The Sociology of Literature: Can literature elevate Sociological discourse?

In his most prominent work ‘The Sociological Imagination’ (1959), C Wright Mills stated that ‘neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both. In order to meet these criteria presented by Mills, Sociologists have employed a myriad of both qualitative and quantitative methods- aiming to understood and recognise both macro level of sociology (the ‘history) and the micro level (‘the individual’). Although Sociologists have placed a focus on official statistics, academic reports and journal articles- I would like to place forward an argument which implements literature within the sphere of Sociological discourse. Where people may have reservations about the ecological validity of non-fiction writing, for many the power of writing is that it provides a direct insight into the thoughts and feelings of a generation- a product of its time. For example, John Middleton Murry once described Thomas Hardy’s writing, who was characterised by his realist attitudes and preoccupancy with analysing social change, as a ‘reaction to the universe’. This political or historicist view on literature is reinforced by Mary Oliver who argues that ‘Literature is the apparatus through which the world tries to keep intact its important ideas and feelings’. Ergo- through looking at social issues through the lens of literature, one can acknowledge a more emotive account of a historical or contemporary problem. Although one many argue that the more ‘personal account’ of an individual writer is absent in the case of generalisability, an adoption of the phrase ‘the personal is the political’ from second wave feminism, conveys how the personal writing of one author can have political and social significance. This plea for a more inter-disciplinary and nuanced analysis of society by no means states that literature should be a prominent focus on Sociological analysis- but more classical sociological resources such as statistics and journals could be elevated and supported by the literary work of its time. 

Racism, Misogyny and ‘Motiveless Malignity’ 

Shakespeare’s play ‘Othello’ acts as a searing critique of racial and sexual injustice, which is in many ways more powerful now in the twenty-first century than ‘it could ever have been at the dawn of the seventeenth century’. The tragedy of the play is engendered by the marriage of Othello, a black general, and Desdemona, a young white woman. Many readers, within the Elizabethan context, view the elopement of the couple as an act of cultural aporia. Firstly, it undermines the authority of Desdemona’s father Brabantio, an expectation of paternal authority acting as a motif in Shakespeare’s work as it is prominent in ‘King Lear’. Secondly, the marriage questions the racialised beliefs in Elizabethan, Renaissance England in which miscegenation was frowned upon. Not only is Othello met with a range of racial epithets from Iago and Roderigo (often animalistic, underpinned by the stereotype of a cunning, sexual predator), but Brabantio warns the Venetian state ‘For if such actions may have passage free. Bond-slaves and pagans shall or statesman be’. This quote is analysed perfectly in an article for the British Library by Kiernan Ryan, a Professor of English Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London: ‘Brabantio perceives at once that there’s much more at stake in this interracial union than the violation of his honour as Desdemona’s father. If we turn a blind eye to this outrage, Brabantio argues in effect, we’re treating our inferiors as our equals, which means there’s nothing to stop the subhuman underclass or the heathen outcasts of society taking our place and having power over us. Shakespeare makes it plain from the start that it’s not just Iago the newly-weds are up against, but the status quo and a view of the world which Iago merely embodies in its most lethal form.’ Furthermore, it is especially important that Brabantio ‘loved’ Othello, prior to the marriage, exposing how quickly otherism can change from exotic, hero stranger to objected stranger. Instead of Iago simply being viewed as an individual, Machiavellian villain- Shakespeare conveys the macro issue of racial injustice within the European unconsciousness eg Thomas Rhymer (1693) viewed Othello as a ‘caution’ to maidens not to ‘runaway with blackamoors’ without parental consent. The play questions the beliefs, assumptions and politics upon which Elizabethan society was founded. Although Othello is often viewed as a ‘tragedy of love’, the historical and cultural climate makes it a complex and important piece of literature- for contemporary and modern readers alike. This has led Anna Loomba, from the Post-colonial theoretical perspective, to view the central conflict in the play as ‘racism of white patriarchy and the threat posed by a black man and a white woman’. Due to the genre of tragedy, Iago ‘instigates and stage manages chaos effectively’ (Rebecca Warren), poisoning Othello’s psyche (shown through the degradation of his language from the charismatic idiom of blank verse to disjointed and aggressive prose) and leading to Othello’s internalisation of the negative views surrounding black men. This culminates in our protagonist's murder of Desdemona- a matricide triggered by dread of cuckoldry. Although Germaine Greer recognises that ‘we no longer feel as Shakespeare's contemporaries did’, she argues that ’Iago is still serviceable to us, as an objective correlative of the mindless inventiveness of racist aggression. Iago is still alive and kicking’. This most evident through discussing the eminence of race within sociological discourse. The Black lives matter movement in 2020 (following the murder of George Floyd by US police officers) centralised the issue of racism within policing, a theme that was evident in the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993- from which came the McPherson Report and subsequent claims of ‘institutional racism’ within the Metropolitan police force. Furthermore, emulating Shakespeare’s portrayal of Othello as an ‘outsider’, Castles (2000) argues that assimilationist policies eg- in France the veiling of the face in public was made illegal in 2010, are counter-productive because they ‘mark out minority groups as culturally backward or other’, which then ‘breeds further marginalisation, defeating the goal of assimilation’ (Sociology Book One- Napier Press). Pairing this with ideas of racial stigma, referenced most recently by Imogen Tyler who criticised Goffman's ‘white normative perspective’ and the troubles of ‘race neutral forms of interactional analysis’. Instead, Tyler aims to ‘historically resituate Goffman’s original account’, in order to enrich its ‘utility as an analytic for understand other forms of dehumanisation, and stigma as a form of power’. Ergo, Shakespeare’s play ‘Othello’ still remains important for modern readers- conveying how issues of racism persisted throughout the Elizabethan era, often paired with misogynistic power dynamics between fathers and daughter. This sense of misogyny is reinforced through a feminist analysis of Desdemona, with Marilyn French arguing that Desdemona accepts her ‘culture’s dictum’ by the end of the play, with Othello’s fear over cuckoldry fitting well with the patriarchal culture of the city. Although his ‘colour makes him feel like an alien’, the city of Venice is exactly ‘where he’s entirely at home as a man’. Similarly, E A J Honigmann argues that Emilia’s ‘fear of Iago, though not expressed explicitly, explains Emilia’s attitude as Shakespeare’s tragedy unfolds’. This gendered power dynamic is increasingly relevant within contemporary feminism, as debates spark over traditional gender roles eg- Talcott Parsons (1957) functionalist view of the ‘expressive’ role for women, and ‘instrumental’ role for men. This paired with Pahl and Vogler’s (2007) study of male control over family income (in both pooling and the allowance system), and feminist explanations of domestic violence (eg Millett and Firestone 1970) convey the contemporary nature of unequal power dynamics. Therefore, although it might be impressive to view Shakespeare as a progressive, who addressed social issues in the seventeenth century- this comes with a sense of melancholy, as it exposes how persistent these issues have been- even within a climate of social and legislative change. 

Influence of the War on Writing

The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 lead to intense military and political conflict- between the Central Powers and the Allied Power. However, beyond this international conflict there was a rise in one specific form of writing- poetry. In his anthology ‘Other men’s flowers’ Lord Wavell noted that ‘Before the first world war, battle poems were seldom written by men’. He articulated that the themes of poetry prior to the war included ‘love, beauty, heroes’ and ‘nature’. This response within the sphere of literature is unsurprising, as the context of the first world war- existing on a grander scale than previous conflicts due to mechanisation- meant that it was a unique experience of men, even if they had participated in military conflict prior to 1914. Accordingly- I would like to analyse two poems from the First World War, acknowledging how they could benefit Sociological discourse- despite their contradictory viewpoints.

Patriotism and Romanticism

Rupert Brooke had been close to a nervous breakdown, however the emergence of the first world war acted as a clean break from this old life. Chrisopher Hassall, Brooke’s biographer, argued that he ‘celebrated in exultation this discovery of a moral purpose’. This patriotic, romanticised perspective on the first world war is shown eminently in his poem ‘Peace’. The poem suitably takes the form of a sonnet, a 14-line poem traditionally associated with love, with the added syllable of feminine rhyme endings providing a soft, falling rhythm that mimics the ethereal idea of purpose. The iambic rhythm of the opening line ‘Now God be thanked’ places stress on ‘God’ and ‘Thanks’- centralising Brookes perspective that the younger generation have been given an opportunity by the war effort- one reminiscent of a crusade. Brooke goes on to reference ‘the sick hearts that honour could not move’, with a focus on ‘half men’ providing a disparaging rhetoric towards those who did not fight in the war. Although modern readers may be inclined to believe that all soldiers despised the war- there were cases of soldiers enjoying the phenomenon of war, or at least being motivated by strong feelings of group solidarity. Following concepts of solidarity and prejudice from social psychology, the military unit could provide a new form of communal bonds- based on experiences, comradeship and friendship with their fellow men. In the same way Durkheim (1915) viewed religion, with the aid of totemism, as providing social solidarity and value consensus within society, for many soldiers the military unit did the same thing- however countries were often still, divided by nationalistic, xenophobic ideologies. 

Nihilism and Disillusionment

However, literature also acknowledges the horrors of war. During the war there was a vast movement of writers who maintained a critical stance towards war, using poetry as a political tool, medium through which they condemned those in power. Harold Monro, a Georgian poet, pleaded for poetry to convey ‘the plain facts of the human psychology of the moment’, asking we understand ‘how ungrudgingly youth dies’. This politicised form of poetry is most evident in the work of Siegfried Sassoon, who served with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in late 1915- even being awarded the Royal Military Cross for carrying back a wounded soldier during heavy fire. However, after becoming disenfranchised with the war effort, Sassoon began to write satirical, politically charged, didactic and epigrammatic poetry in significant contrast to the more patriotic outlook of his contemporary Rupert Brooke. Even Rudyard Kipling who engaged with imperialistic and patriotic discourse during the war, began to criticise certain aspects of the campaign. For example, in his brief couplet ‘Common Form’, Kipling stated ‘If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied’. For many this concise poem shows Kipling as the voice of the slain, the ‘angry and defrauded young’. This condemnatory tone from Kipling led Dylan J Sorois to put forward the point that ‘these scornful words would not likely have come from the Rudyard Kipling before World War One, but his mind had shifted’. Sassoon’s contemporary Wilfred Owen is often cited as the most well-known war poet, acknowledged particularly for his poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’. The title is a Latin phrase for 'it is sweet and fitting’, with the remaining ‘pro patria mori’ meaning to ‘die for one’s country’. This was an Ode by the Roman writer Horace, however the irony of Owen’s writing is that instead of allowing continuity- it shatters the reader’s expectations of heroism, instead showing the stark reality of war. It almost seems like the aim of the poem is to disprove the claim of the title. The verb heavy opening stanza includes the phrase ‘knock kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge’- long vowel sounds and onomatopoeia making the line difficult and uncomfortable to say- portraying the unforgiving nature of war. The monotonous character of stanza 1 is ultimately juxtaposed by the exclamation of ‘Gas! Gas! Quick boys!’. The allusion to PTSD and shell shock (‘in all my dreams’) is important- it is deeply revealing that the testimony of a gas attack is not placed in ‘the act of perception’, but in the ‘realm of the unconscious’. Here, Dr Santanu Das senses ‘the tremendous effort on the part of the poet to capture a reality that cannot be captured’, an act of revealing the ‘raw sounds’ of language which manifests the ‘brilliance of first world war poetry’. The last stanza takes the form of a single sentence, a stream of consciousness that contains thoughts in opposition to jingoism- spilling out as if they’d been held in.  Owen, with an excessive use of stark and shocking realism, makes the point ‘If... you too could pace behind the wagon the we flung him’. The intrusive voice produced from this direct address almost acts to criticise the public- in particular Owen’s ‘friend’ ‘Jessie Pope’ who had written jingoistic articles about the war effort eg- Who's for the Game. In the closing line, Owen concludes his criticism of the ode ‘Dulce et decorum Est Pro patria mori’- characterising it as the ‘old lie’. Not only does an analysis of Owen’s work, parallel with the work of Brooke and Grenfell, provide an understanding of the diverse views on the first world war- but it also undermines the Neo-Functionalist views of Bellah (1970). Instead of Nationalism forming a civil religion for a single national community, poets such as Sassoon and Owen would argue the ideology of nationalism (along with patriotism and jingoism) can lead to the mental suffering of soldiers- who were not aware of the realities of war. This follows the historical nature of sociology- as nationalism as a belief system will have different outcomes based on social context and time. However, for a complex and comprehensive understand of public sentiment towards war, both extremes of the spectrum should be acknowledged- the patriotism of Brooke and Owen’s subject of the ‘pity of war’. Although modern readers and historians may retrospectively believe that all soldiers felt disgusted by the war, this fails to acknowledge those who had a more positive outlook- such as Brooke and Julian Grenfell, with the latter stating ‘I adore war. It is like a big picnic’. Literary critics may make the case that propaganda campaigns in Britain meant Rupert Brooke had a more romanticised picture of war that was detached from reality, but we must also avoid using restrictive anthologies (as noted by Tim Kendall) which paint a simplistic, linear description of combatant's viewpoints- moving from positive to negative over the course of the war. Therefore, as much as war poetry informs sociological concepts such as ideology, nationalism and identity- it also conveys how modern perceptions of the soldier mentality might be distorted. An understanding of those producing war anthologies as ‘curators’ of an overall narrative is an important point to consider when we think of public memory surround world war one.

Modernism and Consumerism

Modernism is a literary and artistic movement that emerged in the early 20th century and continued to post war Britain. For many this movement is a reflection of modern life, with thematic focus on disillusionment, alienation and loneliness. Not only was the movement influenced by the introduction of modern psychology in the form of Sigmund Freud, but the World war had an unprecedented impact on the psyche of a generation of soldiers. Gertrude Stein refers to the psychological disconnect and distress of this group as the ‘lost generation’- many being drawn in by meretricious messages of patriotism and battle, but ultimately being made aware of the damning reality of war: a war on a mechanised scale. Although many would dismiss literary techniques as having any contextual or sociological significance- the techniques of modernist writing run parallel to its message. In response to the dehumanising effects of the war, poets began to reject the traditional framework of poetry. This is put most succinctly by contemporary modernist poet Ezra Pound who argued writers should ‘make it new!’. Instead of utilising strict structures that characterised the Edwardian and Victorian framework of writing, poets became experimental. Disjointed structures, fragmentation, multiple perspectives and free indirect discourse (‘stream of consciousness) began to characterise this new period of literature. TS Eliot was a pioneer of this era, an American poet who is acknowledged for his poems ‘The Wasteland’ and ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’. The Wasteland acts as a metaphor for contemporary American life- the opening two stanzas describing a cold, dry and barren wasteland- symbolic of a loss of morality. Even the river, normally a symbol of renewal, has been reduced to a ‘dull canal’- inverting the Pastoral convention of viewing nature as synonymous with harmony. This narrative is reinforced in ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ which is described as a ‘drama of literary anguish’. This poem, in the form of an interior monologue, analyses the tortured psyche of the prototypical modern man. He laments his physical and intellectual inertia, the lost opportunities in his life and an absence of purpose. Instead of viewing the ‘spiritual emptiness’ of modern life through the lens of official statistics e.g. looking at political and economic points, readers can acknowledge ‘thwarted desires and modern disillusionment’ first hand through the reading of poetry. With this psyche in mind- the Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald seems to be a direct response to this. The Roaring 20’s were defined by consumerism and consumption- or as Fitzgerald states in a 1931 essay, an ‘age of excess and an age of satire’. Gatsby follows the ‘green light’, symbolic of his love for Daisy as well as the ‘American Dream’. However, Sarah Churchwell views the novel not as ‘an American success story’ but an ‘American failure’. Although Gatsby can construct an identity of elegance and social capital through his wealth- this is ultimately meretricious in the pursuit of happiness, aligning with Socrates’ assertion that ‘he who is not contented with what he has would not be contented with would he would like to have’. This is useful for Sociological discourse as Fitzgerald allows analysis from a range of Social theorists. For example, in ‘You Are What You Own: A Marxist Reading of The Great Gatsby’, Lois Tyson suggests that although the glamorous lifestyle of the wealthy is portrayed in the novel, it is actually ‘a scathing critique of American capitalist culture and the ideology that promotes it’. This depiction of commodification leading to dysfunctional relationships has been continued into the late 20th and 21st century. For example, Mike Featherstone (2000) argues that the importance of cultural intermediaries has promoted the ‘Ethic of Self-Expression through Consumption’ and an ‘Aestheticism of Daily Life’. Although this might have allowed individuals more freedom to consume religious ideas (e.g. Hervieu Ledger’s concept of ‘Spiritual Shopping’), there have been unequivocal negative effects from a culture of consumerism. Left Realist Jock Young (2002) notes that in a late modern society that promotes free market values and individualism, there has been an increased sense of relative deprivation. The current media saturated society promotes cultural inclusion through materialist, consumerist messages, but the presence of economic exclusion had led to a sense of anomie- where individuals do not have the opportunity to achieve cultural goals by legitimate means. This desire to fit in with society’s ‘standardized image of lifestyle’ (Lea and Young 1996) and consumer goals has led some people to commit utilitarian and non-utilitarian crime. Therefore, the importance of literature in Sociological discourse is that it conveys the historical nature of consumption (Modernism and the Roaring 20’s), whilst also giving an emotive and personal account of having to ‘fit in’ with social expectations. Thomas Hardy characterised tragedy as ‘the inevitable encompassed by the inevitable’- perhaps Gatsby’s fatal flaw was not an individual one, but a by-product of the environment he inhabited. 

Literature as a discipline and Decolonising the Literary Canon

Although the discipline of literature can help expose political issues of inequality and discrimination, one must also recognise the short falls of literature. For many, the literary world in and of itself inhabits these issues- with many pointing towards structural inequalities. The most prominent example of this is the use of male pseudonyms by female writers, based on fears of prejudice within a male dominated sphere. One can look at Charlotte Bronte who wrote the novel ‘Jane Eyre’ under the pseudonym of Currer Bell. Bronte famously stated ‘I am neither a man nor a woman, but an author’- reinforcing her belief that her work should not be negatively impacted by preconceptions of gender roles and the division of the private and public sphere. This division between men and women is reinforced through her account of her personal acquaintance with her publisher- ‘He looked at it- then at me- again- yet again- I laughed at his queer perplexity- A recognition took place- I gave my real name- “Miss Bronte”. Furthermore, Dr Santanu Das (2014) puts forward the argument that ‘we also have to move beyond Europe because there was more poetry being written in Turkey, in India, in Eastern Europe’, stating that instead of limiting ourselves to a ‘narrow, Anglocentric definition of First World War poetry’, we should ‘embed first world war literary memory in a more multiracial framework’. Not only will this provide sociologists and historians with a more emotive and personal account of public opinion (a quality statistics might lack)- but for theorists interested in race relations it raises questions around how we have anthologised the writing of the war. In the same way that Stephen Ball and Bernard Coard criticised the ethnocentric curriculum of British history lessons, has there been a certain collective amnesia around what a ‘British’ soldier was? In an article called ‘Experiences of colonial troops’ by the British Library, it is said that ‘well over 4 million non-white men and women were mobilised into the European and American armies during the First World War, in combatant and non-combatant roles. Ergo, not only can an analysis of world war one poetry provide an insight into contemporary public opinion – but a more macro outlook conveys how, as Dr Santanu Das argues, ‘popular memory’ in the twenty-first century remains ‘narrowly confined to the Western front’. This case study of war poetry isn’t only useful for Sociological analysis of war and colonial relations, but the subsequent formation of a widely Anglocentric collection of War poetry conveys the Sociological argument to ‘Decolonise’ the Education System. Ergo, although an analysis of literature is beneficial for understanding public opinion and experience of social issues, the institution of literature and publishing can act as a case study of structural inequality itself. 

Conclusion

To conclude, one function of literature is that it recognises the thoughts and feelings of social actors during a given context, working to, as one speaker from Warwick University stated, ‘foster reflection and political action on contemporary social issues’. The work of Shakespeare, F Scott Fitzgerald, Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, and TS Eliot draws on a plethora of themes from Sociology- ranging from racism, to sexism, to consumerism and nationalism. Although literature shouldn’t be used as the sole source of Sociological analysis by any means (due to issues of embellishment and subjectivity), it can be used as a heuristic tool to understand the opinions of contemporaries within a given period. If Sociology aims to ‘come to the help of the individual’ as Zygmunt Bauman states, the medium through which the individual expresses themselves is often through writing- the discipline of literature.