The Canon and the Common Reader by Carey Kaplan and Ellen Cronan Rose (review)

260Rocky Mountain Review CAREY KAPLAN and ELLEN CRONAN ROSE. The Canon and the Common Reader. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990. 206 p. Kaplan and Rose have produced their third important collaborative work, a clear and thoughtful assessment of the profession of literary studies as they situate the current raging controversy about canon reformation within a broader historical context. It should interest all MLA members and also some common readers, those who "do not have to read unless they want to" (36). After Kaplan and Rose edited Doris Lessing: The Alchemy of Survival (1986), which won a Northeastern Modern Language Association (NEMLA) award for best critical book, they edited Approaches to Teaching Lessing's The Golden Notebook (1989) in the MLA Approaches to Teaching World Literature series. Now they use Lessing as an example ofthe processes ofcultural change. Twenty-five years ago it was "radical" to include Lessing's works in college courses, and scholarly journals dismissed Lessing as merely a "popular" writer. But the early Lessing scholars who established regular seminars on Lessing at MLA and eventually created the Doris Lessing Newsletter and the Doris Lessing Society persisted because Lessing's works touched them as individual readers who then combined their personal with their professional responses. Yet the acceptance of Lessing as a "serious" writer which led to her eventual inclusion in the canon was perhaps most determined by the early and continued attention of major commercial (non-academic) book reviewers, specifically in the New York Times Book Review and the prestigious establishment reviewers who follow its example. And what appears in these publications is directly linked to their sources ofrevenue. Attention to Lessing increased significantly after Knopfbecame her publisher, and Knopf is one ofthe largest advertisers in the New York Times. The Lessing paradigm thus raises the questions the authors examine throughout this book. Who decides what the non-academic reader reads? What is the relationship between this common reader and the works taught and written about by academics? What is the history and function of the idea of a canon of accepted works? What has been the impact of feminist criticism in its quarter of a century history? Can we see "progress" since more women and minority voices are represented in the academic profession and its conferences and critical publications? Who controls the profession and criticism? In short, who owns culture? The answers are not simple, are never simple. Many readers ofthis bookcertainly women who have been in the profession for some time and have expanded the canon and women's participation in academic associations—will recognize the patterns suggested in chapter 6, "Playing the Numbers," which traces the representation of women writers discussed at MLA conferences from 1969 to 1987 and the number and percentage of women scholars and feminist scholarship. Other statistical tables show the percentage ofarticles by women, those about women, and those with feminist perspectives in selectedjournals, 1970-1986. Certainly the increased participation of women has made a difference to the individuals involved and has somewhat expanded the canon. But has it truly shifted the power of a relatively small group—specifically East coast Book Reviews261 publishers and a handful of prestigious (male) reviewers and (male) academic critics? Has MLA become a less influencial speaker for the academy because of its greater percentage ofwomen? The stature ofjournals may shift in relation to their inclusion of the formerly disempowered and so may the prestige of the academic field itself, even when "acceptance" has not meant a satisfactory shift in the total profession. Inclusion can also be used to co-opt "outsiders" to silence challenges, just as special journal issues on women writers may be used to justify the exclusion of women in regular issues. Kaplan and Rose show that historically the process of canon formation is an organic and ongoing ideological process. They refer to this process as "oscillation" rather than "dialectic" or "progress." Feminist criticism tends to affirm connections between writers and readers, texts and contexts. But the common reader seldom studies literary criticism. Indeed, the reading public today is multicultural and not at all sure that value inheres in the humanities and lists of Great Books. Thus we are left with the...