Customer Reviews

Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation

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For any scholar working in the fields of literary history or 'philology', Guillory's 'Cultural Capital' should be a mandatory reference source. Brilliantly assembling the diverse concerns of multi-culturalism, aesthetic theory, post-Marxism and canon formation, Guillory manages to offer a work of impressive relevance and scope.

The principle objective of Guillory's project, as he himself asserts, is to revise the popular misconceptions about canon formation:

'The largest thesis of the book is that the debate about the canon has been misconceived from the start, and that its true significance is one of which the contestants are not generally aware. The most interesting question raised by the debate is not the familiar one of which texts or authors will be included in the literary canon, but the question of why the debate represents a crisis in literary study.' (Guillory: 1993:vii)

Dealing with the canon debate particularly as it concerns Anglo-American pedagogical institutions (his close readings, for example, treat Milton, Gray, Wordsworth and Eliot), Guillory nonetheless also offers a wide-ranging international theoretical buttress to his argument (Bourdieu, Gramsci, Bahktin, Jauss inter alia are cited and analysed with astounding precision and insight).

I would unreservedly recommend this book to anyone interested in the current multi-cultural/feminist/minority debates regarding the canon. Guillory's style is complex, muscular and brilliant. This book will not disappoint the most exigent connoisseurs of literary and cultural theory.

This is a thoughtful and fascinating book on a very important subject: the construction of literary canons. While Guillory is not politically conservative (he shows some contempt for the explicitly conservative, like Secretary Bennett and criticizes harshly the putatively conservative arguments of a traditional liberal like E. D. Hirsch) he confronts some of the shibboleths of the academic left and politely shreds them. Literary canons are not formed by conservative, hegemonic white males to deny a voice to the culturally marginalized, for example. His alternative explanation, in brief, is this: canons require `evaluation'; the `site' of such evaluations is the `school'. The nature of the evaluation is based on the social functions and institutional aims of the school. Canonical texts are therefore those works that form the cultural capital distributed by the schools. Thus, works serve the school's social function of regulating access to these forms of capital.

Since the top schools distribute the `top' cultural capital, differentiation between schools (private/public, academic/vocational, and so on) sustains the differentiations within society. The dominant have their schools (and their canons), the dominated theirs. He argues instead for a unitary curriculum (delicately following Gramsci). Without a unitary curriculum you get different curricula for different groups. This produces the same social stratification as different schools for different social classes.

Thus, he admits that "it is no longer politically strategic to argue for the necessity of teaching certain `noncanonical' works solely on the grounds that these works represent social minorities." Instead, he argues, we should now consider women's studies, black studies, etc. `research programs' and not as special curricula for separate constituencies. Following that principle would, of course, result in the dissolution of such departments or separate units, since those with an interest in pursuing such a research program could do so within the departments that preceded the separate units. Indeed, it is already the case that individuals within a multiplicity of such departments (sometimes joint-appointed to the separate unit, sometimes not) already pursue active research programs in these various areas. Having separate curricula for `separate groups' (following Guillory and Gramsci) risks the dissemination of different levels of cultural capital and continuing the differentiation between minority cultures and dominant ones rather than moving beyond those differentiations.

Despite the highly flammable subject matter, this is not an edict from the battlements. It is a very, very abstract arguing of the case and (unlike Hirsch's work, e.g.) it will be largely inaccessible to most readers below the graduate-seminar level. While Guillory's erudition is impressive and his range of reference extremely broad, the writing remains extremely abstract and theoretical. The points are argued in very dense prose and vivid examples to elucidate those points are few and far between. It is almost as if it gives pain to the author to descend to a less abstract level. While the book rewards the effort it is unfortunate that it could not have been written for a wider audience, given the importance of the subject and the acuity of the arguments.

While the issues here are of immense importance to the literary humanities, the writing is far more philosophic than literary and a key source of inspiration for the author is the sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu. This is not, however, the sociology of the chart, graph, statistic and regression and there is more than a little theoryspeak. For the undaunted, this is a very important book.

The Literary Canon has been more flexible than 'Canon' in the religious sense ever could have been or could be. I think it's a case of bad conceptual metaphor. Let's bring Lakoff and Johnson out of the bullpen.
As a contribution to Canon Formation bookchat, this book is a solid work of scholarship. Yet of course the real cannon fodder in the Canon Formation discursive grapplings (the equivalent of the non-academic, or 'real', world's Ultimate Fighting Championships, only the popularity of the Academy's version leads to far too much influence on the Academy in general) is the readings and discussions of Canonical literature. The other problem is that glib jerks like myself can claim moral authority despite a penchant for horrible puns (cannon/canon) simply by admonishing those who spend seemingly too much time on Canon Formation frolics.
Regarding the multicultural and cultural studies relationships to Canon Formation politics, I respond with some trepidation to Gillory's admirable ideas. Sure, a more nuanced understanding of Canon Formation makes multicultural expansion within the Canon, as well as an expansion of literature's perimeters within the Canon, that much easier and that much more easily defended against the Neocon menace. I also accept the role of judgement, though it says a lot that that had to be brought back to the fore--were we just determining germane discourses and texts through some sort of Super Lotto Big Spin System for a few years there? But to what degree do I follow someone who, I don't think, has the judgement tools to recognize the literary energies of the first Wu-Tang Clan album; the album Liquid Swords by Wu-Tang leader Genius/Gza; the work of Del Tha Funkee Homosapien (rap's Dylan and Whitman at once) on the Deltron 3030 album; everything produced by Prince Paul and Dan the Automator and every record involving Michael Franti, Lady of Rage and Roxanne Shante; Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska and Darkness On the Edge of Town; anything recorded, admired, or smiled at by John Coltrane, Lester Young and Eric Dolphy; any recorded lamentation by Robert Johnson, Son House and Skip James; the Poetry of Eleanor Lehrman, Thylias Moss and Elizabeth Woody; or the fiction of Katherine Dunn and Kate Braverman? Couldn't the fan of any of the above immediately recognize the literary superiority of said work over [enter your least favorite Elizabeth Bishop manque, T.S. Eliot manque, or Robert Lowell manque here]? If Guillory ain't hip to Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cannon, I'm walking, 'cause the reason we shant despair isn't because we might contribute to the Canon Debate, or earn or burn a draft card to the culture wars, but because, if there's a hell below, we're all gonna go. And if I can be aware of the above names AND make a Ricky Nelson reference, then I'm not sure that I need this book as a sort of Fodor's Guide to "The Canon and The Culture". (P.S. If you get the review title, start YOUR book on American Lit. canons. We'll meet up on the backstreets of Medina.)