Pleasure and Change: The Aesthetics of Canon (The Berkeley Tanner Lectures)

109 Pages·2004·0.66 MB·English

by  Sir Frank Kermode

Pleasure and Change:
The Aesthetics of Canon
FRANK KERMODE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Pleasure and Change
The Berkeley Tanner Lectures
The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, which honour the American
scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner, are pre-
sented annually at each of nine universities in the United States
and England. They were established at the University of California,
Berkeley, beginning in the 2000/1 academic year. This volume is the
second in a series of books based on the Berkeley Tanner Lectures. In
this volume we include the lectures that Frank Kermode presented in
November 2001, along with the responses of the three invited com-
mentators on that occasion—Geoffrey Hartman, John Guillory, and
CareyPerloff—andafinalrejoinderbyProfessorKermode.Thevolume
is edited by Robert Alter, who also contributes an Introduction. We
haveestablished theBerkeley TannerLecturesSeries inthebelief that
thesedistinguishedlectures,togetherwiththelivelydebatesstimulated
by their presentation in Berkeley, deserve to be made available to a
wider audience. Additional volumes are now in preparation.
Robert Post
Samuel Scheffler
SeriesEditors
VolumesPublishedintheSeries
JosephRaz,ThePracticeofValue
EditedbyR.JayWallace
WithChristineM.Korsgaard,RoberetPippin,andBernardWilliams
Pleasure and Change
The Aesthetics of Canon
FRANK KERMODE
With Commentaries by
Geoffrey Hartman
John Guillory
Carey Perloff
Edited and Introduced by
Robert Alter
1
2004
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Copyright#inthisvolumeTheRegentsoftheUniversityofCalifornia2004
‘‘PleasureandChange:TheAestheticsofCanon’’byFrankKermodewasdeliveredasa
TannerLectureonHumanValuesattheUniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley,2001.
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Kermode,Frank,1919–
Pleasureandchange:theaestheticsofcanon/FrankKermode
withcommentariesbyGeoffreyHartman,JohnGuillory,
CareyPerloff;editedandintroducedbyRobertAlter.
p.cm.—(TheBerkeleyTannerlectures)
Includesindex.
ISBN0-19-517137-3
1.Canon(Literature)2.Literature—Psychologicalaspects.
I.Alter,Robert.II.Title.III.Series.
PN81.K4252004
809—dc22 2003060974
WallaceStevensreprintedfromTheCollectedPoemsofWallaceStevens
byWallaceStevens,copyright1954byWallaceStevensandrenewed1982
byHollyStevens.UsedbypermissionofAlfredA.Knopf,
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Contents
List of Contributors vii
Introduction 3
Robert Alter
PLEASURE AND CHANGE
Frank Kermode
Pleasure 15
Change 32
COMMENTS
The Passing of the Canon 53
Geoffrey Hartman
It Must Be Abstract 65
John Guillory
The Artist and the Canon 76
Carey Perloff
vi (cid:1) Contents
REPLY TO COMMENTATORS
Frank Kermode
On the Comments of the Discussants 85
Index 93
List of Contributors
Sir Frank Kermode is Professor Emeritus of English at the
University of Cambridge. One of the preeminent critics in the
English-speakingworld,hehas written on abroad range oftopics
fromthe New TestamenttoShakespeare,theRomantics,Wallace
Stevens, and literary theory. Among his many books, three that
are especially relevant to the issue of canon formation are The
Classic, Forms of Attention, and History and Value.
Robert Alter isProfessorofHebrewandComparativeLiterature
attheUniversityofCaliforniaatBerkeley.Hisworkhasbeencon-
cernedwiththeEuropeanandAmericannovel,withliteraryaspects
of the Hebrew Bible, and with literary history and theory. Two of
his bookspertinent tothe subject of this volume areThe Pleasures
ofReadinginanIdeologicalAgeandCanonandCreativity.
John Guillory is Professor of English and Chair of the
Department of English at New York University. He is the author
of three volumes of criticism, What’s Left of Theory?, Poetic
Authority, and Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon
Formation.Thelastofthesehasexertedconsiderableinfluenceon
current discussions of the canon.
Geoffrey Hartman, Professor Emeritus of English and Com-
parative Literature at Yale University, is the author of some two
dozen books and has been one of the leading interpreters of
English Romantic poetry. His early study of Wordsworth,
Hopkins, Rilke, and Vale´ry, The Unmediated Vision, is a seminal
work, and he has devoted a series of important volumes to the
stateofliterarycriticism,Frenchpoststructuralistthought,remem-
bering the Holocaust, and related topics.
viii (cid:1) List of Contributors
Carey Perloff is Artistic Director of the American Conser-
vatory Theater in San Francisco, one of the country’s leading
repertory companies. Under her directorship A.C.T. has mounted
a wide variety of critically acclaimed productions, from the Greek
tragedians to Shakespeare to Tom Stoppard and younger con-
temporaries.
Pleasure and Change