Literary Canon as a Dynamic System of Chaos and Complexity Theory

Abstract

This theoretical study explores the structure of the literary canon. The paper identifies and analyzes three facets: aesthetics, culture, and history of the canon. Selected concepts of chaos and complexity theory describe the canonization process including sensitive dependency, self-similarity, recursion, multiplicity, and fractal images. Next, the interactions of the three facets are described in terms of global interactions within the conceptual framework of chaos and complexity. The literary canon is a system rather than an object. Concepts from chaos and complexity theory clarify the dynamics taking place within the system of the literary canon. Contrary to the notion that the canon must be a closed system, the concepts of dissipative structures and emergence shows the tendency of the literary canon to operate as an open system in which its equilibrium cannot restrict the movement of iterations due to the sensitive dependency of its interactions.