Thematology- A reading of Romeo & Juliet in contemporary cinemas DOCX

Title	Thematology- A reading of Romeo & Juliet in contemporary cinemas
Author	P. Bhattacharya
Pages	9
File Size	34.1 KB
File Type	DOCX
Total Downloads	88
Total Views	303

Summary

Thematology. ‗Thematology‘ in a basic sense can be described as the contrastive study of themes in different literary texts. A literary text has two main components i.e. form and content. The form is about the language and the structure. It is how the content is presented. A specific form may help p...

Description

Thematology. 'Thematology' in a basic sense can be described as the contrastive study of themes in different literary texts. A literary text has two main components i.e. form and content. The form is about the language and the structure. It is how the content is presented. A specific form may help putting a specific content into value. The content is what the literary text is about. The content is either derived from reality. Also, it may be concrete in that it reflects concrete situations of human condition as it may be abstract in the form of philosophical reflections, meditations and commentaries about a specific or a universal reality. "Thematology, as is well known, is that branch of Comparative Literature, which deals in content. The comparatist usually understands by thematological analysis, the effort to produce a foregrounding effect – motivated by the desire to hear more clearly what the text says s/he chooses deliberately to push formal and ideological issues to the background. The comparatist in his/her thematological incarnation undertakes a peculiar kind of Aufebung-s/he puts into suspension the questions of how and why of the texts."- Shibaji Bandyopadhyay. The comparatist is always in search of newer links. We are always breaking new grounds and making our way forward in deeper waves of various arts and it is this zeal that have helped comparatists previously to traditionally run down thematology. Thematology is in general "insensitive to the complexities of context – the intertextuality wrought by the thematologist is dubious precisely because it tends to ignore or obscure contextual difficulties". Thematology helps in providing fresh perspectives in the analysis of style. The comparative study of themes and motifs enables us to see what type of writer chooses what type of material, and how the material is dealt with at various times. Discussing the problematised and elusive concept of influence ', Rene Wellek says that "The whole conception of a 'cause' in literary study is uncritical; nobody has ever been able to show that a work of art was 'caused' by another work of art, even though parallels and similarities can be accumulated. A later work of art may not have been possible without a preceding one, but it cannot have been caused by it." Putting things in this broad frame of reference one can well argue that all texts have been 'influenced' in some way or another and that all works of literature are intertextual in nature. In their handbook "Themes and Motifs in Western Literature" , Horst and Ingrid Daemrrich argues that themes and motifs have a determining influence in the network of...