Literature and Culture

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To better understand the situation in the USA, one can point to similar instances elsewhere. It is widely acknowledged that one of the most striking attempts to mix the non-literary (the ideological, political) with the literary in Central and Eastern Europe was so-called socialist realism. The method grew out of a certain political and cultural situation – the origin of the proletariat and the building of new socialist states. Its basic aim was to foster literature and literary criticism which would help the cause of socialism, i.e. building socialist and communist societies and suppressing capitalist thinking (literature, philosophy, etc.). One could not interpret literary works only on the basis of literary, aesthetic values, but had to use Marxist-Leninist philosophy as a tool, giving the clearest picture of the conditions portrayed in the work, i.e. whether a particular character was positive, acting to further the cause of the Communist party, or negative, in which case the character was found “reactionary”, supporting “rotten capitalist ideas”. If, in the end, the whole work was found reactionary, it was either severely criticised or even forbidden, depending on whether the critic lived in the period of the “hard-liners”, or in the so-called “easing off” period. The principle of utmost importance was that literature was not just aesthetic blabbering, but a force which should help improve society, working in collaboration with other social sciences and institutions. Literary works were expected to address the issues of the Communist Party, describe workers and their problems, their exploitation, and their struggle. Why did I mention this here? Is socialist realism not a thing of the past? No, I do not think so, since many of the principles of studying literature through “cultural studies” are, in my opinion, “socialist realism in disguise”. In what other way can one explain the principles of cultural studies mentioned by Guerin in his A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, stating that the cultural studies approach to literature transcends the confines of a particular discipline, is politically engaged, denies the separation of high and low culture, and analyzes not only the cultural work that is produced, but also the means of production (Guerin, pp. 240-241)? Allowing for some differences, the similarities cannot be overlooked. The most important include, naturally, the requirement that cultural studies should be “politically engaged” and that it also analyses the “means of production”. The question of why I mention this similarity might be put again. The answer would be that the political engagement of literary critics in post-WW II socialist countries was responsible for some of the grossest misinterpretations and abuses of 13
culture and society in human history. The problem was not that some writers addressed the difficult lives of the poor at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, but that a particularity was made to be a norm – i.e., that the writers who did not address the issues of the “working people” (the proletariat) were excluded, ostracised, labelled as the enemies of the system, and, finally, prohibited to publish. I admit that the situation in a democratic society can never get so far as to suppress, or even jail the dissidents. But the principle remains the same – the creation of an expectation that literature should be politically active, should be in the service of the previously wronged, exploited, is a disservice both to literature and the politically oppressed as well. That the tendency to use literature as a political tool is, nowadays, almost omnipresent cannot be denied. It is enough if one just looks at the names of conferences and congresses organised during the recent several years – there are hardly any which concentrate on literature, and not on political or ideological agenda. What would be the way out of this, in my opinion, unhappy situation? Should we deny the link of literature to extra-literary contexts, rid it of its influence upon the lived reality? Should we get back to the old “art for art´s sake” principle? Is it true that literature is just fiction, without any meaning for one´s individual life, for the life of a community, or for the life of an ethnic group? Not at all. Believing this would mean denying literature some of its most important functions. We would deny that works of art were, after all, written by real people, and that they are to be read by real people using them in various life situations. One of the answers to tackle this situation can be found in Sacvan Bercovitch´s article “The Function of the Literary in a Time of Cultural Studies”, in which he acknowledges the strength and validity of cultural studies by saying that it is here and will probably stay with us. One cannot ignore it, for its cause was legitimate, having been a product of a legitimate and unsatisfied need, as I tried to demonstrate above in the situation of American literature and culture. What is important, however, is that “as it [cultural studies] grows and flourishes it will preserve the literary in what still remains the literary and cultural studies” (p. 69). Demonstrating the rules and principles operating within social sciences and literary studies using a game of chess as an analogy, Bercovitch concludes that “we are always already more than our culture tells us we are, just as a language is more than a discipline and just as a literary text is more than the sum of the explanations, 14
Page 1: Literature and Culture Anton Pokriv
Page 4 and 5: Authors: Anton Pokrivčák Simona H
Page 6: Introduction There is no doubt that
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Page 11: grassroots. What was once considere
Page 15 and 16: as limited an idea as suggesting th
Page 17 and 18: of the fundamental American ideas.
Page 19 and 20: man” (ibid.). The beauty of natur
Page 21 and 22: Coleridge has it, “Something ther
Page 23 and 24: creation, resulting from Coleridge
Page 25 and 26: life. That was, however, only the o
Page 27 and 28: Superficially, undoubtedly, she was
Page 29 and 30: ignoring long-established writers a
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Page 33 and 34: American Urban Landscape - the Prog
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Page 37 and 38: limits of his existence: “What wi
Page 39 and 40: a balcony, rooftop, inside of a con
Page 41 and 42: Literature and Culture: the British
Page 43 and 44: traditional notion of cultures seen
Page 45 and 46: occupy the central space in the fic
Page 47 and 48: leave home. Their bodies are here b
Page 49 and 50: through him that Nazneen penetrates
Page 51 and 52: and across the cultural spectrum of
Page 53 and 54: quotidian greyness and routine. How
Page 55 and 56: or unusual. According to Laura Moss
Page 57 and 58: sons had fulfilled Samad’s expect
Page 59 and 60: Hussain, Y. 2005. Writing Diaspora:
Page 61 and 62: The aim of this article is to offer
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was not unusual for job adverts to
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Therefore, they are not expected to
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promised to be allowed to re-create
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complicated, if not even desired. T
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acial motivation of numerous attack
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epresenting the changing situation
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sense of belonging, the portrayal o
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presented as the following of the t
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contrarily, Nadia believes that Ver
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ain shrivel penis donkey” (ibid.,
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Fortier, M. A. 2003. “Multicultur
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Culture and Children´s Literature
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Chinese child versus an American ch
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from Africa myself - the whole trib
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emphasis on the importance of multi
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Poems from Africa South of the Saha
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says - once a conchie…” (Almond
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to analyze children´s books for ra
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prepared by Professor Carolyn Sigle
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methodological approach, which mean
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thought of self-publishing it. But
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is covered. One would expect that a
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elieve, are paramount. The first is
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literary works which has started to
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The comic-biographies give a detail
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ackground and - among other issues
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kid. (Though, there are references
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and the alphabet; playing hopscotch
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should know how to make use of it i
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Cuddon, J. A. 1992. The Penguin Dic
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Mitchell, D. 2000. Cultural Geograp
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fakulta Univerzity J. E. Purkyne,
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