‘Contemporary’- Why do we inflict the past on literature studies?

I recently started an Undergraduate Degree at a rather pleasant University, now number eight (I think) in the Sunday Times League Table and the number one in the country for Drama, some essentially meaningless facts they keep throwing at us (as far as I’m concerned the league tables reflect only the views of those pompous enough to insist on comparative judging, an ugly pastime in this society). My course is in English and Drama, which I am rather enjoying, but don’t let that put you off! Thing is, I’m having a little niggle, and I believe it might be universal from the essays I’ve sat down with, but why on earth do my English lectures and essayists I’ve come across keep insisting on putting the symbolism in the pre-1800’s texts we’ve been studying in the context of ‘contemporary society’.

Not that I’m complaining. A lot can be understood from a text by looking at how those at the time interpreted it, but I don’t understand why those views should be superior to how the modern reader might approach it. The reader, at least in part shapes the text, surely? I read The Odyssey with more than a faint annoyance at Penelope’s passivism throughout, therefore the meaning of the text warps. Compared to the contemporary reader, I am not seeing an admirably loyal wife, but an oppressed woman controlled by the men in her life. And so, the meaning and message I take from the text is completely different from the Greeks. Obviously this perspective is not inferior, as essays have been written and pens have been chewed, Margaret Atwood has even gone so far as the write the Penelopiad. Therefore it is possible to understand a distanced elderly text from a modern viewpoint, so why do I find myself pressed to forget my social background and instead focus solely on how our imagined Greek girl Elene might perceive this strange piece of literature she finds in her hands, a few millennium from home and faced with this strange invention of paper bound between covers supposedly substituting the oral poet.

This whole query arises from a little essay I read by Derek Brewer on the Colour Green in Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, where he basically spent the entire essay arguing that, in fact, the colour green had no significance to the contemporary audience, it was simply a common colour, and therefore we should stop trying to read into it. Fair enough, but surely we can benefit more by taking a quick note of this information in our studies, then moving on to how the modern reader responds to the colour green. I read nature, alien, envy. Literary criticism can essentially be seen as a social documentary. Why else do we find these essays devoted to the literary history of a text? From the colour green I, as a modern reader, can read the Green Knight as a sophisticated representation of nature degrading the power of an increasingly artificial society. Is not that a valid and interesting way to read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? Let us read contemporary criticism to understand what the contemporaries thought, or if it does not exist, research and note the contemporary views without letting them blot out what we can learn by following our own noses, not Elene’s or anyone else.

Works Cited

Brewer, Derek. “The Colour Green” A Companion to the Gawain-Poet. Brewer, Derek and Gibson, Jonathon, ed. Cambridge: St Edmundsbury Press Ltd, 1997. 181-190 Print

What I’m reading:

Oryx and Crake Margaret Atwood, she intrigues me as an author. Steadfastly against patriarchy, witty, and a mind prone to subversion of everything you understand to be true; there was little chance I would not enjoy this novel. The first of a dystopian trilogy set too closely in the future for comfort, the novel is one of the quickest reads I have encountered. Aside from being a page turner, a very current message of the dangers of a consumerist society is explored through Jimmy and Crake, alongside the age old issues of loneliness and losing one’s mind, shown through snowman, the man Jimmy becomes. Cleverly structured and a damn good read- don’t be put off boys by the overtly feminist tones of The Handmaids tale, Atwood here uses her powers of subtlety so you don’t feel like a focus for criticism.

What I’m watching:

The Odyssey The Paper Cinema I saw this in Torbay, of all places, and it was magnificent. An animation created live through projections and with a live band creating the soundscape. It was gorgeous, spellbinging, and made you feel wonderfully happy. The creators were endlessly ingenious, using everything they could to create effect, a drill to create the sound for a motorbike, during which all humans onstage assumed a biker look, sunglasses and turned up lapels on jackets. It was superb. However, although in a style usually associated with children’s illustration, the showing was partially unintelligible to my friends not versed with the text. Still, don’t miss it if its showing in a theatre near you!