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Lecture 4: Poetry and the English Canon
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Lecture 4: Poetry and the English Canon (2021W2)
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ENGL 153February 1st
Lecture 4: Poetry and the English Canon
Required readings: The Description of Cooke-Ham, The Collar, Open the Brutal, Ars Poetica
The English Canon
● The social process by which an author or a literary work comes to be widely although
tacitly recognized as canonical has come to be called ‘canon formation’ (Abrams)
● What is it that makes a text relevant across centuries? Why do we still read Shakespeare?
○ Themes! Themes concerning equality, divinity, religion, the environment and
genders and social problems that are timeless matter for centuries after they’re
published, and they retain their value for that reason.
○ The frequent reference to an author or text can keep something relevant
○ Certain texts are considered to be indispensable to understanding English
Literature. They continue to be relevant to discuss because they are important and
foundational texts for future authors or societies, or their inside intricacies or what
they have to say about the human condition
○ The Canon is an assembly of texts that are assigned significant literary value by
those that study and research English Literature
■ We can think about the Canon as the story of English Literature
The Old English or Anglo-Saxon Period
● Spans from c. 450 to 1066
● This period is marked primarily by oral storytelling, which was copied down in a series
of codexes, only a few of which remain
● Pagan practices of the Saxons being absorbed into Christian ethics and iconography
○ Beowulf is one of the most influential texts from this period
○ We’re so used to modern novels and texts being fixed in place because they’re
written, edited and published. The idea of finishing a text is something very
modern. Beowulf was a story passed down from generation to generation, which
therefore slowly changed based on who told it.
● Old English or Anglo-Saxon literature have very fascinating literary devices. There is no
fixed composition of an oral performance.
● The use of kennings throughout Beowulf is due in large part, to its place in the oral
tradition, provides a lyrical mnemonic for bards and singers to remember the tale.
● Literature moved from Pagan myths to Christian traditions
Middle English Period
● Spans from 1066 to 1500
● The Domesday Book is created in 1086 and surveys all of the land in English, effectively
unifying the nation into one governmental bureaucracy
● Company (York) Plays, traveling shows, and the rise of strictly Christian virtues
● Transition from the Pagan Beowulf to the Christian King Arthur
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