I know it's not my day to post. I apologize in advance for the diversion. However, being that we have this blog, I am using it (if I may) as a reading journal.
African American Literary Canon- Who's in it?
There is an important question that needs to be asked in relation to the Af. Am. literary canon. I have been thinking about the expatriates and their native Black writers who stayed within their social sphere and composed their works. What defines who comprises the Af. Am. literary canon? During my educational career I have had the Western idea of the canon, which can be attributed to Harold Bloom’s writings. (I am very much not a supporter of all his writings). However, if we think about the idea of a canon, it is usually composed of writers who are from a specific location, are writing from that location, gain inspiration from their present soil, and are expressing (in some form or another) the social environment. So the English Romantics, for example, wrote poetry and prose that opposed the Enlightenment/Age of Reason forms of writing. They commented on issues such as abolitionism and the French Revolution. We considered them part of the English canon because the writers are English, are writing on English soil about English occurrences. (English, English, English… lol)
If many of you have always thought about categorical canons such as English, American, French, Af Am., etc., then what happens to those writers that we are considering in this course? Where do we place them? I don’t find it fair to place expatriates in with the Harlem Renaissance writers when some are not writing about the American experience (or aren't having a first-hand experience). Even the term “Harlem Renaissance” greatly contradicts the canon as a microcosmic portion of the American canon. The writings of the time did not only occur in Harlem as Dr. Davis point out in our first class. We have to include Chicago and even Paris. If so, then the American canon is not so American. In fact it is revolutionary that one literary period can deconstruct the idea of a literary canon. That expatriates are in a category themselves (which I have no name for) and I hope throughout the course I can place them somewhere. (This need and urge to place expatriates somewhere is nothing more then the American assimilation working at its best- the need to place people in categories, lol.)
I am open to criticism and opinions on this issue. Sorry Dr. Davis for drifting.
I believe "the canon" is more of a shifting idea, and situating writers within different time periods, genres, physical locations is very possible. For exapmle, Cullen could be a 20th century American poet or a Harlem Renaissance writer or an African-American novelist. All would make sense.
ReplyDeleteI always have to remind myself that "the canon", this idea of valuable literature we have been taught to believe in, is entirely constructed. It's interesting to think about who holds the decisive power in this construction, and what consequences that has historically and in the present.
Also, I wonder how often the writing itself assists in categorizing different authors. Is it more comfortable to include DuBois than Hughes in certain canonical frameworks? Is that why Hurston was excluded until so recently? In the present, what work challenges our ideas of canonically worthy?