Not that kind!
A very short introduction to
literary theory
What is the literary canon?
According to the American Heritage
Dictionary, the “canon” is:
• a basis for judgment, standard, criterion;
• an authoritative list, as of the works of an author.
• Belonging to the canon confers status, social, political,
economic, aesthetic, none of which can easily be
extricated from the others. Belonging to the canon is a
guarantee of quality, and that guarantee of high aesthetic
quality serves as a promise, a contract, that announces to
the viewer, "Here is something to be enjoyed as an
aesthetic object. Complex, difficult, privileged, the object
before you has been winnowed by the sensitive few and
the not-so-sensitive many, and it will repay your attention.
You will receive pleasure; at least you're supposed to, and
if you don't, well, perhaps there's something off with your
apparatus."
• George P. Landow, Professor of English and Art History,
Brown University
A good book is the
precious life-blood of a
master-spirit, embalmed
and treasured up on
purpose to a life beyond
life.
As good almost kill a man
as kill a good book: who
kills a man kills a
reasonable creature, God’s
image; but he who
destroys a good book kills
reason itself.
John Milton (1608-1674)
What point are the following
quotations making about literature?
Literature is news that stays news.
Ezra Pound
(1934)
The very essence of
literature is the war
between emotion and
intellect, between life and
death. When literature
becomes too intellectual –
when it begins to ignore
the passions, the motions –
it becomes sterile, silly,
and actually without
substance.
Isaac Bashevis
Singer (1978)
And these?
What we call education and culture is for
the most part nothing but the substitution
of reading for experience, of literature for
life, of the obsolete fictitious for the
contemporary real.
In a real sense, people
who have read good
literature have lived
more than people who
cannot or will not read.
It is not true that we
have only one life to
live; if we can read, we
can live as many more
lives and as many kinds
of lives as we wish.
Above: George
Bernard Shaw
(1856-1950)
Left: Samuel
Ichiko Hayakawa
(1906-1992)
“What do we mean by ‘good
writing’?”
Text A:
Extract from
a Harlequin
Romance title
(Harlequin is
an imprint of
Mills & Boon)
Text B: Extract
from Women in
Love by D.H.
Lawrence, who
is generally
considered one
of the great 20th
century writers:
part of “the
canon.”
Signs and Symbols:
what do these signify?
Words are signifiers: there is an arbitrary
connection between the word “tree” and the
signified concept – the tree itself. We use these
connections both literally and metaphorically to
create richness when writing and reading.
What do you need to know to
be able to “read” these two
advertisements?
David Lodge’s Nice Work
extract is exploring the same
sorts of metaphorical ideas:
see the actual Silk Cut
advertisement overleaf.
Silk cut advertisement, 1983
If you are interested in semiotics (the analysis of signs), go to the
“Semiotics for Beginners” website by Daniel Chandler, from which these
illustrations were taken: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/
The Marlboro Man
Leo Burnett’s advertising campaign for Philip Morris made
Marlboro the most popular brand in the world. Sadly, two of
the models died of lung cancer as a result of smoking the
product they advertised.
Is this a metonym?
The wings are part
of the bird.
Is this a metaphor? The
wings do not literally cut
the air: though we may
feel that they do.
Black wings cut through the
brilliant blue.
Is this a metonym? Blue is
one of the characteristics of
the sky through which the
bird is flying.
Examples of the Mills & Boon
titles quoted by Alison Assiter
Modern Mills & Boon titles below: