Popular and learned culture , canon and iconoclasm

Abstract

The paper starts by spelling out the theoretical standpoint adopted, that is, grounded on a historical approach. It is argued that any subject may be studied from a history of ideas approach, emphasizing the cumulative effort of scholarship, in what is usually called an internalist understanding. Or it may be studied from an externalist or social and political approach, highlighting the ways concepts and ideas change according to new social realities which foster new interpretive models, including paradigm revolutions. Adopting this social understanding, the paper then continues to address two key subjects: learned versus popular culture and canon and iconoclasm. Both couples may be traced to ancient times, but were reshaped and redefined in modern times as a result of the nation state and imperialism. Greeks and Romans differentiated high and low levels of expression, referring to what is inspiring, as tragedy and religious music, and to low, popular genres, such as comedy and burlesque music. The same applies to the early establishment of a canon of high literature and music, such as the Epic, as opposed to transient and less important genres. There was thus a kernel of distinction in ancient times, but modernity would reinvent and recreate this in a completely new social environment.