Anonymity, canonicity, and literary value.

This article investigates institutional forces that maintain the focus on canonical authors in Middle English studies, despite the ubiquity of anonymity in the Middle English corpus, and despite the extensive critique of the canon that the field has witnessed. It provides a snapshot of the current Middle English canon, surveys publication patterns in sample academic journals in the twenty-first century, examines the ways authorship serves (and anonymity does not) as a critical tool, and shows what anonymous texts might offer to the ongoing assessment of the literariness of Middle English texts. Analysis of the scholarship of two Middle English scholars over the first two decades of the current century demonstrates the challenges and opportunities in developing methods that discern the literariness of anonymous, non-canonical texts. Work in New Formalism and object studies offers possibilities for recognising the literariness of anonymous texts not traditionally considered in terms of their aesthetic or formal features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]