Literature and Politics

LITERATURE AND SOME APPOSITIONS The following papers were delivered before the Plenary Session of the 1968 Annual RMMLA Meeting at Colorado Springs, 11 October 1968. John D. Lindberg is chairman of Foreign Languages at Nevada Southern University and is now serving as chairman of the newly-formed RMMLA Stone Committee on National Legislation. A. Wither Stevens is professor of English and chairman of the Center for Language and Literature at Prescott College which was established by a survey underwritten by the national organization of the Congregational Churches in 1960. J. L. Howarth, who holds degrees from the Universities of Cambridge and London, is now associate professor of physics at the University of New Mexico. LITERATURE AND POLITICS John D. Lindberg The relationship between literature and politics is a multilane freeway with traffic flowing freely in both directions: Any work of literature is in part a product of sociological and political factors, to the extent that the writer's personality has been shaped by the sociological and political environment of his time. Conversely, important works of literature or whole literary movements have had profound effects on society by setting up or destroying taboos, conventions, and social prejudices, thus contributing to changes in values which in turn have brought about social and political change. It is reasonably safe for a professor of literature to explore the effects of environment on literature; to speak of writers like Zola, Ibsen, and Brecht and to discuss the way in which they reacted to the society of their times; or to discuss littérature engagée and its aims. It is not nearly as safe to explore the effects of writers on their times, since in this area we are sailing on virtually uncharted seas. When we deal with individual writers, we often have documentary evidence regarding the evolution of their ideas but when we wish to study the impact of these ideas on society, we are dealing with amorphous masses of people whose behavioral patterns are determined by many factors. Thus, when we attempt to investigate the effects of literature on politics, we are moving in an area of conjecture, and any conclusion we may reach will be controversial. Is it safe, for example, to say that the impact of literature on society has never been more profound than at present? That, in fact, we are living in an age when literature threatens the very foundation of our society? Let us take a brief look at the historical development. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century, writers by and large were still obeying the Horatian precept that the aim of literature should be to entertain and to instruct. The typical hero or heroine of an Enlightenment novel was a paragon of virtue clearly set up as a model for emulation. Literature was viewed as a vehicle for the propagation of ethical ideals. At 164RMMLA BulletinDecember 1968 the end of the century Schiller could still state that literature was the means by which "the thoughtful and the worthier elements of society diffuse the light of wisdom over the masses." During the nineteenth century obvious didacatism receded until, with Naturalism, it once more gained preponderance . Now, however, the approach was negative: Intolerable social conditions were portrayed with the aim of exposing hidden sores on the body politic. Shocked critics applied the term "sewer literature" to the works of some of the foremost authors of the day, in spite of the fact that their aim was clearly therapeutic: By drawing attention to specific social problems, these writers intended to contribute to their solution. Reform of society, not its destruction, was their aim. It would seem that during the twentieth century and particularly during the last decades the situation has changed: Writers have come to the fore who reject the basic premises on which our society is built. In France they have chipped away at our "absurd" institutions, and the message appears to be that our society cannot be reformed but must be rebuilt on entirely different foundations. Not only do these writers question all its moral values but they seem to make the point that hypocrisy and spiritual emptiness are inevitable results of what they see as...