Canon Transformation And Evolution Of American Literary History Since1945

The canon of American literature has experienced continuous modification andexpansion since the1960s. The emergence of this phenomenon is closely related with thechange of the contemporary American society, history and culture. The rereading of Americanclassic literature plays an important role in the process of the modification and expansion ofthe canon. We will have a deeper understanding of the meaning of canon through the researchof this thesis. What’s more, we will realize that canon is not confined to the standard volumeand its related religious content of the Bible recognized by Christianity. The reason whycanon has practical significance is that it was extended and used in the category of westernliterature. And it has caused controversy and become a hot topic in today’s multiculturalsociety.Through the analysis of canon transformation and the American literary history since1945, we will know that canon transformation has been the challenge and correction of theformation, content and significance of western literary canon in the United States since1970s.Through the study of Literary History of the United States, Columbia Literary History of theUnited States, The Heath Anthology of American Literature and A New Literary History ofAmerica, we will further find out the evolution of the four literary history. Although scholarsin our country also do research about the evolution of American literary history, such as HanJiaming. He writes A Survey of the Studies in American Literary History in the Reform Era, inwhich he introduces the achievements and the existing limitations of The brief history ofAmerican literature (I). Then he introduces the change of literature research during the earlystage of the reform and opening up in the United States in part II and the revised editionpublished in1986. Furthermore he briefly describes the characteristics of the revision of2003.Finally he introduces American literature by Chang Yaoxin and New American literature byLiu Haiping and Wang Shouren. However, his points of view are influenced by society andculture of our country. His study about the evolution of American literature has somelimitation. A research is expected to be done from the perspective of the social and culturalbackground of American literary history.Besides studies of Literary History of the United States, Columbia Literary History ofthe United States, The Heath Anthology of American Literature and A New Literary History ofAmerica, study on thematic literary history has developed in the last few years. There aretopics focused on childhood, border and feminism and so on. This thesis is based on the social and cultural background of America and studies canontransformation and evolution of American Literary History since1945. And then we couldfind that American literary history is more and more influenced by culture and thedevelopment of the literary history presents a trend: from literature to culture and from theelite to the public.This allows us to recognize that in the21st century, at the time of writing “literaryhistory”, people are expected to hold a more open attitude towards the understanding between“literature” and “history”, especially the relationship between the two. Besides, it will makeus realize that the writing of literary history has no fixed pattern. Also it will not standunchangeable. The writing of literary history is of course based on the development ofliterature as the main line, but we should not make literature isolated with other species ofliterature. If literature is put together with history and culture to talk about and be recorded,we can make the literary history more accordant with the requirement of the development ofour society.