The Circulation of Social Energy as an important part of the well structured society

Introduction

Stephen Jay Greenblatt (born November 7, 1943) is an American literary critic, theorist, scholar, and Pulitzer Prize winning author. Greenblatt is regarded by many as one of the founders of New Historicism, a set of critical practices that he often refers to as "cultural poetics"; his works have been influential since the early 1980s when he introduced the term. Greenblatt has written and edited numerous books and articles relevant to new historicism, the study of culture, Renaissance studies and Shakespeare studies and is considered to be an expert in these fields. Being a core founder of New Historicism Theory, Greenblatt first used the term “new historicism” in his 1982 introduction to The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance. 

In his essay, The Circulation of Social Energy, an essay from the text, Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England Stephen Greenblatt shows how a work written by a dead author of a dead culture can still be relevant today, through what he describes allegorically as “social energy,” or the processes of cultural action or engineering and modifications by the society. His theory comes from his urge to find out what really allows an author or enables an author to speak from the dead by believing in the ‘Confrontation between a total artist and totalizing society.’ 

No totalizing originator: contingency 

The first basic assumption of Greenblatt’s is a twofold and interlinked one: that there does not exist a “total artist,” from which an entirety of a text has originated, as if in a vacuum, or in complete and total self-deferential inspiration: There is

“no originary moment, no pure act of untrammeled creation.”

And similarly, or indeed adversely, when seen from society at large, there does not exist a totalizing society, i.e. a ruling power perfectly ideologically coherent. So, importantly, rather than a text having a monolithic originator in a society of a stable basis of power, a text comes into existence, or indeed, into play, within a heterogeneous society, where there is a variegated complex of sources for both power and meaning, making both text and society places for

“institutional and ideological contestation.” 

Thus, a text is not, and should not be analyzed as, an abstracted, autonomous entity, but in relation to, and as part of, a distinct social and cultural environment (or context, or indeed co-text), what Greenblatt terms its “shared contingency.” Greenblatt, a text emerges in an interplay between forces in this heterogeneous society; thus, a text might be regarded as a confluence (point, or zone, or perchance just confluence) of cultural and societal elements, meeting, interacting, and displaying for, and in interaction with, an audience – be that audience contemporary or future. However, as Greenblatt says, his main project is not to strip away and discard the enchanted impression of aesthetic autonomy but to inquire into the objective conditions of this enchantment, to discover how the traces of social circulation are effaced. 

To explain this, at this point we must assume another set of underlying assumptions: That there exists a sort of social energy, with the capacity for circulatory power; that the effacement of this circulation is possible, i.e. that it can be perceived, extracted, collected, and displayed; that this process imbues a work with a certain enchantment; and that the conditions for this enchantment can be studied objectively. So, the projection, display, production, effacement of these traces of social energy, in may be the interstitial spaces, the margins, borders, cracks, the demarcation lines, i.e. the contingencies interstitial in the sites or zones set aside for literary production and consumption by these same margins –and here, laudably, Greenblatt wants it both ways – where the conditions for enchantment can be found, may be the process by which a text is empowered with social energy – and to discover, unravel and objectively describe this process, may be the endeavor for a literary critic in the new historicist tradition. 

Texts appear in a

“subtle, elusive set of exchanges, a network of trades and trade-offs, a jostling of competing representations, a negotiation between joint-stock companies.”

This is the environment wherein a dynamic exchange] of social energy can unfold.  Dynamic exchange of social energy: the mirror  Greenblatt reiterates (or more appropriately, appropriates) the metaphor of a mirror, the text as a mirror of society, to illustrate how this dynamic exchange is undertaken. Importantly, the mirror is not objective, nor neutral; according to Greenblatt, it has a knowledge, and that which it represents, it

“intensifies, diminishes, or even evacuates.”

Again, for this to work, we must assume another underlying assumption: The establishment of certain zones, set aside by demarcation lines, across which something is moved, for the specific purpose of mirroring, from one institutional(ized) set of social and cultural practices (for example, Society at Large; Christian Liturgy) into another (for example, The Stage): For something to be mirrored on stage or in text, we must assume a joint understanding that that which signifies or represents the mirrored something is placed into a certain exclusive and already existing zone, wherein the object is not itself, but a signifier of a something signified. 

Greenblatt describes three distinct processes of, and preconditions for, dynamic exchange: First, through the process of appropriation, i.e. the freely taking for use of already existing objects belonging to the public domain, e.g. language, which is a ready-made more or less collectively agreed-upon collection of meaningful signifiers; or the easily appropriated, like the working class, or Nature, or History. Second, through purchase, which is precisely what it is, e.g. of costumes and the like. And third, through what he terms symbolic acquisition, which is the employment of known symbols; familiar institutionalized social practices; or known metaphors –either directly, or indirectly through already established circumlocutory strategies. 

Albeit different strategies, the overarching dynamic is this: That there are already known, pre-existing forms in society; that these form can be staged, and for effect; and that in a joint social enterprise dependent upon the foreknowledge of the audience and the participatory interpretation of the represented reality on stage, this effect is collectively produced. For example, language is both collective, and a collective enterprise. The meaning, force, energy embedded in language is thus dependent on the collective, and necessarily pre-dates any writing of text – but still, a preexistent collective knowledge of language is a precondition for a text to function socially, for example when staged.

Throughout this process, a gradual institutionalization of a set of social practices, with a set of behavioral norms, designated roles, and a more or less distinctly defined geography will emerge – and create, for want of a better word, a genre. However, this is not fixed, and the unfixedness, and possibility for unfixing, is part of what makes it possible to continue the dynamic exchange between what is outside and inside the precarious boundaries set up, i.e. everything in society at large that shares contingency with the stage or the text. These processes of dynamic exchange, of cultural transactions, are how

“great works of art are empowered,”

and whereby the

“social energy initially encoded in those works”

make them so powerful for us today. 

Empowerment

As we have discussed above, one of the main endeavours of Greenblatt’s is to objectively describe this process of empowerment. And this is a salient point in his essay, and one that he does not argue convincingly. As Greenblatt says, nothing is really taken, only signified, represented, on stage – but the critical question is still how this is successfully done, to encode life, enchantment, social energy, into a text.

What is social energy?

Power, charisma, sexual excitement, collective dreams, wonder, desire, anxiety, religious awe, free-floating intensities of experience … everything produced by the society can circulate unless it is deliberately excluded from circulation. The successful encoding of some or all of these elements in a text or play would enchant it, and, in some cases, make us able to “speak with the dead.” But what makes it successfully done? What about the composition (or indeed, co-positioning) of all these different and various representational elements, all these artifacts? The success would depend in large part on how expertly, accurately, importantly, interestingly, significantly, this is done – and further, how significantly this is perceived to be (done) by the audience – for the work to amass the necessary social energy to be imbued with the right amount needed for a work to

“generate the illusions of life for centuries.”

There might not exist an “expressive essence”that can be singled out or identified, but that does not mean that there cannot be an organizer of expressions. This may also be a beginning to an answer to why some plays survive across the centuries, whereas others are forgotten – despite being conceived in the same cultural context, with the same kinds of social energy floating about. 

Conclusion 

Based on the above discussed points from Stephen Greenbalt's theory The Circulation of Social Energy, it can be said that the circulation of social energy is an important part of any well structured society.

A Phenomenological Approach as the Reading Process by Wolfgang Iser

• Introduction 

According to Lawrence Sterne as quoted by Wolfgang Iser, 

“a literary text is an area where reader and author participate in the game of imagination i.e. when everything is ‘told’ the reader has no role to play in the act  of reading. Therefore, a literary text should ‘engage’ the reader into imaginative. participation Reading becomes a pleasure only when it is active and creative.”

Phenomenology, in Husserl's conception, is primarily concerned with the systematic reflection on and analysis of the structures of consciousness, and the phenomena which appear in acts of consciousness. Such reflection was to take  place from a highly modified "first person" viewpoint, studying phenomena not as  they appear to "my" consciousness, but to any consciousness whatsoever. Husserl  believed that phenomenology could thus provide a firm basis for all human knowledge including scientific knowledge, and could establish philosophy as a "rigorous science" of measurable perception. 

The work of literature is text and the reader's response According to phenomenology, when considering a literary work one must  examine not only the text but the response it evokes in the reader. A text has the  artistic pole, which is the text as created by the author, and the aesthetic pole- the  text as realized, or responded to, by the reader. The literary work then is more than just the text- it is something abstract that is between the text and the readers'  response to it.

A work of literature is thus inherently dynamic. It changes depending on the reader The text allows the reader to imagine for himself some of the components  of the narrative. This is important in holding the attention of the reader.

➢ The text changes during reading as the reader modifies his expectations of it

A text is comprised of sentences. These serve to create the world within a work of fiction All sentences offer ambiguity, or fluidity, a meaning beyond the obvious  literal one and it is through these that the reader may become an active participant  inthe reading process. It is through these lenient sentences that the content of the  text comes across. The sentences serve as foreshadowers of future events to the reader The reader thus actively predicts what is to come, modifying his  expectations as he encounters new sentences. These sentences also have  retrospective importance to the reader (he modifies his views of prior events  based on new ones). A text in which the reader is easily able to predict the plot (where the reader doesn't modify his expectations) is considered inferior. It  becomes boring.

The same text creates different worlds for different readers. It engages the  imagination and creativity of the reader. This attribute is the virtual ability of the  text-the "coming together of text and imagination". Virtuality is created by anticipation and retrospect on the readers' part.

When consecutive sentences easily thread together the reading is fluid. But when  a sentence doesn't make sense in the context of the previous one the reader is  forced to stop and consider it, and make sense of it for the fluid reading to continue This blockage of sense in a story, this interruption of flow is an  opportunity for the reader to be active, and make sense of the sentence by "filling  inthe gaps left by the text itself". No one reading will ever fulfill the potential of a text because of the variability in different readers' reactions to the same text. 

This is true also to the same reader reading a text twice. This difference in  reactions is attributed to the changes that occur in the reader over time- but the  text must inherently allow for such difference.

The inherent interactivity of a text and the difference between readings demands  that the reader contribute from his own experience to the reading of the text. ,Paradoxically he must contribute from his own experience in order to comprehend a reality different from his (that of the story).

➢ The reader writes part of the story in his head

The author sets guidelines for the reader but the reader fills in the blanks with his imagination By definition, one can only imagine things that are not there. The  reader may imagine a set of possibilities as opposed to one particular thing. A literary work is thus the sum of the text and the sum of the text that is not there (which enlists the reader's imagination).

➢ The reader seeks unity in a text

A text offers much potential. The reader must reconcile all the possibilities to get a clear unified sense of the text. The reader compares different parts of the texts to  gain achieve this consistency. He does this through the illusions that the text creates Again this unity is not inherent in the text but lies somewhere between the  text and the consciousness of the reader. Here too there is modification of the ,illusion and throughout the reading the "gestalt" (sense of wholeness of the text)  changes-otherwise the reader loses interest.

➢ The literary work induces change in the reader

A literary text is effective when it creates expectations rooted in familiarity and  negates them in the text, creating for the reader something unfamiliar. The reader  is forced to modify his preconceptions to keep up with the illusion that the text creates This induces a change in the reader.

The division between reader and writer becomes blurred while reading a text, because the reader takes someone else's ideas and immerses himself in them. The  reader shuts out his own sense of self and becomes someone he is not. "As we ,read there occurs an artificial division of our personality because we take as a theme for ourselves something that we are not". There is the personality of the reader which is immersed in the story and is subject to the author's thoughts and  there is the previously existing self.

"You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something- George Bernard Shaw. Iser expounds:

1. You lost the inability to do that thing (or the lack of knowledge of the thing) any change causes pangs of nostalgia, of fear of that change

2. It implies relearning. You lost the wrong way to do it by learning the right way,  or the old way by learning the new way. In accordance with 1, you will never do anything according to the old way- now your new way dominates your behavior.

➢ Conclusion 

To conclude one can say that The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach is all  about the process of reading and how a reader passes through it and the theory has  logically connection with the process in the mind of reader while reading and after  reading the text.

Different types of Vakrokti in Harry Potter by J K Rowling

Vakrokti in Harry Potter 

For more details on Vakrokti and types of Vakrokti CLICK HERE 

Harry Potter Series in Brief 👉 Click here

Varna Vinyāsa Vakrta: 

In the fourth book, Professor McGonagall, targeting the females in the room, states “Inside ever girl a secret swan slumbers” and targeting boys in the class, she states “Inside every boy a lordly lion prepared to prance” She uses the alliteration as rhetoric to persuade the students to dance and to convey the seriousness of the situation to the students. (Rowling) 

Besides, Rowling make use of varna vinyāsa vakarta by using the alliterative names of many characters, i.e. Dudley Durnsley, Daedalus Dingle, Severus Snape, Gregory Goyle, and so on. 

Pada Purvārdh Vakarta 

Rowling has used various adjectives to describe characteristics of different characters. i.e. Description of infant Harry “Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a curiously-shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning” (Rowling) The scar on his body is described as something very special-unique scar. 

Besides, the description of Voldemort, “Where there should have been a back to Quirrell’s head, there was a face, the most terrible face harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake” (Rowling) 

Pada Pratyay Vakarta  

Something that might be unusual to Rowling’s work is the level of agency she gives her characters in grammar while often making their language within dialogue rather simple. (Scribd) during the final adventure, Harry, Ron, and Hermione find themselves “eyes watering, they saw, flat on the floor in front of them, a troll even larger than the one they had tackled , out cold on the floor with a lump on his head” (Rowling) 

Vakya Vakrata 

Sahaja vakarta 

In the first book, there is one statement “Mars is bright tonight.” (Rowling)  which does not mean the brightness of mars but there is a reference to the Roman God of war that is Mars. It implies that war is coming.  

Ahraya vakarta 

In the second book, the tininess of a Muggle world seen from their great height in the flying car as “a great city alive with cars like multicolored ants” (Rowling) Here, Rowling uses simile to show the tininess of the Muggle world. 

Prakaran Vakarta 

Obliquity of Emotional State

There is one statement in third book “So…you are going to suffer but you are going to be happy about it.” (Ahlin) Which creates suspense in the mind of reader that what exactly will happen with Harry, which will make him suffer and at the same time he will also be happy for that. 

Besides, each book of harry Potter has different miseries. Some characters i.e. Snap-Quirrell in first book, and Malfoy-Ginny in second book are suspicious characters. 

Obliquity of Episodic Relationship 

All the series of Harry Potter are connected logically with each other. There are various connecting links in Harry Potter series: 

Complexity and confusion 

Cloak of invisibility 

Past of Harry’s parents 

Obliquity of Modified Source Story 

In the first book, putting a little child Harry in the custody of maternal uncle-aunt by the trio of Dumbledore, Mcgonagall, and Hagrid reminds of the birth of Jesus Christ and three Magi. 

Voldemort is obsessed with blood purity that can be connected with Hitler who was obsessed with racism; he literally hated the Jewish people. In a same way, Voldemort hates half-bloods (Either mother or father could perform magic.) and muggles (Whose parents could not perform magic.) He believes that only pure bloods (Whose mother and father both could perform magic.) 

Prabandh Vakartā 

All the series of Harry Potter have logical connection, a proper arrangement of all the events, and the uniqueness of presenting the whole story in seven parts. That is the use of prabandh vakartā. 

Conclusion 

Kuntaka has given six types of vakartā. Here, we have tried to find all these types in Harry Potterseries by Rowling. The series has taken as a whole. All the types of Vakrokti are available in this work. 

Rowling, J.K., and Lily. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Quotes.” GradeSaver, www.gradesaver.com/harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince/study-guide/quotes.

Rowling, J.K., and Preeti. “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Quotes.” GradeSaver, www.gradesaver.com/harry-potter-and-the-goblet-of-fire/study-guide/quotes. 

Pounder, Sarah. “A Quick Summary Of the Harry Potter Series.” The Odyssey Online, The Odyssey Online, 16 Oct. 2019, www.theodysseyonline.com/quick-summary-harry-potter-series.

“Harry Potter.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Jan. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter.

Different types of Vakrokti

 

• Introduction 

‘Kāvya’ or poetry consists of a cooperative conjunction of words and their meaning. Above all such a conjunction must be significant and striking. By the word ‘striking’ or ‘vakra’ Bhāmaha means that kind of expression where, 

“…more is meant than, meets the ear”

The term Vakrokti, thus, is made of two words, ‘vakra’ that means ‘striking’ or ‘statement’. Hence, Vakrokti means “Striking or indirect speech or statement”

However, the concept of Vakrokti had been discussed by various critics; it was Kuntaka, who intensely thought on various aspects of Vakrokti. (Jogia) 

• Vakroktijivita by Kuntaka 

Under the title of Vakroktijivita, Kuntaka discussed in detail, the whole range of activity of a writer, dividing into four Unmesas. The title, Vakroktijivita means ‘Revival of Vakrokti’ or better, 

“Figurative expression as the essence, or the soul of poetry.”

According to Bhamaha, Kuntaka held that, whatever beautiful and miraculous takes place in poetry is the consequence of Vakrokti. It was poetry, primarily, made of two elements word and meaning. These elements are embellished by Vakrokti. Elaborating upon Bhamaha’s definition of poetry: 

“Sabdārthaw Sahitau Kāvyam.” (Bhāmaha) 

Kuntaka argued that neither word nor meaning and it’s purposeful accompaniment (sahit) can create poetry. It is with the uniqueness of poetic language that poetry is created and this literary quality of a work can be discerned and recognized as Vakrokti. Kuntaka rejects Svabhāvokti as a figure of speech on the ground that, if it were a figure of speech, than even our daily discourse should have been poetic. (Jogia) 

• Concept of Vakrokti 

Vakrokti is a manifestation of the basic obliquity of the poet’s creative process. Kuntaka defines it thus, 

“Vaidaghyam vidagdhabhāvah, Kavikarmakavsalam tasya bhangivicchiti, taya Bhanitih vicitraivabhidhā vakroktirityucate.” (Vakroktijivitam)  

The definition suggests that Vakrokti is an expression made possible by Vaidagdhya (skilled style) Vaidgdhata means an expression through poetic endeavor, skill, and elegance. The two words central to Kuntaka’s definition are: 

Vicitra that means use of different or strange expression from well-known manner. 

Prasidhdha that means style used in customary practice and treatises. (Jogia) 

• Types of Vakrokti 

1. Varna-Vinyāsa Vakratā  (Phonetic Obliquity)

Varna-Vinyāsa Vakratā includes repetation of similar sounds at regular at intervals by the arrangements of syllables and use of alliteration and rhyme or Sabdalankar and Lāvanya Guna in poetry. (Jogia-31)  

2. Pada-Purvārdh Vakrata  (Lexical Obliquity)

Pada Purvārdh vakrata or lexical obliquity includes stylistic choice in vocabulary, metaphor power of adjective and suggestive use of linguistic elements. (Jogia-31) 

3. Pada-Pratyay Vakrata  (Grammatical Obliquity)

Pada-Pratyay Vakrata includes all possibilities of varying the grammatical construction of an expression of an exposition that is suggestive of the skillful use of affixes, personification, and so on. (Jogia-31) 

4. Vākya Vakrata  (Sentential Obliquity)

Vākya Vakrata includes the figure of sense. They are thousands in number. Its effect can be compared to painter’s masterstroke that grows out from the beauty of the material used. (Jogia-31) Vākya vakrata is of two types: 

Sahaja- It is natural obliquity, which is mostly created without use of figures of speech. 

Aharya- It is called imposed obliquity, which is mostly created with figures of speech. 

5. Prakaran Vakrata  (Contextual Obliquity)

Prakaran Vakrata includes the episode or particular topic in the plot with unity, ingenuity, systematic unfolding and the technique of ‘garbhanka’ that is ‘a play within the play’. (Jogia-31) Prakarana Vakrata is of three types: 

Bhāvapurnasthiti Vakrata- It is the obliquity of emotional state, which means to maintain the suspense in the story. 

Upkārya Upkārabhāva Vakrata- It is also known as obliquity of episodic relationship. It requires the logical connection among all the events, or plot and subplot/s. 

Utpādya Lāvanya Vakrata- It is the modification in the source of the story. It means to modify the original source in order to give it uniqueness, or to make it more relevant to the present scenario. 

6. Prabandh Vakrata  (Compositional Obliquity)

In the composition of a whole or whole plot with well knitting and originality is called Prabandh Vakrata or compositional obliquity. (Jogia-31) 

References

Bhadra, Krishna. "Kuntaka and his art of literary criticism." (1998). 

Kuntaka, and K. Krishnamoorthy. The Vakrokti-jīvita of Kuntaka. Karnatak University, 1977.

Jogia , Hirak. “M.A. Part-II - Dr. Virambhai R. Godhaniya College, Porbandar.” Studylib.net, studylib.net/doc/8341002/m.a.-part-ii---dr.-virambhai-r.-godhaniya-college--porbandar#.