Pleasure and Change

The Aesthetics of Canon

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by Frank Kermode,

Edited by Robert Alter

Oxford University Press

Due/Published July 2004, 112 pages, cloth

ISBN 0195171373

The question of the canon has been the subject of debate in academic circles for over fifteen years. Pleasure and Change contains two lectures on this subject by Frank Kermode. In essays that were originally delivered as Tanner Lectures at Berkeley in November of 2001, Kermode reinterprets the question of canon formation in light of two related and central notions: pleasure and change. He asks how aesthetic pleasure informs what we find valuable, and how this perception changes change over time. Kermode also explores the role of chance, observing the connections between canon formation and unintentional and sometimes even random circumstance. Geoffrey Hartmann, John Guillory, and Carey Perloff offer comments on these essays, to which Kermode responds in a lively rejoinder. The volume begins with an introduction by Robert Alter.