Literary theory
Table of content
1. What is literary criticism? 1
1. New Criticism 2
2. Russian Formalism 3
3. Deconstruction 4
4. New historicism 5
5. Structuralism 6
6. Post-structuralism 7
7. Marxist criticism 8
8. Feminist 8
9. Postmodern Theory – 9
10. Postcolonialism 9
11. Literary Theory and Criticism 13
Literary criticism has multiple functions. It is used as a vehicle to interpret or analyze various types of literature, including poetry, novels, and plays. There are many different types, or schools, of literary criticism that can be applied to works of literature. Critical essays are the most common form of literary criticism, and they are generally found in scholarly journals or in books of collected essays or anthologies.
In effect, literary criticism explores different possible meanings that a text may have. Criticismmay look at an idea in a single text or may compare ideas found in multiple texts. These texts may be by the same author, or they may be from the same time period, or they may include similar themes. Often, literary critics use examples from the text or texts to emphasize or support the points they are making in their interpretations or analyses. In addition, ideas from other critical essays may be used to support or defend a point in an essay.
This type of criticism, which is also known as literary theory, has many different schools of thought. The type of criticism being used will influence the way that the critic views the text, and because of this, texts can be interpreted in many different ways. This is often referred to as looking at literature through different lenses, depending on which type of criticism is being used. For example, a psychoanalytic critic will view a text very differently than a critic using Marxist theory, which views the text from an economic standpoint.
Another school of literary criticism is postcolonial. A critic using this theory will often look at the way the colonized people were viewed and treated by the colonizers in a work of literature, for instance. New Historicism or cultural theory, is another school of criticism. This theory views a text in the cultural and social context in which it was written. For example, a critic who uses this theory to explore a work of literature may also look at letters the author wrote or newspaper accounts of what was happening at the time the work was written to try to understand the meaning of the text more completely.
Reader-response criticism is another theory used to study literature. This school of criticismlooks at how groups of readers respond to the same text and explores differences and similarities in their interpretations. Feminist criticism looks at works from a female perspective; for example, it may explore how the female characters in literature are treated by the male characters and draw conclusions based on that examination.
There are other schools of literary criticism as well, including formalism, deconstruction, and gender/queer criticism. The main purpose of any type of literary criticism is to form a judgment about the text and its meaning. It may also allow the reader to see things through a closer exploration of the text. In addition, if there are conflicts within the text, using literarycriticism may help to resolve them and offer a clearer understanding.
New Criticism is a form of literary criticism that triumphed as the predominant critical form in the 1940s through the 1960s. John Crowe Ransom is responsible for naming New Criticism in his book of the same name, published in 1941. New Criticism quickly became “the” way to read literature and poetry, and was taught in both college and high schools.
Literary criticism prior to New Criticism had dwelt on several ways to interpret literature, with no consensus as to the best method. Some critics evaluated literature in terms of the author’s history, showing how works were representative or differed from the time periods in which they were written. Others evaluated works in terms of the author’s life and background.
New Criticism differed greatly from previous forms as it dismissed authorial intent, and particularly ignored biographical and historical information about an author. Instead, literature was to be interpreted based solely on the cohesiveness of the work. To a New Critic, whatever the author intended was invalid, as the form of the work always transformed intent, producing new meanings.
The critic’s position, according to New Criticism, was to evaluate various aspect of a text that produce ambiguity. Critics analyzed metaphor, simile, and other rhetorical tropes that resulted in stress and counterstress, reconciling them to find the harmony in a work. Through analysis, the critic could then tell readers how to interpret a text and what value was to be gained from reading a text. In other words, the critic became the interpreter through which literature could be understood.
Additionally, in New Criticism, the text had to be considered as an object of literature, complete within itself. If the reader began to extrapolate to his or her interpretation outside of the text, he or she had strayed from New Criticism. The critic should be free from his or her own feelings or emotional response when reading the text. Only criticism that stuck to the text was of value. Later theorists argued that there can be no freedom from the self in textual analysis, and that this desire to analyze text as if one were a blank slate is quite impossible.
However, in their new elevated status as interpreter granted by New Criticism, critics legitimized their own profession. Publication of books and articles that clarified the meanings of poetry and other writings were cousins to literature, because they provided the layperson with a method for understanding what one read. Though much of New Criticism has been soundly refuted, this new status of the lofty critic remains.
New Criticism influenced the literary canon, the materials considered to be art, because critics could point to those works that achieved harmony through ambiguity. As such, certain works were considered more valuable than others, greatly influencing which works were assigned as reading material. Students writing about such material often had their interpretations scrapped because they had failed to find the “correct” interpretation of a text.
While New Criticism remains a useful tool for teaching students about the basic elements in poetry, most of New Criticism has been refuted and replaced. Newer forms of literary criticism, which posit that texts can produce multiple meanings that are directly opposed, have triumphed over New Criticism. Newer critical theories have reintroduced the consideration of the author’s intent from a psychological or historical point of view. Other critical schools, such as structuralism, evaluate the specific language of the text to derive multiple meanings.
The best refutations of New Criticism have led to inclusion of more works in the canon. New Critics tended to value Western work over any other forms of literature, and moreover, placed a higher value on works written by men. Feminist and New Historical Critics have restored many works to the canon that had been ousted by New Critics.
Though New Criticism is no longer a dominant critical form, knowledge of New Criticism is essential to understanding the history of literary criticism. One outstanding text to review is Cleanth Brooks’ The Well Wrought Urn . Other influential writers in New Criticism are William Empson and Allen Tate.
Russian formalism is a school of literary criticism formed in Russia that became highly influential in the early decades of the 1900s. Some of its concepts are still in use today in literary criticism. Its central tenant is that the text of the writer’s work should be the focus of any inquiry or criticism regarding the work. The Russian formalists believed that literature, including poetry, should not be interpreted based on ideology, historical interests, or psychological principles. Literary art is the total effect of literary devices and “strategies” the writer uses to achieve her aims.
Scholars point out that Russian formalism is not the precise term for the school of criticism. Many of its early adherents could not agree on what all of its principals and goals should be. They simply considered themselves “formalists.” By the 1930s, Russian authorities were using the term formalist as a pejorative to describe any “elitist” artist.
Formalists advocated an objective and what they considered a “scientific” method of studying literature and poetic language. Literary scholarship was thought to be a distinct field of study that was separate from the disciplines of psychology and sociology. Only those features that distinguish literature from all other kinds of thought and expression should be the object of critical study.
One key feature that formalists identified as distinguishing literature from other endeavors was its use of “defamiliarization.” This term refers to the way in which literature uses language in new, unfamiliar, and even strange ways. The writer is in control of a universe of her own making. She can explain the world in a whole new light through her choice of language and story construction. What the writer says cannot be separated from how she says it.
Formalists believed that literature has its own distinct history and innovations. It is left to the writers to find new approaches to defamiliarization. Two modern examples of the literary strategy of defamiliarization are James Joyce’s “stream of consciousness” writing, and the use of magical realism by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his novels.
Russian formalism influenced the literary theory of structuralism. Structuralism holds that relationships between concepts are dependent on the culture and language in which the concepts are created. These relationships can be discovered and studied.
The school of “new criticism” is comparable to Russian formalism, although it did not evolve from it. Both schools of thought believe that literature must be studied on its own terms. It cannot be evaluated in terms of cultural and historical “externalities.” The focus of study should be the literary strategies and craft of the writer.
is a philosophy applied to literary criticism, as well as to criticism of the other arts, which began to gain popularity in the 1980s. The field of deconstruction arose partially in reaction to the literary theories of structuralism. Structuralism posited that when words could be understood within the context of a society of readers, then one could point to the specific meaning of a text.
Deconstruction eschewed the concept of one possible meaning for a text, and instead suggested that meanings of a text are multiple and contradictory. Underlying a text is thesubtext, a set of values that must be evaluated to see if the text is really contrary in nature and hence somewhat without meaning. Deconstruction also evaluates the way in which texts in the traditional literary canon are taught to students, suggesting that traditional “readings” of a text often ignore underlying value structures in direct opposition to what is taught.
A simple example of this is analysis of the work Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. For many years, this novel was thought to be an important work on human rights and an examination of man’s inhumanity to man. Through the eyes of Huck, the reader could see the devastation of slavery and the degradation suffered by African Americans.
Critics who use deconstruction quite logically point to the last portion of the book, in which Huck and Tom realize that Jim is a free man and no longer a slave, yet go to great lengths to pretend he is a slave. They lock him up and nearly starve him. Huck is quite willing to degrade Jim in this way, showing few moral qualms about doing so.
For those practicing deconstruction, this bizarre chapter suggests that the so-called work about human rights is anything but. The underlying values in the text are not consistent with the way it is presented to students. In a sense, the deconstructionist has taken apart the novel and its critical tradition, displaying its inconsistencies.
Many literary critics abhor deconstruction, stating that deconstructing a text deprives the text of meaning and ultimately dismisses the value of anything it touches. To those who use deconstruction, the answer to this criticism might be: “How does one define value? What is meaning?” Though this answer may frustrate critics of deconstruction, it points to the way in which deconstructionists see the text as a source of multiple meanings, determined very much by each reader's own subtexts and definitions. To reduce and reduce the meaning of a work may ultimately make it purposeless, say some critics. At its best, though, deconstruction can be helpful in unmasking huge contradictions present in a text.
Critics of deconstruction have also accused the...
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