Untitled - Sexey's School Moodle

the “Homer of the English tradition,” had produced a travesty of a play which so
outwardly mocked a legacy left by the most prominent forefathers of the Western literary
tradition, Homer and Chaucer, he resolved to neutralize Shakespeare’s transgressions by
reworking the play of Troilus and Cressida for it to fit adequately within his conception
of tradition.
Ross notes that in the Renaissance, discourse was aimed to promote works by
contemporary groups of writers, while at the same time establishing a “tradition” by
acknowledging the value and authority of literature of the past, and more specifically the
classical period (90). Thus, modern authors set out to achieve “classical standards” that,
they believed, represented absolute standards by which literature could be valued (96).
As a result, criteria were largely dictated by ancient examples, and thus medieval genres
of writing, such as the chivalric romance, lost value. Nevertheless, Ross suggests that an
ongoing tension remained between admiring the classical canons of value and opening
the existing canon to modern authors and genres (102). This view is concurrent with
Jonathan Krammick’s observation that before the mid-eighteenth century, literature was
evaluated by modern standards—that “great” works were chosen for their modernity
(15)—a view of canonization that is still valid today. Yet the conflict between the “old”
and the “new,” the “classic” and the modern,” prevailed throughout the ensuing periods,
especially in the late eighteenth century, where the expansion of the literary market
prompted William Wordsworth to lament the public’s disregard for established canonical
works: “[t]he invaluable works of our elder writers, I had almost said of Shakespeare and
Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid German Tragedies,
and deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse” (130). Concurrently, due to the
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