SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH

SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH OF LITERATURE - WILBUR SCOTT

 

 Sociological criticism firmly believes that the relationship between art and society is very important. The examination of this relationship between art and society is essential for a better and much more suitable understanding of art. It also plays a very important role in shaping our response to a work of art or a work of literature.

Art and literature are always influenced and shaped by the society and the time in which the creator of that particular work of art or work of literature lives. The author is an important person because the author is someone who can express or communicate effectively.

The critic who approaches a novel or a text from a sociological point of view or perspective is deeply interested in examining and understanding the social background described in the novel. The critic closely examines the effect of that particular social background on the author and also studies the response of the writer to that particular society. The critic analyses how the writer has described the social background—is it a positive or a negative description of the social setting or the social background in which the work has been set?

The history of sociological criticism has been traced by Edmund Wilson to Italian historian and political philosopher Vico who studied Homer’s epics—the Iliad and the Odyssey to understand the social background of Greece during Homer’s time. The German philosopher Herder continued with the same policy in the nineteenth century. But it was the French critic and historian Hippolyte Taine who declared that literature is the product of the particular time, the people and the social background of that time. It was Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who introduced another aspect to the study of literature—the Marxist approach, that focused attention on the modes or means of production that played a crucial role in shaping literature. This led to the development of Marxist criticism.

In America the connection between literature/art and the social background was an integral part of the realistic movement. This emphasis on the link between literature/art and society was clearly evident in the novels of American novelists like William Dean Howells, Jack London, Hamlin Garland and Frank Norris. Some important books written in America were influenced by the importance of the sociological approach to literature and the most important ones are John Macy’s The Spirit of American Literature (1908) and Parrington’s Main Currents in American Thought (1927-30).

The economic slowdown or the Great Depression of the late 1920s and 1930s made writers look at society from a new point of view. The economic problems created by the Depression created a number of social problems. So writers started looking at society from the Marxist point of view. They created literature that reflected the problems in society during the period of the Depression. They examined how social problems created by lack of money and jobs, affected the people of that time and thus the Marxist perspective emerged in the writing and the analysis of literature. Many writers and poets developed a Marxist or Leftist perspective. Many left—oriented journals came up and they all propagated the Marxist point of view.

A very strict and rigid form of critical control over literature emerged. Critics examined novels and texts very closely for the social contribution or social role played by a novel. They looked at novels and analysed them very carefully to confirm if the novel/poem/drama/essay contributed anything at all to society. Certain Marxist critics became extremely judgmental in their evaluation and assessment of literature. They were extremely particular that literature/art must have a social point of view. They were very concerned that the writer or author must clearly express their social values and the literary work must have a social role and a responsibility to society. These critics were single-minded in their obsession with the social role of literature and they lacked the vision to understand that the relation between literature and society can be complicated. Their narrow vision and limited understanding of the link between literature and society was criticised by mature and well-versed Marxist critics like Christopher Caudwell.  Caudwell was an extremely well-versed Marxist intellectual who understood the limitations of rigidly tying down literature to a social purpose. He criticised the narrow-minded approach of lesser Marxist critics.

Marxism lost its relevance by the time the Second World War began in 1939. But the undue importance given to the Marxist point of view in literature that emphasised upon a strict social purpose for any form of creative literature, did not in any way reduce the importance of the sociological approach to literature. Even though literary works did not clearly and obviously state the social beliefs of their creator, the critics could place the novel/drama/poem/essay and the corresponding social theory, compare them and arrive at a conclusion regarding the particular social point of view or belief that had been expressed by the author in his work.

Wilbur Scott explains that the weak point or the Achilles heel of sociological criticism is the very narrow and limited evaluation of literary works. A particular critic may be extremely concerned about the description of society in a literary piece. The critic’s focus may be more on the social impact of the literary work than its literary value or creative importance. The critic’s sense of social responsibility may have an impact on how the critic assesses or evaluates the literary work under consideration. A critic who is more concerned with the social role of literature may have a very narrow and prejudiced view about the literary work being evaluated and judged by him/her.

The best sociological critics study the literary work and understand the various aspects of the social environment or the background in which the work was written before passing judgement on it. How a literary critic evaluates a literary work reveals his or her moral and social point of view and also the value or the importance of the literary work that is being analysed, examined and evaluated by the critic.

The relations between art/literature, the writer/creator and the social background/social atmosphere/social environment are very complex. Literature is not only affected by society, it also influences society. Literature and society are mutually interdependent and this interconnection keeps attracting the critics to examine and analyse this intrinsic and inevitable link. American literary critic, biographer, and historian Van Wyck Brooks has written a number of books on the influence of society on American writers and their works.

Francis Otto Matthiessen, American educator, scholar and influential literary critic has written one such book called American Renaissance in 1941 that closely studies the connection between literature and society. Lionel Charles Knights or L. C. Knights, English literary critic and an expert in Shakespeare studies and the Shakespearean period, famous for his essay ‘How many children had Lady Macbeth?’ wrote about the complex connection between literature and society in his book Drama and Society in the Age of Johnson (1937).

Wilbur Scott concludes his essay on the sociological approach by asserting that the sociological approach of literature will continue to be a powerful and vibrant force in literary criticism.