Literature and Cultural Knowledge

Abstract

There are many ways of knowing a culture different from one’s own. Perhaps the best, most complete and comprehensive is to take the step, sometimes irretraceable, of living in another culture and learning in a direct way the language or languages of the people — becoming familiar consciously and subconsciously with the customs, social habits, mores, thoughts, religions, literature and art, the ‘popular’ culture and other aspects of the culture’s way of life. But for most—indeed all—of us, this way of learning cultures is not practicable. To begin with, it is not at all clear that one has learned another culture merely because one has lived several years in it. Apart from degrees of percipience and discernment, which vary among individuals, too close an identification with the culture one studies leads to a loss of the objectivity which is essential for any kind of balanced study. Again, there is such an overwhelming number and variety of cultures in the world that one has to consider economies not only of time, money and place, but also of spirit. The student of culture has therefore to limit his area, choose his focus, and achieve what is possible given the inevitable brevity of the time he has at his disposal. He has to know the separate ways — not really separable except as mental conveniences — of the anthropologist, the sociologist, the philosopher, the historian, the creative writer, the littérateur, and the intelligent or merely curious traveller.