The context
Context plays a key role in the composition and reception of a text. It is the ideas, beliefs, values, history, spirituality, gender, politics and social expectations of writers that 'leak' into their work - intentionally or unintentionally.
Here, Ashley Kirk reflects on the role of context in shaping and interpreting narrative worlds. Though her conclusion undermines her central argument somewhat, Kirk explores the role of a literary world as a cultural artefact that gives us insights into other people in other times.
Here, Ashley Kirk reflects on the role of context in shaping and interpreting narrative worlds. Though her conclusion undermines her central argument somewhat, Kirk explores the role of a literary world as a cultural artefact that gives us insights into other people in other times.
The milieu
The milieu of a text is the physical and social setting in which something happens or develops. See here for a more detailed discussion of the term.
Why does it matter?
An historical and cultural artefact
Ashley Kirk points out the value of contextual investigation in helping us understand people from other times and places and this is a worthwhile pursuit. When we enter into the worlds of other times and places we gain insights into:
Ashley Kirk points out the value of contextual investigation in helping us understand people from other times and places and this is a worthwhile pursuit. When we enter into the worlds of other times and places we gain insights into:
- our own cultural heritage
- other cultural mindsets
- the day to day realities of living in other times and places
- the recurrent nature of history
- human progress or regression
Exploring human truths
But some of the greatest literature also explores 'universal truths'. These are concepts or ideas that have troubled mankind throughout history and across cultures - the meaning of our existence, our struggle with our own human nature, the conflict between progress and our humanity, the nature of love, truth and beauty, the struggle to cope in an ever-changing world, the quest for fulfillment, the nature of wealth, power and poverty, spiritual fulfillment...the list is endless.
When we explore these universal truths we find our own lives become more enriched, as we are more able to understand ourselves and those around us. Studying the milieu that gave rise to these texts helps us see the bigger picture of our humanity - where our ideas came from and how they may be challenged or reinforced by time.
But some of the greatest literature also explores 'universal truths'. These are concepts or ideas that have troubled mankind throughout history and across cultures - the meaning of our existence, our struggle with our own human nature, the conflict between progress and our humanity, the nature of love, truth and beauty, the struggle to cope in an ever-changing world, the quest for fulfillment, the nature of wealth, power and poverty, spiritual fulfillment...the list is endless.
When we explore these universal truths we find our own lives become more enriched, as we are more able to understand ourselves and those around us. Studying the milieu that gave rise to these texts helps us see the bigger picture of our humanity - where our ideas came from and how they may be challenged or reinforced by time.
Challenging the beliefs of our time
Many texts aim to critique and challenge the values and beliefs of our time. These writers attempt to effect change in their own worlds and their texts can only be fully appreciated through an awareness of the milieu that gave birth to them.
Many texts aim to critique and challenge the values and beliefs of our time. These writers attempt to effect change in their own worlds and their texts can only be fully appreciated through an awareness of the milieu that gave birth to them.
Why do we care?
Understanding the milieu of a text and its composer before reading can make your journey into the text's world a much more rewarding (and enjoyable) experience. It's like going on a journey with a map and planned route rather than winging it and missing all the good stuff while you're trying to interpret street signs written in a different language.
Extract from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
I. The Period It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever. It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood. France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous. In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of "the Captain," gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:" after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence. All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures--the creatures of this chronicle among the rest--along the roads that lay before them. |