Literature
is only one fragment of cultural activities; while cultural context includes
many things in it.
(1) The cultural scene
The
critic looks at the whole cultural scene and tries to asses it healthfulness
for the literary artist. He considers questions of popular taste, the function
of reviews and periodicals, the effects of religious, moral and political ideas
on literary judgment, the relation between publisher’s artistic activities etc.
The critic doesn’t make a value judgement of particular works. His first
concern is to describe how the cultural climate of a period affects the
production and appreciation of literature.
(2) Matthew
Arnold’s view on Middle Class Culture:-
Matthew
Arnold felt that the materialistic middle class of the Victorian Age was not
the proper guardian of a literary heritage or the satisfactory audience for
imaginative literature. Sterm evangelic religion produced an insensitivity to
aesthetic value. Arnold asked what happened to culture in such environment and
what is the message which true culture has to bring to such people? He
expressed his views on ‘culture and Anarchy’ as following.
People
remark that greatness of England would die when its coat reserves are
exhausted. But what is greatness! Greatness is a spiritual condition. Is wealth
an end in itself? Today Englishmen believe that their greatness and welfare
depend upon their riches. The use of culture is that it helps us, by means of
its spiritual standard of perfection, to regard wealth as but machinery. The
people who believe that greatness and welfare are proved by richness are
unworthy people. If we observe such rich people their habits, their reading
materials, their way of life etc, we would never consent to be like them. Thus
culture gives dissatisfaction which is of the highest value in the industrial
community and saves the future from being vulgarized.
“Bodily
exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things.’ Say
the author of Epistle to Timothy. The Utilitarian Franklin say, ‘Eat and drink
just enough in reference to the service of the mind. The formation of the
spirit and characters must be our real concern. And this perfection is culture
which combines sweetness and light. Culture teaches us the essential character
of human perfection.
Culture
is like poetry, because it makes sweetness and light to be characters of
perfection. Many amongst use rely upon our religion to save us. It is more
important than poetry because it has worked on broader scale for perfection and
with greater masses of men. “But the idea of beauty and of human nature perfect
on all its side which is the dominant idea of poetry is a true and invaluable
idea”. We may appreciate the religious organization because it brings good and
happiness but their idea of human perfectness is narrow. Puritan religion can
never bring humanity to its true goad.
Materialistic
achievement doesn’t give anything culture can make men perfect and such time
will be the flowering time for art and literature. It is necessary to take note
of cultural situation while discussing literary criticism. The greatmen of
culture are those who have had a passion for mixing the best ideas of their
time. Lessing and Herder were such men in Germany.
(3) Literature
in an industrial civilization (Plight of art in industrial civilization):-
Industrial
Revolution affected literary imagination and critical ideas. It disturbed the
critics like Arnold, Ruskin and William Morris etc. The new urban class with
full literary values had its popular literature. So there were problems like
‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ class audiences. Such a book as ‘culture and
literature’ (London 1933) by F.R. Leavis and Denys Thompson studies the effects
of modern industrial conditions of advertising, mass production and
standardization. They studies the way in which people live and think and the
nature of their response to literature and art. There rare many other critics
who set literature in the context of contempory culture. They try to improve
literature by improving social taste or we can say cultural context. Such
critics are not impartial critics. They are not simply historical or
sociological critic. They don’t just investigate the relationship between
environment and art. They are active missionaries. They are concerned about
standards and improvement of critical awareness. They are also concerned about
the plight of the arts in an industrial civilization. Arnold was the pioneer in
showing this kind of concern. This is a world of pulp magazines and little
reviews of best sellers and complex metaphysical poetry, of ‘classical and
commercials. In such an age the literary critic cannot help asking himself what
makes these differences and whether they are healthy. And to ask such questions
is to become a critic of literature and civilization both.
(4) The writer and his cultural context:-
The
critic who is concerned with cultural context need not limit himself to middle
class philistinism and problems raised by them. He may see how the quality and
tone of literature is related to the kind of culture of which the author was a
part. One might distinguish between courtly literature, great House literature;
literature produced under patronage system the literature of Grub Street,
literature produced by writers working, for commercial publishers, literature
produced in magazines railway literature and so on. The cultural context is
different in each case. One can distinguish a difference in ton between those
of Shakespeare’s plays that were written for public theatre and those that were
written for the private theatre. The cultural context was different in each
case. The difference between the social contexts. The writer can write as a
well to do gentlemen to please himself or can write as a professional. There is
a vast difference between the two in tone, style etc. Matthew Arnold believes
that a healthy society is necessary for producing good literature.
(5) The
‘Cultural context’ critic at work:-
Many
works on the cultural context of different kinds of literature has been done.
E.g. R.D. Leavis ‘Fiction and the Reading Public (1932) discusses the cultural
context of different kind of literature. A critic should work from this context
to the literature of his age or form literature to the context. There is a new
kind of reading public which helps certain development in novels. Forms of
literature like novels poems plays etc can reveal cultural context.
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