Excerpts from John Guillory's Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation

Guillory’s dense excerpts deal with a new theoretical criticism of viewing the literary canon. Instead of looking at the representation of social groups and who is included or excluded (minority groups such as women and queers) in the selection of canonical texts or the aesthetic value ascribed to a text, Guillory wishes to view the literary canon in terms of the distribution of cultural capital. In order to view the representation or non-representation in terms of social identity, the author is brought back into the equation, after their supposed death with Barthes in 1968.

But what exactly is this “canon” we speak of? Guillory points out it is ‘an imaginary totality of works. No one has access to the canon as a totality…it never appears as a complete and uncontested list in any particular time and place.’ (p. 194). Traditional canonical texts are typically thought to reinforce the hegemony of their time determined by ruling elites. Noncanonical texts are those not included in the literary canon. They may endorse a transgressive sentiment or be the works of the modern day. The novel as a form was not included in the literary canon for a long time. It is evident of the canon’s value as a discursive instrument of transmission. Interestingly, Guillory points out that some texts deemed noncanonical primarily will often resurface in the canon itself, as a significant marker for the acknowledgement of a particular social group identified as making a contribution to the progression of society. An example of this might include Charles Dickens’ place in the literary canon and his concern with social reform in his depiction of the working class.

Within his new theoretical framework, Guillory looks to pedagogical institutions as the ‘locus of real power (for the distribution of cultural capital), and therefore a good place for political praxis to define its object.’ (p. 197). Literacy is not described in terms of binaries – either being able to write or to not, rather it is described as a matter of circumstance. What ‘literacy’ (in terms of the humanities) boils down to is the opportunity one has to gain access to these cultural capital goods rather than cultural images. The process of inclusion and exclusion for Guillory becomes an issue of whether people have access to literacy. Because not all of society has this access, the formation of the canon will forever be an unequal representation of the social order. The ‘school’ remains as a site of critique since it is responsible for the agency as well as production of unequal social relations.

In the seminar, I asked the class if there were any other particular sites in which the decisions were made of the distribution of cultural capital. The publishing industry came up, notably as part of their inclusion in ‘classics,’ such Penguin’s orange range. Yet the ‘school’ remained the imminent site for the exchange and distribution of cultural capital.

The Death of the Author, Roland Barthes

In one of perhaps the most contentious essays written in the late sixties, Barthes suggests a divisive act – to remove the author in any interpretation of their text. By doing so, he goes on to say, welcomes a multiplicity of interpretation through language itself, ‘…it is language which speaks, not the author; to write is, through a prerequisite impersonality…to reach that point where only language acts, ‘performs’, and not ‘me.’’ (p. 222). Barthes’ conception of the ‘readerly text’ – a traditional realist text thought to be a product of the author’s genius understands the reader as a passive ‘consumer’ of the text – relaying precisely what the author intended for the text to speak about. In contrast, the death of the author for Barthes engages his concept of the ‘writerly text’, one which engages with an active involvement of the reader in decoding its meaning.

Since the text no longer has a unitary meaning attached to its author, we begin to ask questions about originality and individualism. Barthes’ deconstruction of the transcendent notion of the ‘Author-God’ – that is, the single important figure in the explanation behind the text links it to network pathways and interconnected spheres, inviting multiple truths, ‘The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.’ (p. 223). Thus, intertextuality is constantly at play in modern society – originality ceases to exist and the ‘world we perceive is one not of ‘facts’, but rather of ‘signs about facts’, which we encode and decode ceaselessly from signifying system to signifying system.’ (Onega, S. Structuralism and narrative poetics Literary Theory and Criticism Oxford Uni Press, 2006).  

Barthes mentions the influence of Surrealism and ‘automatic writing’ – the process of writers collaborating to create a piece of work flowing unaware in a quasi-subconscious manner. He also mentions the influence of Marcel Proust and his concept of ‘blurring’ the relationship between the writer and their characters. In doing so, the narrator of the text becomes ‘he who is going to write’ (p. 222).

Barthes predicates the author as a product of modernity – distilling meaning from authorial intentions and their biography imposes restricting limitations on that text. The author’s death is synonymous with an holistic transformation of the text itself, ‘(…the text is henceforth made and read in such a way that at all levels the author is absent.’ (p. 222). The modern scriptor’s (us, the readers!) birth is located with the birth of the text itself. The multiplicity begins and ends with the reader’s own interpretation, ‘…a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination.’ (p. 224).

Barthes’ controversial essay generated an overwhelming response from contemporary theorists. Foucault’s response to Barthes with What is an Author? in 1969, in many ways challenged the complete dissociation of the author from their text. Instead, Foucault realised the limitations of linking the author holistically to their text but agued authorship cannot be moved entirely away from their intellectual property rights such the taxonomy of the text.