Literary Excellence

I always thought it was interesting in classes like Victorian Lit or Romantic Lit when we learned about trends that occurred during these time periods, and it was always a footnote that these trends really only applied to the intellectuals of the period. I always wondered, who are these intellectuals that dominate what we learn about in history? And what is everyone else doing while the intellectuals are busy setting trends? Although I like to think that my education led me to study the best novels from these time periods, the question arises as to what makes them the best and whose values they really reflect. In Richard Ohmann's "The Shaping of the Cannon: U.S. Fiction, 1960-1975," he writes, "To answer that the best novels survive is to beg the question. Excellence is a constantly changing, socially chosen value" (1885). It's interesting to think that we read things that we may not personally consider excellent because we want to learn to recognize excellence that may not echo our own.

Ohman further discusses the qualities that are necessary in order for a novel to enter into our literary cannon: "I am suggesting that novels move toward a canonical position only if they attained both large sales (usually, but not always, concentrated enough to place them among the best-sellers for a while) and the right kind of critical attention" (1886). It makes sense to have both of these criteria because, as Ohmann uses the example with Love Story, it is completely possible for something to be considered a best-seller and have it's big trendy entrance into literary culture and then it will slowly drift away as the trend passes. At that point, "who will read it tomorrow, except on an excursion into the archives of mass culture?" (1886). Sounds kind of reminiscent of things like the mullet haircut or parachute pants. In this way, literature seems to fit in the category of any cultural trend like fashion or pop music. It gets popular for a while, and then it passes on into the literary archives when it loses its cultural trendiness. However, the unique factor of literature is that we select certain pieces of it to keep around and study. These "elite" pieces never go out of style. Actually, they tend to set the style for the future, because if you drop the name of certain "classic" works, it can make you seem quite intelligent. Ohman makes a good point in establishing that a book must experience both cultural popularity and strong critical reviews in order to make it onto that list of canonical books.