yuriko-takata-literature-ii

Literature and Society

              Literature is the representation of social life. The quality of literature e is intimately connected with the quality of the life that it reflects. Literature is always a reflection of life which presupposes a social background. “Even when attempts are made—as sometimes, in recent times—to create an ‘ideal’ literature, something abstracted from life (as a thing of pure beauty it is claimed),—even then that attempt reflects the `ivory tower` attitude that is developed in the mind of the artist as a result of excessive sophistication of life in a highly artificial society. Such un·social or anti-social literatures are to be regarded rather as intellectual curiosities and aberrations than as the genuine thing.” The function of the literature thus comes to the manifestation of basic class-struggles.

          This manifestation must be objective in the sense that the writer must not allow his own prejudices to interfere with the truth of his representation. For example, it might be said that, as a rule, Shakespeare is conservative in his attitude to social life. He makes no secret of his fear of any change in the existing pattern of human relationship within the framework of feudal organization. Yet he represents with sufficient clarity the influence of the conflict between vanishing social order and the emerging social order based on individual life, and the formation of individual character and ideals.

       That is why, though sharing in popular prejudices, he is truthful in representing the justice of the cause of the oppressed people (as in Shylock or Caliban), or the revolt of the individual against authority. It is this objectivity of vision that has ensured Shakespeare’s supreme position in the world of literature. On the other hand, a writer may be progressive in his class-consciousness but is unable to shed certain personal prejudices which are in themselves the accretions of mass-consciousness.

       Saratchandra, for example, is apparently on the side of progress; he brings a rare gift of sympathy to the understanding of men and women who are victims of social injustice. But something in his make-up and training keeps harking back to traditional values. He falsifies the trend of social developments as emerging out of contemporary conflicts. This is likely to stand in the way his future position. The writer must be quick to discern, and objectively present the real trends in social life, the direction towards which society is moving. This is why a great writer becomes something of a prophet.