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• W2934563031 abstract "A LITTLE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS IS A DANGEROUS THING: A RESPONSE TO ROBERT LECKER1 T R A C Y W A R E Bishop’s University In “The Canonization of Canadian Literature: An Inquiry into Value,” Robert Lecker gives his account of the canonization of Canadian literature during the last twenty-five years. Two objections are raised by Frank Davey in “Canadian Canons” and by Lecker himself in his “Response.” Though I still believe that Lecker’s historical perspective is too narrow and that he neglects poetry, I am disarmed by Lecker’s assertions that his “essay has an essay’s focus” ( “Response” 682), and that “it is easier to advance an argument about the canonical relation between nationalism and mimesis when the focus is on fiction” ( “Response” 686). In what follows, I will raise two other objections: first, Lecker’s understanding of his theoretical sources and of “other national literary canons” (660)2 is so demonstrably inadequate as to undermine his project; and second, because he fails to modify the models he finds elsewhere, Lecker is unable to come to terms with the Canadian differences that form the only justification for his activity. I will begin with Frank Kermode’s “Institutional Control of Interpreta­ tion,” an essay to which, Lecker claims, he “owes much” (“Response” 684). Kermode concludes as follows: It is by recognizing the tacit authority of the institution that we achieve the measure of liberty we have in interpreting. It is a price to pay, but it purchases an incalculable boon; and for my own part I cannot bring myself to say that my conclusions concerning the power of the institution to validate texts and control interpretation are sad ones. They might even be a reason for moderate rejoicing. (86) Now consider Lecker’s own conclusion: To re-view and renew Canadian literary history in this way would be to liberate ourselves from the worn-out methodologies and antimethodologies we believe we should believe in or believe we should import. It would be to discover what the governing narratives are behind the fictions that surround us, the ones we have so quickly crowned and those that remain hidden, waiting to be found. (671) The debt is not one that Kermode will collect. Kermode finds his liberty in recognizing the constructive role played by institutions; Lecker imagines an English Studies in Ca n a d a , x v ii , 4, December 1991 unconstrained liberty that would appear only if the institution were trans­ formed. Kermode describes “the necessary conservatism of a learned insti­ tution” (77); Lecker argues that the conservatism of the Canadian university is unnecessary and shameful. Kermode writes of “the divinatory skills ac­ quired within institutions” (86); Lecker ridicules the skills taught by Cana­ dian critics as “rhetoric and propaganda” (671), as if criticism could be free of rhetoric. Kermode observes that “what we value most in work submitted to us by those who would like to join us is an originality that remains close to the consensual norms” (82); Lecker displays precisely such originality, though he is not aware that he uses the traditional rhetoric of Canadian anti-professionalism. I want to argue that Lecker’s account of Kermode and others is untenable even if “any representation is a misrepresentation” ( “Response” 686). Let us turn to Lecker’s use of Harold Bloom’s “Criticism, Canon-Formation, and Prophecy: The Sorrows of Facticity.” What could Bloom offer to an argument that “the power of the canon and the power of its members are inseparable: the institution is the canon; its members are the texts” (658)? Bloom maintains that “As critics we can only confirm the self-canonizations of the truly strong prophets and poets. What we cannot do is invent their canonization for them” (17). Lecker quotes only from the opening, where Bloom argues that the “historicized dungeon of facticity” places us “so far inside a tradition, or inside a way of representing, or inside even a particular author, that only enormous effort can make us aware of how reluctant we are to know our incarceration” (2, 1). Lecker simply ignores Bloom’s conclusion: “The function of criticism at the present time . . . cannot be to liberate us..." @default.
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• W2934563031 date "1991-01-01" @default.
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• W2934563031 title "A Little Self-Consciousness is a Dangerous Thing: A Response to Robert Lecker" @default.
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• W2934563031 doi "https://doi.org/10.1353/esc.1991.0007" @default.
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