1 / 15

Culture R. Williams Literature as a form of culture

Keywords, R. Williams, 1976. ?Culture is one of the two or three words most complicated in the English language"Intricated historical developmentUsed in several intellectual disciplines and systems of thought. It comes from colo > colere. Original meanings:InhabitProtectHonour with worship?I

anemone
Download Presentation

Culture R. Williams Literature as a form of culture

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

    1. Culture (R. Williams) Literature as a form of culture Victorian literature Trollope (1815-1882) Short Stories

    2. Keywords, R. Williams, 1976 “Culture is one of the two or three words most complicated in the English language” Intricated historical development Used in several intellectual disciplines and systems of thought

    3. It comes from colo > colere Original meanings: Inhabit Protect Honour with worship ‘Inhabit’ developed through colo (Farmer – colonist / contadino, coltivatore, fattore, abitante delle colonie)

    4. Cultura took on the main meaning of cultivation or tending Original meaning was in husbandry (agricolture) It meant th tending of something, crops or animals

    5. The next stage of meaning is by metaphor From the 16th c. The cultivation of natural growth was extended to a process of human development (The cultivation of one’s mind)

    6. T. More: “to the culture and profit of their minds” (1605) Bacon: “the culture and manurance of minds” (1605) Hobbes: “a culture of their minds” (1651) Johnson: “she neglected the culture of her understanding” (1759)

    7. As a consequence… Relationship between human (minds) and cultivation A shift from particular processes (crops/animals) to a general process (human thought) Modern history of ‘culture’ begins

    8. In the 18th century… The process of abstraction of the noun ‘culture’ widens slowly but constantly A new meaning: class associations W. Wordsworth: “where grace of culture hath been utterly un known” (1805) J. Austen: “every advantage of discipline and culture” (1816)

    9. …In Germany Herder in his unfinished Idea on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (1784-91) wrote: “Nothing is more indeterminate than this word, and nothing more deceptive than its application to all nations and periods” HISTORICAL VALUE

    10. He added… “The very thought of a superior European culture is a blatant insult to the majesty of Nature” Anthropological and sociological studies

    11. Under the influence of Herder and many other writers of the Romantic movement, in Germany there was an alternative idea of human development The new concept of folk-culture was inserted in the mainstream ‘culture’

    12. Summing up… The material and spiritual meaning have often been overlapped in the centuries

    13. In its modern usage three broad categories of meaning can be easlily identified The independent and abstract noun which describes a general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development (from 18th c.) The independent and abstract noun which indicates a particular way of life, whether of a people, a period or a group (Herder)

    14. 3. The independent and abstract noun which describes the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity. Music, literature, painting and sculpture, theatre and film

    15. Victorian culture

More Related