Reflection

"The question is, 'Does literature reflect culture or does it influence culture?'"  Those words were posed in my American novels class years ago to get the discussion started.  Since the 1700s in England, the people rather than the scholars began enjoying reading.  This was partly due to DeVere's popular plays with the commoners a century before (known as the Shakespearean corpus) and partly due to the rise in popularity of the newspaper beginning with the Tatler.  The Romantic Age writings of the time presented themselves because the people liked them 75 years before the name of the era was used and despite Alexander Pope's proclivity to use Greek and Latin classical literature.  Scholars have decided to name Pope's period Neoclassicism after the content he liked to write about, but the people read the authors who were writing Romantic themes.

However, the people prevailed... and for a long time (at least in literary age terms) Romantic themes continued. There was a bit of a shift in what Romanticists wrote about halfway through the period scholars have assigned to them, but even by the advent of the Victorian Age literature of the 1830s, Romanticism was still in the air of some of the writings.

Romanticism has been singled out because it was the historical point where the people read what they wanted to even though other literature was being produced.  Up to this point in history, literature had been the domain of the rich who had chosen to write what they wanted the people to read.  After the 1700s, people began to choose for themselves what they wanted to read.  Charles Dickens was a good example of the new power of the reader.  He is only known today because the people responded overwhelmingly to the nonromantic themes he offered.  He wrote under a pen name at first because he was embarrassed to try introducing a new theme not favored by the likes of Keats.  So, the new authors reflected the desires of the people.

It is still that way.  Schools may teach so-called great literature.  But, when all is said and done, it is the people and their consumer dollars that determine what gets read.  It was the people who supported the books of Hemingway and Steinbeck and Fitzgerald; they couldn't get enough of Poe, Twain, and Thoreau.  Readers of the 1800s and for three quarters of the 1900s chose what they wanted to read.  It didn't influence them, it reflected them.

In the 1970s, the format for storytelling began to change to viewing from reading, but even so, it was truly consumer driven.  Baby Boomers chose to end the pessimism of 1900s Postmodernism, opting to pay to see and read several new themes.  They loved the edge, the risky, the physical, and the real.  Following them, the next generation seemed to enjoy the real well enough, but wanted to add a touch of their own.  They liked themes of polar opposites: the elite and the underdog, the successful and the struggling, the glamorous rich and the despondent addict.

Reflection, not influence, is the rule of the day.  Modern storytellers follow the dollars.  They publish and produce stories that consumers will pay for.  No longer is the story in the domain of the wealthy or educated elite.  It is in the court of those willing to pay the cost of a ticket or to tune into a movie channel for a second run.

I know this is true of my own story.  What I choose to pay hard earned dollars to see (although I do read some) reflects my values... my hope that life will yield contentment... my faith that life will deliver its most enjoyable moments.