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PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO LITERATURE, SOCIOLOGYOF LITERATURE, SOCIOLOGICAL LITERARY RESEARCH:QUESTIONS OF METHODS IN PROGRESS

Uve Christian FischerSociology and Literature.

It is neither a new nor a recent discovery that within the framework of thesciences in general, sociology has acquired and is still acquiring the status of acentral science, such as theology, philosophy, and economics have had during otherperiods1'.There are several reasons that can justify such a key position, according tothe particular science or perspective with which a topic is approached. All ofthese, however, may be reduced to the simple statement, that th e preference fo ra sociological approach is dictated by the increasing interest which we take in thespiritual and material conditions that have produced the present special socialsituation.Literature has not been exempted from this trend, though one has to registera rather belated entrance for it Into the field of sociology as the new centralscience an d organizing force. This is due to various reasons, the main on e beingthe firm establishment of the historical and critical approach to literature in thecourse of the nineteenth century.Predominance of sociology in literary research today does not signify, how-ever, that an y solution to the primary dichotomy between literary an d social valuesha s been found. Theoretical discussion on this problem ha s been going on for aconsiderable time without, however, achieving any finally satisfactory conclusion2 '.It is not the intention of this article to engage in aesthetic discu ssion. Thepurpose is rather to deal with certain types of literary theories, which taken as awhole, seem to indicate the direction of the sociological treatment of literature.Literature is certainly something socially defined, though a literary work ca nonly in part be considered as sociologically revealing. One result of the perusalof sociological literature is the impression on e gets of the rather narrow basis fo rthe new central science to develop theoretically. Anoth er is the widening of themethodological margin, and that to an extent where as in recent developmentsno distinctions can be made an y longer between method an d theory.Discussion of Some Literary Theories.

Satisfactory literary theory seems to proceed on its own lines, as well as ininteraction with philosophy, literary criticism, and literary history. Thus thephenomenological approach to literature, that followed th e ideas of EdmundHusserl, gave a new direction to criticism and theory following the positivist fact-finding on biography, sources, and influences. The pu blication of a phenomeno-logical presentation of literature by Roman Ingarden, a pupil of Husserl3', is thetime limit, to which we can date back this new endeavour in theory.Ingarden agrees with the sociological approach to literature in that no men-tion is made of aesthetic value. There is a complex background to this. Hereit will be sufficient to say that Ingarden stresses the autonomo us character of anyliterary work without having an y regard to the author's personal opinions an dlife, which he thinks of as a distracting item, and therefore not primarily interest-

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ing in a theoretical discussion41 .Ingarden's ontological research probes mainly into the relationship betweenfactual reality and reality as presented in the novel. He succeeds in a pheno-menological description of the basic structure, i.e. the structure underlying literaryworks of art in general, the result being one of the few philosophically basedliterary theories.It does not contribute to our discussion to mention the positions taken byJean Paul Sartre and Georg Lukacs, since this pair should be con sidered mainlyunder the aspect of the ideologies tha t they are repres enting .Where Ingarden leaves the problem of value aside as something inaccessibleto proof, Rene W ellek certainly does not. Better perhaps than in his and AustinWarren 's "Theory of Literature" 5 ', his position is shown in a more recent book6'.What we find there, is a strong Kantian belief in the necessity to ascertain aesthe-tic categories and, within the realm of literature, a whole hierarchy of values.Wellek's main point can be gathered from his arguments against relativism as itresults, fo r example, from the historicism of Erich Auerbach 7 '. He propounds a

"concept of adequacy of interpretation (that) leads clearly to the concept of thecorrectness of judgment"8 ', and asks for a "systematic body of knowledge, aninquiry into structures, norms, and functions which contain, and are, values"9'.Wellek's main concern, however, is how imperative aesthetic imperatives shouldbe. He comes to the conclusion that in literary theory absolutism is almost asbad as relativism and finally identifies his position with the one taken by ErnstTroeltsch10 ', wh om he quotes as sayin g: "The absolute is in the relativ e, thou ghnot finally and fully in it."11'A sociological theory of literature appears to be as directly opposed to thephenomenological approach as a theory based on values. An atte mp t to bridgethis gulf and to employ phenomenology in the service of sociology has recentlybeen made by Hans Norbert Fuegen12 1. His book is a historical and criticalaccount of the directions taken by sociology as a science of literature. It is adeep probing analysis into the sociological ideas which provide the framework fora theoretical insight into the literary obj ect . He also analyses the social relation-ship between author and reader13'. Rev erting to Ingarden , he calls Ms conclu-sions im portant but p relim inary , becau se concerned with the basic structures ofliterary works and not extending to literature as a social phenomenon 14 ' . Fuegenconsiders a piece of literature as an artefact, which is reason enough for him tobroaden Ingarden's ontological analysis towards an empirical-sociological treat-ment.Fuegen's central point is what he calls "das soziale Grundverhaeltnis", orbasic social rapport. By this he means that lite ratu re is basically not a literary,but a social phenomenon. He claims that through the inherent logic of its subjectmatter every wo rk of literature is basically a social docum ent. The public isconfronted by this social fact, seeing the writer not any more as an outstandingperson, but simply as a producer of literary works, and thus as a type. Thepubliccompleting the basic rapport of the social phenomenon 'literature'isusually effectively influenced by the subject matter of the work of literature. Itis important in Fuegen's theory that the subject matter of a work of art is anoperative agent, on the one hand levelling the individual author to the status ofa type, on the other hand actively influencing the ideas an d behaviour of thereading public15'.The theories or theoretical approaches to literature that have been presented62

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above, though offering distinctive characteristics, have nevertheless on e commonfeature, that is to say their reaction to the concept of value. W hether pleadingfrom a categorical point of view, as R. Wellek does, or employing a descriptivemethod, the participants in this continuing discussion base themselves on an ac-ceptance or negation of the aesthetic evaluation of a literary work.The aims and met hod s of sociological literary research as they are exem-plified in an article written recently by a Swedish scholar, cannot be easily com-pared with those characterized above16 '. Rosengren points ou t that a sociologyof literature and sociological literary research have to be considered as fields thatare distinct one from the other, the first being defined by general social criteria,while the latter is empirical and quantitative.Objective measurement, as explained below, is the guiding principle for afuture theory as envisaged by Rosengren. He is not dealing directly with theindividual work of art, but rather with the attitudes of the reading public whichhe considers an objective value measu re of literatu re. He proceeds to explainhow terms such as 'group', 'norm', 'institution', 'role', 'attitude', an d others couldbe useful in order to establish what he calls the 'sociological frame of reference'('sociologisk referensram')17 '. Rosengren thinks of these terms as 'quantitativevariables', that is to say as wor king in an operationa l wa y. They therefore taketheir meaning only from possible statistical measurements 18 '.Having discussed the role of these variables Rosengren proceeds to a numberof subtheories, which eventually could form the material for an objective socio-logical theory of literary research. The question remains whether th e terms whichare used as quantitative variables will be sufficient in number and quality tovalidate the subtheories mentioned above. It seems to m e, however, that theweakness of Rosengren's theory, as it stands, is that there are probably only a.very limited number of possible sociological variables. Th e approach to litera-ture, as a social system defined by Rosengren is certainly more limited than thatof Fuegen, wh o sees l iterature as a social phenomenon connected with Being.The theories or theoretical approaches to literature of Ingarden, Wellek, andFuegen may be taken as representative of phases of a developing theoretical pro-cess. W ith Rosengre n we reach w hat appears to be an end of this process, butsince we now ente r an area of pure em pirics, wha t may be a new beginning. Hissociological meth od relies on inform ation theory and comm unica tion research ,such as have been mainly developed during the fifties in the United States19 '.The Problem Stated.

The problem involved in these new approaches to literature is not, as onemight think, one of mistaking the sociological significance of a work of litera-ture for its artistic value20 '. Neither is it very important whether a sociologicalinquiry into literature is carried out hi its own right, or should be considered as"an explanatory footnote to an aesthetic judgment21 ', or even as an auxiliaryscience22 '. The emerging question is:If we accept T. S. Eliot's thesis that "every generation must provide its owncriticism"23'which implicitly means a new approach to literary theory and tothe historical questions of l i terature as wellcan we say that the type of theoryproposed by Rosengren is representative for this genera tion?Such could be the guiding question that clarifies the present literary situation.It is, of course, no t easy to predict ho w sociology, as the central science of our

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time, will organize itself with regard to literature. One has to keep in mind,however, the existence of Rosengren's method. There is at least the strong im -pression, that we are not confronted by two (or for that matter even more) ap -proaches that complement each other. App arently more work needs to be doneby research groups aiming at very special questions with the help of these newquantitative methods.At this stage it appears that groups like this should concentrate on accumulat-ing data without attempting to form ulate any specific theories. W hen sufficientdata has been gathered it will be seen whether Rosengren's subtheories are feasibleor not.Having examined Rsengren's method from an empirical point of view, let usnow see him in a phenom enological context. This will be necessary in order tocharac terize his position more clea rly than ju st by the simple statem ent th at hismeth od is one of accum ulatin g quan titative valu es and is empirical in the extrem e,or, as he claims, 'objective'. W e come here into a sphere where we may adaptEdmund Husserl's division between the 'sphere of experience' and the 're alm ofessence'24'. Husserl und erstand s the empirical side as one which has no need ofa theoretical foun dati on, and ther efore may be described as basically 'dogm atic'.The 'dogmatic sciences' "find the data of knowledge there where they actually faceyou whatever difficulties epistemological reflection may subsequently raise con-cerning the possibility of such data being there"25'.Here we have some criteria that can help us to understand an approach likeRosen gren's. Phenom enologically speak ing, it is a dogmatic one, and has to betaken into consideration as such, i.e. as informative, but not critically transfer-able to the "rea lm of essence", and therefore mean ingless. It thus appears thatthe use of Rosengren's quantitative variables that constitutewith regard to litera-turea sociological frame of reference, will not give one the 'original right', asHusserl calls it, to the data obtained. But then again , as has been found withFuegen , the sociology of literatu re, taken as a whole, need not be considered adogmatic science. Nothin g has been dec ided yet in this developing theoreticalprocess, nor will be within the foreseeab le futu re.NOTES

1) cf. A. Mauser's "Philosophic der Kunstgeschichte", Munchen 1958, p. 17.2) Apar t from th e theories that are dealt with in this article, cf. for example:M . Bense "Theorie de r Texte", Hamburg 1963.H. D. Duncan " Langu age and Lite rature in Society", Ch icago 1953.R. Escarpit "Sociologie de la Litterature", Paris 1958.First enlarged ed. in German transl. "Das Buch und der Leser", Koln/Opladen 1961.G . Lukacs "Schriften zu r Literatursoziologie", Newied 1961.J. Klein "Aesthetische und soziologische Literaturbetrachtung", Archiv. f. SozialgeschichteBd . I, 1961, Hannover 1961.L. Kofler "Zur Theorie de r Modernen Literatur D er Avantgardismus in SociologischerSicht", Neuwied 1962.3) R. Ingarden "Das literarische Ku nstwerk ", Halle 1931.4) Ibid., p. 18.5) First edition New York 1949.6) R. Wellek "Concepts of Criticism", New Haven and London 1963.7) Ibid., pp . 11-19.8) Ibid., p. 17.9) Ibil., p. 52.10) in : "Der Historismus un d seine Probleme", Tuebingen 1922.11) Loc. cit, p. 20.64

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12 ) H. N. Fuegen "Die Haup trich tung en der Literatursoziologie und ihre Me thoden", Bonn1964.13) Ibid., pp. 13-20 and 109-19.14) Ibid., p. 15.15) Ibid., pp. 16-9.16 ) Karl E rik Rosengren "LitteratursociologiSociologisk Litteratu rforskn ing".in : "Litteraturvetenskap. N ya M ai oc h Metoder".(authors: P. Hallberg, G. Hansson, G. Hermeren, K. E. Rosengren, J. Thavenius),Stockholm 1966, pp . 108-23.17) Ibid., p. 109.18) Ibid., p. 114.19) Ibid ., p. 108. cf. also loc. cit. K. E. Roseng ren "Inneh allsanalys" , pp. 76-7.20) cf. Hauser, loc. cit., p. 10.21) cf. T. S. Shipley "Dictionary of World Literature", New York 1953 (rev. ed.), p. 256.22) R. Escarpit "Das Buch und der Leser", cf . loc. cit., p. 17.23 ) T. S. Eliot 'The Frontiers of Criticism", in: "On Poetry and Poets", London 1957, p. 104.24) E. Husserl "Ideas", English transl. by W. R. Boyce Gibson, 1st ed. London 1931, p. 95.25 ) Ibid., p. 96.

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