Literature is the reflection of the society
Introduction:- When we stand before a mirror it gives an accurate image of ourselves, in the same way Literature reflects society but only with the help of a master artist. Attempts are made to describe and define the influence of society on literature and to prescribe and judge the position of literature in society. This sociological approach to literature is particularly cultivated by those who profess a specific social philosophy.
Literature is an impression of society:-
The relation between literature and society is usually discussed by starting with the phrase, derived from De bonald that, “Literature is an expression of society”. But what does this axiom mean? If it assumes that literature, at any given time, mirrors the current social situation ‘correctly’, it is false; it is common place, trite and vague if it means only that literature depicts some aspects of social reality. To say that literature mirrors or expresses life is even more ambiguous. A writer inevitably expresses his experience and total conception of life; but it would be manifestly untrue to say that he expresses the whole of life-or even the whole life of a given time-completely and exhaustively. It is a specific evaluative criterion to say that an author should express the life of his own time fully that he should be ‘representative’ of his age and society. Besides, of course, the terms ‘fully’ and ‘representative’ require much interpretation: in most social criticism they seem to mean that an author should be aware of specific social situation, e.g. the plight of proletariat, or even that he should share a specific attitude and ideology of the critic.
In Hegelian criticism and in that of Taine, historical or social greatness is simply equated with artistic greatness. The artist conveys truth and necessarily, also historical and social truths. Works of art furnish document because they are monuments. A harmony between genious and age is postulated. ‘Representativeness’, ‘social truth’, is by definition both a result and cause of artistic value. Mediocre, average works of art, though they may seem to modern sociologist better social documents, are to Taine unexpressive and hence unrepresentative. Literature is really not a reflection of the social process, but the essence, the abridgement and summary of all history.
The question how far literature is actually determined by or dependent on its social setting, on social change and development, is one which, in one way or another, will enter into all the three division of our problem: the sociology of the writer, the social content of the works themselves, and the influence of literature on society.
The social origins of a writer play only a minor part in the questions rose by his social status, allegiance, and ideology; for writers, it is clear, have often put themselves at the service of another class. Most court poetry was written by men who, though born in lower estate, adopted the ideology and taste of their patrons.
The social allegiance, attitude, and ideology of a writer can be studied not only in his writings but also, frequently, in biographical extra-literary document. The writer has been a citizen, has pronounced on questions of social and political importance, and has taken part in the issues of his time.
Much work has been done upon political and social views of individual writers. Thus L.C.Knights, arguing that BenJonson’s economic attitude was profoundly medieval, shows how, like several of his fellow dramatists, he satirized the rising class of usurers, monopolists, speculators, and undertakers. Many work of literature-e.g. the ‘histories’ of Shakespeare and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels- have been reinterpreted in close relation to the political context of the time. Pronouncements, decisions, and activities should never be confused with the actual social implications of a writer’s works.
We can distinguish between writers according to their degree of integration into the social process. Writers may succeed in creating their own special public; indeed, as Coleridge knew, every new writer has to create the taste which will enjoy him. The writer is not only influenced by society: he influences it. Art not merely reproduces life but also shapes it.
Much the most common approach to the relations of literature and society is the study of works of literature and social documents, as assumed pictures of social reality. Nor can it be doubted that some kind of social picture can be abstracted from literature. Indeed, this has been one of the earliest uses to which literature has been put to systematic students.
Used as a social document, literature can be made to yield the outlines of social history.
Chaucer and Langland preserve two views of 14th century society. The prologue of the Canterbury Tales was early seen to offer an almost complete survey of social types.
Shakespeare, in the merry wives of Windsor, BenJonson in several plays, and Thomas Deloney seem to tell us something about Elizabethan middleclass. Addison,Fielding, and Smollett depict the new bourgeoisie of the 18th century; Jane Austen, the country gentry and parsons early in the 19th century; and Trollope, Thackeray, and Dickens, the Victorian world. At the turn of the century, Galsworthy shows us the English upper middle classes; wells, the lower middle classes; Bennett, the provincial towns.
But such studies seem of little value so long as they take it for granted that literature is simply a mirror of life, a reproduction, and thus, obviously, a social document. Such studies make sense only if we know the artistic method of the novelist studied, and can say-not merely in general terms, but concretely-in what relation the picture stands to the social reality. Is it realistic by intention? Or is it, at certain points, satire, caricature, or romantic idealization? In an admirably clear-headed study of Aristocracy and the middleclass in Germany, Kohn-Bramstedt rightly cautions us: “only a person who has a knowledge of the structure of a society from other sources than purely literary once is able to find out if, and how far, certain social types and their behaviour are reproduced in the novel…..what is pure fancy, what realistic observation, and what only an expression of the desires of the author must be separated in each case in a subtle manner.”
There is great literature which has little or no social relevance; social literature is only one kind of literature and is not central in the theory of literature unless one holds the view that literature is primarily an ‘imitation’ of life as it is and of social life in particular. But literature is no substitute for sociology or politics; it has its own justification and aim.
Conclusion: -In conclusion, literature is the brain of humanity. Just as in the individual the brain preserves a record of his previous sensations, of his experience, and of his acquired knowledge, and it is in the light of this record that he interprets every fresh sensation and experience; so the race at large has a record of its past in literature, at it is in the light of this record alone that its present conditions and circumstances can be understood. The message of senses is indistinct and valueless to the individual without the co-operation of the brain; the life of the race would be degraded to a mere animal existence without the accumulated stores of previous experience which literature places at its disposal.
Bibliography:-
· JUDGEMENT IN LITERATURE- W.BASILWORSFOLD
· THEORY OF LITERATURE-RENEWELLEK AND AUSTIN WARREN
· WHAT IS LITERATURE?- JEAN-PAULSARTRE
