LITERARY THEORY
BACKGROUND INFO
A very
basic way of thinking about literary theory is that these ideas act as different lenses
critics use to write and talk about art, literature, and even culture.
These different lenses allow critics to consider
works of art based on
certain assumptions. Those assumptions
come from the theories and
decide what particular aspects of a work are important.
For example, if a
critic is working with certain Marxist theories, s/he might focus on how the
characters in a story are created by an economic situation.
If a critic is
working with post-colonial theories, s/he might consider the same story but
look at how characters from colonial powers (Britain, France, and even America)
construct characters from, say, Africa or the Caribbean.
A L L L I T E R A R Y T H E O R I E S C A N B E C A T E G O R I Z E D B Y H O W T H E Y V I E W T H E W O R L D O U T S I D E T H E T E X T
Formal Critics
Looks at only the
text and how well it is dressed- at the form of the text itself.
Seeks a static,
unchanging universal Truth within the text.
Everything outside
the text is irrelevant
because it is not static.
The Mona Lisa has an enigmatic smile whether
one is male, female; young, old; Asian, European.
Cultural
Critics
Always look at a
work as a construct of the society that created it.
Andy Warhol’s soup cans only mean something
if you have grown up in a consumer culture.
The song “YMCA” incorporates cultural
assumptions that give it one particular meaning
A devoutly conservative Christian will have a
different interpretation of the song than the producer who wrote it or the
Santa Clarita teen who danced to it
NEW CRITICISM
A form of Liberal
Humanism, the text reveals the meaning of the overall piece through
the resolution of some contradiction.
Uses themes, characters, and symbols
This is a closed
system in that the relationship between the text and meaning is autonomous.
Canonical approach
Form of
traditional/formal literary criticism
It fits into the broad sweep of a humanities curriculum.
The role of the individual response is dismissed as an
affective fallacy.
The misconception that arises from judging a
piece of literature by the emotional effect that it produces in the reader.
Instead, there is
an objective corollary, that the tension at the core of the text
inevitably surfaces through the actions of the
characters.
Theory put forward by T.S. Eliot
The role of the critic
is to resolve the contradictions to find the right meaning.
S T RU C T U R A L I S M
The meaning of a text is in the familiar structures it employs.
Based upon the work of Ferdinand de Saussure
For example, a rose may symbolize love, or a stick figure may symbolize a person; however, literature has a very specific and important relationship to language.
Signifiers (ideas) take the place of the signified.
The identity, or meaning, is relational to the system in which it operates.The relationship of one signifier to another is what provides the context with which to extrapolate meaning. Example: Italian Western or Disneyland.
The meaning of a text is in the familiar structures it employs.
Based upon the work of Ferdinand de Saussure
For example, a rose may symbolize love, or a stick figure may symbolize a person; however, literature has a very specific and important relationship to language.
Signifiers (ideas) take the place of the signified.
The identity, or meaning, is relational to the system in which it operates.The relationship of one signifier to another is what provides the context with which to extrapolate meaning. Example: Italian Western or Disneyland.
D E C O N S T RU C T I O N
A philosophical assumption that all language is vague.Everything can be misread or making it impossible to interpret anything in a static/stable way. “Deconstruction cannot limit or proceed immediately to a neutralization: it must…practice an overturning of the classical opposition and a general displacement of the system. It is only on this condition that deconstruction will provide itself the means with which to intervene in the field of oppositions that it criticizes, which is also a field of nondiscursive forces" (328). French philosopher Jacque Derrida.
A deconstruction tends to be a rather verbose document because it is aiming for the contradiction of showing the imprecision of language with precise language.Almost all deconstructions can be deconstructed themselves.“A theory of reading which aims to undermine the logic of opposition within texts.”
A Dictionary of Critical Theory, London: Blackwell, 1996
A philosophical assumption that all language is vague.Everything can be misread or making it impossible to interpret anything in a static/stable way. “Deconstruction cannot limit or proceed immediately to a neutralization: it must…practice an overturning of the classical opposition and a general displacement of the system. It is only on this condition that deconstruction will provide itself the means with which to intervene in the field of oppositions that it criticizes, which is also a field of nondiscursive forces" (328). French philosopher Jacque Derrida.
A deconstruction tends to be a rather verbose document because it is aiming for the contradiction of showing the imprecision of language with precise language.Almost all deconstructions can be deconstructed themselves.“A theory of reading which aims to undermine the logic of opposition within texts.”
A Dictionary of Critical Theory, London: Blackwell, 1996
Nothing written can
really mean
what we
think it means. Example: Hamlet where Hamlet asks “to
be or not to be, that is the question.” There is no question.“To be” is a transitive verb—it requires an
object. So, one can’t just say “to be or not to be.”The final meaning of that passage cannot be
what we think it is.
POST STRUCTURALISM
Form of cultural criticism.Studied by former structuralists Jacque Derrida and Michel Foucault. A reaction to structuralism.Connects meaning to culture.Deconstructs signifiers as there are no universal truths, so signifiers/symbolic.constructs cannot be relied upon to give meaning. A closed system.Unlike structuralism where symbols, paradigms, and schema are connected to a universal meaning. In order to have actual meaning, they must become unstable or else they will simply work to leave hegemonies intact, thus leaving power structures in place.
Form of cultural criticism.Studied by former structuralists Jacque Derrida and Michel Foucault. A reaction to structuralism.Connects meaning to culture.Deconstructs signifiers as there are no universal truths, so signifiers/symbolic.constructs cannot be relied upon to give meaning. A closed system.Unlike structuralism where symbols, paradigms, and schema are connected to a universal meaning. In order to have actual meaning, they must become unstable or else they will simply work to leave hegemonies intact, thus leaving power structures in place.
FEMINIST THEORY
The idea that
patriarchal Western
society subsumes the role of women with the use of language constructs and representations of society based on male viewpoints.
society subsumes the role of women with the use of language constructs and representations of society based on male viewpoints.
v
Socioeconomic,
experiential, and cultural differences do not lend themselves to a universal
female ideology, and as such should not be the basis for understanding any
piece of literature.
FEMINIST THEORY, CONT.
v
New language is
needed to
express
feminist viewpoints.
•
Renders patriarchal hierarchies and
ideologies impotent in literature.
v
Began as an
opposition to
male
critical theory
•
Tended to follow patriarchal formula
FEMINIST THEORY, CONT.
v
In “A Room of One’s
Own” Virginia Woolf
posited
a hypothetical sister to Shakespeare, who, given the same conditions, would
write works as good as
Shakespeare’s.
v
More recent
feminist critics have posited a
female
voice that fundamentally differs from the
male voice and which does not seek the validation
of male theory.
GENDER/QUEER THEORY
v
Opens discourse
surrounding cultural binaries and binary
oppositional
language.
•
father/mother, man/woman, masculine/feminine
v
Differs from
feminist theory that looks upon woman as “Other”
GENDER/QUEER THEORY,
CONT.
v
Cultural ideology
at the base of gender and sexuality is ever-changing.
v
Ideas regarding
gender and sexuality should not remain static.
v
In order to remain
in flux, hegemonic ideologies and marginalization of gender/sexuality roles
must also remain in flux.
MARXIST THEORY
v
Tend to focus on
the representation of class conflict as well as the reinforcement of class
distinctions.
v
Use traditional
techniques of literary analysis but subordinate aesthetic concerns to the final
social and political meanings of literature.
MARXIST THEORY, CONT.
v
Champions authors
sympathetic to the working classes and authors whose work challenges economic
equalities found in capitalist societies.
v
Theories arising
from the Marxist paradigm have sought new ways of understanding the
relationship between economic and cultural production as well as literature.
MARXIST THEORY, CONT.
v
Marxist analyses of
society and history have had a profound effect on literary theory and practical
criticism.
v
Most notably in the
development of
“New
Historicism” and “Cultural Materialism.”
POSTCOLONIAL THEORY--
HYBRID
v
Made popular by
Himi K. Bhabha
v
Suggests that a
culture can never return to its pre-colonized ways.
•
A culture does not stay, or become, stagnant
because it has been colonized.
•
An idea Western culture places upon other
cultures.
v
Instead, cultures
merge and become part of the colonized culture.
•
The result of a colonized people adapting to
survive under new culture rules.
POSTCOLONIAL THEORY —
HYBRID, CONT.
v
In order to
survive, cultures mimic things such as clothes, music,
education,
and food.
•
In turn makes the “other” become more like
the colonized.
v
Although a mimic is
almost the same, but not white, the “other”
starts
to become more like the dominant culture as it shakes the confidence in the
colonizer’s ideas of their own universal truth, thus destabilizing colonialism
itself.
POSTCOLONIAL THEORY--
NEGRITUDE
Coined by Aime Cesaire.
Purports that black people from all over the world share a
collective personality that is
different
from that of European
personality.
POSTCOLONIAL THEORY —
NEGRITUDE, CONT.
v
Calls for pride in
one’s culture
and
independence from European “barbarians.”
v
Leaders of this
movement
rejected
the “savage” tag and
exposed
the savagery of the colonists.
POSTCOLONIAL THEORY —
NEOCOLONIALIS M
v
Splitting the
profits between local oligarchs and colonial powers updates the ravages of
colonialism.
POSTCOLONIAL THEORY--
ORIENTALISM
v
Theory put forward
by Edward Said.
v
The West has come
up with ideas about the orient in an attempt to describe and distance it from
Western ideas.
v
If Orient is lazy
and cruel, the West is
produced
as hard working and kind.
v
It shows how the
West, in its construction of the Orient, allows for
Western
ideas to be seen as universal truths.
POSTCOLONIAL THEORY —
ORIENTALISM, CONT.
v
By making these
truths right and natural, it makes the Orient into
the
“other.”
v
It also justifies
the colonization of the people.
v
The colonized may
not have been physically colonized, but
colonized
by being “studied.”
Being
the object of something someone else sought to understand.
POSTCOLONIAL THEORY--
SUBALTERN
v
The idea that a
people without power, can actually be speaking for the system of ideologies put
in place, which may or may not be their
own
beliefs.
•
Can be speaking out for themselves or
speaking for groups.
POSTCOLONIAL THEORY —
SUBALTERN, CONT.
v
Marginalized
“others” do not have access to imperial colonialist’s
experience
and culture.
“Others” operate within the confines of the oppressive group.
POST ANALYTIC THEORY
v
Prompted by Freud’s
work focusing on the Id, Ego, Superego,
Desire,
the Unconscious, and Defenses.
•
A broad spectrum of viewpoints inhabit this
theory.
v
One can understand
the text by psychoanalyzing motives, characters, symbols, actions, or any
number of literary devices in order to discover meaning.
READER RESPONSE
v
The text is
completely subjective and authorial intent means nothing.
v
Meaning is
discovered
through
the reader’s reaction to
what
they have read, or the relationship between the reader
and the
text.
READER RESPONSE
v
Each reader may
bring a different interpretation based on his/her ideology and experience.
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