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A literary text, explicitly or implicitly, communicates with society. The text is involved, through its intricate network of signification, with social life, even if the writer does not intend to deal with social matters. The Russian formalists see the interaction between the “text” and “society”, mainly as a matter which reveals itself in the “literary form”, no matter how the “content” would try to deny such an interaction. The French structuralists, through a deepening of the formalists’ ideas came to believe that the tight link between “text” and “society” would be best manifested if one analyses the “personalized writing” of the text.
Any analysis of this kind needs a theoretical model to explain the mutual functions of literature and society. Here, we take the polysystem theory, as introduced by Itamar-Zohar, as our model. Nonetheless, we remain cognizant of the fact that the above theory portrays only generally the ways in which literature and society are interrelated. Thus, this article seeks to reach an understanding of the specific ways through which such an interaction takes place