culture, subculture and counterculture - Facultatea de Litere

CULTURAL TYPES AND THEIR DISCOURSE IN
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH NOVELS
MIHAELA CULEA
University of Bacău, Romania
Introduction
The members of a cultural type are united by an ideological discourse which
identifies them, characterizes them, voices their features, etc. If the producers of
the discourse change, then the heterogeneous characteristics of the group come
to the surface and the profound clashes will reveal a new perspective. We will
therefore try to show the way in which the discourses of the cultural types
presented here originate, define themselves in the culture of the age, and the way
in which they are mirrored in literature, that is the way in which they are
fictionalized by the eighteenth-century authors. Various cultural types are
characterized by different ideologies, i.e. by different forms of social conscience
which correspond to different class positions. (Tim O’Sullivan et al. 2001: 67)
David Buchbinder (1991: 112–113) signals that the notion of ‘cultural
discourse’ has been important in the works of Michel Foucault. Foucault’s
theory draws on Marxist and structuralist theories in order to argue that the
members of a culture are empowered to perceive and ‘think’ events and ideas
only in terms of certain powerful discourses in the culture. For Foucault, the
eighteenth century marks a turning point for modern culture, for, during this
period, certain intellectual, ideological, political and social developments take
place. Thus, social institutions like religion, education, medicine and the law
impose structures of power and control which commit culture to regarding as
right, natural and inevitable certain practices and modes of perception, and also
confirm and strengthen the power of those institutions. People’s life is regulated
and monitored by central power discourses. But there are also sites of resistance
to the discourses of power; for example, in the eighteenth century, the discourse
of the aristocrats or of the church finds strong resistance with the emergence of
new approaches to life. The divine order is counteracted by the social order and
the bourgeoisie imposes a new type of discourse. One can identify the discourse
of power and authority in the discourse of the church, of the bourgeoisie, of
bankers and businessmen, of the administrative body, of the scholar (here
including explorers, men of letters and scientists) and of the politician. Next to
it, there is the discourse of the marginalized, the dispossessed or the dominated:
the discourse of the thief, of the servant, of the worker, of the woman, of the
prisoner, of the outcast, or of the orphan.
A system of daily existence coalesced by a significant order (signs, codes,
texts, connecting forms) (Sebeok 2002: 190), culture reflects the qualitative life
of the community (beliefs, attitudes, trends of thought), here including the power
relations that underlie it, which find their expression in various customs and
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