The Culture
“,Culture”, is a concept which is related to the art, beliefs and traditions of a society. Even if it is thought as a concept used in social norms, it is the real value of a society by carrying the significant characteristic features of being “,identity”,. It means that the culture forms the society’,s real identity.
There are so many writers whose works are based upon the concept of the culture. Stephen Greenblatt is the one who has an essay about the culture and its affects on literature under the name of “,Culture”,. Greenblatt stresses that the cultural norms include the constraints and mobility in his own building. He wants to say that the cultural norms include both the limited and changeable qualities in it. It causes the paradox and the paradox causes the creation of new things and improvisation.
In his essay, Greenblatt says, “,...a set of patterns which have enough elasticity...”,. With this sentence, Greenblatt implies the relationship between culture and literature. For him, the culture is tied to the literature strongly. Moreover, they can not be sepa...
... argues that even though our mission is to understand the culture we our studying one cannot make final assumptions about a culture. One has to reflex on the fact that a culture is always changing and that our preparation of our discipline is not often the method one uses in fieldwork.
“According to, Stuart Hall, “Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms” from Media, Culture and Society, Raymond Williams and E.P Thompson summarize about the way they saw culture, they refer it to the way of life and saw mainstream media as the main role in capitalist society. “Williams says that, his perspective and ideas are referred to culture as to social practice, he saw “culture as a whole way of life” and as to structuralism that makes the concept of
Sociological approach will help us examine literature in the cultural traditions context in which it is written or received by exploring the relationships between the artist and society. One influential proponent of sociological criticism is Marxist criticism, which focuses on the economic and political elements of art, often emphasizing the ideological content of literature. In this approach we will be able to identify some of the traditions from the story the lottery.
In our textbook, The Humanities: Culture, Continuity & Change, Henry M. Sayre states, “A culture encompasses the values and behaviors shared by a group of people, developed over time, and passed down from one generation to the next.” (Sayre, 2015) This quote resonated with me, on so many levels, after writing this paper. Hope you enjoy.
Culture is something we have all heard in our daily lives. In literature, culture is used very well and analyzing it to get the true meaning of culture portrayed in a text can be very useful. Culture can mean various things from what you do and what you think to your general lifestyle. It defines the person you are and is present within everyone’s life.
In his article “Culture Is Ordinary”, Raymond Williams defines culture, based on his knowledge, and experience –which would, as he defines, would be his culture. He starts his article with simply giving a definition according to his understanding by telling what is and is not culture, and continues with the reasons he doesn’t agree with some of Marxist ideas of culture, and that of F. R. Leavis’. While giving reasons for his disagreements, he gives solid examples from both people he knows and doesn’t know.
As students of literature we are often asked to analyze works of the most loved and admired pieces of literary art. Content in literature often gives insight to the author and where the piece originated. As the wonderful world of literary materials come to life in the hands of its readers, we gain much insight from the authors who have guided us to expand our knowledge of literature and humanity. The powerful hand of capitalist authority and its overwhelming influences on human behavior shapes society. Since it has been established that all human manifestations of society are products of the culture from which it is created, we can understand literature as a reflection of its cultural time period and climate where authors become historians who bravely mark the world with their creations.
During the course of this class, I have had the opportunity to read literature from authors who come from different backgrounds and places in the world. Some of the stories and poetry we read were straight forward while others were confusing and sometimes required a second look. But one thing is clear, it changed the way I think about literature in a few ways that I wasn’t expecting. Three works in particular stand out in my mind. “ I Wont Let You Go” by Rabindranath Tagore, “To New York” by Leopold Senghor, and Pedro Peramo by Juan Rulfo all had an impact on my thinking for similar yet different reasons. They all incorporate their cultural backgrounds into their work through the setting of their pieces. They also compose their pieces in a way that makes you want to research their history to find the deeper meaning. Finally, a couple of the authors write about things they are emotionally connected to. Some of the examples we will look at, really opened my eyes to going beyond a superficial understanding of literature.
The ‘culturalist’ strand in Cultural Studies was interrupted by the arrival on the intellectual scene of the ‘structuralisms’ (Hall, 1980). Structuralism can defined as psychology as the study of the elements of consciousness. The conscious experience can be broken down into basic conscious elements; a physical phenomenon can be viewed as consisting of chemical structures, can break down into basic elements. Structuralism was found by Wilhelm Wundt and he come out with a method known as introspection to understand the basic elements. Introspection involves informally examining human internal thoughts and feelings. In the journal, Stuart Hall view Levi-Strauss as a structuralist because Levi-Strauss said that culture is like language, is composed of hidden rules that govern the behaviour of its practitioners. Besides, he maintains that c...
Culture is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects and behavior. It includes the ideas, value, customs and artifacts of a group of people (Schaefer, 2002). Culture is a pattern of human activities and the symbols that give these activities significance. It is what people eat, how they dress, beliefs they hold and activities they engage in. It is the totality of the way of life evolved by a people in their attempts to meet the challenges of living in their environment, which gives order and meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic and religious norms and modes of organization thus distinguishing people from their neighbors.
Cultural Studies as a literary theory began with the works… Cultural Studies is an extremely interdisciplinary theory that can encompass many fields, including anthropology, political science, and even philosophy and ethics. It began with the works of Raymond Williams and Richard Hoggart in the late 1950s and early 1960s before being adopted and expanded by Stuart Hall in the late 1960s. This theory moved away from the reading of literature for literature’s sake, and instead begins to regard it both as a product created by a culture and a object influencing that culture. Though the general aims and guidelines of Cultural Studies are hard to pin down, it can broadly be considered a theory that provides new methods for examining the cultural
The term “culture” refers to the complex accumulation of knowledge, folklore, language, rules, rituals, habits, lifestyles, attitudes, beliefs, and customs that link and provide a general identity to a group of people. Cultures take a long time to develop. There are many things that establish identity give meaning to life, define what one becomes, and how one should behave.
“Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory” is a book that gives a complete overview of literary theory. The book introduces a variety of concepts and theorists in a very coherent but detailed way. The book’s strengths are that they allow the reader to build their own views and ideas about the various theories after understanding the explanation provided by Barry. There are no major limitations with the book and overall it is fantastic for anyone learning or interested in literary theory. It can be regarded as the perfect guide to Literary and Cultural Theory.
The relationship between literature and society is multifaceted and is discussed by literary scholars and sociologists alike. Albrecht (1954) examines three characterizations of this relationship: 1) that literature reflects society;...
Studying of cultural literature will promote an individual to become open-minded. Learning about other cultures and their development, which would be impossible to understand by simply reading the pieces of work, will allow the individual to see and appreciate new things in all regards. In that process, it can be easy to understand how unique individuals are around the world and relate easier. Noting differences can also lead to showing similarities such as certain events that shaped literature itself. When one is knowledgeable about the reasons behind why certain pieces of literature were created, it opens the door to studying the very development that occurred over time. It becomes clear to see the thought development as time progressed like in instances such as women’s role in society and how they have changed. Cultural literature can not only explain such things in a deeper connection that history can provide, but how the very same topic can be in another country anywhere in the world. It is clear how everyone experienced some of the same events that changed how things were viewed at the time and compare the outcomes to how they are now. Literature can provide a more humanized version of what we already know, which is essential for all individuals in s...