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Literature and Society

Satisfactory Essays

Literature is intimately related to society. Viewed as a whole, a body of literature is part of the entire culture of a people. The characteristic qualities that distinguish the literature of one group from that of another, derive from the characteristic qualities of that group. Its themes and problems emerge from group activities and group situations, and its significance lies in the extent to which it expresses and enriches the totality of culture. It is an integral part of entire culture, tied by a tissue of connections with every other element in the culture. Society influences literature in many ways, and the connections of literature with society are integral and pervasive. In fact, the range for social influences on literature is …show more content…

A very fine example of the effect of social conditions on the literature of the period is provided by the literature of Shakespeare’s time. The thing that strikes every reader to-day, is the difference between the vivid Elizabethan drama—which, in its best examples, stands still as nobly as on its first day, speaking directly to us, and appearing imperishable on account of its psychological vitality and true representation of life—and the poetic literature, or the narrative literature, of the same period, which in spite of the poetic talent it reveals, seems to us centuries older, because it lives in a world of ideas that no longer has anything in common with our own. The main reason for this is that the determining sociological factors differ in two cases. Pure literature was dominated at the time by the social group of the aristocracy. Any one who wished to get his works printed had to seek the patronage of a great lord; anyone who wished to secure any return from the printing secured it only in the form of the gracious presents made in return for enthusiastic and fulsome dedications. The poets of that epoch largely obtained their sustenance in their patron’s castles, where they did not occupy a place of honour, and were considered among the servants. Thus Spenser, the greatest poet of that age, says of his greatest work, The Faery Queene, that

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