Making sense of literary aging: Relevance of recent gerontological theory

Literature provides rich resources for interpretations of the meaning of aging in cross-cultural and historical circumstances. A theoretically informed understanding of such literature should be rooted in contextual understanding of literature as an art form, including considerations of style, genre, intentions of authors, and of audiences; an awareness of perspectives of analysts; and explanatory frameworks drawn from gerontology. Early theories in gerontology focus on the individual level, taking structure as a given. Second generation models-modernization and age stratification-focus on structure excluding the individual. Recent frameworks, namely political economic approaches cognizant of intentionality, and structurally informed social psychological perspectives, address the confluence of individual and structural factors. A hermenutic-dialectical framework incorporates the dynamic interplay between structural factors, individual meaning-giving and action. To illustrate, five brief vignettes from cross-cultural literature are analyzed, drawing on recent gerontological theory. A hermeneutic-dialectical approach to literature provides a forum for debate, research, and theory-building, rather than an overarching model of aging in cross-cultural context.