Changing Functions of Literature
These days I feel interested in different areas of literary studies, not only in poetics which was the main focus of my interest when I was getting my bachelor degree (2019–2023). I happened to come upon W. Iser’s* works and it turned out that reception of literature was a separate fascinating area of research. I came up with a lot of ideas for new texts which will be connected to receptive aesthetics and which I can not wait to share with you!
*Wolfgang Iser (1926–2007) — a German philologist specializing in English literature. He was the founder of the influential school of reader-response criticism — one of the widely known methods of the text analyses.
Iser said, that «while literature achieves its own effects through itself, it is accompanied by a critical activity in the form of poetics or aesthetic theory which constantly tries to translate it into other terms in order to make it accessible to the prevailing requirements of the day. And since these requirements change, the functional values of literature also change» [1].
Each period of literature proceeds from different tasks and therefore implies unique understanding of functions which literature is supposed to perform.
I decided to devote this post to the requirements that were imposed to Russian fiction in different epochs. Of course the tasks I will describe further represent the reality of the literary process in quite a schematic view, because I can not write about each period in detail. So I am outlining just the main patterns typical for different literary periods.
Ancient Russian literature
In X — XVII centuries literature was functional, it was supposed to carry out quite particular tasks. It would either be a fixation of lives of the saints, or have a didactic purpose, which means literature had to nurture readers’ souls and give examples of how decent Christians should live.
It was the period when fiction text was, so to say, prepared for the author in advance. It means that the writer’s aim in this case was not to create a unique piece of literature, but to write an authoritative text which would be guided by old and respected texts of the genre he is writing in.
XVIII century
At this period happens a shift from the notion that religious ideas made the sense of literary work. The author ceases to perceive literature as a way of soul salvation now and becomes just an individual.
In the XVIII century the writer would either serve the government becoming kind of a literary official, or he would write for fun, for leisure, during his spare time.
Author’s full immersion in government interests would put texts on the border of literature. And this was appreciated.
But XVIII century was still the epoch of the «prepared text». Aesthetic authorities (specimens) in this epoch were strictly worshipped. The author’s best praise was his likeness to his predecessor. The writers that were considered the best would be compared to classical ancient authors — Pindar, Cicero, Virgil etc.
XIX century
XIX century readers and critics perceived writers as laboratory assistants that gathered material of the everyday life for investigations. Material which they would later turn into criticism of Russian culture and society. Belinskiy (the most famous Russian critic of the 19th century) perceived «Eugene Onegin» as an «encyclopedia of Russian life».
Chernyshevskiy and Dobrolubov wrote critical articles about modern texts in order to distinguish types of human character and typical situations of Russian everyday life through them.
In other words, literary criticism gave critics an opportunity to share their ideas about modern society and they regarded fiction as reference literature which helped them carry out their own research [2].
At this period also appears an idea of literature constructing the reality. Gogol was one of the first writers to bring it into force. He believed that he could change people to the better with his texts, so in his later works he moralizes a lot and offers the ways of achieving spiritual perfection. Russian literature followed Gogol’s path and since then tried to affect and change reality.
XX century
The prevailing literary movement of the XXth century was socialistic realism. Literature of this time supposed to create an ideal world which did not exist in reality. The aim of the totalitarian government (which the USSR was) is to harmonize society, make people in the country see not chaos but artificially created decorum. And socialistic realism aimed to combine reality and fairy-tale (decorum) in particular by the help of literature.
The novels written in this genre were built according to the same scheme: at first there was some issue which people could not solve and then there would appear the main hero who would tackle all the problems. The reader of this epoch hankered for a fairy-tale and he was provided with fairy-tales. But the realistic component also played important role in the novels of this epoch.
One of the functions which literature performed at this time was function of transmitting relevant information about the important events of the modern life.
The border between reality and fiction at this epoch was unstable and literature was supposed to affect the reality.
XXI century
I do not actually know which function fiction is supposed to perform nowadays. I think, this is to be analyzed and still yet to discovered, because it is extremely difficult for contemporaries to assess their own perception of literature. Especially because modern literature develops along with the internet and social networks, which means the change of the usual format of reading people were used to for centuries.
And of course I will be glad to discuss your thoughts on the functions literature performs these days in the comments!
P.
Literature:
- Iser W. Prospecting from reader response to literary anthropology. 324 p.
- Todd U. M. Sociology of literature: institutions, ideology, narrative. Boston, Saint-Petersburg, 2020. 352 p.
