The Wonderful World of Literary Theory:

Shine a Light on Literature

The Modes
(well, the major ones the ones you should know)

Reader Response Formalist Deconstructionist Psychological Gender (Feminist, Queer Theory) Historical Biographical Cultural Mythological Sociological

Myriad Approaches
Important: No single theory is necessarily correct or true above any other Critical approaches usually derive from personal discretion or applicability Some approaches naturally lend themselves to particular works

For example
Any work by Hemingway would naturally lend itself to a biographical approach

QuickTime an d a Sorenson Video 3 decompre ssor are need ed to see this p icture .

Another example
It would be tough to talk about Tim OBriens The Things They Carried without understanding the historical context

Reader Response Theory

Attempts to describe what happens in a persons mind when interpreting a text Recognizes plurality of texts Explores contradictions inherent in the problem this approach presents

Formalist Criticism

Regards literature as a unique form of human knowledge to be regarded in its own terms Apart from or above biographical, social, historical, or cultural influences Literature is understood through its intrinsic literary features TEXT-CENTERED: focus on words

Formalist contd
Close Reading
Focus on intense relationships in a work Form and content cannot be meaningfully separated Interdependence of form and content make a text literary

Biographical Criticism
Considers that literature is written by actual people Understanding of authors life helps comprehend the work Authors experience SHAPES the creation of the work Practical advantage: illuminates text Be judicious--base interpretation on what is in the text itself (Cheever, Plath, Fitzgerald examples)

Historical Criticism
Investigation of social, cultural, and intellectual contexts that produced the work
Necessarily includes authors biography and milieu

Impact and meaning on original audience (as opposed to todays) How a texts meaning has changed over time
Connotations of words, images (1940, America)

Psychological Criticism
Owes much to the work of Sigmund Freud
Analysis of Oedipus--considered Sophocles insight into human mind influential Painful memories (esp. from childhood) repressed, stored in subconscious Freud and followers (including Carl Jung) believed that great literature truthfully reflects life

Psychological contd
Three approaches
1. Creative process of the arts
What is genius and how is it related to mental functions? How does a work impact the mind of the reader?

2. Psychological study of artist 3. Analysis of fictional characters

All psych criticism seeks to DELVE

Mythological Criticism
Seeks recurrent universal patterns Combines insights of many disciplines:
Anthropology Psychology History Comparative religion

Mythological contd
Explores artists common humanity (as opposed to individual emphasis in pysch. crit.) THE ARCHETYPE
A symbol, character, situation, or image that evokes a deep universal response Carl Jung (Swiss psychologist)--lifetime student of myth and religion
collective unconscious Set of primal memories common to the human race (existing below conscious mind) Archetypal images (like sun, moon, fire, night, blood) trigger the c.u.

Important to link text to other texts with similar or related archetypal situations

Sociological Criticism
Examines literature in the cultural, economic, and political context in which it is written or received
Art not created in a vacuum Relationship between author and society
Social status of author Social content of a work (values presented) Role of audience in shaping literature

Sociological contd
Marxist criticism
Economic and political elements of art Explores ideological content of literature Content determines form; therefore all art is political DANGER: imposing critics politics on work in question can sway evaluation based on how closely (or not) the work endorses ideology VALUE: illuminates political and economic dimensions of literature that other approaches may overlook

Gender Criticism
Examines how sexual identity influences the creation and reception of literary works Began with feminist movement
Influenced by sociology, psychology, and anthropology Feminist critics see a world saturated with male-produced assumptions Seek to correct imbalance by battling patriarchal attitudes

Gender contd
Feminist criticism analyzes how an authors gender influences ideas Also, how sexual identity influences reader
Reader sees text through eyes of his or her sex

Examination of social forces responsible for gender inequality

Gender contd
Gender criticism expands beyond original feminist perspective
Different sexual orientations Mens movement
Not rejection of feminism, but a contemporary rediscovery of masculinity

Deconstructionist Criticism
Rejects traditional assumption that language can accurately represent reality
Language fundamentally unstable Literary texts, therefore, have no fixed meaning

Signs cannot coincide with what is signified

Deconstructionist contd..
Attention shifts from what is being said to how language is being used in a text Paradox: Deconstructionist criticism often resembles formalist
Both involve close reading

BUT: decon. critics break text down into mutually irreconcilable positions

Deconstructionist contd..
REJECTION of myth that authors control language
Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault call for the death of the author
No author, no matter how brilliant, can fully control the meaning of a text They have also called for death of literature as a special category of writing
Merely words on a page; all texts equally untrustworthy Therefore, literature deserves no status as art

No truths; only rival interpretations

Cultural Studies
Relatively recent interdisciplinary field of academic study (not solely associated with literary texts) Not a study of fixed, aesthetic objects, but of DYNAMIC SOCIAL PROCESSES
Challenge: to identify and understand the complex forms and effects of the process of culture

Cultural Studies contd

A political enterprise that views literary analysis as a means of furthering social justice Commitment to examining issues of race, class, and gender as well as shifting the canon

Credits
Kennedy, X.J. and Gioia, D., eds. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Eighth edition. New York: Longman, 2002. All images courtesy of Google Images

THE END

Deconstructionist, Jacques Derrida

1930-2004

Or is it?