Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation

by John Guillory

John Guillory challenges the most fundamental premises of the canon debate by resituating the problem of canon formation in an entirely new theoretical framework. The result is a book that promises to recast not only the debate about the literary curriculum but also the controversy over "multiculturalism" and the current "crisis of the humanities." Employing concepts drawn from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, Guillory argues that canon formation must be understood less as a question of the representation of social groups than as a question of the distribution of "cultural capital" in the schools, which regulate access to literacy, to the practices of reading and writing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Theory, Cultural, Literature, Criticism, Philosophy

408 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1993

Reviews

[Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent a LONG time with this book, trying to understand it very thoroughly, because it felt incredibly useful and important to the core reasons I am interested in the things I am trying to do with my dissertation. It's... not the easiest book to read, but I'm glad I didn't try to get by with just the introduction and some reviews. In a lot of ways, I felt like this book could have been written today.

These quotes were my key takeaways:
• “in fact 'aesthetic value' is nothing more or other than cultural capital." (332)
• “The fact of class determines whether and how individuals gain access to the means of literary production, and the system regulating such access is a much more efficient mechanism of social exclusion than acts of judgment.” (Ix)
⁃ “the mode of consumption demanded by the products of restricted production offered to the dominant classes a more reliable means of restricting access to the work of art than the mechanism of price itself. This was a consequence of the fact that the mode of consumption appropriate to the objects of restricted pro-/duction assumed the possession of the cultural capital provided by a particular kind of education … as cultural works recede into the past, they simultaneously gravitate into the realm of 'restricted production'... by virtue of the fact that the knowledge required to decipher them is the cultural capital of the school." (329-330)
• “The most politically strategic argument for revising the canon remains the argument that the works so revalued are important and valuable cultural works. If literary critics are not yet in a position to recognize the inevitability of the social practice of judgment, that is a measure of how far the critique of the canon still is from developing a sociology of judgment. The theory of cultural capital elaborated in this book is an attempt to construct just such a sociology.” (Xiv)
• "In a culture of such universal access, canonical works could not be experienced as they so often are, as lifeless monuments, or as proofs of class distinction. Insofar as the debate on the canon has tended to discredit aesthetic judgment, or to express a certain embarrassment with its metaphysical pretensions and its political biases, it has quite missed the point. The point is not to make judgment disappear but to reform the conditions of its practice. If there is no way out of the game of culture, then, even when cultural capital is the only kind of capital, there may be another kind of game, with less dire consequences for the losers, an aesthetic game. Socializing the means of production and consumption would be the condition of an aestheticism unbound, not its overcoming." (340)
• “The professional-managerial class has made the correct assessment that, so far as its future profit is concerned, the reading of great works is not worth the investment of very much time or money. The perceived devaluation of the humanities curriculum is in reality a decline in its market value." (46)
• “If literary criticism is ever to conceptualize a new disciplinary domain, it will have to undertake first a much more thorough reflection on the historical category of literature; otherwise I suggest that new critical movements will continue to register their agendas symptomatically, by ritually overthrowing a continually resurgent literariness and literary canon. At the same time it is unquestionably the case that the several recent crises of the literary canon—its 'opening’ to philosophical works, to works by minorities, and now to popular and mass cultural works--amounts to a terminal crisis, more than sufficient evidence of the urgent need to reconceptualize the object of literary study.” (265)

[Fardos Mohamad · Rating 5 out of 5]

I keep thinking about this every now and then. Such great ideas in here that I found presented in a very convincing and powerful way. The concept of literacy as a form of capital through which cultural divisions could be maintained, not only because of the commodified status of literature, but because of the commodification of the status of being literate and to what extent this form of currency played part in determining what became the Literary Canon. I've only read the second chapter on Thomas Gray's Elegy as well as bits and pieces throughout the other chapters, and I definitely want to come back and read this in its entirety because it was amazing

[Ashglass · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book full of intriguing ideas buried in (often unnecessarily) obtuse prose. Not much fun to read, but erudite and thought-provoking if you're interested in the (quite specific) topics it deals with. Guillory does tend to recapitulate key points in simpler forms, so I'd recommend powering through passages you don't quite get - they'll usually be made clearer later.

[Tim Lacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read Aquinas, Aristotle, Derrida, Plotinus, etc., but this is one of the toughest books I've ever completed. Other reviewers have noted the difficulty of the prose. That is indeed a factor. But it's also about the difficulty of the topic and underlying influences. Another factor is cultural capital, a topic covered from many different angles by its founder, Pierre Bourdieu. - TL

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an application of Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital to the "canon wars". Guillory's primary contention is that the quid facti ("what belongs in the canon?") is not as important as the quid juris ("what justifies the formation of a canon?"). The move to the quid juris brings the discussion from an idealist level to a materialist one. Instead of arguing about the ideas or merits of individual books, we examine the real social and institutional facts surrounding the production and consumption of literature.

Having worked in academia, I didn't find the conclusion surprising. The academy operates at an institutional equilibrium. Professionalization of the discipline rewards both the routinization of literature education as well as the obscurantism that characterizes academic prose. The experience and skills necessary to be "erudite" are only distributed at the level of graduate education, whereas workmanlike "composition" skills courses are out of necessity available to all freshmen. A gradient of prestige is established. All this is to say that the conditions that distribute literacy unevenly are reproduced. In order to justify the existence of a profession, erudition has to be simultaneously rare, difficult to acquire without the aid of a professional, but reliably routine to acquire with such aid.

Guillory (I think rightly) laments that literature cannot be consumed without simultaneous awareness of this situation. A student's experience of a "great book" is totally colored by the idea that they are not intelligent if they do not "get" or enjoy the book. Guillory imagines a future where the social construction of the category of "literature" is not so constrained by the demands of a professionalized academy. In such a future, students could perhaps meet books on their own terms, and not as representatives of identity with an institution or social class (the professional-managerial class). It would no longer be a subversive move to reclassify Low Culture as High Culture, because the superstructure constituting this distinction would lose its social base.

This is not the same thing as "opening the canon" or "creating an alternative canon". Under Guillory's analysis, these moves lie within the institutional agenda of the university. Guillory would rather we address the conditions that make canonization possible.

Guillory's history of the concept of Great Literature is fascinating. It is very instructive to trace the clergy and Latin as they evolve pretty directly into the academy and literary language.

Reading Guillory, I got defensive of the idea of Great Literature. I love old books. Wouldn't something be lost if we ended some conversations that have been going on for thousands of years? I think these feelings are natural, and they can be made to fit with Guillory's position. If you really loved old books, then what you would do is talk to people about what you love about them. You would find people who think similarly and continue the conversation. What you would not do is set up an exclusive certification program and conflate sufficient understanding of Great Literature with the conditions necessary to be a citizen or worker. As an educator, you can see clearly how these conditions make it more difficult for students to enjoy literature.

While Guillory understands very well that there are good political reasons to push for modification of the canon (representation does have a concrete effect!), he maintains the real battle would not be won until our concept of literature is freed from the constraints put on it by the needs of academic professionalization.

Overall, an excellent analysis of how specific social facts have affected our capacity for critical judgment.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

It might be interesting to think about how reviews on Goodreads would fit into Guillory's ideas about cultural capital. Do we read and review to establish and display our own cultural capital? When I have an encounter with literary criticism or theory of any kind, I often experience a passing intoxication, both for the ideas presented and the ideas that are inspired in my head by the pursuit of meaning in the text. But in the end the barnacles and kelp that passes for style in the humanities leaves me with a hangover and a sense that ideas are being obscured by the display put on by the style. The style of the academic writer is, no doubt, the very badge of the professional, only learned through years of reading and imitation, and only through that style can the academic writer display their full attainment of cultural capital, which is apparently more important than displaying their ideas plainly.

Some interesting ideas but you will have to work harder than you should have to to dig them out.
Recommended only for those who see a future career in the fields of literary criticism and theory.

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

"... there can be no general theory of canon formation that would predict or account for the canonization of any particular work, without specifying first the unique historical conditions of that work's production and reception."

It is not an easy text to read, but when read it is easy to agree with Guillory.

[Rebekah · Rating 4 out of 5]

His prose style is a little dense, but the information is worth getting to. Also a foundational text for cultural studies.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult read, but made me think.

[Nestorio De Chavez · Rating 5 out of 5]

nice