Poetry anthologies and the creation of canons : a narrative of power relations and aesthetic choices

Abstract EN

The construction of poetry Anthologies as narratives of power relations and aesthetic choices triggers many questions about: Anthologies as a genre on its own; their relationship to the canon as either representative of specific variations within the canon or as defying the whole concept of the canon; but more importantly about the narrative art of making anthologies.

The aim of this paper is to expose the ideological constructions that drive poetry anthologists to make a statement through their anthologies analyzing their defiance or support of their “Grand Narratives”.

This study is not only concerned with the “political statement(s)” an anthology represents but also with the aesthetic criteria an anthologist uses and proposes as an established tool for the art of compiling, abridging, reviving, introducing, including or excluding.

The question then is whether it is possible to draw a line between what belongs to power relations and aesthetic criteria, or it is rather that the two concepts work concurrently to serve the whole matter of the narrative art of making an anthology.

My proposition is that the intricacies of aesthetic criteria and the power game are all part of the “narrativity” of the Anthology.

Therefore, the paper analyzes a number of different poetry anthologies ranging from the historical poetry anthologies such as The Golden Treasury (1861), The Oxford Book of Modern Verse (1965), The Faber Book of Modern Verse(1937) and the more recent Feminist Poetry Anthologies as well as African poetry Anthologies.

The analysis aims at identifying the aesthetic criteria as well as the power relations that control choices in an attempt to understand the narrative techniques and tools that make the Anthology a genre on its own.