Texts and Context

[EndSarcasm]

This was all sparked by an essay I was required to do. It got me interested in the varying thoughts on the relationship between history and literary texts, and how people approach a piece of art.

Do you subscribe to the idea that literary works are bound up or embedded in their historical circumstances, that the two are intertwined and that one can not reflect on the other? Or do you feel that there is a polarity involved that allows for a more distinct reflection, and possibly removal?

Similarly, what about your reading of the text. Do you think it is absolutely necessary to have historical context, or is it an autonomous work that history has no bearing on. I've encountered a number of different views from my class-mates so I thought I'd ask you guys.

Cheers.

[OrphanPip]

It's a little of both, it's possible to read a work with the context, not just historically but within the literary tradition, but also to read it looking at how it functions autonomous to its time as well. Of course, we can't entirely divorce our reading of anything without bringing in our contemporary subjectivities.

I'm fond of using Spenser's Faerie Queene as an example lately, a lot will depend on what work you're talking about. There is a good deal of religious and political allegory in that poem that is not possible to understand without knowledge of the context. Nonetheless, it is still possible to read it merely for the ridiculous quality of Romance narratives, or to read it for the poetry. Or, we could bring in contemporary ideas, like feminism, to consider how the female knight Britomart functions in the text. Then again, you could bring a feminist critical perspective to the text to discuss the representation of women in the 16th century.

There is no single right way to read a text as far as I'm concerned.

[EndSarcasm]

I should really read some Spenser, I've been meaning to for a while ..

Anyway, yeah that's pretty much how I'd see it. Though I'm never quite settled when reading something without knowing at least scraps of the context.

[OrphanPip]

I should really read some Spenser, I've been meaning to for a while ..

Anyway, yeah that's pretty much how I'd see it. Though I'm never quite settled when reading something without knowing at least scraps of the context.

I think it's probably more difficult to separate from the context with novels, especially the 19th century realist novels.

[oshima]

When you have a work that is over a hundred years old, it is necessary for basic understanding and enjoyment to know at least a little about what cultural context the author would have been coming from. Shakespeare is much more interesting and meaningful when you know a bit about Greco-Roman history and what Elizabethan audiences would have understood about the workings of a monarchy (specifically thinking of Hamlet, here) without having it pointed out to them. While most works of literature contain universal themes, it is often harder to get at them when one projects modern concepts into a work where they don't belong.

[Wilde woman]

As a medievalist, I lean towards a more historically-informed understanding of literature. When you read literature that is centuries old, you cannot begin to understand it by bringing your modern assumptions to the table. That's part of why so many people find Classical and medieval literature so boring - because they have no understanding of the history or culture of the time.

Having said that, it's rather simplistic to think of it as a dichotomy: 1) that you only read literature as an object, completely divorced from its historical tradition or author's intent or 2) that you read it in historical context and as a reflection of the author's personality, and ignore its function as a self-contained object. One thing that I've learned as I've read more and more literature is that you cannot read literature completely outside its context because you, as a reader, bring your own history to the text and inflect it with your biases.

Also, it's important to keep in mind that it's not just history that produces literature; literature influences history as well.

[kiki1982]

I suppose it's some of both, but I usually prefer to get the context before reading that work.

Indeed, Wilde Woman, you are right in terms of medieval (can't comment on classic). It is weird but logic at the same time, only the logic is a little different from ours...

That said, though, there are things that are impossible to modernise (then rather in terms of plays) or to read in a different context apart from the one it was written in...
There was this performance of a leading Flemish theatre company at the festival of Avignon... They had modernised Horvath's Kasimir und Karoline, had of course totally missed the point (of Nazi, bourgeois positivity at the Oktoberfest in Munich) and then were suprised that some members of the public shouted 'c'est chiant' ('it is sh*t', literally).