12/12/07
Examining the Past - Is it possible?
When we examine literature, we often try to look back on the time period that it addresses in order to make sense of the work and place it within a social structure. As readers, we try to consolidate and make sense of what happened in the past in order to understand what we read. However, this (to me) sounds over simplified. We can attempt to analyze the past all we want and try to make sense out of how our society has evolved, however, the past is such a complicated, intricate element that I don't know if it can ever be completely consolidated for the analyzing purposes. Things get filtered throughout time, and forgotten, and overlooked, that we can only hope to understand a fraction of past societies. Even as members of current society, we cannot claim that we fully understand the time and society in which we live! Therefore, we can only make our best guess, especially when history is linked to literature.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
PS THE PREVIOUS POST WAS ALSO POSTED BY MARY KATE!!
So, I think an implicit argument contained in your post, at least how I understand it, is that we have to use what little we know from our present day in order to understand texts from the past. It is how we, many times, discover deeper meaning: by holding something up against something else, observing the juxtaposition, and the similar and different aspects of each in order to take away some sort of graspable, personal meaning from texts that we may otherwise have no personal connection to, or very little knowledge of the history of.
This is easier to do (and has become widespread) with drama, and with restagings and reinterpretations of classics like Shakespeare or Moliere, or even contemporaries like thornton wilder or arthur miller, reinterpretations to make older texts applicable to our times, so that it is not some "snow-globe of history," frozen in time and place, but so that it creates a relatable world for the audience that uses themes or images from an older time to enhance the experience for the present-day audience.
that was Kyle, sorry.
Post a Comment