Theoretical Approaches

Abstract

The previous chapter identified some of the main features in a model of fiction seen as communication. Specific data relating to some of these features (such as the nature of the readership) have been gathered by scholars in a continuous process since the academic study of literature began; it provides a core of factual material which will be drawn on in relation to the texts used as examples in this book. The present chapter by contrast deals with a more subjective and controversial aspect of the socio-cultural approach; it summarises a number of theories which attempt to account for the characteristics of given novels in terms of the social composition of the society in which they were written. Since most of the theories refer to literature in general a specific application to fiction has been assumed.