ABSTRACT
In Chapter One we considered some of the ways in which the canon of literature is constructed. We looked, for example, at the influence of Englishness and at the power of English as a world language. We also looked at the way in which literature by people of colour, and by women of all ethnic groups, has tended to be excluded until recently. In that chapter a wide range of ideas was put forward, and I'd like to return to one of them now - the idea offered by Arnold Kettle. You may remember his argument that 'Literature is a part of life and can be judged only in its relevance to life. Life is not static but moving and changing' (Kettle, An Introduction to the English Novel, 1983 edn, p.12).
