This paper, <Literary Field and Literary Power>, starts from the perspective which recognizes literature as a social act, different from the traditional literary perspective that views it as an aesthetic entity. The consistent point of view in this st ...
This paper, <Literary Field and Literary Power>, starts from the perspective which recognizes literature as a social act, different from the traditional literary perspective that views it as an aesthetic entity. The consistent point of view in this study, in other words, is that literature is defined through an agreement-seeking and justification process with the society, not just based on any transcendant value. Therefore, this paper reveals the social significance of what made it possible to define literature as the concept of today's literature and states the process of its systematization under societal environment. Literary field is a site of continuous struggle and conflict because many different literary interests and backgrounds are entangled. Furthermore, in order to have a new order established within itself, in other words, to maintain its homogeneity, the literary field even lets habitus (collective unconscious) as well as several systems be operated. However, its hierarchical order is sometimes threatened by the inside or outside factors or has to go through a rapid change. Therefore, it can be said that literary field constantly repeats creation and change under the preservation and overturning process.
This paper has investigated the literary field from several cultures to find out how it has been formed, changed, and maintained.
In Germany, first of all, how the literary concept has changed and what role the extension of literary concept has played in changing literary field have been investigated. In the case of France, the differentiation strategy and self justification process of 20C literary field change-leading magazines and the literary power and reproduction mechanism from the social-structural perspective since The French Upheaval of May 1968 are investigated. In order to examine the relation between political change and literary field, besides, how the 'literature Centrism' that has long been the tradition of Russian literature has dissolved is analyzed along with the rapid change of Russian literary field, which was caused by Perestroika revolution.
Even though the literary field has usually changed after going through the rapid social change, however, the change of literary is sometimes blocked and controlled by the government. Franco's autocracy in Spain and Chinese socialism are the very examples of the standardized and controlled literary field. The literary field is also closely related with a religious power as well as the state power. In order to find out the power relation between the two authorities, furthermore, the change of poetry since The Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1906), especially a poet's role which emphasizes a prophetic mission and sociality and the change in the style of poetry was investigated.
Lastly, the political maneuver and censorship are the most efficient tools to maintain the hierarchical order of literary field. Through them, the heterogeneous factors are systematically blocked from the literary field. The political maneuver of American Literature speak for white man bourgeois' and man's world view and interest. Therefore, the nonconforming factors are systematically removed by the political maneuver. It has turned out that 'anti political maneuver' which denies the overwhelming political maneuver in terms of gender or race and 'non-political maneuver' that is consisted of the literature whose publication and education have been forbidden due to cold war ideology, racial discrimination, and gender preference are very important factors of American literary field. In case of Korean literary field, on the contrary, the censorship has played a blocking role, not a sorting-out role. From the positive aspect, it has maintained and strengthened the literary field while at the same, from the negative aspect, it has formed anti-discourse or resisting discourse which has caused the literary field to change by recognizing its existence.