The literary canon is a tangible expression of the sociopolitical conversations that are constantly occurring across the various demographics of its respective society. Given that each culture is linked in constant transactions and shuffling power dynamics with its peers, the literature that is subject to public attention must be examined as a valued commodity. As Pascale Casanova details in “Translations as Unequal Exchange,” this examination of literature-as-capital reveals a set of lopsided power dynamics that serve to perpetuate the dominant cultures’ values and traditions. However, when she dissects her term “literary capital,” she finds that one of the things that empowers a dominant culture is “the number of texts which are considered universal and which are written in these languages” (289). Though the analysis on power dynamics that follows is logical and valid, Casanova concentrates too wholly upon the methodology of the past-and-current distribution of this literary capital. When combined with Jacques Derrida’s theory of différance, this overlap of language systems leads to a cross-pollination effect, wherein language systems fight to fill the niche of what a user might need to express. By drawing back our scope and using literary capital as a guiding compass, we can observe the vectors of where humanity’s communication appears to be heading: towards a language that more perfectly expresses our individual realities, one in which every text is considered universal.

According to studies surrounding the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, our basic language systems “must influence the way we think about the world,” and perhaps even influence our very perceptions of reality (Algeo & Pyles 21). In one foundational linguistic experiment, different groups of speakers from various language families were instructed to sort colored chips of different hues into piles. Across various language groups, the result ended up the same: the research concluded that language “will tend to cancel [the speaker’s] perception of all other differences” and influence the subject to sort according to the categories provided by the root language. For English-speakers, this would cause us to view and delineate difference between pink chips and red, “because we have different basic terms for those two colors;” conversely, with no basic terminology for light-blue versus its darker hue, English speakers would not separate the difference between the two chips. Growing to maturity within the lens of a different language might thus cause a speaker to “visualize the rainbow with different sorts of stripes, or in some other way altogether,” with these linguistic reverberations extending to alter one’s fundamental concepts of time, causation, and more (239).

Although a home language may cause a speaker to see the world in a different light, they are of course not entirely constrained by the limitations of that language. This is because languages are built on a fluid vocabulary pool of words that aid in social navigation of the marketplace of ideas, as well as the literal marketplace. The words available to a given speaker also are in turn supplemented as the individual thinks necessary by argots, jargons, and slang dependent upon their specialization and needs: a quantum physicist might need to invent words to talk about her discovery of quarks and gluons; an interior designer might indeed separate cerulean paint chips from indigo; whereas a handful of words would suffice for the common man (Eco 21). However, Claude Lévi-Strauss stressed that “[t]he elements which the ‘bricoleur’1 collects and uses are ‘pre-constrained’… the possible combinations of which are restricted by the fact that they are drawn from the language where they already possess a sense which sets a limit on their freedom of manoevre” (19). Given that a home language restricts the user’s freedom of maneuver, I argue that both individual writers and world cultures are competing to inscribe their values into the collective consciousness, thereby cultivating a form of political soft power on both the micro and macro scales.

To say that Shakespeare is a foundational author for Western nations is not hyperbole: the best authors shape the context of their contemporary conversations, forcing existing discourses to rotate, as if gravitationally, around their new ideas or their new expressions of old ones. When viewed through the lens of linguistic relativity, this effect becomes quite literal. Shakespeare’s invention of several hundred words fills the lexical gaps that otherwise would be inexpressible for the common English speaker, and his enduring themes likewise echo through our stories, even now providing guiding lines of what is expected out of a composed plot.

This is not to say, however, that the ability to revise the ways in which people understand the world is exclusive to monumental writers. Rather, the proportional value we attribute to works in the literary canon “depends on prestige, on the literary beliefs attached to a language, and on the literary value which is attributed to it” (Casanova 289). Within this frame, Shakespeare achieved his core status at the center of the Western canon not simply due to intrinsic quality of his form or content, but also due to his ability to coherently express the values of the then-dominant British Empire in such a way that was simultaneously intellectually compelling and acceptable to both its masses and to its elite. This artful transcription of national values was then seized upon by the British Empire and forcefully exported via socioeconomic pathways to other regimes as a means to justify her rule. Other citizens and countries, hoping to follow in the footsteps to similar power, would need to learn wield that “very efficient weapon in the world competition,” and adopt Shakespeare’s forms and content in order to properly enter into a discourse with the dominant power of their era (294).

This subjugation occurs in any conversation with a dominant power. Once we approach the author’s text as fundamentally intertwined with political identity, it forces the at-first troublesome acknowledgement that all texts are co-opted by their dominant culture. Walter Benjamin argues that though we are equipped with individual words to express a given object, these words are surrounded by cultural valuations and connotations: “The words Brot and pain “intend” the same object, but the modes of this intention are not the same… [Thus,] the word Brot means something different to a German than the word pain means to a Frenchman… these words are not interchangeable… in fact, they strive to exclude each other” (18). Benjamin does, however, correctly add the caveat that “[w]hile all individual elements of foreign languages… are mutually exclusive, these languages supplement one another in their intentions,” which points to the phenomenon of Derridean différance.

Derrida showed that our choice in any singular representation of an idea necessarily evokes the trace of similar words that have not been chosen, and these unchosen words in turn support the meaning conveyed by that isolated term (149). The greater the vocabulary in a given language, the greater specificity any given term carries with it; it is a greater choice to say “I love you” when you could have chosen I adore, cherish, venerate, covet, deify, like, than if your language only provided you with a love/like binary. To take this one step further, the more specific each of these unused synonyms, the more accurately the individual can communicate.

By laying this lens of différance over Casanova’s concept of literary capital, texts thus become a central medium through which cultural discourses occur, and we can thus read into the power discrepancies caused by socioeconomic disparities. Through the examination of translations, Itamar Even-Zohar argues that this intersection of multiple cultures makes literature “participate actively in shaping the center of the polysystem [of multiple cultures]” resulting in “new models of reality [that] replace the old and established ones that are no longer effective” (193). These exported texts stake out their native culture’s autonomy by transcribing the author’s represented values, and by receiving enough recognition so as to supplant another culture’s would-be author. Shakespeare’s widespread adoption by the British Empire is one example of this phenomena in action. While this system of communication of ideas disappointingly prevents genius works from more marginalized countries from suddenly emerging onto the world stage–each work having to conform to certain qualities of mass-market appeal (Chamberlain 295)–it nonetheless facilitates a gradual paradigm shift that is an imperfect amalgamation of the cultures that participate in the global polysystem.

Through the intermingling of ideas, different languages and foreign cultures provide a means of reanimating one another, by establishing loan-words or by (re)introducing concepts that were previously inadequately articulated within the home culture. Thus, just as when an individual speaker chooses to say “I love you” instead of “I like you,” choosing the Germanic brot over English bread or French pain–or choosing bricoleur instead of a rough translation–the writer is able to communicate a more refined version of their desired meaning. Reading works that were originally in foreign languages can make these connections more explicit to the reader.

Translation is a particularly fertile ground from which to cultivate this renovation at contact points of asymmetry, but it would be an error to view this as unique to translation. Rather, communication constantly evolves towards triangulating meaning more efficiently, even at the home culture–albeit at a slower pace–as exemplified both by Merriam-Webster’s yearly updates and by celebrities or geniuses infecting the cultural zeitgeist with slang and new words. Furthermore, John Algeo and Thomas Pyles elucidate that language is an “open system,” allowing the creation of nearly infinite meaning based not only on the user’s unique combinations of the language’s vocabulary, but on grammatical patterns as well (22). Through creative usage of the resources of parts of speech, inflection, word order, word agreement, function words, and prosodic signals, the meaning of a single sentence can be drastically transformed (Algeo 5-6). In this nigh-infinite array of possible combinations of language, it is surprising to see that humans are able to communicate at all. Noam Chomsky’s Universal Grammar attempts to connect the frameworks between languages with “simply a system of rules that in some explicit and well-defined way assigns structural descriptions to sentences” (6). This theory holds that the quantity of rules governing language communication vis-a-vis correct syntax and structure is indescribably complex and vast; however, despite these complexities, infants the world over are evidently able to intuitively ingrain (most of) these rules into their daily communication. These two premises seem incompatible, unless there was some sort of systemic support for language learning ability.

As any person who has struggled through the age of literacy can attest, knowledge of these grammar rules arises out of trial-and-error. The degree of speed at which infants gain sophistication at using and bending those rules indicates, to Chomsky’s generativists, that there must be a “deep structure” innate to humans to help generate, support, and govern these syntactical choices (Chomsky 6). His critics have supplemented this argument for the existence of Universal Grammar by suggesting that children do not intrinsically learn a language’s rules through this simple trial-and-error, but are supported by their culture’s authority figures’ rich social feedback on initial language use (Deacon 104). Regardless, Chomsky’s current paradigm of linguistic theory suggests that the world’s language systems are linked by similar root systems, allowing us to conclude that these systems are, at some level, compatible with one another.

Language is not simply renovating itself by comparing terms and adding new varieties; through disuse, texts, words and their meanings become first mysterious, then esoteric, and end up appearing antediluvian. Benjamin argues that “the idea of life and afterlife in works of art should be regarded with an entirely unmetaphorical objectivity,” and that one mark of a great work is within observation of “their potentially eternal afterlife in succeeding generations” (16-17). This definition of fame is a compelling one, as it contextualizes continued appreciation as deserved or not; a text’s long afterlife signifies that core elements continue to resonate with future generations. However, Benjamin goes on to say that “the tenor and the significance of the great works of literature undergo a complete transformation over the centuries,” but this is a hasty generalization (18). Formative texts not only shape the discourse of its peers at the time, but provide a time-capsule that allows insight into the original societies that begot them, allowing those ancestral cultures into a continual conversation with the present. Those that do not, the canon discards, in turn clearing attentive space for texts that better express the values of its contemporary discourses.

This process of the canon’s evolution certainly has setbacks, including the constantly emerging swaths of formulaic mass-media entertainment in various mediums that vie for the public’s attention. An optimistic read shows that lowest-common-denominator entertainment has always existed, and does not appear to have suffocated genius works by Shakespeare nor Kubrick. We also see intelligent critics like Casanova, Chamberlain, Eco and Chomsky illuminate the problems of unequal power structures begetting further power, while existing power structures lack appropriate spotlight to emerging artists and artistic forms. Here, again, evolving technology seems to provide a partially satisfying answer. Although modern imperialism still aggressively sells our dominant cultures’ values to new markets, thereby changing the smaller cultures irrevocably, these links flow both ways: the minor countries are likewise now more capable of entering into conversation with the global canon and may transmit their ideas to reach a larger audience than ever before. Thus, although our process is lurching and haltingly impeded by capitalism’s predilection for famous names and copycats over risk-takers, the canon is gradually evolving to better equip our global citizenry with better attuned texts.

Ever attaining Benjamin’s “language of truth,” a language that perfectly expresses an external object or an internal phenomena, is definitionally impossible: each language is necessarily incomplete, as its users cannot become fully aware of their language system’s words’ ingrained connotative meanings while immersed in their system (18). However, our ever-more connected world draws inspiration from an ever-expanding repertoire of influences; even mass-media necessarily broadens the perspective of any individual citizen. As consequence, what constitutes ‘Truth’ can be examined by more angles. In becoming more aware of the different flaws of the Other’s description of reality, we are taught to reveal our own problems and gaps with language. Through the growth-and-decay cycles of the canon, which seeks to consume and integrate all opposition, we individual cultures are subsumed as if by an organism whose main purpose is to eff the ineffable.

Works Cited

Algeo, John. Problems in the Origins and Development of the English Language. 3rd ed.,  Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.

Benjamin, Walter. “The Task of the Translator.” Ed. Lawrence Venuti. The Translation Studies Reader. Routledge, 2000.  Blackboard. Web.

Casanova, Pascale. “Consecration and Accumulation of Literary Capital: Translation as Unequal Exchange.” Ed. Mona Baker. Trans. Siobhan Brownlie. Critical Readings in Translation Studies. Routledge, 2010. Blackboard. Web.

Chamberlain, Lori. “Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation.” Ed. Lawrence Venuti. Rethinking Translation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology, Routledge, 1992.

Chomsky, Noam. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Vol. 11. MIT Press, 2014.

Deacon, Terrence W. The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain. Norton, 1997.

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Johns Hopkins UP, 2016. Print.

Eco, Umberto. The Search for the Perfect Language. Blackwell, 1997. Print.

Even-Zohar, Itamar. “The Position of Translated Literature Within the Literary Polysystem.” Ed. Lawrence Venuti. The Translation Studies Reader. Routledge, 2000.

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage Mind. U. of Chicago P, 2010.