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Introduction: The Western Perspective of Literary Canon 
 
To deal with canon means to investigate a wide range of works of literary criticism 
involved in the century-old debate around the idea of an aesthetic principle. For this 
reason it is more appropriated to consider this brief investigation as 
théories de la 
connaissance
,
1
to quote Shaeffer’s words, rather than a work of literary theory in a 
strict sense. Actually, the Fukushima literary responses appeared in the last few years 
brought scholars attention to recognise the importance of defining the canon of the 
“literature of the catastrophe” although works of literary criticism are still a few and 
the configuration of a canon is still out of the weeds. 
The first approach to what is simply reffered to as “canon” or “classical canon”
2
owns 
its credits to the Greek artist Polikleitos and his sculpture known as 
Doryphoros
(440 
bC) which represents author’s attempt to demonstrate by visual art the accuracy of his 
written treatise entitled 
κανών
(
Kan
ṓ
n
, translated as "measure" or “rule”):
3
an 
explanation of Polikleitos’s own view of harmonic and well-balanced proportions of 
the human body in the sculpted form. The 
Canon
, then, assumed the connotation of a 
standard system of rules required in the creation of a perfect and sublime work of art, 
accepted as social convention. This “classical” or “aesthetic ideal” was soon applied 
to all artistic productions, including the literary field.
According to Massimo Onofri, 
“Readers’s tastes, critics’s judgements, historians’s works of reconstruction, are all 
factors that actually contribute to the constitution of the literary value.”
4
But it is 
slightly more complicated than that. First of all, what “readers’s tastes” represents is 
the point of view of the reception of the artwork. Literary tastes can change in relation 
to the historical period, political background, social environment and so on; that 
means that the canon, from a reader point of view, can change rapidly and differs 
widely from country to country. Moreover, a shift in themes and trends can be 
individuated among authors too, as the formation of literary 
écoles
or 
mouvements
proved.
5
Secondly, the “historians’s works of reconstruction” refers to the work of an 
established authority: Roman Church (see Middle Age), a political group (see any 
totalitarian system and its censorship) and more recently, the publishing companies 
who answer to only one imperative, the one of profitability, are all examples of 
institutions in charge with interests in maintaining a particular canon alive. In the first 
case, the canon assumed the function to legitimise the political power thorough 
literary codes; in the second case, the canon is a mere definition for marketing 
purposes. What “reader’s tastes” and “historians’s works of reconstruction” both 
underline is that the canon can be no more considered as a fixed standard of rules but 
a flexible system instead. In the Japanese editorial world the literary production 
labeled by John Whittier Treat as 
tsukaisute
使い捨て
(“read and throw away”) 
1
Shaeffer, J-M. (1983). Du text au genre. Notes sur la problématiques générique. In Genette, Jauss, 
Schaeffer, Scholes, Stempel, Viëtor, 
Théorie des genres
(pp. 179-205). Paris: Points Essais.
2
Developed during the Greek high Classical Period (400-450 bC) the term “canon” assumed the 
attribute of “classic” (often referred to simply as “the classic(s)”.
3
Stewart, A. (1990). 
Greek Sculpture: An Exploration.
New Haven: Yale University Press.
4
Onofri, M. (2001). 
Il canone letterario
. Bari-Roma: Laterza (p.8). My translation.
5
Actually the Italian term 
corrente letteraria
(“literary stream”) is to be preferred to address groups of 
authors, poets, novelists or journalists, who share the same aesthetic ideal or conception of literary 
production. See Vercier, B, Maurel, A. (1994). 
La critique.
Paris: Éditions du Hachette (p. 31).

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literature
6
serves as an example. The term is used to address the literary production of 
authors like Yoshimoto Banana and Murakami Haruki, just to name a few, whose 
works are highly demanded by the public. The success of these literary pieces of art is 
explained by the quality of being products for leisure and entertainment only, a 
caracteristic that arises doubts about their literary value, the last aspect of Onofri’s 
statement. According to Jean-Paul Sartre
7
all artworks are inestimable because they 
are the result of a free creative act in terms of 
liberté/gratuité
. Unfortunately, for 
Sartre this also means that this creative act is always useless (
inutile
) except for the 
focus on the engagement, the authorial commitment in the act of writing. This 
position was strongly criticised by Roland Barthes, stirring up the famous Sartre-
Barthes debate around literature. As for Sartre, the act of writing is not neutral 
because words have the power to change the state of things. Even silence is not a 
neutral choice because its value is measured by the absence of words; as to say, 
whatever an author decides to write or not write, he is still taking a position in front of 
a particular matter and it is exactly this stance that qualifies the author as such, 
because it is his responsibility to denounce and accuse acts of useless violence.
8
This 
comittment turns to be an 
impératif moral 
towards writing itself and towards the 
public in terms of assuming all the consequences that the act of writing entails.
9
From 
this perspective, the 
beaux arts
are a product of author’s engagement. This is totally a 
different approach compared to the one of Barthes: the 
beaux arts
answer only to the 
plaisir
or 
jouissance
, the simple pleasure aroused from the act of reading.
10
And this 
pleasant feeling is perceived precisely because the literary work itself was written 
with pleasure which makes the author similar to an hedonist. No engagement is 
required in Barthes’s theory: the aesthetic principle “l'art pour l'art” (“art for art's 
sake”)
11
is the only rule to follow. The success of a piece of art is then originality, 
singularity or something perceived as anew (actually Harold Bloom echoed Barthes in 
regards to this philosophy, see his
Western Canon
).
12
This different point of view 
concerning the literary engagement is a very thorny topic when trying to define the 
“literature of the catastrophe" as a canon in itself. To proceed with the last review of 
Onofri’s statement concerning the “critics’s judgements” it is useful to take advantage 
of Andrea Bernardelli’s observations remarking two different approaches to the 
literary criticism: one, defined as “descriptive function or 
ex-post
function” consists in 
an historical attempt to describe a map of literary genre; the other one is the “pre-
scripted modality” or 
a priori 
modality: a subordination of the work of art to specific 
rules; in other words, the author himself brings his work in line with a particular genre 
or trend.
13
In addition to that, according to Innocenti the first approach is diachronic 
or atemporal because it attempts to establish a large-scale evaluation system valid all 
time, with a retroactive effect; the second one, on the contrary, can be considered as 
6
Treat, J. W. (1993). Yoshimoto Banana writes Home: Sh
ō
jo Culture and the Nostalgic Subject. In 
The 
Society of Japanese Studies
, 19, 2 (p. 357).
7
Sartre, J.P. (1985). 
Qu’est-ce que la littérature? 
Paris:
 
Éditions du Gallimard. This concept and the 
following ones are repeated several times in the essay.
8
Sartre, J.P. (1946). 
La Responsabilité de l’écrivain.
Paris: Éditions du Verdier (p. 56).
9
Benoît, D. (2000). 
Littérature et engagement.
Paris: Éditions du Seuil (p. 47).
10
Barthes, R. (1982). 
Le plaisir du texte.
Paris: Éditions du Seuil. This concept and the following ones 
are repeated several times in the essay.
11
Slogan credited to the French literary critic Théophile Gautier (1811–1872).
12
Bloom, H. (1995). 
The Western Canon: the books and school of the ages
. New York: Riverhead 
Books.
13
Bernardelli, A. 
Che cos’è l’intertestualità
. Roma: Carocci Editore (p. 43). My translation.

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synchronic because answers to the current trends.
14
This academic work is referring to 
the first one, of competence of critics.