ABSTRACT
Astrid Lindgren is widely recognized as one of the most infl uential children’s book authors of the twentieth century, and her works can therefore be said to be highly canonized. But when does a literary work become part of the literary canon? Considering the canonical works of any given literature, one can distinguish some common criteria which all of them live up to. There is, however, no clear consensus on what is seen as canonical. In this paper, we suggest the following defi nition: in order to be considered a canonical work, a literary work should fi rstly be of interest to today’s audience. It should, in other words, still be read and, hence, passed on. Secondly, the literary work should be debated by literary critics. This entails the work having supporters as well as opponents. Furthermore, it should be discussed in works of literary history. Finally, the literary work should exert some infl uence on modern writers.1
