Literary “Quality” and “Permanence” (a.k.a. the literary “canon”)

"Canon" -- The American Heritage College Dictionary (3rd ed.)

• (2) A secular law, rule, or code of law.
• (3a) An established principle.
• (3b) A basis for judgment; a standard or criterion.

"Canon" -- Encarta World English Dictionary

• (1) A general rule, principle, or standard.
• (6) A set of artistic works established as genuine and complete . . .

"Canon" -- A Handbook to Literature (9th ed.)

In a figurative sense, a standard of judgment; a criterion.  Canon is applied to the authorized or accepted list of books belonging in the Christian Bible by virtue of having been declared to be divinely inspired.  Apocryphal books are uncanonical.  A similar use of the term is illustrated in the phrase “the Saints’ Canon,” the list of saints actually authorized or “canonized” by the Church.  The term is often extended to mean the accepted list of books by any author, such as Shakespeare.  Thus, Macbeth belongs without doubt in the canon of Shakespeare’s work, whereas Sir John Oldcastle, though printed as Shakespeare’s soon after his death, is not canonical, because the evidence of Shakespeare’s authorship is unconvincing.

More recently, the idea of a general literary canon has received attention from a critical viewpoint, and the process of canon-formation has been interpreted as the work of one part of society to make its own labors central and to reduce the work of others to marginal or trivial status outside the canon.  For instance, the “traditional” romantic canon (Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelly, Keats) excludes the many publishing women writers of the age.  The canon controversy has been one of the most formative influences on the study of literature in the second half of the twentieth century.

References:

• Leslie Fiedler and Houston Baker, eds. English Literature: Opening Up the Canon: Selected Papers from the English Institute (1981).
• Elaine Showalter, ed. The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory (1985).
• Harold Bloom. The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages (1994).

Abraham Cahan -- Discussion Questions:

1.) How does Cahan compare to the other writers we've read so far, all of whom might be considered to be more “canonical writers”?

2.) Is Cahan’s story remarkable, at all, in any way, for its characters, plot (including the ending), setting, narration (point of view), theme(s), symbols, etc.?

3.) Is Cahan’s story remarkable, at all, for its diction (vocabulary), syntax, tone, style, etc.?

4.) Should Cahan’s story be “added to the canon,” as its inclusion in the NAAL seems to suggest? Why or why not?

5.) Other questions? Other comments? Other opinions?