On the Fucking Western Canon

I've always had a problem with English class: I hate being told what to think when it comes to things that are supposedly "open to interpretation." I remember a time when I was very young, when I fully, carefreely enjoyed reading; enjoyed picking up random books for the plain and simple sake of experiencing stories, enjoyed the pure joy of empathizing with characters. Then Judgment in the form of the English teacher and the Wishbone/Cliffnotes list of "Classics" imposed itself on my literary choices. Henceforth, I could not but choose to read only those books regarded as "high level," "truly literary" works, as all other things were obviously a waste of my time and efforts. Imposed on top of my own sense of literary merit was an academically baited appreciation for symbolism, foreshadowing, and parallels, all picked out with arm-shooting vigor. Not to discount these three literary devices as important aspects of literature, for I am very grateful to have become acculturized to these techniques at an early age, but I must say, ever since their discovery, literature has become for me a cheese maze of literary devices, like sifting through dirt for gold nuggets; the integrity of literary works have become dangerously undermined, and with its capitalism of teacher-approved insights, I've garnered a pride and greed in literature class, and lost the paradise of self-trusting pleasure in fiction.

I think the problem with the canon is that it forces one to lose trust in one's own sensual experience of language and storytelling. Using Christine Froula's analogy in "When Eve Reads Milton : Undoing the Canonical Economy," the sensual, or visible, is lost to the higher-learned, or invisible, preachings of the teacher, who is the Sparknotes guru readily equipped with key quotes, symbols, and themes. It is to the reader as the Voice is to Eve: it subjugates, it destroys the self-contained and self-complete experience of literature, it casts doubt. It takes authority away from the reader, and makes for "mediated" rather than "experienced" appreciation of the text. Never in English class have I felt that I am being taught how to enjoy reading; rather, I have always felt that I was being preached to, converted into a brotherhood of text-dissectors, all self-approving and busy with toolkits and eulogies. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention to the coin-tossing ("Guess What the Teacher's Thinking") lectures. Never in English class have I ever been told to just pick up a book, any modern, present-day book from a bookstore, and read it, learn to have fun with it, and in its enjoyment, learn to incorporate reading into my daily life. Book-lovers always complain that the novel is being replaced by technology and movies; I think this needn't be the case if high school teachers taught their students to read and enjoy reading, and to really incorporate present-day, non-Classics into their daily lives. Reading would feel less like Judgment and more like Joy.

Why is the Cannon the cannon? Perhaps because power must be limited to be potent: the names inscribed on Butler, the mystical history, the authority, the ho hum, literary scholars who know so much better than everyone else, academics who revel in their esoteric language, their exclusive clubhouse - are they, like Adam and the Catholic Church, actually acting out of fear? If literature were truly free and open to everyone's interpretation, how would English professors pay their bills?

I write from a rude, inconsiderate rebellion. I do have respect for English professors, especially for their passion and sublime appreciation of language. I also truly do enjoy identifying themes and symbols in books, not only, I hope, because I feel it validates my reading in some way, but also, I hope, because this way of analyzing stories has become ingrained in me and it helps me in my daily life to create poetry out of the mundane. Through the process of identifying symbols and themes in books, I have learned to identify symbols and themes in my own experiences and memories.

I think there is something in the human psyche that naturally identifies and creates themes and symbols. Perhaps it is a neat way to create meaning and nuance in what may otherwise be a plain and unaccented narrative of existence. I have seen that there are immense beauties to be learned from literature, from the artful transmission of human experience through words. The pedagogy of structured, unifed, compliant analytical reading is useful in many ways. But one thing I feel I must express in vernacular: the canon sucks.