Literary Sociology By Nungki Heriyati

Welek and Waren Literature ‘represent’ life and ‘life’ is, in large measure, a social reality, even though the natural world and the inner or subjective world of the individual have also been objects of literary ‘imitation’.

De Bonald said that ‘Literature is an expression of society’ To say that literature mirrors or express life is even more ambiguous. A writer inevitably express his experience and total conception of life; but it would be manifestly untrue to say that he expresses the whole of life-or even the whole life of a given time-completely.

Literature and Society The writer is the member of society, he can be studied as a social being. Traditional literary device is also social in their very nature (a convention in norm).

Literary Sociology The sociology of the writer The social content of the works themselves The influence of literature on society

The sociology of the writer Biography is the main source This study can be widen into one of the whole milieu from which he came and in which he lived We can accumulate information about the social provenance, the family background, the economic position of the writers We can show what was the exact share of Aristocrats, bourgeois, and proletarians in the history of literature.

The Sociology of the writer The role of Aristocrat, bourgeois and Proletariat “leadership in literature had passed to the bourgeoisie long before the political supremacy”

The sociology of the writer “The social origin of the writer play only a minor part in the questions raised by his social status, allegiance and ideology.” It is a task of literary sociology to trace its exact social status, its degree of dependence on the ruling class, the exact economic source of its support, the prestige of the writer in each society.

The social content of the work Tradition and convention Norm Myth Social problems : poverty, social class, discrimination

The social content of the work: Theoretical approach Functionalism Social fact Marxism Feminism

The influence of literature on Society The young are more directly and powerfully influenced by their reading than the old, that inexperienced readers take literature more naively as transcript rather than interpretation of life, that those whose books are few take them in more utter seriousness than do wide and professional readers.

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