What Is a Literary Canon - Essay Example

?What is a literary canon? Literary canon refers to a ification of literature which is usually a collection of written works that are being revered during a specific time or place. These groups of comparable literary works are put together in a literary canon. Writings are classified in many ways but when we apply the literary canon to a certain literature, it gives that piece of work a definite authority or acceptability thus officially adding it to the clutch of penned works which are extensively studied and admired. There are no absolute rules when it comes to canonization. It is the opinion of influential critics, scholars, teachers and other respected personalities that determines whether a work will be canonized or not. The works and judgement of literary canons constantly changes with time and is affected by both experiences and ideas of writers and readers. It can therefore be concluded that literature changes in the perspective of “experience and thought” which is an important aspect in the production of a literary canon. Contextual relevance is a key ingredient in the process of canonization. This relevance refers to its connection to present events, ideologies, art, or does it address present-day and historic events. The quality of the literary piece plus relevance to imaginative, historical, and social topics are basis for its popularity. It is also the interest of people that makes a literary work respected and popular. It is a determinant for a literary work for canonization. (Landow, The Literary Canon) The interpretation of readers in what they read constantly change with time but the text used in a literary work does not change overnight. Beliefs and experiences change together with the interest, importance, and attention toward a literary work. These changes will be shown in the literary canons made. A written piece may be an additional to the canon or some may be removed from it. To add more complications to literary canonization, the characterization of literary canonization also changes with the passing of time. In short, it is subjective.th fewer the people involved in the decision making the more subjective it becomes. An example of it would be a literary canon recognized by the church and which is religiously revered. Within this example, a canon has a standard that must be met before canonization regardless of the definition of a literary canon or the mechanics contained within it. The canon still implies an “otherness” to works it excludes, and an authority to works it includes. The canonization of a literary work depends upon the adjustments made in the literary canon. Literary moguls, critics and publishers are some of the people tasked to propose, compile and determine what literary works should be canonized. Universities can also have a collection of books that they feel will be important for their students to study and read. Canonized literatures are influential books considered by a nation or the world as with significant importance. These lists of literary pieces go beyond just being superbly inked to influencing a race. To become a part of a canon means to have prestige and respect. These gained prestige and respect encourages students to passionately study this work. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and his works? Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s life would be best described as a life of troubles and adventures. He was forth among seven children. His father, Rodrigo de Cervantes, was a surgeon and his mother, Leonor de Cortinas, was the daughter of a nobleman who went bankrupt. There are claims that Cervantes’ family were of Jewish origin and had converted to Christianity. These claims are supported by some plays and novellas written by Cervantes where he used them as characters. His family was considered a nobility but an impoverished one. (Sturman. Cliffs Note on Don Quixote) Miguel studied theology in Salamanca and Madrid. Later on, in 1569, he would flee to Rome and work there as a valet for Cardinal Giulio Acquavita. That same year, he left for Naples. There is no clear explanation to why he fled but it is recorded that there is a warrant given out for the arrest of a student named Miguel Cervantes for enduring someone in a duel. The punishment written in the warrant was that his right hand would be cut of and he would be exiled from Madrid for 10 years. While he was stationed in Naples under the Spanish Navy, he was wounded and lost his left hand which gave him the title “El Manco de Lepanto” or the one-handed from Lepanto. In spite of this plight, he continued to serve the Spanish navy. He and his brother would then be captured and enslaved by Algerian pirates in 1575 while they were on their way to Spain. Their captors demanded a ransom for their release. After 5 years in captivity, 3 attempted escapes and 500 escudas, Cervantes was released to his relatives and to the Trinitarians who helped raise his ransom. After his release, he returned to Spain and wrote a play entitled “Los tratos de Argel” which was inspired by his experiences during his confinement. Cervantes lived a life of debts. He would pay these debts through writing. This challenge produced his first novel, “La primera parte de la Galatea”. In 1584, he married Catalina de Salazar y Palacios, a woman who was 18 year younger than him. There married was fruitless but Cervantes’s affair to an actress named Ana Franca de Rojas produced an illegitimate daughter which they named Isabel de Saavedra who became a servant for the family. In the later parts of the 1580’s Cervantes left Catalina and live a nomadic life for 20 years. He had various jobs during this time. He work as a purchaser for the Spanish armada and also a tax collector. In spite of being known as an honest person, he was imprisoned twice and accused of embezzling funds. In reality, it was not the fiscal irregularities that imprisoned him but he was a victim of an unacknowledged service. He was also excommunicated for a period of time for sequestering grains from stores owned by the church. During his imprisonment, he In 1569 to the early years of 1600, he lived in Seville, and by 1604 he relocated to Valladolid. It is there that king Philip III built his court. By 1606, he would permanently settle in Madrid for the remainder of his life. Cervantes’s economic situation would remain difficult. To make matters worse, when a nobleman named Gaspar de Ezpeleta was mortally wounded and died in front of Cervantes’ house, he and the women in his house were suspected of killing the Ezpeleta and were jailed. Cervantes’ literary career was said to have started in 1580 in Andalusia. He claims that he had written 20-30 plays, but only two are known to have survived. He produced his first major work in 1585, a pastoral romance entitled Galatea which was slightly noticed. Although he promised to write a continuation for this romance, he never wrote it. He even mentioned the book in Don Quixote. it is the part where the priest and the barber were having a conversation. This is where the priest says: "His book exhibits some faculty of invention, but it proposes things and arrives at no conclusion. In the meanwhile let us wait for the continuation which he promises us; with better luck he may give us something that his wretched circumstances have hitherto denied him." Cervantes dealt also with the life of Christian slaves in the Algiers. He would show this in his play he wrote in 1784 entitled El trato de Argel. He attempted to write an allegory, Viaje del Parnaso (1614), which was largely a pleasant but monotonous review of contemporary poets. This is where he came to his senses that he lacked the gift of poetry which dubbed him the world’s worst poet by later generations. During the time when Muslims were expelled from Spain, Cervantes wrote Novelas Ejemplares (1613, Exemplary Novels). This was a collection of prose about love, idealism, gypsy life, madmen, and talking dogs. It is considered to be one of his best prose works. Don Quixote Don Quixote is the most influential and important work of Cervantes. By tradition, it is claimed that he wrote the literary piece in Argamasilla in La Mancha. Cervantes’s aim was to plainly express himself and give a clear picture of real life. He mentions this aim in his prologue to Part I of Don Quixote. He can be quoted saying "in simple, honest, and well-measured words." Cervantes incorporated everyday speech in this work and was praised by the public for doing so. The book was widely acclaimed but Cervantes stayed poor. Even if the end result did not make him rich, this made him internationally acknowledged as a man of letters. Since the release of Don Quixote, many interpretations were conceived. Some see it as an outright attack to the Catholic Church, Spanish politics or symbolizing the duality of Spanish personality. Cervantes himself fought for Spain and when he returned to Madrid after 5 years of slavery, his services were ignored by his government. Somewhere in a book written by Ford Madox entitled The March of Literature (1938), Madox stated Cervantes did with his book to the world a disservice and says: "The gentle ideal of chivalry is the one mediaeval trait which, had it survived as an influence, might have saved our unfortunate civilization." ( Liukkonen, Miguel de Cervantes 1547-1616 : Cripple of Lepanto) Whether it be solely tragedy or wholly comedy, Don Quixote clearly show the Spanish society in the 17th century. It is where the main characters are the elderly who is an uncompromising knight who seeks adventure with his old horse, Rosinante. Together with his loyal and materialistic squire named Sancho Paza, they travel together from failure to another. through fierce arguments and debates, they would gradually take on some of each other’s attributes. The story would show that in spite of their differnces, their relationship is ultimately built on mutual respect. In 1615, a poor second part of Don Quixote came out, it was believed to had been written by one Alfonso Fernandez. This challenged Cervantes to write the second part. Three days before he had finished the novel The Exploits of Persiles and Sigismunda, in April 23, 1616, he died. This novel was dedicated to the count of Lemos. Cervantes has influenced many great writers during his time up until now. There is a claim that Shakespeare may have been influenced by Cervantes; there is a stage record of a lost play in collaboration with Fletcher entitled The History of Cardenio (1613); he is the hero of an episodic short story in the first part of Don Quixote. This "proof" is too vague to establish a direct and overall influence, so is seldom referred to in Quixote criticism ( Yamada, Ben Johnson and Cervantes). Inspiration is seen among others in the works of Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Herman Melville, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, also in the works of James Joyce and Jorge Luis Borges, who wrote a short story about an author ('Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote', in El Jardin de senderos que se bifurcan, 1941), who undertook to compose Don Quixote – not another Quixote, but the Quixote. After studies of Spanish, history, and the Catholic faith, he writes the novel, word for word. "Cervantes's text and Menard's are verbally identical, but the second is almost infinitely richer. (More ambiguous, his detractors will say, but ambiguity is richness.)" (Gutierrez, An Exploration of the Influences of Don Miguel de Cervantes) After discussing the qualification for literary canonization, the life and works of Cervantes, and his influences on other well-known writers, it would be confident to say that Cervantes should be included in today’s literary canon. Why should be canonize the influenced and not the influencer? It is logical to say that in order to have a clear understanding of a literary work, we should also have an in depth knowledge of the inspiration. It is worthy for canonization since it teaches us to look at our own reflections. It show us certainty, what is fantasy, how can we be sure of the variance? How should we lead our lives? Do we settle for refined reality, or do we discover something adventurous, exciting and chancy at a different level? References Sturman, Marianne. CliffsNotes on Don Quixote. 15 Jul 2012  Landow, George P.. The Literary Canon. The Victorian Web. 1989. 24 July 2012 Liukkonen, Petri. Miguel de Cervantes 1547-1616. Books and Writers. 2008. Web.25 July 2012. Yamada, Yumiko. Ben Jonson and Cervantes. Premera Revista Digital De Teatro En Venezuela. 1999. Web. 29 July 2012. Gutierrez, Marta. An Exploration of the Influences of Don Miguel de Cervantes. Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America. 2002. Web. 30 July 2012. Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra: Literary Canon for Today BY: Outline Literary canon refers to a classification of literature which is usually a collection of written works that are being revered during a specific time or place. These groups of comparable literary works are put together in a literary canon. Writings are classified in many ways but when we apply the literary canon to a certain literature, it gives that piece of work a definite authority or acceptability thus officially adding it to the clutch of penned works which are extensively studied and admired. There are no absolute rules when it comes to canonization. It is the opinion of influential critics, scholars, teachers and other respected personalities that determines whether a work will be canonized or not. Canonization is generally subjective. The Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra was in Alcala de Henares near Madrid. His father is Rodrigo de Cervantes and his is mother Leonor de Cortinas. On September 19, 1580 Cervantes returned to Spain. Cervantes turned his experiences from imprisonment into a play entitled "Los tratos de Argel". In order to pay his debt, Miguel de Cervantes earned money as a writer. His first novel was "La primera parte de la Galatea". Cervantes married Catalina de Salazar y Palacios, who was 18 years younger than him. Their marriage remained childless, but an affair with an actress named Ana Franca de Rojas resulted to an illegitimate daughter, Isabel de Saavedra. In 1597-98 and 1602 Miguel de Cervantes was sent to prison again for having embezzled moneys as a tax collector. At that time, Cervantes began writing the first part of his important novel "Don Quixote", which he published in 1605. In 1613 Cervantes wrote his "Novelas ejemplares" and in 1615 published the second part of "Don Quixote".  Cervantes achieved great respect and unimaginable acclaim for his works. He died poor in Madrid on April 23, 1616. Read More