Conflating literary and religious canon distorts genuinely secular hybrid texts

Evidence

The upshot of this simultaneity in constructing the literary and the sacred canonicities is that a certain kind of sanctity comes to be attached even to those cognate texts which are not so central in the specifically religious canon, while the sacred comes to be uniquely privileged in texts which are riven between the sacred and the profane, and are of enduring importance for the reconstruction of our secular histories. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1148

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Secular critique cannot easily assimilate fiction that accepts rather than tests religious doctrine — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 494; Secular critique struggles with novels that affirm rather than question religious orthodoxy — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 494; Religious narrative structures persist inside secular novels as absorbed plot paradigms — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 500

Broader Connections

• Secular critique struggles with novels that affirm rather than question religious orthodoxy #expands (0.82) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 494
• Secular critique cannot easily assimilate fiction that accepts rather than tests religious doctrine #expands (0.80) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 494
• Religious narrative structures persist inside secular novels as absorbed plot paradigms #qualifies (0.74) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 500