The Historical Development of the Sociological Approach to the Study of Literature

The sociological approach to the study of literature has long and distinguished history. The several critics and scholars from Plato down to the present have discussed the different theories of sociological approach to the study of literature. The early social thinker and literary critics such as J. C. Herder, Madame de Stale, H. A. Taine and others laid the foundation of the sociological approach  of literature, but they ignored the world view of the writer and the role of publishers, distributors, critics, reading public and circulating libraries in the creation and existence of literary works. However, sociology of literature has gained its special place in the history of critical theory in the late twentieth century in the hands of Lucien Goldman, Leo Lowenthal, Robert Escarpit, Alan Swingwood, John Hall and the several social thinkers and critics. In this article an attempt has been made to focus the major contributors who tried to develop the sociological approach to the study of literature.