Welcome readers! This blog is written in response to the task assigned by Dr.Dilip Barad sir from Department of English, MKBU. This blog is a Part of our thinking activity. In this blog, I will discuss about Cultural Studies and how Cultural Studies (CS) applied in the reading of a Play "Hamlet" by Shakespeare, Novel "Frankenstein" and " To his Coy Mistress" Poem by Andrew Marwell. First, Let us understand the meaning of Cultural studies.
◇ What is Cultural Studies?
Culture derives from Cultura and Colere meaning to cultivate. It also meant to honour and Protect. By the Nineteenth century in Europe it meant the habits, Customs and tastes of the upper classes ( also known as the elite). But we have to understand the meaning of Culture in Cultural Studies. Culture is the mode of meaning and generating ideas. Meanings are governed bg Power relations. Elite culture controls meanings because it control the terms of the debate. In that Non - elite's views on life and art are rejected. With the help of Cultural studies certain components of culture get more visibility and Significance. Cultural Studies argues that culture is about the meanings a community/ Society generates.
As Patrick Bratlinger has Pointed out that ; "Cultural Studies is not a tightly, Coherent, unified movement with a fix agenda," but a 'loosely coherent group of tendencies , issues and questions.'
Cultural Studies is composed of elements of Marxism, Post-structuralism, Post modernism, Feminism, gender Studies, anthropology, Sociology, race and ethnic Studies, film theory, urban studies , Public policy, Popular culture studies and Postcolonial Studies. Those field that concentrate on social and cultural forces that either create community or cause division and alienation. Cultural Studies was Influenced by Structralism and Post structralism.
◇ Four Goals of Cultural studies:-
1. Cultural Studies transcends the confines of a Particular discipline such as literature Criticism or history.
2. Cultural Studies is Politically engaged.
3. Cultural Studies denies the Seperation of high and low or elite and Popular culture.
4. Finally, Cultural studies analyzes not only the cultural work but also the means of Production.
◇ Five types of Cultural studies :-
1. British Cultural Materialism
2. New Historicism
3. American Multiculturalism
4. Postmodernism and Popular culture
5. Post Colonial Studies
◇ Cultural Studies in Practice :-
Cultural Studies can be applied to literary works by examining how culture and society influence and are reflected in literature. This interdisciplinary approach analyzes the social, historical, and political context in which a literary work was created and how it addresses issues like identity, power, and representation. Scholars often explore themes, symbols, and narratives in literature to uncover deeper cultural meanings and to challenge dominant ideologies. For example, analyzing a novel in the context of Cultural Studies might involve studying how it portrays race, gender, or class and how it engages with broader cultural discourses and values. This approach allows for a richer understanding of literature and its role in shaping and reflecting culture. ( This answer is generated from ChatGpt).
[ Prompt :- How Cultural Studies can be applied in the literary works?]
Arising from the social turmoil of 1960s, cultural studies is composed of elements of Marxism, Post-structuralism and Post modernism, Feminism, gender Studies, anthropology, Sociology, race and ethnic studies, film theory , Urban studies, Public Policy, Popular culture studies and Postcolonial Studies. All these Fields that concentrate on social and cultural forces that either create community or cause division and alienation. To Practice cultural Studies in literary analysis, we have to Consider below approaches :-
1. Historical Context
2. Social Structures
3. Language and Discourse
4. Intertextuality
5. Reader Response Theory
6. Postcolonial analysis
7. Political and Economic Contexts
8. Globalization
9. Popular culture
10. Identity and representation
These approaches help uncover the cultural dimensions embedded in literary works, enriching the analysis and Providing a more comprehensive understanding of the text.
Let's apply these approaches to literary works. First, I will delve into how Cultural Studies applied in the reading of a Play Hamlet by William Shakespeare.
A. Two Characters in Hamlet : Marginalization with a Vengeance
Cultural and New historical emphases on Power relationships. Cultural critics assume
"Oppositional" roles in terms of Power Structures, Wherever they might be found. New Historicists with dealing with "questions of Politics, power , indeed on all matters that deeply affect People's practical lives.
Through the Power relationship's lens Hamlet is studied in cultural Studies. How Power is work in the whole Play. Let us now approach Shakespeare's Hamlet with a view to seeing Power in its cultural context. The play "Hamlet" explores power structures, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern marginalized as a result of shifting power dynamics.
Rosencratz and Guildenstern are childhood friends of Hamlet, summoned by king Claudius to distract the Prince from his apparent madness and if Possible to ascertain the cause of it. The meanings of their names hardly match what seems to be the essence of their characters.
□ Murray j.Levith has written that Rosencratz and Guildenstern are from the Dutch - German : literally ' garland of roses ' and 'golden star.'
Rosencratz and Guildenstern are former students of wittenberg. They return to Denmark, apparantely at the direct request of king Claudius. They try to spy from Hamlet some of his inner thoughts, especially of ambition and Frustration about the crown. Hamlet foils them. They crumble before his own questioning. Claudius later sends them on an embassy with Hamlet, carrying a letter to the king of England that would have Hamlet summarily executed. Hamlet dosen't trust them either.
Both the Characters - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do not matter much in this struggle between Powerful antagonists. Here we can see that how Power dynamics change. "They are Pawns for Claudius first, for Hamlet Second." So they are Pawns, or sponges, or monkey food : the message of Power keeps coming through. Their more constant motive is to Please the king, the Power that has brought them here.
Claudius was aware of Power, Clearly when he observed of Hamlet's apparent madness that "Madness in great ones must not unwatched go." With equal truth Rosencratz and Guildenstern might have observed that power in great ones also must not unwatched go.
Reading the Play Hamlet from the Perspective of Cultural studies one can gain a further insight into the Play, and indeed into Shakespeare's culture, by thinking not about Kings and Princes but about the lesser Persons caught up in a massive oppositions.
It is instructive to note that the reality of Power reflective of Shakespeare's time might in another time and in another culture reflect a radically different worldview. In the twentieth century the dead , or never living Rosencratz and Guildenstern were resusciated by Tom Stoppard - Playwright and Screenwriter in a fascinating re - seeing of their existence, or its lack.
● Tom Stoppard's Play - 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead' :-
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - is an absurdist, existential tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard. The Play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet. In Tom Stoppard's version, they are even more obviously two Ineffectual Pawns, seeking Constantly to know who they are, why they are here, Where they are going. Whether they are at all may be the ultimate question of this modern Play.
In Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead , Stoppard has given the Contemporary audience a Play that examines existential questions in the context of a whole world that may have no meaning at all. It is important to note that the essence of Marginalization is here. In this View: " Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are archetypal human beings caught up on a ship-spaceship Earth for the twentieth or the twenty -first century - that leads nowhere, except to death, a death for Persons who are already dead."
If these two Characters marginalized in Hamlet, they are even more so in Tom Stoppard's's handling. If Shakespeare marginalized the Powerless in his own version of Rosencratz and Guildenstern , stoppard has marginalized us all in an era when - in the eyes of some - all of us are caught in the forces that beyond our control. In other words, a cultural and historical view that was Shakespeare's is radically reworked to reflect a cultural and Philosophical view of another time - our own.
Whether in Shakespeare's version or Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are mere nothings for the "massy wheel" of Kings.
B. Andrew Marvell's Poem - "To His Coy Mistress" : Implied culture versus Historical fact :-
To His Coy Mistress - is a Poem written by Andrew Marwell. It gives us information about the Speaker that the speaker is knowlegable about poems and conventions of classic greek and Roman literature, about other conventions of love poetry, such as the courtly love conventions of medieval Europe, and about Biblical Passages.
The speaker like Marwell - is a highly educated person, one who is well read, one whose natural flow of associated images moves lightly over details and allusions that reflect who he is. He thinks in terms of Precious Stones , of exotic and distant Places, of a milieu where eating, drinking be an achievable way of life. The speaker knows all of these things well enough to parody or at least to echo them, for in making his prepositions to the Coy lady he hardly expects to be taken Seriously in his detailing. He knows that she knows, for she comes from the same cultural milieu that he does.
Jules Brody posists the "Implied reader" - as distinct from the fictive lady - who would be able to summon up a certain number of earlier or contemporaneous examples of this kind of love Poem and who could be counted on, in short, to supply the models which Marvell may Variously have been evoking, imitating , distorting, subverting or transcending.
Beyond what we know of the speaker from his own words, we are justified in speculating that his Coy lady is like the Implied reader , equally well - educated and therefore knowlegable of the conventions that he uses in parody.
The major focus of this Poem is about love, beauty, wealth and sexual activity rather than the current issues of that time. What was the reality of that era or period. He was not thinking about reality and the history of the era but he showed implied culture over reality.
But what does he not show? What does he ignore from his culture?
□ He Clearly does not think of Poverty. During that era it has been estimated that at least one quater of the European population was below the poverty line.
□ Nor does the speaker think of disease as a daily reality that he might face.
□ Considering Historical reality, a dimension that the Poem ignores. Chronic morbidity of the population. During that time the Plague was spread across London. In the great Plague of London, which lasted from July to October, about 68, 000 People died.
□ It ignores harsh reality of that time and selects these rich and multifarious allusions.
□ The real World is thoroughly absent from the Poem.
C. From Paradise Lost to Frank- N- furter : The Creature Lives
Mary shelley' s novel Frankenstein has morphed into countless forms in both highbrow Popular culture, including the visual arts, fiction and Non fiction, stage Plays, film, television, advertising, clothing, jewellery, toys, key chains, coffee mugs, comic books, Halloween costumes , academic study, fan clubs, web sites and even food. " Mary shelley's creation teaches us not to underestimate the power of youth culture."
Born like its creator in an age of Revolution, Frankenstein challenged accepted ideas of its day. As it has become increasingly Commodified by modern Consumer culture , one wonders whether its original revolutionary Spirit and its critique of scientific, philosophical and political and gender issues have forgotten. George Levine remarks that ;
" Frankenstein is a vital metaphor, Peculiarly appropriate to a culture dominated by a consumer technology, neurotically obsessed with getting in touch with its authentic self and frightened at what it is discovering."
Frankenstein may be analyzed in its Portrayal of different 'races.' Though the Creature's skin is only described as yellow, it has been constructed out of a cultural tradition of the threatning other.
Today, in an age of genetic engineering, biotechnology and clothing, the most far reaching industralization of life forms to date, Frankenstein is more relevant than ever. Developments in Science were increasingly critical towards Society during the Romantic period, when a paradigm shift occured from science as natural Philosophy to science as biology, a crucial and troubled distinction in Frankenstein. Mary shelley attended public demonstrations of the effect of electricity on animal and human bodies , living and dead. In today's time we are Constantly confronted with new developments in fertility science and new Philosophical conundrums that result from genetic engineering , in vitro Fertilization, cloning and the Prolongation of life by artificial means.
Frankenstein and its Warnings about the hubris of science will be with us in the future as science continues to question the borders between life and death, between viability and selective reduction, between living and life support.
● The Frankenpheme in Popular culture : Fiction , Drama , Film, Television :-
In the Routledge Literary sourcebook on Frankenstein, Timothy Morton uses the term Frankenphemes, drawn from phonemes ( sonic elements of language , as used in structural linguistics ) and graphemes ( Visual elements) as elements of culture that are derived from Frankenstein. Either a Seperate work of art is inspired, or some kernel is derived from shelley' s novel and repeated in another medium. Broadly defined, Frankenphemes demonstrate the extent of the novel's Presence in world cultures.
Thousands of retellings, parodies and other selected Frankenphemes as they have apperaed in Popular fiction, drma, film and television.
If we type Frankenstein into web browser , in the below screenshot one can easily see the result.
□ Film Adaptations :-
1931 James Whale film Frankenstein, the most famous of all adaptations. It was loosely based on the novel with the addition of new elements, including the Placing of a criminal brain into the monster's body.
In James Whale's "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935) , there is a return to the frame Structure. Unlike the first whale film, this one tends towards Comedy, parody and satire rather than Pure horror.
The Frankenstein film that billed itself as most true to the novel is kenneth Branagh's 1994 Mary shelley's Frankenstein starring Branagh as victor, Robert De Niro as the creature and Helena Bonham carter as Elizabeth.
Victor Frankenstein is a 2015 American science fantasy horror film based on Contemporary adaptations of Mary shelley's 1818 novel. It is directed by Paul McGuigan and written by Max Landis.
And now finally a quick survey of a few other film versions of Mary shelley's classic novel.
1. The Curse of Frankenstein :-
2. I was a Teenage Frankenstein :-
3. Young Frankenstein :-
4. Frankenstein Unbound :-
5. Andy warhol's Frankenstein :-
Conclusion :-
To Conclude , Cultural Studies enriches our interpretation of "Hamlet," "To His Coy Mistress," and "Frankenstein" by unveiling the societal nuances embedded in these works. It offers a lens to explore power dynamics, societal norms, and ideological influences, providing a deeper understanding of the cultural contexts that shaped these masterpieces.
Guerin, Wilfred L. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. Oxford Univ. Press, 1992.
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