Contextual Literary Reading: Approaches to Context

Core Premises

  • Texts are not created in a vacuum. Every piece of writing comes from a particular time, place, and author.

  • Every piece of writing exhibits, at least in part, the language and form of its day.

  • Every piece of writing is approached by readers with their own experiences and beliefs; together, these aspects form a text's context.

Context

  • Context is the background of the text which may have been influenced by the author's life, language, society and culture.

Contextual Analysis

  • Contextual analysis is an analysis of a text (in whatever medium, including multimedia).

  • It helps us to assess the text within the context of its historical and cultural setting, but also in terms of its textuality.

Textuality

  • Textuality = the qualities that characterize the text as a text.

What Contextual Analysis Looks At

  • Contextual Analysis means looking at:

    • How a text is written (words, style, structure)

    • What was happening in the world when it was written (society, politics, religion, culture)

Contextual Reading Approaches

  • Biographical Context (Authorial Context)

  • Linguistic Context

  • Socio-Cultural Context

Biographical Context

  • Also known as "Authorial Context".

  • Places a particular literary work within the context of the author's life.

Sources for Biographical Context

  • Useful sources include biographies of the author, autobiographies or memoirs by the author or by people who knew him or her, and critical works that give close attention to the author's life.

Cautions about Biographical Context

  • Just because someone wrote the story doesn't mean it's about them.

  • The author is not always the main character, narrator, or speaker — and the events in the story may not have really happened.

Linguistic Context

  • Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

  • Linguistic context is a discourse that surrounds a language unit and helps to determine its interpretation.

  • Reading through context focuses on the language used in the literary work and how it is used to convey meaning.

The Barthes Quote

  • "The author is dead." — Roland Barthes

Socio-Cultural Context

  • It is about how a particular literary work depicts society.

  • Literary works often respond to the society and culture in which they were written, and that response most often takes the form of criticism.

Closing

  • Thank you for listening!

Implications and Relevance

  • The shift away from authorial intention to reader interpretation has deep philosophical and practical implications for literary study, criticism, and teaching.

  • Recognizes multiple valid readings depending on reader context and cultural/historical background.