John M. Ellis

"The relevant context of a literary text"

K. M. Newton

pp. 34-37

in: K. M. Newton (ed), Twentieth-century literary theory, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997

Abstract

The question of the relevant context of a literary text is an important one because it is the basis of the more familiar question of what knowledge is necessary for the understanding of a work of literature. It has often been said that criticism should make the literary work more understandable by recreating the original circumstances of its composition: the historical situation in which the author wrote, and the response of the contemporary audience. This view specifies the relevant context: it is the original context of composition — biographical, social, and historical. But in so doing it specifies also relevant information for the understanding of a literary text; we need to know the facts of the original context to understand the work, and criticism should put us in possession of those facts. …