Who knew that copyright has so much influence on literature survey anthologies? I didn't and, being the English major dork/Norton anthology bitch that I am, find it fascinating to read about.
The connection between copyright and The Canon (captialized, of course) made by that article ties into a very interesting review by The Little Professor of a book called The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, which argues that copyright laws have had a much bigger impact on shaping The Canon than scholars have ever given it credit for. Really cool stuff.
(Via Maud Newton)
Read the same article, and it makes sense and is somewhat disturbing. I've never been a fan of Norton Anthologies; it's hard to digest a work when you can't flip the page effectively b/c they're tissue-thin, and reading something like Blake's 'Tyger Tyger burning bright' loses some of its beauty and simplicity when it's attached to 1000 other pages of so-called canon text. I prefer individual volumes, thank you.
ReplyDeleteAnd, this article can be added to the stack of literary battles. Joyce's grandson is truly disagreeable and greedy (and I say doing a number of students a great favor by keeping them from reading his grandfather's work) but may have a valid point. And next to the battles between various Steinbecks, and corporations and executorial estates like Disney v. Milne, this isn't so huge.
Still, if you're a Bloom fan, and believe in Canon with a capital 'C' then this is disturbing. I count myself in that group moreso than I sometimes wish.
No Bloom fan here! I think he's a pompous old windbag. I do think there is a canon (whether or not it should be capitalized, I don't know), but I don't think it's an unchanging stone temple.
ReplyDeleteHave to disagree with you about Nortons, though! I LOVE their paper! And I like having a smorgasbord of different texts to choose from.