Weekly Response #8

Emily Schmitt

ENG 280

Natalie M. Philips

10/16/12

Weekly Response #8

Ryan and Rivkin: “Rather, literature is in the first instance a social phenomenon, and as such, it cannot be studied independently of the social relations, the economic forms, and the political realities of the time in which it was written.” (Ryan and Rivikin 644.)

Pride and Prejudice: “If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfeild, “said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, “and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for.” (Austen 48.)

Question: How important is not just the setting of literature, but its context in its interpretation?

This is perhaps a half-hearted question to put forth, but I could not think of any better way to phrase what I wanted to say, which is that I believe the context of literature is just as important, if not more so, than the setting of the story itself. Just as setting is important, context is also. Quite frankly I was flabbergasted to find that there were people who didn’t think so. Of course the political and social happenings of the time had an impact on what was written, and of course it is important to understand those happenings so that we, studying the literature now, can better understand what the author had initially intended. I do not really care that it is possible to analyze text without its context; the point is that before you do so it is imperative that you understand what the author was initially trying to do. The context and social ideas of the time it was written or became popular are immensely important in determining that. The example I use from P&P demonstrates this in the idea of marriage. Initially reading this quote, as a woman in the twenty first century, my sensibilities as a woman with equal rights and aspirations to man were offended. However when taken into consideration the time period that this was written and the social and political norms of the time, it is better understood to me that Mrs. Bentley might not just be a horrible woman who doesn’t believe herself or other women capable of anything more, and more of a mother who desperately wants her daughters to become what she see’s as ultimately ‘successful’.