your intellect from spending time persevering through it. Patronising? A little, but I’m still right.

Problems arise with the canon when people view it as a rule to live, breathe and read by, rather than a guide to what other people (all of whom are a great deal more intelligent than you, it wouldn’t go amiss to remember) think is worth your time, money and Kindle battery.

If we over-extend the navigation metaphor, you might say that, if a compass was to lead you straight across a swamp 3ft deep and 3ft wide, you wouldn’t wade directly through mud and cow crap to get to the other side. Use your discretion; you’re a reasonably high functioning adult (I hope) – if you don’t like romantic poetry, don’t read romantic poetry. Allow the canon to help you explore the type of literature you already know you enjoy – don’t sit there like a cretin and read everything someone once called a ‘good book’.

Oh, and definitely don’t read The Good Book for anything other than literary perspective. Seriously, the Born Agains will get you, they’re worse than the Scientologists and that cult with the red string that Madonna goes on about.

What’s the best thing about the canon, though? It inspires debate. Yes, there’s some literature that we all agree is pretty great, but equally there are some things that people heatedly disagree about, and ultimately isn’t that what’s great about fiction? “Is Iago consummately evil?” “Which Brontë sister was really the best?” … No? Is it just about masturbating to the idea of Ryan Gosling playing Christian Grey in the movie?

Whatever, you’re as bad as the hipsters. and their cats, I’m done here.

AGAINST – Anuja Batra
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Who are you to tell me whether the book I’m reading is good or not? I probably already come across as an angsty teen trying to be edgy as I begin my campaign for human rights and try to change the world etc. etc. but I should stress that I’m (hopefully) not a disgraceful human being. Nor am I an exasperated student who thinks I’m the cleverest person alive and that all the waste spewing from my mouth is gospel because I passed my A-levels and got into a good university.

Realistically, it’s time to investigate the ‘literary tradition’; not because I’m an arsehole, but because its problems may have unwittingly affected the majority of us.

Literary tradition is essentially a judgement on the standard of a piece of literature. To enter this, as writers like Chaucer, Milton and Shakespeare have done, suggests that they command an elevated status and automatic respect for their work. Belonging to this tradition could be seen as a guarantee of the production of high quality literature and so the work will definitely be enjoyed or studied. Here’s the problem: failing to enjoy something within this tradition reflects negatively upon us the readers, rather than the work. If you think something in the canon is rubbish, it seems you lack good taste and a solid understanding of literature…which is ridiculous, right? The narrowness of the frame in which these works enter literary tradition seems to glorify a text, giving it unparalleled splendour and uniqueness.

Let’s be real here. Who is to decide the ‘standard’ of a piece of literature other than the individual reader? Whether a work enters a literary tradition should surely be a subjective decision rather than one made by people considered to be popular, intelligent or with widely regarded opinions. Frankly, that’s just unfair as many are persuaded by consensus that a work is widely read and therefore great. Not cool.

Literary fashions also change. What people regard as a great text in one era may not be the same in another, as time, politics and society distil and distort opinions. Regardless of the popularity of a piece of work, what’s ‘in’ for the literary community often changes. For example, naturalism was increasingly popular during the 1950s and ‘60s, with playwrights such as Bond and Osbourne at the forefront of popular production.

While that was common during that time, different genres are fashionable today, precluding any consideration of a previous popular genre in a modern literary tradition. Perhaps we ought to question if the literary canon is representative of everyone.

Creation of a literary tradition has also aroused much political thought in general. The canon has caused large opposition from modern day writers, those from another culture, and many females because it predominantly consists of dead white male writers.

As a living Asian 18-year-old femme, I excel at being the antithesis of everything the canon loves. Well done, me? Oh wait, no. The tradition may not serve the vast majority of people as it is biased in the favour of men, excluding great female writers and post 1900s authors such as Ian McEwan, Benjamin Zephaniah and Harold Pinter to casually name drop and show off about my knowledge (which ends here, don’t worry.)

Perhaps we must ask whether women, working-class people or writers greatly esteemed in other countries can be added to this literary tradition and whether its conception would be altered as a result.

If it doesn’t serve the interests of the vast majority and could create marginalism, what is its use? End of story.