Does a Literary Canon REALLY Matter?

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, a canon is an authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scriptures; the authentic works of a writer; a sanctified or accepted group or body of related works.

That’s exactly what a canon is in Pollitt’s essay, “Does A Literary Canon Matter?’ In her essay, she talks about three groups of authors whose books we should be reading: the conservatives, the liberals and the radicals.

The question that was being asked was whether or not we should just read the books from these lists. They want us to read books so we can be what the book wants us to be. For example, “read the conservatives’ list and produce a nation of sexists and racists--or a nation of philosopher king.’ (par.14)

I must say that I agree with Pollitt with this one. She states that “something is being overlooked: the state of reading, and books, and literature in our country at this time.” (par.8) That is true. It shouldn’t matter what type of books we read. As long as the book is for our knowledge and benefit, and reading it could be applied to something in our daily life, it shouldn’t matter. For example, if we wanted to read an essay by Maya Angelou, who is not classified in any of those groups, we should be able to. Pollitt made a good argument when she stated that “it is because while we have been arguing so fiercely about which books make the best medicine, the patient has been slipping deeper and deeper into a coma” (par.8)

I believe the debate was that if nobody reads the required books, then no books would be read at all. I don’t think a book list should be limited to a set of books. A variety of books makes a student more educated, in my opinion. You are only getting an author’s point-of-view from a list of books, and our minds should be broadened to more than that.

Pollitt wanted to look at the canon question from another angle: “Instead of asking what books we want others to read, let’s ask why we read books ourselves.” (par.12) I know I read books to get a better understanding of things I don’t understand, or to just expand my mental state of mind. The books we read ‘do not shape character” (par.15), but “the way books affect us is an altogether more subtle, delicate, wayward and individual, not to say private, affair.” (par.16)