In response to what we might think of as the social organicism of the black arts movement, a formalist organicism emerged in the mid-seventies. This movement was concerned with redirecting the critic’s attention toward the “literariness” of the black texts as autotelic artifacts, to their status as “acts of language” first and foremost. The use of formalist and structuralist theories and modes of reading characterized the criticism of this period. The formalists saw their work as a “corrective” to the social realism of the black arts critics.
In the third stage, critics of black literature began to retheorize social—and textual—boundaries. Drawing on poststructuralist theory as well as deriving theories from black expressive, vernacular culture, these critics were able to escape both the social organicism of the black arts movement and the formalist organicism of the “reconstructionists.” Their work might be characterized as a “new black aesthetic” movement, though it problematizes the categories of both the “black” and the “aesthetic.” An initial phase of theorizing has given way to the generation of close readings that attend to the “social text” as well. These critics use close readings to reveal cultural contradictions and the social aspects of literature, the larger dynamics of subjection and incorporation through which the subject is produced.
This aspect of contemporary African American literary studies is related directly to recent changes in critical approaches to American studies generally. Black studies has functioned as a strategic site for autocritique within American studies itself. No longer, for example, are the concepts of “black” and “white” thought to be preconstituted; rather, they are mutually constitutive and socially produced. The theoretical work of feminist critics of African and African American literature, moreover, has turned away from a naively additive notion of sexism and racism. Especially in this work, we have come to understand that critiques of “essentialism” are inadequate to explain the complex social dynamism of marginalized cultures.
WORKS CITED
Applebee, Arthur N. A Study of Book-Length Works Taught in High School English Courses. Albany: Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature, 1989.
Baldwin, James. “Here Be Dragons.” The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948–1985. New York: St. Martin’s, 1985. 677–90.
——. Notes of a Native Son. Boston: Beacon, 1955.
Benston, Kimberly. Letter to the author. 16 Sept. 1989.
Fiedler, Leslie, and Houston A. Baker, Jr., eds. English Literature: Opening Up the Canon; Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1979. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1981.
Fisher, Dexter, ed. Minority Language and Literature: Retrospective and Perspective. New York: MLA, 1977.
Fisher, Dexter, and Robert Stepto, eds. Afro-American Literature: The Reconstruction of Instruction. New York: MLA, 1979.
SOURCE: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., PMLA, Vol. 105, No. 1, Special Topic: African and African American Literature (January 1990).
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION, THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE
WITH NELLIE Y. MCKAY
IN THE FALL of 1986, eleven scholars gathered on the campus of Cornell University to discuss the need for a Norton Anthology of African American Literature and to consider how best to execute the mammoth task of editing such a historic anthology, should we collectively decide to embark upon it. These scholars, chosen for their leadership in the field, represented a wide array of methodological approaches to the study of literature; each had a particular expertise in at least one historical period in the African American literary tradition. We were accompanied in our deliberations by M. H. Abrams, the “father” of Norton Anthologies, and John Benedict, vice president and editor at Norton, both of whom had championed our project during its two-year gestation period from proposal to approval.
Two things struck us all, we think it fair to say, about our discussions. First was a certain sense of history-in-the-making, in which we were participating by the act of editing this anthology. While anthologies of African American literature had been published at least since 1845, ours would be the first Norton Anthology, and Norton—along with just a few other publishers—had become synonymous to our generation with canon formation. Because of its scope and size, a Norton Anthology could serve as “a course in a book,” as John Benedict was fond of saying. So, in spite of the existence of dozens of anthologies of black literature—a tradition of which we were keenly aware since we had closely studied the tables of contents and editorial introductions of each of these and photocopied and bound them for each of our prospective editors—none was ample enough to include between two covers the range of the texts necessary to satisfy the requirements of an entire survey course. To meet this need was our goal.
This was crucial if we were going to make the canon of African American literature as readily accessible to teachers and students as were, say, the canons of American or English literature. Too often, we had heard colleagues complain that they would teach African American literature “if only the texts were available” in a form affordable to their students, meaning in a one- or two-volume anthology, rather than in a half dozen or more individual volumes. Were we successful in our endeavor, we believed, then not only could teachers teach African American literature, but they would do so eagerly, and new courses would be created in four- and two-year institutions and at the high school level. A well-edited, affordable anthology democratizes access. And broader access was essential for the permanent institutionalization of the black literary tradition within departments of English, American Studies, and African American Studies.
The second surprise of our Ithaca meeting was how “un-theoretical” the process of editing would be. Many of us were deeply engaged in the passionate theoretical debates that would define “the canon wars,” as they came to be called. It soon became apparent to us that editing an anthology is not primarily a process concerned with theorizing canon formation; rather, it is about forming a canon itself. If we were successful, we would be canon-makers, not canon-breakers. Our theories about the canon, no matter how intricately woven, were not as important as the actual practice of agreeing upon the periodization of African American literature published (principally in English) in England and the United States between 1746 and the present and then selecting the signal texts in the tradition that comprise its canon.
Ironically, we were embarking upon a process of canon formation precisely when many of our poststructuralist colleagues were questioning the value of a canon itself. Our argument was that the scholars of our literary tradition needed first to construct a canon before it could be deconstructed! And while the scores of anthologies of African American literature published since 1845 had each, in a way, made claims to canon formation, few, if any, had been widely embraced in the college curriculum. And that process of adoption for use in college courses is a necessary aspect of canon formation.
So, setting aside our individual passions for theorizing, we collectively got down to the nuts and bolts of editorial policymaking, addressing fundamental questions such as how many pages to devote to each period, where those periods should start and stop, and what principles of selection would lead us to the gathering of works that were essential both in the formation of our tradition and to its teaching and explication. Though readily available elsewhere, certain core texts, such as Frederick Douglass’s 1845 slave narrative, we agreed, must be included, since our goal was to respond to our Norton editor’s challenge to produce “a course in a book.” Our task, then, was not primarily to bring lost or obscure texts back into print; rather, it was to make available in one representative anthology the major texts in the tradition and to construct a canon inductively, text by text, period by period, rather than deductively—that is, rather than through a priori ideological or thematic principles agreed upon in advance, which would function like a straitjacket for our selections. Further, through carefully edited introductions and head-notes, we wanted to help students see how these text
s “speak to,” or signify upon, each other, just as they had “spoken” to each other across time, space, and genre, as authors read and revised each other’s representations of the experiences, feelings, and beliefs of persons of African descent pondering the ironies of being at once black, American, and human. We wanted the anthology to give full voice to the key tropes and topoi that repeat—are echoed and riffed and signified upon—so strikingly across the African American literary tradition, thereby allowing formal linkages to be foregrounded in the classroom. Most importantly, we agreed that each period editor would have the final say about the texts selected for her or his period. A full decade would follow our organizational meeting in Ithaca, but in 1997, the first edition of The Norton Anthology of African American Literature was born.
To our surprise, the anthology was widely reviewed in both trade and academic publications, commencing with a major feature in The New York Times. Perhaps even more surprising, the trade edition was purchased in great numbers by nonacademics, often members of the growing African American reading public, hungry for texts about themselves. Within the academy, 1,275 colleges and universities worldwide have adopted the anthology since publication in 1997. The first anthology to allow the oral tradition to “speak” for itself through the music and spoken-word performances on the Audio Companion CD, The Norton Anthology of African American Literature has proved popular with students and a helpful teaching tool to instructors. This innovation, now imitated by others, enabled us to make an important statement about the crucial role of the vernacular in shaping our written tradition.
We have attempted to reconstruct the African American literary heritage, at the turn of the twenty-first century, without pretending to completeness. Limitations of space and prohibitions on copyright have prevented us from including several authors whose texts are important to the canon and whose level of excellence warrants inclusion here. Despite these limitations, we believe that we have represented justly the African American literary tradition by reprinting many of its most historically important and aesthetically sophisticated works. The authors of these works (whose birth dates range from 1730 to 1969) have made the text of Western letters speak in voices and timbres resonant, resplendent, and variously “black.” Taken together, they form a literary tradition in which African American authors collectively affirm that the will to power is the will to write and to testify eloquently in aesthetic forms never far removed from the language of music and the rhythmic resonance of the spoken word.
SOURCE: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay, eds., The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996).
CANON CONFIDENTIAL
A Sam Slade Caper
HER NAME WAS Estelle. I should have known the broad spelled trouble when she came into my office and started talking about the canon. The literary canon.
I stubbed out my Lucky Strike and glanced up at her, taking in her brass-blond hair, all curled and stiff with spray. Like she had a still of Betty Grable taped to the corner of her mirror.
Turned out she’d been peddling her story for the past couple of years. Nobody would take it on; I shouldn’t have either. But when I was a kid I used to write doggerel. Maybe that’s why I didn’t throw the babe out of my office.
“Tell me what I need to know, sugar.” I splashed some bourbon in my coffee mug, put my feet on my desk and listened.
Seemed there was some kind of a setup that determined which authors get on this A list of great literature. Payout was all perks, so far as I could make out. If you’re on this list, they teach your work in school and write critical essays on you. Waldenbooks moved you from the Fiction section to the Literature section. I couldn’t figure where the percentage was, unless some big shot was getting a cut of the reprint royalties, but she didn’t think that was it.
“So what are you saying? You want me to shut down this operation? Round up the bad guys?” “Nothing like that,” she said huskily. “I got no beef with the canon as such. It serves a legit purpose.” She looked around nervously and lowered her voice. “What I’m telling you is, it’s fixed. It’s not on the level.” She paused. “What I’m telling you is, this is the biggest scam since the 1919 World Series.”
I whistled softly. “We’re talking thousands of books, right? The jewels of Western culture, right?”
She nodded. “You’ll be going up against the big boys. Does that scare you?” I patted my shoulder holster. “I’m prepared.” “You get 25 a day plus expenses,” she said.
I said, “Fair enough.” (It was all Philip Marlowe got in “Trouble Is My Business.”) The first person I spoke to was Helen Vendler, and all she was sure of was I was wasting my time.
I found her at the Harvard Club, on 44th Street off Fifth Avenue, eating alone. She swore up and down I was being snookered.
“Oh, I hear the talk. But it’s just a tabloid fantasy,” she assured me, fastidiously squeezing a lemon section over her oysters. “There is no overlord, Slade. Nobody’s fixing what we read—the whole idea’s preposterous. If a book’s good, people read it. If it’s bad, people won’t.” She was smug about it. Too smug. “They’ve got something on you, don’t they?” I said, thinking hard. “That’s why they let you edit ‘The Harvard Book of Contemporary American Poetry’—because they knew you’d do their dirty work for them.”
She wasn’t smiling anymore. “You won’t get a thing out of me,” she said. Then I saw her make eye contact with the bouncer. All 300 pounds of him. “Malloy,” she said quietly, “get him out of here.” Figured a walk would do me good anyway. I looked up a few of the writers I knew, but I didn’t fare much better. It was like somebody had gotten to them first. Harold Brodkey told me he’d like to talk about it, only he’d grown too fond of his kneecaps. Toni Morrison was hiding out in South Nyack. And Cynthia Ozick slammed her front door on my thumb.
I was making the rounds at Columbia when a black Cadillac with tinted windows pulled up alongside me on Broadway at 115th Street. Two pugs came out and threw me in the back seat like a sack of potatoes.
“Let me be blunt, Mr. Slade. Do you know what happens to people who stick their noses into other people’s business?”
On my left, Elizabeth Hardwick. On my right, one of her gorillas. I turned to the lady. “I seen ‘Chinatown,’” I murmured. “A good film,” she said. “But not a great one. The great ones are those taught in film classes, in universities around the country. For example, anything by Eisenstein.” “I saw one of his films once. Bored me stiff.” “As it does avid film students around the world. But that, my friend, is how canonization works. All the films you’d never see if it were just up to you, all the books you’d never read if you really had a choice—they are the very lifeblood of the canon.” “You’re losing me, Lizzy.” “Come, come. The 19th-century American novels that go on for hundreds of mind-numbing pages about cetaceans. The endless Russian novels about theodicy, suffering and salvation, with an unpronounceable cast of thousands. Where would they be without the required reading list?” “Out of print?” I hazarded. “You see why we can’t let you continue, then.” She patted my knee consolingly. “There’s simply too much at stake.”
The car probably wasn’t going much more than 20 miles an hour when they threw me out.
Fact was, I didn’t much like being manhandled by literary mandarins. But now I had a pretty good hunch about where to look next. I caught up with Alfred Kazin in the New York Public Library; I figured he had to know something. Maybe he did, but when I mentioned the canon, he turned nasty. “Beat it,” he growled. “I’ve got nothing to say to you.” I grabbed him by the collar, lifted him a few inches off the floor and brought his face real close to mine. “Are we having a communication problem?”
“Please,” he murmured, his head lolling against Edmund Wilson’s “Letters on Literature and Politics.” “You know I don’t make the decisions.”
“I’ve heard that tune more often than Pachelbel’s Canon. Don’t sweet-t
alk me, punk. Who’s in on it?” His eyes glinted. “Look, it’s an institutional configuration. It’s societal. Everybody’s in on it.”
“Oh, get off it,” I snapped. “Try telling that to the gals who never made it into the great American procession. Try telling that to Phillis Wheatley. Or Zora Neale Hurston. Or Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” I poked him in the chest. “You guys really did a job on them. Kept them out in the cold.”
“You still mad about that?” He rolled his eyes. “Hell, we made it up to them. Everybody’s reading those broads today. Take a look at any freshman syllabus; they’re practically compulsory.” He mopped the sweat off his brow. “Look, better late than never, right?”
“That’s not the point and you know it. Now tell me who supplies you.”
His eyes darted around the stacks, and then he loosened up. That’s when I knew something was wrong. “I believe the person you want is right behind you,” he smirked. Something hard jabbed into my back. I turned around slowly, my hands held high. It was Jacques Barzun, a .38 Beretta resting comfortably in one hand. He was in black tie, looking like he’d just stepped out of a cocktail party.
“Big surprise,” I said, trying to look more relaxed than I was. “Shoulda figured this one out myself.” “There are a great many things you should have figured out, Mr. Slade.” “Yeah? Gimme a for instance.” “Standards, Mr. Slade. Do you know what standards are?” His menacing smile was perfect—probably practiced it in front of a mirror.
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