Jonathan Kramnick. Making the English Canon:
Print Capitalism and the Cultural
Past, 1700-1770.
Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1998.
Summary by Sarah K. Wilson
Introduction:
the modernity of the past
Kramnick
claims that the canon came into existence in the middle of the 18th
century. He is referring to the
literary canon in terms of a set of classic, acclaimed texts; he is not
discussing the evolution of the canon in schools. He claims that there were many social reasons (particulatly
the issue of “print capitalism”) which precipitated canonization
and expresses his intentions to develop these theories: “The commerce in
books did not just foster discussion of matters of taste; it led also to a mordant
concern about the dissemination of literary goods. The opening of culture for a nation of consumers joined with
the seclusion of older works in a clerisy of experts. These developments were, I argue, importantly modern and set
the terms for literary study as we know it” (Kramnick 6). He makes clear his position on the
literary canon: “By treating the English canon less as a timeless
achievement of a lithesome antiquity than as a symbolic product of the modern
age, this book does take an implicit stand in the canon debate, such as it
still preoccupies the academy today” (9).
Chapter 1:
The structural transformation of literary history
Before the mid-18th-century, literature was evaluated by modern standards. It was chosen by its modernity. This was based on the dominant thought
that literature was steadily progressing in quality with time (15). But around mid century, this idea shifted
to one of quite the opposite -- one that venerated ancient texts over modern
ones and that evaluated modern literature based on classic standards.
Kramnick claims that this shift was brought about by the commerce of
literature which boomed in the 18th century.
Addison and Steele’s Spectator is an example of literary
magazine which brought avant garde art to a public level and opened the scope
of literature and refined the public’s taste (22). In order to make
texts truly marketable on a large scale, the text must be easily understood
by the general public. This started
a distinction between popular literature and “art” (28).
It ushered in the thinking that Bourdieu discusses which holds that
the value of art is “inversely proportional to exchange value”
(34). With this, then, critics started to think
of modern literature as popular literature and look to old texts for good
literature which precipitates the canon.
Mirroring the change of literary philosophy is the change in the word
“literature” itself (45).
Once an inclusive term for “’good books’” now
means “’imagination’” which elevated poetry to the
top of imaginative literature.
Chapter 2:
The mode of consecration: between aesthetics and historicism
Critics like Shaftesbury promoted disinterested aesthetics as the means
by which works should be evaluated; this necessarily decreases the importance
of the author (59). Addison’s
Spectator was meant to assume the spectator, disinterested role, further
promoting this type of literary evaluation (60).
Critics like Shaftesbury believed that recognizing aesthetics was a
sign of taste (65). Critics Cooper
and Kames follow Shaftesbury; Kames believes taste is judged by “’common
nature,’” by universal standards of evaluation (82).
With
new attention to ancient texts (as discussed in chapter 1), it was acknowledged
that special training was necessary to understand these texts and literary
historicism became an important part of criticism (85). In mid century also (sparked by
Theobald’s and Upton’s editions of Shakespeare), English texts came
to receive the same treatment as ancient texts by historicists which led
largely to canonization (91). Theobald’s
and Upton’s works were particularly significant because they explicitely
refrained from “fixing” the texts as others before them had done
(92).
Together,
then, the rise of aestheticism and historicism in the middle of the 18th
century set the stage for canonization (104).
Chapter 3:
Novel to lyric: Shakespeare in the field of culture, 1752-1754
William Dodd’s book The Beauties of Shakespeare marks
the rise of the belief in Shakespeare as
“the national poet” (107). Dodd claims that Shakespeare is great because he is beautiful,
imaginative, and sublime (108). With this publication, “Shakespeare becomes synonomous
with literature” itself (113).
Dodd elevates Shakespeare’s literary qualities; at the same time,
Shakespeare is commercially profitable, further confirming his place in the
literary canon of the time (115).
Charlotte
Lennox created a translation of Shakespeare entitled Shakespeare Illustrated
that explored the plays and the novels which inspired them (116). Lennox esteemed the novels more than the
plays based on the paradigm that fiction should develop an “efficient
unfolding of the narrative and the believable delineation of character”
which, in her view, the novels achieved more effectively (116-17). This created an awkward situation for
literary critics who deeply admired Shakespeare. The result: “Saving Shakespeare and the national canon
requires demoting the novel on the very terms of Lennox’s
criticism” (126).
The
same year that Lennox’s edition was published, Samuel Johnson asked
Joseph Warton to write essays on Shakespeare (129). In his essays, Warton elevates Shakespeare’s use of
“Fancy” -- which in turn created a respect for modern poets of
fancy, including Warton himself (131).
Warton further admires the poetry of Shakespeare and denounces its
overuse in public conversation. In
doing so, he “defines the social mission of the canon” as a means
of providing cultural capital (136).
Chapter 4:
The cultural logic of late feudalism: or, Spenser and the romance of
scholarship, 1754-1762.
With value now on the writers of the past and with criticism a popular
field (as discussed in Chapter 1), Spenser gained popularity in the middle
of the 18th century (138). His
archaic language provided material for critics and his age provided value
to the work as a “classic” (138).
Warton led this move to elevate Spenser. He evaluated Spenser in terms of the era in which he lived
and not in terms of criteria used to evaluate ancient or modern writers (145-46).
Thus, Spenser earned greatness as a writer of romances, the popular
genre of the pre-modern era (189).
William
Huggins, however, took a stand against Warton’s critical techniques,
particularly Warton’s value of the past (154, 161). Another critic, John Upton, followed
claiming Spenser was a good writer even on classical terms. According to Upton, The Faerie Queen
was in fact an epic and thus Spenser should be categorized as a great poet
(164).
Critic
Richard Hurd looked at Spencer again in his 1762 publication Letters on
Chivalry and Romance (168). In
his estimation, Spenser was a great poet because of his “feudal
consciousness” and his use of the sublime (179). He makes the distinction that The
Faerie Queen was not a novel and argues that prose work is not worthy of
canonization where poetry is (186).
The
work of these four critics secured Spenser’s canonical value and provide
an intersting mirror to devlopments in 18th century criticism.
Chapter 5:
Shakespeare’s nation: the literary profession and the “shades of
ages”
Samuel
Johnson was an influential critic of the 18th century. He believed that nostalgia, the
sublime, and the obscure were not plausible criteria for determining the canon
(197). Instead, Johnson said that
criteria should be poetry’s ability to speak to many people in many
locations, to speak generally and not individually and thus to last through
time (198-99). If a canon ranks
literature by this criteria, there is necessarily a gap between publication and
canonization (202). Also, if a
canon ranks literature by this criteria, Shakespeare is again elevated to the
top because “Shakespeare is the icon of a national community moving
across the arch of historical time.
We are allied in the pleasure we share in reading Shakespeare, and, of
equal importance, we are like past ages of readers who are also like us. The symmetrical coupling of taste
provides Shakespeare’s canonical value” (207). Judging a work on longevity, however,
assumes that there is a universal, “human,” idea of good literature
which creates a sense of nationalism (208) and which puts the public (by buying
certain works and not others) in control of the canon (210).
Critic
William Kenrick criticized Shakespeare and asserted that the public should not
determine the canon (210, 212).
Kenrick said Johnson was wrong in his estimation of Shakespeare’s
greatness because the latter used morality as a criteria of canonization;
Kenrick argues morality should be kept separate from literary evaluation (212).
Elizabeth Montagu wrote an essay defending Shakespeare as a greater author than the French writers or the ancient ones (227). This further promoted the idea that modern poetry is not as valuable as past works (227). Montagu’s essay is important for another reason as well. She writes of not the historic and the aesthetic, but of the human and the national superstition (234). This change reflects a change in criticism and therefore a change in consecration (and a nice point for Kramnick to end his analysis) (235).