Originality, hidden meanings and the canon: Reading Donne, Góngora and the critics in their days and ours

Abstract

The poetries of John Donne and Luis de G6ngora no longer excite controversy; they are today universally accepted as representative of the highest manifestations of Baroque sensibility. A century ago, of course, this was not so; the same lyrics, far from sparking critical acclaim, were in fact reviled. "Sobre gustos no hay nada escrito", goes the Spanish proverb: the final word on taste has not been written. Yet the criterion of "taste" hardly provides a satisfactory explanation for the wholesale rejection, and then rehabilitation, of an entire aesthetic. The key lies rather, I believe, in the unspoken criteria which govern canon-making, which have less to do with taste than with fundamental attitudes toward the world, toward life, and toward the works which express such attitudes. Thus this study of the canonical status of poets like Donne and Grngora will investigate the ontology implicated in the creation, refashioning and indeed interpretation(s) of the canon. In a provocative 1988 article, Mafia Rosa Menocal challenged the uncanonical status of rock music by pointing out both that it follows the Petrarchan phenomenon of utilizing the disdained "vulgar" tongue and that its connections to the "great tradition" beginning with the troubadour trobar clus tradition are explicit and frequent. Although her often witty attack reflects a personal appreciation for rock, the issues Menocal raises are of course relevant not only to this particular form but also to the way in which the canon is created and the criteria for admission to it. Menocal's assumption that rock lyrics have canonical status because their central subject is love is, however, problematic. It is