Literature and varieties of history

[Part 10]

So far, in these columns on literature and varieties of history, I have sought to examine very broadly some of the important currents of historical writing – currents that appear to be both fascinating and thought-provoking. To be sure, my selection is both idiosyncratic and suggestive; it is by no means exhaustive. However, the different types of histories that I have discussed from Marxist and Feminist to Annales School and the writings of Foucault and Certeau offer a sense of the richness and range of contemporary historical writing.

My objective was to examine the ways in which literature - specifically literary writing in Sri Lanka - can benefit from a critical engagement with this body of writing. The relationship between literature and history has been for long a theme that has stirred the deepest imaginings of Sinhala, Tamil and English writers in Sri Lanka. However, this relationship, for the most part, has been examined in relation to the literary-historical writings of a few distinguished writers.

What I attempted to do was to take a different track and look into the formulations of diverse historians as a way of gaining a purchase on this complex and many-sided relationship. In some ways, this might appear strange move, and it certainly carries its own burden of risks. However, I felt that the risk was worthwhile if some interesting new insights were generated and novel pathways of inquiry were opened up in the process.

One terrain where historical writing and literary theory meet to produce interesting results is that of literary history. Until recent times literary history was regarded as a not too important academic enterprise that was devoted to giving facts and figures and mapping periods of literary growth. However, as a consequence of the remarkable developments in historical studies as well as literary studies, literary history has emerged as a very significant terrain of scholarly work. The kind of literary histories that are produced today and those that were produced four decades ago differ sharply in approach and vision. This is because of the new thinking that has begun to inflect both study of literature and history. Literary history deals primarily with the interactions between texts and contexts. On the surface, this sounds a simple investigative effort. But in point fact as we delve into this interface more deeply we would realize that it is far more complicated than appears at first sight. The two terms text and context, as modern literary theorists as well as modern meta-historians have pointed out, are complex and multifaceted inviting pluralities of interpretation.

Deconstruction

The high priest of deconstruction, Jacques Derrida, once famously said that that there is nothing outside the text complicating enormously the understanding and writing of literary history. In this column I wish to discuss the weighty theoretical issues surrounding the production of literary history. The production of literary history, as conceived by modern historians and literary scholars, represents a blending of the cutting-edge thinking in both history and literary study. Hence it seems to me, this is a useful topic with which to bring to a conclusion my explorations into literature and varieties of history.

The idea of a literary history, in the Western tradition, can be traced far back as to the writings of Aristotle. However, literary history as a fully-formed field of inquiry with its own distinctive interests and agendas took shape in nineteenth century Europe. Drawing on the ideas of such thinkers as herder and Schlegels, this field of inquiry began to make its mark.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, literary history was widely regarded as a significant mode of cultural investigation. During this period three dominant presuppositions seemed to have activated the thinking of literary historians.

The first was that the historical contexts of production are important to a proper understanding of literary works. Second, transformations occur in the field of literary production in a linear and progressive manner. Third, these changes can best be understood and framed in terms of a master-concept that guided them; in other words, to use the postmodernist language put into circulation by Lyotard and theirs, literary history adhered to a meta-narrative.

Critical analysis

What is important to note about literary history is that it combines historical exploration and critical analysis in equal measure. In other words, literary history constitutes an amalgamation of history and literary criticism. This is a point that some of our own literary historians seemed to have forgotten. R.S Crane, a perceptive critic who cannot be accused of being excessively progressive, once remarked that, ‘the historian of the literary arts must therefore find ways of dealing with the individual work….that will do justice at once to their multiple historical relations and to their qualities as unique artistic wholes.’ A good literary historian, therefore, must be able to synthesise creatively the demands of a literary work as an autonomous aesthetic object and a strand in the complex fabric of a literature produced in a given period.

Crane, in his book titled Critical and Historical Principles of Literary History asserts in the opening that, ‘the propositions of any history of literature that is not confined to the external conditions of literary activity necessarily compels elements of two kinds; terms signifying actions, characters, habits, aims, and circumstances of writers, and in terms signifying attributes of literary work; without the latter history would not be a history of literature and without the former it would not be history.’

It is important to bear in mind, as Crane rightly points out that the elements of the first kind are obtained through historical investigations of documents available to the investigator. The elements of the second type are derived from critical readings performed on texts in the light of current literary theory.

Difference

The combination of these two elements results in productive literary history. It is important to remind ourselves that there is a significant difference between history and literary history. It is true that literary histories contain such information as who wrote what during whose rule? What were the books that were read and what was the nature of the idea of literature endorsed by writers and readers at the time? However, literary history goes beyond the accumulation of facts to make important critical discriminations based on literary analysis. Without such an effort, literary history will not have the appeal it does. As one critic observed, literary history differs from history because the works it considers are felt to have a value quite different from and often far transcending their significance as a part of history. In other words, literary history is also literary criticism. Its aim is not merely to reconstruct and understand the past, for it has a further end, which is to illuminate literary works. It seeks to explain how and why a work acquired its form and themes and, thus, to help readers orient themselves. It sub-serves the appreciation of literature. The function of literary history lies partly in its impact on reading. We write literary history because we want to explain, understand, and enjoy literary works.’

Evolution

Let us consider the situation as it has manifested in the field of Sinhala literature. During the past six decades or so a number of important works of literary history have been written by Sinhala writers and scholars. Many of them are full of useful facts, information, some of them hard to come by.

However, many of them are vitiated by the fact that that adequate attention has not been paid to the critical evaluation of the texts commented upon. Without such a critical intelligence at work, the literary history is only half-complete. As I underlined earlier, a good literary history should excel at once as historical investigation and critical analysis.

In this regard, the two texts that, in my estimation stand out are Martin Wickremasinghe’s Sinhala Sahityaye Nageema (which was translated into English by Ediriweera Sarachchandra under the title Landmarks in Sinhalese Literature) and Gunadasa Amarasekera’s Sinhala Kavya Sampradaya. Clearly, both works display a critical acumen of a high order.

Let us consider the two books in greater detail. Martin Wickemasinghe’s assessment of the growth of Sinhala literature is based on sensitive critical analysis. The way he demonstrated the deficiencies of poems like the Sasadava and Muvadevdava, the strengths of Guttilaya and Sandesha poetry, the literary strengths of Saddharma Ratanavaliya and the Jataka Pota reflects the author’s critical perspicacity.

His evaluations are equally valid today.’ They have clearly stood the test of time. I felt, however, that he had underestimated the importance of Butsarana and Kavsilumina. However, all things considered, it can be said that Wickremasinghe’s Sinhala Sahityaye Nageema displays vividly his deep interest in literature and his indubitable critical incisiveness.

Sigiri poetry

Similarly, Gunadasa Amarasekera’s Sinhala Kavya Sampradaya traces the evolution of Sinhala poetry from Sigiri poetry to modern times. He does so while making important and subtle discriminations. The way he foregrounds the rise of a Sinhala poetic tradition is testimony to his audacious mind. An aspect of this book that has not yet received the kind of attention that it richly deserves pertains to the author’s demonstration of the importance of poetic form and how it echoes a deep-laid national consciousness. The form of a poem, far from being something external or added-on, is intrinsic to poetic meaning. This much, many critics would agree. However, Amarasekera goes beyond that and establishes a vital linkage between phonetic systems of a given language, poetic form and national identity. For him, form is something far more fundamental and determinative; it is like the langue or system enunciated by Saussure, and the poetic text can be considered the parole or the specific materialisation of the system.

This is certainly an original line of thinking that can be pursued productively. Wickremasinghe’s and Amarasekera’s two books on literary history, then, indicate the power of literary history.

The idea of literary history, in the Western world, has undergone a rapid and significant transformation during the past three or four decades. As a consequence, today we understand literary history – its nature, significance, functions, self-understanding – in different ways. I would like to examine these changes in the art and craft of literary history writing in more detail.

Two literary histories that have been published in recent tines exemplify admirably the new thinking on literary history and what the priorities of its practitioners are. The two books that I have in mind are Columbia Literary History of the United States (1988) edited by Emory Elliot and others and a New history of French literature (1989) edited by Dennis Hollier. Both these collections of essays, in their own ways, manifest the novel approaches to producing literary history. Hollier’s work is even more enterprising in its conception and execution.

Diversity

Let us examine the two books in greater detail. Columbia Literary History of the United States consists of a large number of essays each written by a different scholar. The editors see their work as postmodernist, because, it acknowledges diversity, complexity, and contradiction by making them structural principles, and it foregoes closure as well as consensus.’ In different essays, the same author is represented differently.

Let us take the example of the eminent poet and literary critic T.S. Eliot. He is in turn, in different essays, portrayed as an experimental poet, a regionalist, an artist who manifests the essence of middle class America. Some others saw his as a fascist and anti-semite. These diverse interpretations sit together in curious juxtaposition in the essays that allude to Eliot. This is indeed an approach to literary history that is markedly different from that written forty years or earlier.

The new Columbia Literary History of the United States was published in 1988. In 1948, an earlier Literary History of the United States was edited by Robert E. Spiller and his co-editors. In it he declared that ‘each generation should produce at least one literary history of the united states, for each generation must define the past in its own terms.’ The 1948 edition reflects the preoccupations of its time and place.

The architecture of the volume is decidedly modern. It is a history that is uniform, continuous, streamlined and self-assured. The new literary history of the United States, on the other hand, underlines notions f diversity, complexity, tension, discontinuities and contradictions. As the editor to the volume says it is ‘designed to be explored like a library or art gallery, this book is composed of corridors to be entered through many portals intended to give the reader the paradoxical experience of seeing both harmony and the discontinuity of materials.’ This spatial metaphor captures well the transformation that has taken place in the writing of literary history.

What we find in the new Columbia Literary History of the United States is an investigation into the rise of a national literature, the distinctiveness of that body of writing, the external forces that have played an important role in the production of this literature and the nature of the practice of literary arts in their variety by writers.

At the same time the various authors who have contributed essays to this history have been undoubtedly influenced by modern developments in literary and cultural theory and new forms of history-making. Without a deep understanding of the ways in which literary and cultural theory has developed over the past three decades or so one cannot appreciate the significance of this volume.

Rapid growth

One result of the rapid growth of such fields of inquiry as deconstruction, post-structuralism and new historicism has been to challenge and unsettle the assumed fixed relations between mind and materiality, and therefore the very understanding of knowledge. This has a direct bearing on our understanding of literary texts, truth, meaning, history, power and so on which are inextricably linked with literary history.

For example, the Kelani river is a reality for us, but our knowledge of it is invariably inflected by the nature of our individual experiences, imaginings and readings in, say, Sandesha literature. In the same way, the editor of this volume points out, ‘the old records, diaries, letters, newspapers, official firsthand documents, or statistical figures examined by the historian are no longer thought of as reflecting the past; rather, there is no past except what can be construed from these documents as they are filtered through the perceptions and special interests of the historian who is using them.’

He then goes in to make the somewhat provocative statement that, ‘the historian is not a truth teller but a story teller, who succeeds in convincing readers that a certain rendition of the past is true not by facts but by persuasive rhetoric and narrative skills.’ This statement readily echoes the kind of formulations of the meta-historian Hayden White that I discussed in my earlier columns.

What this volume on literary history suggests is that the meanings contained in historical and literary texts obey the imperatives of relativism. It goes further and contends that all historical texts, and the way we read them are guided by the individual interests of those that are involved in the writing and reading of them. The historian is motivated by his or her ideological interests just as much as the reader is.

As a result the question of reading, of interpretation, of ascription of meaning assumes a great significance. What this suggests is that in textual production language rhetoric and politics intersect in complex ways, and this has great implications for the writing and reading of literary history.

The writing of literary history is vitally connected to the idea of the nation-state in the sense that the nation state is still the inescapable reference point. ( I will discuss this point later). As a result newer understandings of the constitution of the nation-state have led to the recognition of the role of ethnic, religious minorities, women, subalterns in the nation-state.

This tenor of thinking now finds expression in literary histories as evidenced in the Columbia history. The authors of the respective essays contained in this book operate with understandings about the nature of literature, history and criticism and how they are interlocked that are very different from those that were current four decades ago. Outwardly, this volume might convey the impression that it is conforming to the patterns of traditional literary history; but in point of fact, many of the essays are highly critical of these concepts.

Observation

The editors of the Columbia Literary History of the United States make the following pertinent observation. ’In contrast to the 1948 volume, we have made no attempt to tell a single, unified story with a coherent narrative by making changes in the essays. That is, the editors have not revised the beginnings and endings in the essays to create the appearance of one continuous narrative.

No longer is it possible, or desirable to formulate an image of continuity when diversity of literary materials and a wide variety of critical voices are, in fact, the distinctive features of national literature.’ This volume underscores the fact that the history of the literature of the United States is not one story; it is a mosaic of different stories.

Clearly, there is a recognizable tension in the Columbia literary history and others like it; it is a tension that arises from the face-off between two antithetical forces. First, there is a compelling need, when writing literary histories, to impose a unity, a sense of cohesion, linear narrative on the literary heritage and legacies that the historian is dealing with. The need to provide a point of convergence, a thematic center to the various events, people and texts that are in front of the literary historian is compelling.

On the other hand, the authors in these volumes are deeply influenced by contemporary literary and cultural theory and they wish to read against the grain. They are interested in focusing on issues of discontinuity, rupture, multiplicity and plurality of changing centers. Thee two impulses clash within the consciousness and writing agenda of the literary historians. This is clearly reflected in the Columbia history.

Deconstruction

The second book that I wish to discuss is A New History of French Literature (1989) edited by Dennis Hollier. Here one sees the attempt at deconstruction of traditional literary history proceeding even further into unmapped terrains. This book consists of a very large number of short essays written by writers who manifest a broad range of interests.

The short essays are organized in chronological order, in keeping with their content; however, as opposed to the Columbia history, the essays do not constitute information-laden surveys – the kind which one ordinarily expects to find in a literary history. Instead, what we find in this volume edited by Dennis Hollier are investigations into highly focused topics that serve to shed light on a broad gamut of specialised topics.

The approach privileged by the editor and the authors can be gleaned from the fact that there is no single essay on the life, the work and the strengths of the great novelist Marcel Proust. In any standard of French literary history one would invariably find discussions of his life and work. Instead what we are offered in scattered essays is his perception of art in relation to consciousness of death, his engagement of Gide and his homosexuality etc.

In keeping with his deep interest in modern cultural theory, Hollier in this book has chosen to focus on discontinuities, fragmentations, contingencies. This new history of French literature constitutes a fragmentary succession of dates connected to events and they are, by and large, unhinged from each other; this is indeed a strategy devised to catch the sense of evasiveness as well as question the controlling idea of nationhood. Hollier states that the focus of his history ‘has shifted from the assertion of borders through literature and the presentation of a literature within borders to questioning that results in the proliferation of borders.’

Another interesting feature in this book, and one that is reflective of the post-modernist impulses that activate it is , in the words of Hollier, ‘rather than following the usual periodisation schemes by centuries, as often as possible we have favored much briefer time spans and focused on nodal points, coincidences, returns, resurgences.’ It is also interesting to note that at a time when theorists such as Barthes and Foucault have floated the idea of the death of the author, that there is no essay here that is conceived as a comprehensive presentation of a single author.

These two histories, then, reflect the new turn in literary history. While there are those who applaud the audacity and inventiveness of literary historians committed to new literary history, there are others who are extremely critical of them, pointing out that this effort has a way of undermining and diminishing literary history. My own response to the attempts of these writers of new literary histories is that they should be commended for ushering in new agenda and vision of literary production in specific cultural contexts.

However, too great a focus on discontinuities, fragmentations, isolated events without connections to the larger movements can have the unfortunate effect of undercutting the ability to capture and analyze the long-terms strategies of changes contestation, affirmation, negotiation and subversion that mark literary textual growth. This has the added disadvantage of robbing the marginalised peoples from a sense of agency which is needed to connect them to larger social transformations.

So far I have discussed the nature and significance of literary history largely in terms of the nation-state. This is, in many ways, inescapable because the nation-state is still the dominant point of anchorage for the production of literary history. However, during the past half a century the world has changed very rapidly and we are now increasingly talking about issues of globaisation and transnationalisation.

Writers are moving across national frontiers as never before and diasporic writers have gained greater visibility outside their countries of birth. In a context of increasing globalisation, the question naturally arises: what is the relationship between the nation-state and literary history? It is indeed true that that the world is increasingly subject to globalisation and that this has indubitable implications for the idea of the nation-state. Hence, in writing literary histories one has to pay close attention to the intersections of nation and world. However, this does not mean that we have to rush to write obituaries of the nation-state as some distinguished scholars have done. We are far away from such a prospect. We need to remind ourselves continually that the nation still has great powers of resilience.

Another aspect of literary history that merits close study is the question of periodisation and alternate ways of categorising the flows of literary productions over time. Periodisation has always been a problem; it raises numerous questions about the rational for such temporal demarcations. Some have seen the value of it as for example the literary theorist Rene Wellek who argued that a period is created by a ‘system of literary norms, standards, and conventions.’

There are others who vehemently challenge it. For example, in studying the growth of Sinhala literature we divide it up into periods such as Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Dambadeniya, Kotte and Kandy etc. based largely on the changing seats of administrative power. It is a fact that styles, techniques, visions do not change in perfect harmony with the changing seats of administration; there is no direct correlation between the seats of power and literary features.

Some critics, therefore, have argued for different types of classification. For example, Ralph Cohen, for many years the distinguished editor of the prestigious literary journal New Literary History has suggested that we pay attention to the concept of genre as a classifying device.

In an essay titled,’ Genre Theory, Literary Theory and Historical Change’, he makes the assertion, ‘we need a new literary history, and I believe that a genre theory can provide it.’ What he is emphasising here is the need to think afresh the nature and significance of literary genres as open-ended entities and make them the basis for literary history. He is of the conviction that a theory of genre is able to explain literary change more effectively than histories based on periods, themes, ideas and movements. It is indeed his belief that genre theory furnishes us with understandings of change by specifying the constituents of a text within a genre. Cohen’s approach to literary history, to be sure, serves to focus on the complex interplays among texts, genre and change.

What my discussion of literary history, I hope, has demonstrated is the way this topic has become a central in literary and historical studies. Not everyone, to be sure, is happy with the idea of literary history. The eminent Italian aesthetician Croce maintained that literary texts, if they are any good, are invariably unique and to lump them under broader categories is to do injustice to them.

The deconstructionist Paul de Man had serious doubts about the feasibility of literary theory. Deconstructionists believe that works of literature make history rather than being shaped or influenced or determined by it. They express the view that works of literature represent unique speech acts, ways of doing things with words; this fact, they argue, has to be recognised at all times. Even a critic such as David Perkins, in his book Is Literary History Possible while acknowledging the value of literary history, points out the impossibility of total success in this effort.

Literary critics

On the other hand, there are very many literary theorists and literary critics who recognise the importance of literary history, and they attempt to write literary histories drawing on the newer developments in literary and cultural theory. The two volumes – Columbia Literary History of the United States and A New History of French Literature – that I discussed earlier represent the value and challenges facing modern literary historians working in a contemporary environment.

Let me conclude with a remark by the literary scholar Mario J. Valdes that captures the primary task of the literary historian succinctly. .’ Literary history can only be effective in our postmodern world if it as an ongoing search for understanding of our sense of the past which stands behind the texts we read in the present. There is no doubt that at any given point in history the knowledge of the past is partial and reflective of present perspective. It is for this reason that every writing of literary history is inadequate to the task of reenactment, but nevertheless is a necessity for the cultural identity of the society that produces the writing.’