Canonization and "the Canon"

While doing some research on Virginia Woolf for the dissertation recently, I ran across the following quote. It comes from Plain and Ordinary Things: Reading Women in the Writing Classroom by Deborah Anne Dooley. Discussing Welty's story "A Worn Path," Dooley writes, "In her rewriting of the Christian myth, Welty's heroine sings a story that no nation will make its epic, no literary high priest will canonize" (Dooley 90). What struck me was the final phrase: "no literary high priest will canonize." For all the discussion in English departments about the "canon," in spite of the fact that I am familiar with the concept of canonization of saints, I had never considered the relationship between the two words. How did this slip the notice of those who have sought to do away with the canon and combat the forces of patriarchy in the academy?

I confess to being rather attached to the more-or-less traditional canon, supplemented by those works of demonstrable worth, or at least moderate compelling content, that have been rediscovered by valiant scholars on their way to tenure (the "valiant" is meant to be only slightly tongue-in-cheek, as I respect any sincere efforts to promote a favored or admired text). After all, can one study the English Romantics without discussing Blake, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats? Perhaps. But the definition of "Romanticism" (in English) would be severely lacking without reference to these names. Start with Germany, and the situation is quite different. Romanticism is an international movement, so it is a fitting example. Only once you have established the context that others were working in reference to--or against--is it possible to understand the excluded or the dissenters. So much for my reason for wanting to uphold the traditional canon. I should also mention that many who talk about getting rid of the canon merely mean the supplementing of a new set of texts for the old--not dissolving the canon, but overthrowing it. The canon is in a constant state of flux, incidently. Not an English major I know has had to read Hemmingway for decades, and D. H. Lawrence and E. M. Forster are similarly scarce.

However, in the discussions of "the canon" or the "literary canon," which are less about what to value than what to teach, no one has mentioned the root of the word--or the word of which "canon" is the root.

From WordNet, "canon" refers to

• a rule or especially body of rules or principles generally established as valid and fundamental in a field or art or philosophy; "the neoclassical canon"; "canons of polite society"
• a priest who is a member of a cathedral chapter
• canyon: a ravine formed by a river in an area with little rainfall
• a contrapuntal piece of music in which a melody in one part is imitated exactly in other parts
• a complete list of saints that have been recognized by the Roman Catholic Church
• a collection of books accepted as holy scripture especially the books of the Bible recognized by any Christian church as genuine and inspired

So, in our secular academics, we adopt this religiously charged term. Our canon is our collection of sacred texts. When we hold authors up as "courseworthy," we are granting them sainthood. They are our aid to worship, our models for the holy literary life, those who demonstrate the fullness of grace, those who occupy the blessed realm--which further begs the question, is the classroom really the blessed realm for academics?

But before I have too much fun with this, let me mention a short story by E. M. Forster, "The Celestial Omnibus" (PDF available here). In this story, a boy takes an omnibus "to heaven," which is populated by various literary figures. He gets along well with all of them, preferring the "homey" figures to the more exalted, like Dante. When he brings an unbelieving literary friend to the heaven, he is scolded for his bad taste. The boy triumphs while the literary "snob" falls. With all of the things Forster does in this story, he also manages to tap into the real implication of the literary "canon." Brilliant!