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Tuesday, 3 May 2016

Rewriting Popularity

Discussing how patrons manipulate or control literary systems, Lefevere distinguished between undifferentiated patronage - where the different levels of control (ideology, economy, status) are all dispensed by the same patron - and differentiated patronage where the levers are not controlled by the same person or where the levers themselves appear to be relatively independent. He says:

In systems of undifferentiated patronage, the patron's efforts will primarily be directed at preserving the stability of the social system as a whole, and the literary production that is accepted and actively promoted within that social system will have to further that aim or, at the very least, not actively oppose "the authoritative myths of the given cultural formation" which those in power want to control because their power is based on them. This is not to say that there will be no "other" literature produced within that social system, only that it will be called "dissident", or any name to that effect, and once it has been written it will experience great difficulty in getting published through official channels, or else it will be relegated to the status of "low" or "popular" literature.

Can we see those mechanisms at work in our society, in our culture, in our churches?

Posted By Jonathan, 8:00am Comment Comments: 0