Nik Waight

By what means do Coetzee and Defoe make a claim for literary originality and
canonical inclusion?

The process surrounding the admission of a text into the canon is neither simple nor one which is

universally accepted. Whether or not Coetzee and Defoe deserve to be read and studied as canonical

texts will be an intrinsic concern in this essay, but it is important to recognise that their status in this

regard is not necessarily synonymous with the intentions of the authors; it is conceivable that the

writers constructed their narratives without considering the possibility of canonical inclusion, and

subsequent understanding and judgments based on their work may be separate from the authors’

purposes. Through textual and contextual analysis of Robinson Crusoe and Foe, I shall explore

whether either writer can justly make a claim for literary originality and how they went about doing

so – if indeed any such claims were made. Regardless of the authors’ means and intentions, there

remains the issue of the transitory nature of the canon. It is forever altering and necessarily updating

according to certain preferences of a given time; critical opinion ranges from conservatives such as

Harold Bloom – who argues the case for a stringent, 26-author canon1 – to critics who question the

validity of the canon as a useful concept, as D. G. Myers2 contests.

When examining whether a text or an author can justifiably be considered as canonical, it is

essential to form a clear idea of the various facets which form the canon. Although Myers writes

that ‘the canon [...] is a bogey. It has never existed. It has merely changed, from critic to critic and

generation to generation’,3 it is difficult to corroborate this view; certain works of literature are

undoubtedly elevated above others within a particular period or within a specific society and

although the canon may well reflect ‘the elasticity of literature’,4 that is not to say that its existence

is questionable. Critical opinion is divided into myriad areas, some of which are entirely disparate,

others of which inevitably overlap. Shakespeare seems to be given special dispensation and is

universally accepted as ‘canonical’, but few – if any – others are awarded such a reprieve from

1 Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages (USA: Penguin Group, 1995).
2 D. G. Myers, ‘The Bogey of the Canon’, The Sewanee Review, 97.4 (1989), 611-621.
3 Myers, p. 620.
4 Alastair Fowler, ‘Genre and the Literary Canon’, New Literary History, 11.1, (1979), p. 97.
1
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repeated scrutiny. In The Western Canon, Bloom identifies 26 major writers who constitute the

canon; neither Defoe nor Coetzee are included here, but both are listed amongst his 870 writers.

Interestingly, Foe is the only novel of Coetzee’s to be mentioned, whilst Defoe is ‘privileged’ with

Moll Flanders and Journal of a Plague Year, in addition to Robinson Crusoe. Perhaps we

are therefore invited to view Defoe as ‘more canonical’ than Coetzee. The problem that exists with

interpreting authors (and the canon) in this way is that they are necessarily subjected to the

individual preferences of a given critic or a mode of critical thought, and authorial intention is not

taken into consideration. Much writing on the canon argues against categorising literature in this

way. Instead, the question is posed as to whether there exist any universal traits or characteristics

that can be applied to a work of fiction in order for it to gain canonical status. Earl Anderson claims

that ‘the idea of a literary canon can have validity only if defined in terms of its attributes’;5 whilst I

acknowledge the inherent difficulties associated with the definition of the word, in this essay the

canon will be interpreted as a term that incorporates more than just aesthetic value.

Similar to the way in which the canon has been viewed over time, critical opinion is equally

varied with regards to Robinson Crusoe. Ian Watt has an overwhelmingly positive opinion of the

novel, and his book The Rise of the Novel has been influential in promoting the cause for

Defoe’s work of fiction to be classified as the prototypical canonical novel. Watt states how

Robinson Crusoe ‘outdoes other literary forms in bringing us close to the inward moral being of

the individual’, before claiming that ‘it is appropriate that the tradition of the novel should begin

with a work that annihilated the relationships of the traditional social order’.6 Critical reception of

Foe has been largely positive, with the novel being seen as the quintessential - or canonical -

work of a Nobel Prize winner. Macaskill and Colleran highlight how ‘the seductiveness of Foe

derives from Coetzee’s recasting of the castaway tale, whose truth and secrecy he unveils, sets free,

and veils again as if confessing his role as intrigant within the world of discourses by and about

5 Earl Anderson, ‘Defining the Canon’, PMLA, 116.5 (2001), p. 1443.

6 Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel (London: Pimlico, 1957), p. 92.
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Crusoe’.7 Coetzee’s choice of Robinson Crusoe as a basis for his own story could be analysed as

a manipulative decision to preempt canonical inclusion, in essence attaching his own novel to a

previously established work of literature. His purpose for selecting Defoe’s novel is not, however,

so superficial or arbitrary. Coetzee wrote Foe in order to give an alternative view of certain aspects

present in Defoe’s writing, ‘[c]orrecting Defoe’s imagination of the marginal [and] reinscribing the

white woman as agent, as the asymmetrical double of the author’.8 I would refrain from viewing

Coetzee’s novel as somehow a ‘correction’ of colonialist writings such as Robinson Crusoe, but

he certainly wrote with the aim of drawing attention to the possibility of an alternative stance being

taken. By using Susan Barton as a vehicle between ‘Foe’, the reader, and the eventual story of

Robinson Crusoe, Coetzee questions the way in which Defoe’s narrative came into being, as

Susan determines ‘[m]any strengths you have, but invention is not one of them’,9 with reference to

Mr Foe. Coetzee simultaneously comments on novel-writing in a more generic way; preconceived

notions about the protagonist of Defoe’s fiction are altered by the fact that ‘Coetzee's Cruso is by an

absence orthographically marked as different from Defoe’s Crusoe’,10 a comment from Coetzee on

Defoe’s portrayal of Robinson Crusoe. Coetzee’s own views on the purposes of literature and the

place of his own writing within world literature are intriguing with regards to canonical inclusion.

Whilst he undoubtedly wants his writing to appeal to readers and strives to do so by developing

inventive and thought-provoking ideas, the novelist states ‘[a]lmost all my critical writing has been

outside that narrow (and now outdated) canon. As for whether some books are “greater” than others,

the question doesn’t particularly concern me’,11 a strong piece of evidence against the idea that

Coetzee is interested in making a claim for his work to be entered into the canon, as the moral

7 Brian Macaskill and Jeanne Colleran, ‘Reading History, Writing Heresy: The Resistance of Representation and the
Representation of Resistance in J. M. Coetzee’s “Foe”’, Contemporary Literature, 33.3 (1992), p. 437.
8 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Theory in the Margin: Coetzee’s Foe Reading Defoe’s Crusoe/Roxana’, in
Consequences of theory, ed. by Jonathan Arac and Barbara Johnson (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press,
1991), p. 175.
9 J. M. Coetzee, Foe ((New York: Penguin, 1986), p. 72. Future references are to this edition and are included in
parentheses in the text as (F: p. ).
10 Macaskill and Colleran, p. 439.
11 Richard Begam and J. M. Coetzee, ‘An Interview with J. M. Coetzee’, Contemporary Literature, 33.3 (1992),
pp. 428-9.
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implications of producing fiction purely to be seen as ‘great’ or ‘canonical’ would paradoxically

challenge the validity of the work.

Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe with the purpose of moral improvement, which is perhaps

why it is presented as fact. As fictional writing had not yet become recognised in England as worthy

of being taken seriously, Defoe necessarily had to disguise the truth about his novel – Crusoe is the

professed author of his autobiography – in order to escape censorship. The novel involves one man

who is able to think about and appreciate God, with the necessity for priests being removed - an

idea which would have appealed to many contemporary readers. When attempting to develop his

crops, this idea is symbolised by Crusoe’s determination that ‘God had miraculously caused this

grain to grow without any help of seed sown’.12 The moral and didactic purpose of Robinson

Crusoe was certainly a principal concern for Defoe, who ‘takes pains to insist that he has not used

his invention at all but has depended upon facts, and that his purpose has been the highly moral

desire to convert the vicious or to warn the innocent’,13 evident when Crusoe expresses his

‘abhorrence’ (RC: p. 177) of Friday’s cannibalism. His potential claim for canonical inclusion is

therefore related to his intention to reach as wide an audience as possible in order to convey his

message. Duplicity was necessitated by the historical context of his writing, with ‘the way in which

the story was told [being] forced upon the author [...] Hence we find Defoe defending himself by

calling Robinson Crusoe an allegory of his own life in order to silence the critics’.14 The novel is

written as a diary, and various techniques, including the element of having Robinson Crusoe record

the number of men he and Friday kill, are employed by Defoe to give the appearance of

autobiography and authenticity.

Robinson Crusoe is undoubtedly a product of the eighteenth century and Defoe

succeeded in producing a piece of literature which not only stands the test of time, but that sheds

light on many issues of relevance at the time of writing. By commenting on the society in which he

12 Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (London: Penguin Classics, 1719), p. 64. Future references are to this edition
and are included in parentheses in the text as (RC: p. ).
13 Virginia Woolf, ‘Defoe’, in Readings for Block 4 (Milton Keynes: The Open University, 2009), p. 82.
14 Raymond F. Howes, ‘“Robinson Crusoe”: A Literary Accident’, The English Journal, 16.1 (1927), p. 34.
4
Nik Waight

lived through an engaging and entertaining medium, Defoe makes a claim for canonical inclusion.

Robinson Crusoe is set in the mid-seventeenth century, between 1658 and 1686. During this

time, the Protestant revolution occurred and England finally became a protestant country, with

Catholics becoming increasingly less prominent. A Protestant tradition of literature existed pre-

Defoe, particularly evinced in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, so whilst Defoe was

perhaps not doing anything particularly original - an idea I will return to - his writing demonstrates

myriad aspects that can be explored in historical terms. The mutiny that occurs in the novel is a

clear allegory of the English Revolution. The captain, for instance, is overthrown before being

reinstated. The novel as a whole can be read, at the very least, as an allegory for colonialism, but it

is perhaps more explicit than that. At the end, Friday is colonised, subjected to the demands and

desires of the white, male, Christian European. This idea is taken further by Coetzee, who

challenges the validity of the coloniser’s perceived ownership over the marginalised. His intention

regarding Friday is perhaps to question the difference between ‘a colonialist - who gives the native

speech - and the metropolitan antiimperialist - who wants to give the native voice’.15 This conceit

demonstrates the ambitious nature of Coetzee’s writing, but several South African critics have

lambasted his ‘political quiescence, [...] producing novels that neither sufficiently address nor

affirm the contiguities between the literary domain and historical-economic-political realities’, thus

implying that Coetzee does little more than maintain the status quo in Foe. His representation of

the marginalised - in terms of both race and gender - would seem to contradict this view and support

Coetzee’s claim for canonical inclusion. Susan Barton’s role in the narrative of Foe is complex; she

is seen to be excluded, occupying the same literary space as the marginalised and subjugated Friday.

She begins the story by wanting to tell the truth, desperate to uncover Friday’s real tale; Coetzee

depicts her as a figure who is unable to hold onto these ideals as she increasingly turns to her

imagination as a consequence of Friday’s inability to speak. Her desire to resist the pressure of

being dominated by someone else’s pen is handled in an intelligent and thought-provoking way by

Coetzee, as the purpose of books and how they are written is a central concern in Foe. Susan’s
15 Spivak, p. 169.
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succinct remark - ‘I am not a story, Mr Foe’ (F: p. 131) - to the alleged author emphasises the point

that if one is incapable or unwilling to tell one’s own story, that person essentially becomes

colonised.

Colonialism is central to the language of Robinson Crusoe. Throughout his time on the

island, Robinson Crusoe describes his home as ‘my castle’ (RC: p. 124), with his ‘country house’

(RC: p. 81) on the other side of what he refers to as ‘my beloved island’ (RC: p. 108). This portrayal

of Crusoe’s life was a deliberate decision by Defoe to appeal to his English audience, who would

understand and appreciate such imagery. There is little in the novel that is surprising or contentious

within the context of the narrative, a factor which in itself is hardly unexpected given Defoe’s

personal history. Due to the difficulties with which he had already become involved as a

consequence of his espionage activities, he would not have written anything politically

controversial. Ultimately, Defoe knew how to write popular fiction for profit.

As one of Defoe’s primary concerns was monetary, it would be hasty to surmise that he

intended his work to be included in a literary canon. Although Ian Watt is unequivocal in his praise

of Robinson Crusoe, his view is contradicted in no uncertain terms by Homer Brown, and, to a

lesser extent, Raymond Howes. The canon as a concept did not exist in terms of literature until the

nineteenth century, an anachronism which nullifies any meaningful discussion on Defoe’s claim for

canonical inclusion. Although Defoe was hugely popular in his own time in the field of journalism,

which has lead Eliot and Rose to label him ‘[t]he first great English journalist’, 16 his works of

fiction only really became prominent in the Victorian era. Howes ends his article on Robinson

Crusoe by suggesting that ‘[i]f he had not had this achievement to his credit, perchance all but the

most curious scholars would have missed him entirely’, a point echoed in Brown’s assertion that

‘[i]f we were to start looking for editions of Defoe outside of the five or six titles made available in

paperback by one publisher, we might well conclude that Defoe was an arcane, esoteric interest

16 Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose (eds), A Companion to the History of the Book (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), p.
236.
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rather than a major Author’.17 This comment is made with reference to the immediate contemporary

response to Defoe and suggests that Defoe’s popularity as an author - rather than, say, journalist or

pamphleteer - came significantly later.

Many critics have written extensively on the afterlife of Robinson Crusoe and made a

claim for the novel’s canonicity as a result of this. Indeed, Coetzee privileges Defoe’s work in Foe

purely by selecting it as a base-text. This fact is of paramount importance when considering the

means by which Defoe makes a claim for canonical inclusion. If the afterlife of the novel is one of

the principal justifications for the novel’s inclusion, then the argument pertaining to the canon must

be our claim - that is to say, the reader’s/critic’s/biographer’s - and not the author’s. Towheed

astutely observes how ‘contemporary examples of postcolonial “writing back” deal almost

exclusively with Crusoe’s time on the island (or imaginative extrapolations from it), and provide

concrete evidence of the inexorably selective nature of the afterlife of a book’.18 Whilst Defoe could

not have staked a claim for canonical inclusion based on his novel’s afterlife, a paradox and an

anachronism, Coetzee was aware of its influence and his choice to write about Robinson Crusoe

is significant in this regard. By creating such an obvious link to ‘the imputed father of perhaps the

most important modern genre’,19 Coetzee’s novel automatically assumes a role of importance. This

is a trait which he employs similarly in Dusklands and further emphasises Coetzee as an

intertextual writer. As is true of Robinson Crusoe, Dusklands is a novel about solitude, and

Jacobus Coetzee, the narrator of the second novella, is alleged by J. M. Coetzee to be the author of

the story. This is clearly not the case – he is in fact shown to be illiterate when he signs his name

with an ‘X’ at the end – just as Crusoe is not the true author of Defoe’s novel. Foe, too, includes

intertextual references to other of Defoe’s writings, but its primary connection is to Robinson

Crusoe, and as such, Foe will inevitably always be read in relation to its literary antecedent.

Although the ways in which Coetzee marks his novel as being different from Defoe’s have been

17 Homer Brown, ‘The Institution of the English Novel: Defoe’s Contribution’, NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 29.3
(1996), p. 304.
18 ShafquatTowheed, ‘Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe’, in Reading Guide for Block 4: Stories from
colonial encounters (Milton Keynes: The Open University, 2009), p. 20.
19 Brown, p. 309.
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well-documented, it remains the case that similarities are in abundance; Friday is still the

‘mutilated’ (F: p. 24) mute, who is later taught to make (albeit limited) sounds; Susan shares a

similar background to Crusoe in the sense that both of their surnames are anglicized – Susan’s

father’s ‘name was properly Berton’ (F: p. 10) and Crusoe was originally ‘Kreutznaer’ (RC: p. 1);

the fundamental aspect of being shipwrecked on an island is a staple part of both novels.

A superficial reading of Foe could therefore result in the conclusion being drawn that

Coetzee has accomplished nothing unique. His novel is obviously and openly based on the ideas of

another writer and there is certainly nothing ‘new’ in reinterpreting an already-published and

already-famous literary work. Indeed, the first three sections of Foe constitute ‘three eighteenth-

century set pieces: a travelogue, an epistolary narrative, and a first-person narrative focalized

through conventions of limited omniscience’.20 In terms of form and structure, therefore, it is almost

impossible to argue that Coetzee has produced anything original, but as Macaskill and Colleran

insightfully recognise, ‘[t]he only problem with the ending, of course, is that it does not end the

novel - though it seems as if it should. A fourth section follows, one so utterly different from its

predecessors that it seems, at first, a coda indifferently, mistakenly attached’.21 Thus, the final six

pages of the novel are original in terms of altering the way in which the rest of the text is read.

Readers are uncertain about who is now telling the story - and perhaps about who has been all

along. ‘Foe asserts the limits not only of its own narrative, but of all narrative, for, as its ending

suggests, there is a place where language cannot go’,22 thus exposing readers to a new perspective

on Friday’s role.

Coetzee’s means of delving into the depths of how written work is constructed through

metafiction ‘display his modernity […] By “mounting” his story on Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe,

Coetzee achieves a subtle and original story of his own’.23 Whilst Robinson Crusoe is arguably

an original work of literature due to its form rather than its content, Foe is the reverse. Aside from
20 Macaskill & Colleran, p. 452.
21 ibid, p. 450.
22 Jarad Zimbler, ‘Under local eyes: the South African publishing context of J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, English
Studies in Africa, 47.1 (2004), p. 60.
23 John Rees Moore, ‘Review: J. M. Coetzee and Foe’, The Sewanee Review, 98.1 (1990), p. 155.
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the final few pages, Coetzee follows typical conventions of eighteenth-century writing, but he does

so in a unique way, by telling ‘the story of oppression without pretending to speak for the

oppressed’.24 In contrast, Defoe’s story is not concerned with the oppressed except in relation to

how the marginalised respond to and are compliant with the needs of the dominant. The idea behind

Robinson Crusoe is not original in any way; indeed, ‘the theme of the story was not of Defoe’s

invention […] If Alexander Selkirk had not […] remain[ed] for several months on a desert island

without dying or becoming insane, Robinson Crusoe would never have been written’.25 Even

this, though, is perhaps too simplistic a statement. Whilst the novel was written with Selkirk’s

specific situation in mind, the story of a shipwrecked individual surviving on a desert island had

been long-established in other cultures, most noticeably in Portuguese writing. It is not the

conception of a new story that makes Robinson Crusoe original, as ‘this perception of creative

originality is unfounded, for Defoe’s narrative was influenced by a number of already disseminated

source texts and accounts’;26 rather, the format by which the narrative is conveyed to the reader is

what constitutes the originality of Robinson Crusoe. Whether or not Defoe was the father of ‘the

genre he unselfconsciously employed’, it is evident that he is responsible for producing at least one

work of fiction the likes of which had never before been seen.

Authorial intention is difficult to examine with regards to the means by which Defoe and

Coetzee make a claim for literary originality. Defoe’s interest in reaching a wide audience may have

overridden his desire to consciously develop a new genre of writing, a point that is corroborated by

the fact that his story is not in itself exploring new ground. ‘It is not the case, as one sometimes

hears, that earlier writers were not concerned with originality; they were concerned, but not so

deeply and not so insistently as were the Romantics’.27 As literature progressed throughout the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, writing became more experimental and authors increasingly

attempted to find new ways to express their ideas. Coetzee must be more concerned with originality
24 G. Scott Bishop, ‘J. M. Coetzee’s Foe: A Culmination and a Solution to a Problem of White Identity’, World
Literature Today, 64.1 (1990), p. 54.
25 Howes, p. 32.
26 Towheed, p. 20.
27 Thomas McFarland, ‘The Originality Paradox’, New Literary History, 5.3 (1974), p. 450.
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than Defoe because the earlier writer had few other forms of reference within the genre of novel-

writing; one of the principal messages readers take from Foe concerns how works of literature are

constructed, or ‘the prehistory of authorial composition’,28 a theory-based theme which is made

original by Coetzee’s exploration of it within the confines of a novel.

The discussion of Defoe and Coetzee as original writers or otherwise automatically

conforms to the premise that such an achievement is possible. As with the canon, there are many

critics who would dismiss the feasibility of this, as can be seen in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s aphorism

that ‘[t]here was never an original writer. Each is a link in an endless chain’.29 The racial hierarchy

that exists in Robinson Crusoe is a factor which had been present in writing long before the

seventeenth century. Friday behaves like an English servant. He is colonised by Crusoe almost

immediately, having to learn English – Crusoe first ‘made him know his name should be Friday’

(RC: p. 176) – and become Christian – Crusoe ‘acquainted him first with true Christian religion’

(RC: p. 188). This point echoes the bartering for Xury which occurs between Crusoe and the captain

of the ship in Chapter Three, whereby Crusoe agrees to ‘sell the poor boy’s liberty’ on the condition

that he will be ‘set [...] free in ten years, if he turned Christian’ (RC: p. 28). The contrast to such

depictions of the marginalised is when Friday is reunited with his father, whereby Defoe reinforces

his status as a human, thus suggesting that it is possible to move from one side to the other of the

racial binary opposition. Friday is ultimately ‘redeemable’ because he is not black; in fact, the

description Crusoe gives of Friday upon first encountering him is intensely favourable, seen in the

metaphor of ‘the sparkling sharpness in his eyes’ before the colour of his skin, which ‘was not quite

black, but very tawny’ (RC: p. 176) is relayed to readers. Susan Barton’s impression of Friday

perhaps exposes Coetzee’s opinion of Defoe’s portrayal of the character, as she informs the reader

in a parenthetical aside that ‘I found Friday in all matters a dull fellow’, (F: p. 22). Her descriptions

of him are less pronounced than her descriptions of ‘Cruso’, but it is noticeable that she sees Friday

as being ‘like any Negro’ (F: p. 24), a factor which fails to correlate with Defoe’s depiction of him.

28 Towheed, p. 25.
29 ibid, p. 461.
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Contrasting issues relating to race, Robinson Crusoe has been viewed as original with reference

to capitalism: Crusoe is an individual, alone in the world and obligated to work hard in order to

survive and succeed. However, as with the majority of factors surrounding the novel, once again it

is the case that the idea is not new, but that Defoe ‘came to his novel-writing with certain

conceptions about the art which he derived partly from being himself one of the first to practise it’.30

Crusoe actively seeks to amass property whilst on the island, refusing to throw away the money he

finds, despite its relative uselessness on the island. His frequent and detailed accounts represent a

duality, as he keeps financial accounts, but he also records everything as a way of accounting to

God. These aspects are all relevant to Defoe’s era, making it viable that Defoe was not a proponent

of originality, but merely reflecting the concerns of his time; ironically, this perhaps serves to

strengthen the novel’s bid for canonical inclusion.

In conclusion, whilst there are many factors which can be applied to both Foe and

Robinson Crusoe to support a claim for their inclusion in the literary canon, it is equally evident

that no finite criteria regarding this process exist. I have examined the ways in which the texts have

been read as contributing to the canon, but I have questioned whether this can be attributed to any

claims from the author; rather, it seems to be a decision that neither Defoe nor Coetzee is

responsible for; canon formation did not occur until after Defoe, and Coetzee’s own interest in the

canon is ambivalent at best. Both writers intended their writing to be engaging and interesting, feats

which they certainly accomplished, and there are elements of each novel studied that demonstrate

originality. Defoe – wittingly or otherwise – was one of the first writers to practise novel-writing as

an art form, although the ideas represented in Robinson Crusoe are an amalgamation of various

other sources. Coetzee, meanwhile, largely follows conventional forms of eighteenth-century

writing in Foe, but in doing so is able to explore new and original paths in terms of how novels are

written and ultimately, what constitutes the purpose of writing.

Word count: 4084

30 Woolf, p. 82.
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