williams out of context

Williams is great at giving his readers clear categories to use when approaching projects. His description of the role of a sociologist of culture or cultural materialist is very clear: he is not concerned with exploring the types of art and social practices seemingly “produced” by certain ideologies or belief systems, but rather the way in which social and material practices generate art and culture, and the way in which these things (as signifying systems) mediate this relationship. So often we find, upon closer examination, that the creation and dissemination of particular artistic works depend on situations and relationships that have remarkably little to do with the content of the work itself but rather its social or political function.

Critics of historicist approaches like Harold Bloom often tout classics like Homer, Vergil’s Aeneid, and the tragedies of Aeschylus for their purported universal qualities and are greeted with rounds of laughter by classical scholars. If we use Williams’ distinctions (p 21-5) we can see why. He distinguishes between (i) the social conditions of art, (ii) social material in art works, and (iii) the social relations in art works.

(III) The Iliad and Odyssey were randomly performed in scattered fragments by itinerant bands of orators until the 6th century when the Athenian tyrant Peisistratus (during his famed “settlement of the state”) reduced taxes on the poor, reorganized the court system, and publicly funded the expansion of arts, theater, and drama in the city’s Panathenaic Festival. It was here that “Homer” became codified and written down so performances could be judged by an objective standard. Even though it was recorded in multiple dialects the very existence of a standard text solidified the Athenian claim to Greek cultural dominance in the region.

(II) Out of the settlement came the invention of Tragic Drama. To elaborate on Williams’ “social material in art works” we need look no further than The Oresteia of Aeschylus. Here, under the guise of a well-known family revenge plot, we have the transition from a household-oriented system of justice based on vendettas and familial revenge to a system of justice oriented in the polis. As the growing urban market demanded a shift from an economy based on autonomous households to one based on contracts and increasing public and military service, the new seat of justice (the Areopagus) required legitimation in the popular imaginary (artistic sphere). How better to inaugurate the authority of the new court than to have Athena herself come down and dispense justice, saving the aggrieved citizens from endless cycles of “mythic” (and feminine) violence? The “social material” in this work marks the very real economic and juridical transformation of space as well as the (further) disempowerment of women.

(I) For Williams the “social conditions of art” relate to an affective and psychological process present in historical texts which can be used to illuminate the historical consciousness of those who produced the work. Vergil’s Aeneid is a prime example. In it we have a piece of epic literature commissioned by Augustus in a classicizing move to garb his politics in an aesthetics of authenticity and timelessness. The Aeneid was an attempt to establish the Julio-Claudian family line at the founding of Rome and constructs the pre-Romans as the refugees of Troy. The narrative itself is told in the future anterior as if all along Rome and its destiny lay in the hands of Augustus. Vergil left it unfinished and is said to have demanded that it be burned while on his death bed. So we have a political ruler essentially commissioning great works of art, sculpture, literature, and architecture to produce a total affective social reality which reconstructs its own history in order to legitimate the present and consolidate his rule after a brutal civil war.

We see a clear shift towards a historical consciousness and a self-referential character that develops in signifying systems: it begins to refer to itself and its (borrowed) traditions in order to legitimate itself. The kind of recursive and dialectical sociological analysis of culture which Williams developed is still a very effective and useful tool.