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5.0 von 5 Sternen
Reviewing 'Cultural Captial', 1. Mai 2000
Von Ein Kunde
For any scholar working in the fields of literary history or 'philology', Guillory's 'Cultural Capital' should be a mandatory reference source. Brilliantly assembling the diverse concerns of multi-culturalism, aesthetic theory, post-Marxism and canon formation, Guillory manages to offer a work of impressive relevance and scope. The principle objective of Guillory's project, as he himself asserts, is to revise the popular misconceptions about canon formation: 'The largest thesis of the book is that the debate about the canon has been misconceived from the start, and that its true significance is one of which the contestants are not generally aware. The most interesting question raised by the debate is not the familiar one of which texts or authors will be included in the literary canon, but the question of why the debate represents a crisis in literary study.' (Guillory: 1993:vii) Dealing with the canon debate particularly as it concerns Anglo-American pedagogical institutions (his close readings, for example, treat Milton, Gray, Wordsworth and Eliot), Guillory nonetheless also offers a wide-ranging international theoretical buttress to his argument (Bourdieu, Gramsci, Bahktin, Jauss inter alia are cited and analysed with astounding precision and insight). I would unreservedly recommend this book to anyone interested in the current multi-cultural/feminist/minority debates regarding the canon. Guillory's style is complex, muscular and brilliant. This book will not disappoint the most exigent connoisseurs of literary and cultural theory.
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