“The Circulation of Social Energy” by Stephen Greeblatt: Summary and Critique

1. Literature as a Social Exchange:

• Greenblatt argues that literature is not an isolated creation but a product of “negotiation and exchange” within society. He stresses the idea that cultural and artistic works are collectively produced and circulated within their social context.
• “Mimesis is always accompanied by—indeed is always produced by—negotiation and exchange.”

2. Concept of Social Energy:

• He introduces the term “social energy” to describe the capacity of literature, especially Shakespeare’s works, to evoke emotional, intellectual, and physical responses in audiences. This energy comes from cultural and historical interactions.
• “Social energy is manifested in the capacity of certain verbal, aural, and visual traces to produce, shape, and organize collective physical and mental experiences.”

3. Shakespeare and Cultural Transactions:

• Shakespeare’s plays are seen as prime examples of how collective social energies are captured and transformed into powerful artistic works. Greenblatt suggests that Shakespeare’s genius lies in his ability to harness these energies.
• “I wanted to know how Shakespeare managed to achieve such intensity, for I thought that the more I understood this achievement, the more I could hear and understand the speech of the dead.”

4. The Role of the Audience:

• Greenblatt emphasizes the interaction between art and its audience, noting that the theater, especially in Renaissance times, was a communal experience that reflected the collective emotions and desires of the audience.
• “The Shakespearean theater depends upon a felt community: there is no dimming of lights, no attempt to isolate and awaken the sensibilities of each individual member of the audience.”

5. Art as a Collective Process:

• He critiques the traditional notion of a solitary artistic genius, asserting instead that even individual creations, like Shakespeare’s plays, are shaped by “collective exchanges and mutual enchantments.”
• “Individuals are themselves the products of collective exchange.”

6. Theatrical Representation and Social Practices:

• Greenblatt explores how theatrical performances serve as sites of cultural negotiation where social practices, beliefs, and tensions are represented and transformed.
• “We can examine how the boundaries were marked between cultural practices understood to be art forms and other, contiguous forms of expression.”

7. Social Energy and Historical Continuity:

• Greenblatt argues that the “life” in literary works is not static or timeless but is a result of historical processes and social energy. Over time, this energy is “refigured” and transformed through successive cultural transactions.
• “The life that literary works seem to possess long after both the death of the author and the death of the culture for which the author wrote is the historical consequence, however transformed and refashioned, of the social energy initially encoded in those works.”

1. New Historicism:

• Contribution: Greenblatt’s work is foundational in developing the theory of New Historicism, which challenges traditional literary criticism by emphasizing the historical context of literary production. It argues that literature is not autonomous but is deeply intertwined with the political, social, and cultural forces of its time.
• Reference from the text: “The life that literary works seem to possess long after both the death of the author and the death of the culture for which the author wrote is the historical consequence, however transformed and refashioned, of the social energy initially encoded in those works.”
• Impact: Greenblatt moves away from viewing texts as isolated aesthetic objects, promoting instead an understanding of how literature reflects and engages with historical and cultural dynamics. His emphasis on the interaction between text and culture redefined how scholars analyze the relationship between literature and history.

2. Cultural Poetics (or Poetics of Culture):

• Contribution: Greenblatt introduces the concept of Cultural Poetics, which focuses on the social and cultural forces that shape literature. He argues that literature is a product of collective cultural practices, not just individual genius.
• Reference from the text: “I have termed this general enterprise—study of the collective making of distinct cultural practices and inquiry into the relations among these practices—a poetics of culture.”
• Impact: This approach shifted literary studies from purely textual analysis to a broader cultural analysis, considering how literature participates in and is shaped by social practices, ideologies, and power structures.

3. The Concept of Social Energy:

• Contribution: One of Greenblatt’s most significant contributions is his concept of social energy, which he uses to explain how literature circulates and accumulates cultural, emotional, and intellectual power over time. This energy is embedded in cultural practices and reflected in literature.
• Reference from the text: “Social energy is manifested in the capacity of certain verbal, aural, and visual traces to produce, shape, and organize collective physical and mental experiences.”
• Impact: Greenblatt’s idea of social energy helps literary critics understand how cultural practices—such as language, rituals, or social norms—are transformed into art. This concept has been influential in understanding how literature preserves, transforms, and refigures collective cultural experiences across generations.

4. Interdisciplinary Approach:

• Contribution: Greenblatt’s work fosters an interdisciplinary approach in literary studies, combining anthropology, history, and sociology with literary analysis. He emphasizes the importance of cultural, social, and political contexts in understanding literature.
• Reference from the text: “I propose that we begin by taking seriously the collective production of literary pleasure and interest.” He advocates for examining cultural exchanges rather than isolating literature as an aesthetic object.
• Impact: This interdisciplinary approach broadened the scope of literary studies, encouraging scholars to incorporate insights from other fields to fully understand how literature functions within its cultural and historical framework.

5. The Role of the Audience and Collective Creation:

• Contribution: Greenblatt redefines the role of the audience in literary creation, emphasizing that art is not created in isolation by the artist but through a collective process that includes the audience’s reception and engagement with the text.
• Reference from the text: “The Shakespearean theater depends upon a felt community: there is no dimming of lights, no attempt to isolate and awaken the sensibilities of each individual member of the audience, no sense of the disappearance of the crowd.”
• Impact: This theory highlights the interactive nature of literary creation and consumption, where the audience’s collective experience and social context influence the meaning and power of the literary work.

6. Challenge to Traditional Notions of Genius:

• Contribution: Greenblatt critiques the traditional idea of the solitary artistic genius by focusing on the collective production of art, rejecting the notion that literature emerges from an individual’s isolated talent.
• Reference from the text: “There can be no appeals to genius as the sole origin of the energies of great art.”
• Impact: This challenges the Romantic and formalist approaches that prioritize the author’s individual genius, emphasizing instead that literature is produced through cultural negotiation and exchange, shaped by larger social forces.

7. Theatricality and Representation:

• Contribution: Greenblatt explores how literature, particularly theater, represents and transforms social practices. He examines the boundary between reality and representation, suggesting that theater acts as a site where cultural practices are magnified, reworked, and contested.
• Reference from the text: “Theater achieves its representations by gesture and language, that is, by signifiers that seem to leave the signifieds completely untouched.”
• Impact: This insight has influenced scholars who study the performative aspects of literature, understanding how representation in theater interacts with cultural and social realities.

1. Overemphasis on Historical Context:

• Critics argue that Greenblatt’s focus on historical and cultural forces in New Historicism can sometimes diminish the aesthetic and formal qualities of the literary text itself.
• Critique: By prioritizing historical context, Greenblatt may overlook the intrinsic literary value and creativity that exists independent of its cultural surroundings.

2. Lack of Clear Methodology:

• Greenblatt’s approach in New Historicism has been criticized for lacking a rigorous or systematic methodology, making it difficult for other scholars to apply his theories consistently.
• Critique: The concept of “social energy” is seen as too abstract and vague, with little guidance on how to measure or systematically analyze it in literary works.

3. Underplaying the Role of Individual Genius:

• Some critics contend that Greenblatt underestimates the role of individual artistic genius, focusing too heavily on collective cultural forces.
• Critique: By dismissing the significance of individual creativity, Greenblatt’s theory risks ignoring the unique contributions of authors like Shakespeare, who are often seen as transcending their historical contexts.

4. Reductionism of Literary Works:

• Critics argue that Greenblatt’s approach can reduce complex literary works to mere products of social or political power dynamics, stripping them of their depth and multiple layers of meaning.
• Critique: The theory might oversimplify literature by viewing it solely as a reflection of power structures and cultural exchange, rather than acknowledging the nuanced artistic and philosophical content within texts.

5. Inconsistent Focus on Power Relations:

• While New Historicism often deals with power relations, some critics suggest that Greenblatt’s application of this focus can be inconsistent across different texts, sometimes forcing connections that may not be present.
• Critique: Not all literary works can or should be read purely in terms of power dynamics and social energy, yet Greenblatt’s theory tends to impose this framework universally.

6. Neglect of Reader Response and Reception:

• Greenblatt’s theory emphasizes the circulation of social energy from the past into the present but does not sufficiently address the role of contemporary readers and their subjective interpretations of literary works.
• Critique: Reader response, and the way modern audiences interact with texts, is often sidelined in favor of historical analysis, which limits the understanding of how literature functions in different contexts over time.

7. The Problem of Historical Determinism:

• Greenblatt’s focus on how literature is shaped by its historical and cultural moment can lead to accusations of historical determinism, where literary works are seen as entirely constrained by their time.
• Critique: This approach can minimize the possibility that literature can transcend its historical context and continue to resonate with different cultures and times in new and unexpected ways.