The Concept of Pattern in Criticism and Cultural Studies

Document Type : Original Article

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Abstract

The concept of pattern is one of the key notions on which cultural criticism has relied in its analysis of literary texts. The concept is derived from social analysis in this area of study. However, it is primarily related to the total cultural studies which opened broad ways in this regard. That is to say, they deal with numerous phenomena using specially significant terms, though these terms might be linked to different sources. Some of these sources are attributable to literary criticism which has been influential in this regard through the writings of its notable figures which have gone beyond the limits of literary texts to the horizons of political, economic, social, and cultural phenomena in general.
As to the literary text in particular, the most obvious remark is related to the constant interrelatedness between cultural studies, being the general field that allows for interaction between all these areas on the one hand, and literary criticism on the other hand as one of the main sources that influence the emergence of cultural studies. Accordingly, cultural criticism gives rise to controversy over its topics, origins, methodologies, and relations with cultural studies and literary criticism.
Due to the lack of clarity in the concept of pattern in such writings despite the fact that it has been intensely discussed by them, it is necessary to investigate this concept and clarify its different relations with the founding sources. This aims at determining the nature of this concept and its implications in literary texts.
Thus, I am tackling the concept of pattern in the light of its relations with cultural and literary criticisms as shown in its links with the origins of these two areas in cultural studies.

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