Thinking Activity : Views on Marriage

Hello Readers! 

Welcome to my blog. In this blog I have wrote people's opinions about Marriage. In the Novel 'Sense and Sensibility ' we can see the  marriage issue. Based on this novel we have task about that ask to  people about their opinion of Marriage. This task given by Dr. Hinama'am Zala professor of English department. 

Sense and Sensibility 

Sense and Sensibility, novel by Jane Austen that was published anonymously in three volumes in 1811 and that became a classic. The satirical, comic work offers a vivid depiction of 19th -century middle - class life as it follows the romantic relationship of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood .

Wiloughby literally sweeps Marianne Dashwood off her feet with their first acquaintance. He assists her home when Marianne falls and twists her ankle. In willoughby, Marianne discovers a man she admires for his dash. She comments"that is what a young man ought to be" in describing Wiloughby to others. In her naive fashion, Marianne does not recognize that a man of Wiloughby 's cut Must marry for money for loves his horses, society, and women. He is a landed gentleman living beyond his means. His behavior is a statement to the hereditary privileges granted men of his social class.

People's Opinion about Marriage :



Click below given link  for  listen Kalyani ma'am Vallath's views on Marriage. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v3vhmdQRBB-SpfgNcQC8utcj-ww7GAg5/view?usp=drivesdk

It's how we make it to be. In India, marriage is just for the sake of sex and sacrifice and many other things. Reasons behind marrying are forceful, girl marries as to get backup economically and socially. We marry for sex, money, social status etc. When it comes to marriage, society says that a man should be earning good. When girl's family should also think about their girl's independence economically. Then money will not become forceful reason behind marriage. We can say becoming 18 or 21 of age is not the criteria of marrying. Our perspective towards marriage is not individual but here family marries to another family that is the main problem. If I don't like my fiance after engagement then I should think about my family's status and their feelings before saying no.One must marry when one wants to get married. 

In our culture we say "Chhokri jova joiye Che" ,it's must be an object for showcasing. We don't meet but see in arrange marriage. Family sees boy's income and status, on this base the marriage is confirmed. And one cannot even get a chance to have time with his/her for knowing. Logic is simple, without knowing someone how can you marry, and yes knowing someone can not make you to give a decision on marriage. We come into contact with many people, then it will become impossible to accept that person whom we even don't know or with whom we have not shared our feeling before. Marriage is beautiful journey when one wishes to get in..

         "From a teacher's lecture"
  ~ Alpa ponda 

It's good thing that you have life partner so you can share anything with him about anything and everything but just we have Gujarati kehvat ke hath ni panch anglio sarkhi nathi hoti this thing totally realt with marriage so sometimes you have different opinions and thoughts you both have different states of mind your upbringing and education are different so sometime it's problem also that they have sorry we both have some difficulty to explain or know each other we can't digest each others opinions right but it's just minor things right so it's my duty to tell my friend that every person are not like anybody right every person is different so we can't judge him or her on any particular reason or basis right so every one has his ways to make relationship successful and lots I have no idea about love marriage but I can tell you one thing ither it's love or arrange but still it's marriage right so you have to give some efforts to make it successful but every coin has two sides it depends on us that which side we want to See.

In our society it's big nonsense that marriage has to be in our cast in our religion right but it is workable or it is worth full ❓l think no it's absolutely wrong if the two who are in this marriage are not happy how can they make each other happy and how they can make their families happy right. But we all following this thing that boy and girl has to be in for same cast that our social status can't be ruined by this thing our boy or girl can not get married in other cast but in this situation boy can get through easily but girl can't it's about our so cold purushpradhan desh so partaliaty we can find in this field also .and in my opinion money and social status and socity are made by us right. we are not politicians that they can not give us vote for next election what we gonna do if they can not give us votes we are common people right we have some issues after this thing happened but we can solve it right.

                            ~ View by Urmi Joshi 

Marriage is just contract. If you read any county civil law you might understand that It is just formality to give permission to them those who are want to live together. Otherwise we don't required any formality. What we doing in marriage life?. Simple answer is that caring, responsibility, value, know each other etc. We can do all this things without marriage even many countries like England, Netherlands, France mostly people are interested to live in relationship without marriage. Even in India Many urban area , people are also going in to live in relationship Culture. So marriage is just contract and ritual. We just required attention, love and care in our life.

                                  ~Bhavnesh 

Ammmmm it depending on their mrg life.

But through my View its sweet candy. Which has sweet taste and also Causes of cough 😅

But it's amazing adventure to enjoy. 

It has anger, Quarrel, love, fun, care, smile, tear. But all that emotions have their own fun. 

U may fight or quarrel but at the end of the day it's end with perfect hug and beautiful smile.

The responsibility with love. His fever and ur care.

His gift and ur smile. 

His lunch and ur delicious dish. It's not only her cooking skill but emotions. 

So overall my Point of u marriage is most enjoyable Ocassion of entire life.

                                   ~Namsa Archana 

Nowadays when many norms and beliefs regarding marriage system are changing rapidly. As far as my opinion regarding marriage system is concerned, I am neither that staunch believer of this system nor believe in marrying only for the sake of other or for the society, so to speak. To marry someone isn't a wrong thing. But to marry someone only for the sake for marrying seems problemetic to me. If you find someone who understand you or trust you, there is no doubt in marrying that person. Along with it I guess, mutal understanding means a lot while you decide to marry someone. Though this marriage system is never problmetic to me, rigidity about marriage is problmetic. If someone don't want to marry, let them be the way he/she want instead of pressurising them to marry only for the sake of society.

Ok... I guess if two persons are truly love each other then there will be no reason to leave their partner for the sake of this so called status. But no one can neglect that it is the reality of our society. Lots of problmes are happing in our society for this so called  concept of status. And if someone have problme in their relation due to this I think there is some kind of lacking in their relation. If they truly understand each other, there isn't any chance for it.
                                 ~Minkal Italiya 

લગ્ન વિશે ના મારા મત જાણવું તો...લગ્ન એ દરેક સમાજ ની મૂળભૂત જરૂરિયાત છે .દરેક વ્યક્તિ લગ્ન કરીને પોતાનો વંશ ચલાવે છે.જોકે પહેલા ના સમય કરતાં આજે લગ્નનું સ્વરૂપ બદલાયું છે
પહેલા ના સમય માં માટે પિતા દ્વારા લગ્ન કરતા અને આજે સોશીયલ મીડિયા અને બીજા અનેક કારણો ને લીધે લવ merrag નું પ્રમાણ વધતું જાય છે.જોકે લવ મેરેજ કે arange મેરેજ કરવા એ મહત્વનું નથી પણ પણ બે વ્યક્તિ એક બીજા ને સમજે and જીવન ભર સાથ આપે એ જરૂરી છે.મારા મતે દરેક વ્યક્તિ ને લગ્ન કરવા જ જોઈએ .
આધુનિક યુગ માં સ્ત્રીઓ માં શિક્ષણ નું પ્રમાણ વધતું જાય છે એટલે મોટી ઉંમરે લગ્ન કરે છે પણ લગ્ન તો બે આત્મા નું જોડાણ છે અને ભાવો ભાવ નું બંધ ન છે.
આપડા શાસ્ત્ર માં પણ લગ્ન ને પવિત્ર સંસ્કાર માનવામાં આવે છે.

આજ ના યુગ માં સૌથી મોટી સમસ્યા એ જ છે કે છોકરો ચોકરી એક બીજા ને પ્રેમ તો કરે છે પણ પછી સમાજ શુ  કેશે અને ઘરના બધા માણસ. કયાય એવું વિચારીને કોઈ પણ એક ને છોડી દે છે અને સંબંધ પૂરો કરી નાખે છે.
કારણ ગમે તે હોય પણ આ બધા માં સૌથી વધારે તકલીફ એક છોકરી ને જ પડતી હોય છે.
સમાજ ના ડર થી છોકરો જીયારે એક છોકરી ને છોડી દે છે ત્યારે એની આખી જિંદગી બગડે છે.આવું જ હોય અને અને સમાજ નું જ વિચારવાનું હોય તો છોકરી નો હાથ પકડતા પેલા આ બધી વિચાર કરી લેવો જોઈએ.
અત્યારે સોશીયલ મીડિયા ના યુગ મા મોટા ભાગે છોકરો ને છોકરી લગ્ન માટે એક બીજા સાથે સંબંધ માં તો આવે છે પણ પછી છોકરો સમાજ કે પરિવાર ની બીક થી છોકરી ને છોડી દેતો હોય છે
મારા મત મુજબ સમાજ લવ મેરાગે ને સ્વીકારવું પડશે અને જે છોકરા આવી ભૂલ કરે છે અમને સજા મળવી જોઈએ.
                     ~Jayshreeba Gohil 




As per my view that marriage is one type of wedlock or system which made union or create holy relationship. After jont  through marriage system both characters remain to ready for fulfill desire, sacrifice, understood their habit or life.

I think arrange marriage is good because our parents have experience or they passed from that way so they never bad think about their children so they choose that types character for their children which may be appropriate into future for us.


Sometime in the love marriage people don't understand properly about love because there are minor differences between love and physical attraction so at the age of young normally  they choose character through physical attraction but not by love. After love marriage their completed ambition, they hate eachother because they don't understand what is love.
                          ~Lalji Baraiya 




*What is Marriage?*

According to me Marriage is the process by which two people make their relationship public, official, and permannent* (T&C apply)😅 because every marriage brings challenges, often profound ones.


*One should get married or not?*

As per my understanding you should only get married if you are absolutely sure that you can take responsibility for your own happiness as well as your partner's...

*How to decide who deserves you?*


one can be accepted as your better half only if your inner is craving for him/her and the same intense feeling is needed by his/her side too.
                                    ~Hina Chauhan



ભારતીય સંસ્કૃતિમાં લગ્ન એક સંસ્કાર માનવામાં આવે છે. જે દરેક વ્યક્તિએ તેમાંથી પસાર થવાનું હોય છે.
મારા મતે લગ્ન એટલે એક પવિત્ર સબંધ કે જેમાં મીઠાસ અને પ્રેમ, દુઃખ અને નવા અનુભવ તેમજ અનુકૂલન સાધવાની  વાત હોય છે. લગ્નજીવનમાં એક એવી વાત છે જે બંને વ્યક્તિએ સાથે રહીને હળીમળીને પુરી કરવાની જવાબદારી છે. દરેક બાબતમાં બે વાત રહેલ હોય છે, સુખ અને દુઃખ. પતી પત્નીએ બને પરિસ્થિતિમાં સાથ અને સહયોગ આપવો જોઈએ.

બધા કેહતા હોય છે કે લગ્ન પછી હેરાન થઈ ગયા... એ બાબત એક પણ ટકા સાચી નથી કેમકે એવા વ્યક્તિ હકીકતમાં સાચા અર્થમાં જવાબદારી સમજી શકતા નથી અથવા તો જવાબદારી ઉપાડવાની  ક્ષમતા નથી હોતી.

*લગ્ન એટલે મોજથી ખાવા માટે નો લાડવો પણ કેમ ખાવો તે પોતાની પર જ આધાર રાખે બીજા ના અનુભવ પર નહીં ...*
                    ~Virbhadrasinh M. Jadeja

~Vaidehi Ma'am Haryani 

  I have got many opinions of peoples about the marriage and marriage system and also many issues about marriage.

      Thank you....

Citation :

Jeffers, Regina. “The Character of Mr. Willoughby in Jane Austen's ‘Sense and Sensibility.’” Austen Authors, 5 Sept. 2018, austenauthors.net/the-character-of-mr-willoughby-in-jane-austens-sense-and-sensibility/.

presentation paper no 6 : Marriage issue in Middlemarch

Marriage issue in_middlemarch. from pinagondaliya

Assignment paper no 5 : Character of Victor Frankenstein

Assignment 

Name  : Pina Gondaliya 

Enrollment no : 2069108420200012

Paper no . 5 Romantic Literature 

Roll on  18 

Submitted : Department of English 

Mary Shelley 

Mary Shelley was widely known as a novelist. She was daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, she met the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. In 1812 and eloped with him to France in July 1814. The couple were married in 1816, after Shelley's first wife had committed suicide. After her husband's death in 1822, she returned to England and devoted herself to publicizing Shelley's writings and to educating their only surviving child, Percy Florence shelley. 

Mary Shelley's best-known book is Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, a text that is part Gothic novel and part philosophical novel; it is also often considered an early example of science fiction. It narrates the dreadful consequences that arise after a scientist has artificially created a human being. 

Two main Characters of the Novel 

1 Victor Frankenstein 

He is the main character, a man driven by ambition and scientific curiosity. His quest for absolute knowledge and power will eventually end in his own ruin. 

2. Monster 

The work of Frankenstein's hands, the creature is his double, his persecutor, and his victim. The lives of him and his creator are inextricably entwined. 

Let's discuss the character of Victor Frankenstein. 

Victor Frankenstein 

Victor Frankenstein's life story is at the heart of Frankenstein. A young Swiss boy, he grows up in Geneva reading the works of the ancient and outdated alchemists, a background that serves him ill when he attends university at Ingolstadt. There he learns about modern science and, within a few years, masters all that his professors have to teach him. He becomes fascinated with the "secret of life," discovers it, and brings a hideous monster to life. The monster proceeds to kill Victor's youngest brother, best friend, and wife, he also indirectly causes the death of two innocents, including Victor's father. Thigh torn by remorse, shame, and guilt, Victor refuses to admit to anyone the horror of what he has created, even as he sees the ramifications of his creative act spiraling out of control. 

Victor changes over the course of the novel from an innocent youth fascinated by the prospects of science into a disillusioned, guilt-ridden man determined to destroy the fruits of his arrogant scientific endeavour. Whether as a result of his desire to attain the godlike power of creating new life or his avoidance of the public arenas in which science is usually conducted. Victor is doomed by a lack of humanness. He cuts himself off from the world and eventually commits himself entirely to an animalistic obsession with revenging himself upon the monster. 

Victor relates his story to Robert Walton and then dies. With its multiple narrators and, hence, multiple perspectives, the novel leaves the reader with contrasting interpretations of Victor : classic mad scientist transgressing all boundaries without concern, or brave adventure into unknown scientific lands. Not to be held responsible for the consequences of his exploration. 

Victor's ambition :

" For when I would account to myself for the birth of that passion, which afterwards ruled my destiny, I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but swelling as it proceeded, it became the first torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys."

Victor speaks this quote as he reflects on his obsessive fascination with artificially creating life. The poetic style reveals Victor's education and eloquence, but the quote also reveals his fundamental lack of self-awareness and moral responsibility. He describes his ambition as an external force beyond his control by comparing it to raging river sweeping away everything in its path. His ambition might have been a powerful desire, but it was still an internal feeling that he could have tried to control rather than allowing it to direct his actions without considering consequences. 

"So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Victor, more, far more, will I achieve : treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation. "

This quotation shows how profound Victor's ambitions are. As he learns about the progress that contemporary science has made, his first reaction is to fantasize about how much further he could go. This reaction shows his lack of humility and his arrogance. Rather than pausing to consider how impressive the discoveries of others have been, Victor immediately focuses on outgoing them. His drive to surpass the accomplishments of others may be part of why he fixates on the bold and reckless goal of artificially creating life. 

Dr. Vasi and Victor Frankenstein 

Dr. Vasi was one of the characters in the Indian hindi cinema 'Robot'. Vaseegaran creates a sophisticated Android Robot. When Victor creates human beings. Monster and Chitti are both scientific experiments. Both feel emotion. Both became violent. But at the end of the movie Vaseegara controlled his scientific creature. But in the novel Frankenstein Monster was rejected by his creator. Victor does not accept his creation because of his ugly look. When Monster becomes violent victore doesn't control his creation. So compared to Dr vasi Victor is not a good scientist. Because he doesn't accept his creation. If we created anything we would be able to accept it in any situation. 

Victor is a modern scientist unleashed upon an unsuspecting Society. Not fully aware of the consequences of his creating a new race of humans, he spends his entire life trying to destroy the same creation. Victor is also the unbridled ego who must satisfy his urge to know all and use that learning to create a new race of man. His excesses ultimately destroy him. Victor represents the id, the part of the psyche that is governed by the instinctive impulses of sex or aggression. 

Citation

Frankenstein,www.google.com/search?q=frankenstein+sparknotes&oq=Frankenstein+sparkno&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j35i39j0l2j69i60.11937j0j7&client=ms-android-oppo&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8.


Kuiper, Kathleen. “Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 19 Feb. 2020, www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Wollstonecraft-Shelley. 

Assignment paper no : 7. Rasa Theory

Assignment 

Name :  Pina Gondaliya 

Enrollment No : 

Paper No : 7, Literary Criticism and Theory 

Topic :  Rasa Theory 

Email ID :  pinagondaliya09@gmail.com 

Classification of Literary Theories 

It is possible to classify literary theories on the basis of what aspect of literary composition is central to them. Accordingly, we have theory of :

1. Language, namely, alamkara (principle of figurativeness) and Vakrokti (principle of deviation) 
2. Style and compositional value, namely, guna/dosa (excellence, faults). Riti (mode of expression) and Acuity(propriety).
3. Verbal symbolism, namely, dhavni 
4. Aesthetic experience namely, rasa 
5. Narrative, namely, mahakavya, as inferable from Bhoja's Sringara Prakasa and categories of panini's grammar. 
6. Discourse analysis ,namely, yuktis. For example Kautilya's thirty -two units of composition in Arthasastra. It is an analysis of the thought structure of a composition, constitution of a text in terms of nature of proportions. Indian theorists do not explicitly discuss this. But one can consolidate ideas available in different sources. 
7. Comprehensive analysis as constructed in kavyamimamsa. Rajasekhara has proposed a composite model based on the insights of different theories. 

• Major schools, thinkers and text :

School	Thinkers	Texts
Rasa	Bharata  Dhanika-Dhananjaya	Natyasastra Dasarupaka
Alamkara	Bhamaha Dandin  Udbhata  Rudrata	Kavyalankara Kavyadarsa Kavyalamkarasarasamgraha Kavyalankara
Riti	Vamana	Kavyalamkarasutra
Dhavni	Anandavardhana  Abhinavagupta Mahima Bhatta	Dhvanyaloka Abhinavabharati Vyakti Viveka
Vakrokti	Kuntaka	Vakrokti Jivita
Guna-Dosa	Dandin  Bhamaha	Kavyadarsa Kavyalankara
Aucitya	Ksemendra	Aucitya Caracara

Rasa Theory 

Rasa, is an ancient concept of aesthetics discussed in the text, the Natyasastra, which dates to approximately the 4th or 5th century. "Sastra" in Hindu philosophy refers to the first text or treatise written on any subject ; the person generally credited for the Natyasastra is the  legendary Bharata Muni. Many philosophers have contributed ideas to the theories in aesthetics including Dandin, Bhatta Lollata, Sanuka, and Bhatta Nayaka. The ideas of all these philosophers have been passed down through the writing of the philosopher Abhinavagupta. 

The rasa theory originates with Bharata in Natyasastra. It claims that the object or meaning that is sought to be conveyed in literary compositions is in the nature of an emotional effect of diverse human experience on man's mind and heart. It is possible, Bharata demonstrates, to enumerate the whole range of emotions, or states of being born of experience, and to analyse the structure of those emotions in terms of cause, physical correlate and their effect on man's being. The theory thus becomes in effect a theory of literary experience which is strongly rooted in the empirical human reality. 

Bharata, the first announcer of the theory ,gives the most comprehensive analysis of its sources, nature and its Categories. Subsequently, the theory found major commentators in Dhanika Dhananjaya who re-examined Bharata's typology of drama and added to it a typology of Uparupakas, subplays, plays within plays, and one - act plays. It is Abhinavagupta, however, who enriched the theory by elucidating its philosophic foundations and by analysing in depth the aesthetic dimension of the theory in terms of the nature, cognition and effect of literary experience. 

The Rasa theory has been accepted as the core literary theory by all major politicians both before and after Abhinavagupta. In particular, the discussion and analysis by Viswanatha and Pt. Jagannatha have contributed towards a more subtle understanding of this theory. 

Nine Rasa :

Rasa is Sanskrit and has many translations in English, the main ones being : essence, juice, nectar, taste, or sap. Rasa is in everything, or I should say.. everything has Rasa. Though some things have a higher vibrational essence, others lower, some even dead. Rasa is the invisible substance that gives life meaning. Rasa is also described as the state of ecstasy in the union with divine. 

In Tantra these 9 Rasas are the essence of all of our emotions; 

1 Love / Sringara

It is the ultimate Rasa. The king or queen emotion that heals anything. It frees the ego and connects us to devotion. When you appreciate beauty it connects you to the source of love. It is the creative play between Shiva and Shakti, sun and moon, yin and yang. The purpose of the universe is to experience this divine love. 

This love exists in everything. It is within each one of us and radiates out to the cosmos. 

2. Joj/Hasya 

This Rasa connects you to your humor, laughter, happiness and contentment. It is the extension of what you feel within love. 

3. Wonder / Adhuta 

Curiosity, Mystery, Awe. When you become fascinated with the idea of life. It is your playfulness and innocence. You enter into complete appreciation and become an explorer or adventure. It is magic! 

]4. Courage / Vira 

Bravery, Confidence, Pride. When you call upon your the warrior that lives inside you. It is strong and vibrant. 

5. Peace / Shanta 

Deep calmness and relaxation. When you become still and quiet. In peace you become so full that you are empty. You will not find peace anywhere but within. 

6. Sadness / Karuna

When you can experience sadness and connect it back to the cosmos, you then experience compassion. Compassion is what connects us all. Through compassion we can relate deeply to each other. When one's sadness is truly experienced around a situation it can give a sense of completion. Grieving is a key aspect in healing. 

7. Anger/Raudra

In anger we go into the fire. One moment of anger can destroy lifetimes of good merit. Respect anger. When anger isn't honored it can bring up irritation, violence, hatred. Feel the anger. Let it move through you. Breathe into the fire. 

8. Fear/ Bhayanaka

Doubt, Worry, Insecurity. When we live our lives in fear, we shut down completely. 

9. Disgust / Vibhasta

Self pity, Loathing, self hatred. Only through a loving emotion can you heal and appease disgust 

But bhakti rasa is the one which is revered most as all first 6 rasas can be attained through bhakti rasa. How to test the nectar of bhakti rasa the following method has been advocated. Bhakti is a Sanskrit term that signifies an attitude of devotion to a personal God that is similar to a number of human-human relationships such as a beloved - lover, friend-friend, parent-child, and master-servant. Bhakti rasa was added later on. 

Citation 

Hrodrigues. “Rasa Theory .” Mahavidya, 26 Dec. 2017, www.mahavidya.ca/2017/12/26/4110/.

Rocio. “9----Rasas as 9-- Emotions in Human Beings .” Speakingtree.in, Speaking Tree, 25 Mar. 2013, www.speakingtree.in/blog/9rasas-as-9-emotions-in-human-beings.

Assignment paper no : 8. British Cultural Materialism

Assignment 

Name:  Pina Gondaliya 

Enrollment No:2069108420200012

Paper No : 8, Cultural Studies 

Topic:  British Cultural Materialism 

Email ID: pinagondaliya09@gmail.com 

Roll No: 18

What is Cultural Studies? 

Cultural studies is now a movement or a network. It has its own degrees in several colleges and universities and its own journals and meetings. It exercises a large influence on academic disciplines, especially on English studies, sociology, media and communication studies, linguistics and history. As Patrick Brantlinger has pointed out, 

cultural studies is not "a tightly coherent, unified movement with a fixed agenda," but a "loosely coherent group of tendencies, issues, and questions"

Arising from the social turmoil of the 1960s,  cultural studies is composed of elements of Marxism, post-structuralism and postmodernism, feminism, gender studies, anthropology, sociology, race and ethnic studies, film theory, urban studies, public policy, popular culture studies, and postcolonial studies : those fields that concentrate on social and cultural forces that either create community or cause division and alienation. 

• Five Types of Cultural Studies  

1. British Cultural Materialism 
2. New Historicism 
3. American Multiculturalism 

• African American writers 
• Latina/o Writers 
• American Indian literatures 

4. Postmodernism and popular culture 
5. Postcolonial Studies 

• Cultural Materialism 

Cultural materialism as a literary critical practice—this article will not address its anthropological namesake—is a Marxist-inspired and mostly British approach to in particular Shakespeare and early modern English literature that emerged and became prominent in the 1980s. Its emphasis on the historical and material conditions of the production and reception of texts has remained influential, even if its political commitment and interventionist purposes have largely been abandoned and increasingly ignored. While certain of its formulations would seem to echo Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, or other thinkers of the period, the main influence is the British literary and cultural critic Raymond Williams, and his re-theorization, following Antonio Gramsci’s notion of cultural hegemony, of the orthodox Marxist binary of base and superstructure. For Williams, who coined the term “cultural materialism,” culture is neither a mere reflection of that base nor wholly independent of it. This does not rule out intentional human practice, but rejects the idealist position in seeing that practice as inseparable from specific historical conditions. Still, with culture not wholly determined by an economic base, it plays its own role in the construction and/or reproduction of the social totality, and inevitably becomes the site of ideological struggle. Next to the dominant, hegemonic cultural formation we will thus find declining, residual formations and nascent, emergent ones. Cultural materialism focused on the ideological forces at work in Shakespeare, in Shakespeare studies, and in contemporary re-stagings and representations—in for instance secondary education and advertising—of Shakespeare and/or his work. Rejecting humanist beliefs in transcendent, ahistorical, truth and in an essential human nature, cultural materialists insisted on historicization and argued that Shakespeare—and the study of literature in general—had been hijacked by a conservative humanist ideology that presented itself as timeless and “natural” and perhaps unwittingly colluded with a profoundly unjust and rapacious social order. One of cultural materialism’s main interests was social stratification and the way in which the dominant social order sought to legitimize itself—for instance through the construction of socially marginalized groups as “other,” a practice that led to an early interest in issues of gender and race, and would substantially contribute to the rise of queer studies. Inspired by its belief that ideological hegemony is never absolute and that all ideology at some point contradicts itself, cultural materialism reads texts for signs of subversion and political dissidence, arriving at often provocative interpretations whose ulterior purpose was to serve as interventions in current political debate  

• British Cultural Materialism :

Cultural studies is referred to as "cultural materialism" in Britain, and it has a long tradition. In the later nineteenth century Matthew Arnold sought to redefine the "givens" of British culture. Edward Burnett Taylor's pioneering anthropological study Primitive Culture argued that "Culture or civilization, taken in its widest ethnographic sense, is a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society".

Claude Levi-Strauss's influence moved British thinkers to assign "culture" to primitive peoples, and then, with the work of British scholars like Raymond Williams, to attribute culture to the working class as well as the elite. As William memorably states: "There are no masses; there are only ways of seeing people as masses".

To appreciate the importance of this revision of "culture" we must situate it within the controlling myth of social political reality of the British Empire upon which the sun never set, and ideology left over from the previous century. In modern Britain two trajectories for "culture" developed: one led back to the past and the feudal hierarchies that ordered community in the past; here, culture acted in its sacred function as preserver of the past. The other trajectory led toward a future, socialist utopia that would annul the distinction between labor and leisure classes and make transformation of status, not fixity, the norm. This cultural materialism furnished a leftist orientation "critical of the aestheticism, formalism, anti historicism, and apoliticism common among the dominant postwar methods of academic literary criticism"; such was the description in the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. 

Cultural materialism began in earnest in the 1950s with the work of F. R. Leavis, heavily influenced by Matthew Arnold's analysis of bourgeois culture. Leavis sought to use the education system to distribute literary knowledge and appreciation more widely; Leavisites promoted the "great tradition" of Shakespeare and Milton to improve the moral sensibilities of a wider range of readers than just the elite. 

Ironically the threat to their project was mass culture. Raymond William applaudend the richness of canonical texts such as Leavis promoted, but also found they could seem to erase certain communal forms of life. Inspired by Karl Marx, British theorists were also influenced by Gyorgy Lukacs,  Theodor Adorno, Louis Althusser, Max Horkheimer, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Antonio Gramsci. They were especially interested in problems of cultural hegemony and in the many systems of domination related to literature. From Gramsci, an Italian Marxist, for example, they got the concept of cultural "hegemony", referring to relations of domination not always visible as such. Williams noted that hegemony was "a sense of reality for most people beyond which it is very difficult for most members of society to move ". But the people are not always Victims of hegemony; they sometimes possess the power to change it. 

Althusser insisted that ideology was ultimately in control of the people, that "the main function of ideology is to reproduce the Society's existing relations of production, and that function is even carried out in literary texts." Ideology must maintain this state of affairs if the state and capitalism can continue to reproduce themselves without fear of revolution. Althusser saw popular literature as merely "carrying the baggage of a culture's ideology," whereas "high" literature retained more autonomy and hence had more power. Walter Benjamin attacked fascism by questioning the value of what he called the "aura" of culture. Benjamin helps explain the frightening cultural context for a film such as Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will. Lukacs developed what he called a "Reflection Theory," in which he stressed literature's reflection, conscious or unconscious, of the social reality surroundings it not just a flood of realistic detail but a reflection of the essence of a society. Fiction formed without a sense of such reflection can never fully show the meaning of a given society. 

Cultural materialists also turned to the more humanistic and even spiritual insights of the great student of Rabelais and Dostoevsky, Russian Formalism Bakhtin, especially his amplification of the dialogic form of meaning within narrative and class struggle, at once conflictual and communal materialists in recognizing how seemingly "disinterested" thought is shaped by power structures such as patriarchy. 

Citation :


Bertend, Hans. “Cultural Materialism .” Cultural Materialism - Literary and Critical Theory - Oxford Bibliographies, 26 Feb. 2020, www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780190221911/obo-9780190221911-0091.xml.

Johnson, Richard. "What is Cultural Studies Anyway?" Social Text, no. 16, 1986, pp.38-80. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/466285. Accessed 5 Mar. 2020.

Pramod K. Narayan, An Introduction of Cultural Studies . Viva Books Private Limited (April 20, 2011), April 20, 2011.