Debates around the literary canon center on which works should be taught to students, and as such, the primary participants in these debates are academics and educators. In the 1980s and 1990s, the “canon wars” were the overarching debate between conservatives, who favored the traditional curriculum of “Western” writers, and progressives or multiculturalists, who argued for the inclusion of works in the canon beyond those written by predominantly white and male authors. Many Postmodernists, who reject the idea of objective truth or value, argued against having a canon at all.

In short, the conservative position held that the bulk of the literary canon, written by white men, held universal value that upheld and perpetuated a high standard of literary thought and education. Progressives argued that greater representation of marginalized groups in the canon, specifically women, authors of color, and queer authors, would broaden the perspectives of the canon and therefore also the perspectives of students. However, many progressives took the stance of the Postmodernists, arguing that any canon would be exclusionary and oppressive.

Bloom’s The Western Canon takes up the conservative side of this debate, though Bloom is careful to distance himself from those he considers more conservative than himself. For Bloom,