Passage Two

The term“culture”has not always been used in literary studies，and indeed the very concept denoted by the term is fairly recent．“Culture or Civilization”wrote the influential anthropologist Edward B．Tylor in 1871，“taken in its wide ethnographic sense，is that complex whole which includes knowledge，belief，art，morals，law，custom，and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society．”Why should such a concept be useful to students of literature?

Here we can make our first tentative move toward the use of culture for the study of literature，for Western literature over a very long period of time has been one of the great institutions for the enforcement of cultural boundaries through praise and blame^[1]．This is most obvious in the kinds of literature that are explicitly engaged in attack and celebration:satire and panegyric．Works in these genres often seem immensely important when they first appear，but their power begins quickly to fade when the individuals to whom the works refer begin to fade，and the evaporation of literary power continues when the models and limits that the works articulated and enforced have themselves substantially changed．The footnotes in modern editions of these works can give us the names and dates that have been lost，but they cannot in themselves enable us to recover a sense of the stakes that once gave readers pleasure and pain．An awareness of culture as a complex whole can help us to recover that sense by leading us to reconstruct the boundaries upon whose existence the works were predicated．

We can begin to do so simply by a heightened attention to the beliefs and practices implicitly enforced by particular literary acts of praising or blaming．That is，we can ask ourselves a set of cultural questions about the work before us:

●What kinds of behavior，what models of practice，does this work seem to enforce?

●Why might readers at a particular time and place find this work compelling?

●Are there differences between my values and the values implicit in the work I am reading?

●Upon what social understandings does the work depend?

●Whose freedom of thought or movement might be constrained implicitly or explicitly by this work?

●What are the larger social structures with which these particular acts of praise or blame might be connected?

Such questions heighten our attention to features of the literary work that we might not have noticed，and，above all，to connections among elements within the work．Eventually，a full cultural analysis will need to push beyond the boundaries of the text，to establish links between the text and values，institutions，and practices elsewhere in the culture．But these links cannot be a substitute for close reading．Cultural analysis has much to learn from scrupulous formal analysis of literary texts because those texts are not merely cultural by virtue of reference to the world beyond themselves;they are cultural by virtue of social values and contexts that they have themselves successfully absorbed．The world is full of texts，most of which are virtually incomprehensible when they are removed from their immediate surroundings．To recover the meaning of such texts，to make any sense of them at all，we need to reconstruct the situation in which they were produced．Works of art by contrast contain directly or by implication much of this situation within themselves，and itis this sustained absorption that enables many literary works to survive the collapse of the conditions that led to their production．

Cultural analysis then is not by definition an extrinsic analysis，as opposed to an internal formal analysis of works of art．At the same time，cultural analysis must be opposed on principle to the rigid distinction between that which is within a text and that which lies outside．It is necessary to use whatever is available to construct a vision of the“complex whole”to which Tylor referred．And if an exploration of a particular culture will lead to a heightened understanding of a work of literature produced within that culture，so too a careful reading of a work of literature will lead to a heightened understanding of the culture within which it was produced．

The current structure of liberal arts education often places obstacles in the way of such an analysis by separating the study of history from the study of literature，as if the two were entirely distinct enterprises，but historians have become increasingly sensitive to the symbolic dimensions of social practice，while literary critics have in recent years turned with growing interest to the social and historical dimensions of symbolic practice．Hence it is more possible，both in terms of individual courses and of overall programs of study，for students to reach toward a sense of the complex whole of a particular culture．But there is much to be done in the way of cultural analysis even without an integrated structure of courses，much that depends primarily on asking fresh questions about the possible social functions of works of art．Indeed even if one begins to achieve a sophisticated historical sense of the cultural materials out of which a literary text is constructed，it remains essential to study the ways in which these materials arc formally put together and articulated in order to understand the cultural work that the text accomplishes．

For great works of art are not neutral relay stations in the circulation of cultural materials．Something happens to objects，beliefs，andpractices when they are represented，reimagined，and performed in literary texts，something often unpredictable and disturbing．That“something”is the sign both of the power of art and of the embeddedness of culture in the contingencies of history．I have written at moments as if art always reinforces the dominant beliefs and social structures of its culture，as if culture is always harmonious rather than shifting and conflict-ridden，and as if there necessarily is a mutually affirmative relation between artistic production and the other modes of production and reproduction that make up a society．At times there is precisely such an easy and comfortable conjunction，but it is by no means necessary．Indeed in our own time most students of literature reserve their highest admiration for those works that situate themselves on the very edges of what can be said at a particular place and time，that batter against the boundaries of their own culture．(From“Culture”by Stephen Greenblatt)

True or False Statements

1．The author quotes Edward Tylor in order to correct him．

2．Judging from the passage the author obviously takes a utilitarianistic attitude toward the concept of culture．

3．A cross-disciplinary perspective is advocated as to cultural studies．

4．The author is not satisfied with the on-going educational system of liberal art，but what is actually happening among individual scholars somehow consoles him．

5．The author indicates that literary students like those works that need to be interpreted in different contexts and challenge cultural conventions．