The making of the English canon: print-capitalism and the cultural past, 1700-1770

Abstract

J. B. Kramnick, Making the English Canon: Print-capitalism and the Cultural Past, 17001770, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. viii + 287, hb. £35 ($54.95), ISBN: 0521641276This study enters into the arena of canon theory with the aim of reassessing the cultural and economic forces concurrent with the drawing of the English canon during the mid-eighteenth century. The theoretical basis for Kramnicks discussion is taken from a range of familiar sources. Habermss public/private, Eagletons modes of specialization and Andersons print-capitalism are read alongside the cultural sociology of Pierre Bourdieu to create an overview of the complexities of valorisation in a burgeoning consumer culture. Kramnick begins by tracing the changes in critical attitudes to literature from early to mid-century. He argues convincingly, with reference to an impressive array of contemporary criticism and commentary, for a shift in cultural valuation from a progressive to a regressive gauge of literary achievement. Despite this somewhat traditional socio-historical reading of eighteenth-century culture, Kramnick does not limit his discussion of mid-century criticism to the perceived rift between high and mass cultural products. The canon, Kramnick suggests, grew out of the tension between aesthetic and historicist criticism, the former prioritising taste and sublimity, the latter philological expertise and linguistic difficulty. Alongside this modification of the cultural value system, Kramnick traces eighteenth-century attitudes towards the growing number of women readers and their role in assigning cultural value to types of literature. He observes that at the beginning of the period, feminine taste was seen as an educating influence drawing the public to enjoy polite subjects and devaluing the rough matters of older writing. By mid-century female literacy was instigative in bringing about the beginning of the end of national masculine fortitude. Women readers became inextricably connected with consumer culture. Kramnicks attempt to present an historical theory for the ostracisation of women writers from the literary canon rests on this evaluation of attitudes towards women readers. By linking the negative aesthetic value attributed to women writers, Kramnick suggests that women writers are confined to the novel. This inference is unsettling and fails to offer the promised cohesive historical account.During the course of the first half of the eighteenth century an aesthetic of accessibility turns to an aesthetic of difficulty. …

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