Kvalitetsbegrepp under omförhandling

Debatter om en svensk litteraturkanon

Abstract

Renegotiating concepts of quality: Swedish debates on the literary canon

Aesthetic quality as a measure of literary value was for a long time a staple of literary scholarship. Decades of canon debate – including aspects such as class, gender, and postcolonialism – and new approaches – such as literary didactics, affect theory, and postcritique – have led to changed emphases.

The article takes its starting point in the normative, aestheticizing view of literature against which these critical voices have been directed, represented by Harold Bloom’s controversial contribution The Western Canon. The Books and School of the Ages (1994). What traces of this conception of canon can be seen in today’s discussion of literary value? Two recent debates on a Swedish cultural canon, both connected to government proposals – one in 2006–2007 and the other in 2024–2025 – are examined. A general conclusion is that the concept of canon has undergone a decisive change in the Swedish context in recent decades. But while the literary canon is nowadays readily presented as accessible to all, its fundamental power of definition remains, and the conflict of objectives becomes particularly evident as government representatives formulate ambitions to use literature to achieve social change, and their proposals have nationalist overtones.