LITERARY THEORY: AN OVERVIEW
(adapted from The Norton Introduction to Literature, shorter 12th ed.)
EMPHASIS ON SOURCE———————————————————————————————————–
BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM—(popular 1750s-1960s), emphasis on the artistic expression/agency of a work, the author is the ultimate authority, a look at how the author’s biographical information may have affected the work (as a whole or in part).
PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM—emphasis on mental and emotional effects within literature such as dreamlike imagery, rarely focuses on the form of the text—they tend to focus on hidden meanings/agendas behind the author or a source behind the character.
EMPHASIS ON READER————————————————————————————————————
READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM—“regard the work not as what is printed on the page but as what is experienced temporally through each act of reading”, “the reader effectively performs the text into existence the way a musician performs music from a score”, identifies reader’s expectations, how they are met/satisfied/interpreted, could possibly bring in political identities because of the potency of literature to shape and be shaped by human experiences.
HISTORICAL/IDEOLOGICAL CRITICISM—————————————————————————————-
MARXIST CRITICISM—(20th century-present, Karl Marx), “literary works were economically determined”(bourgeois, working-class, etc.), most useful within the novel because it tends to be more apt to express socioeconomic sensibilities, critique of oppression.
FEMINIST CRITICISM—(1790s-present, founders could be women such as Mary Wollstonecraft, important critics: Gilbert and Gubar), another critique of oppression: of the female identity/inequality within literature, the woman portrayed as the inferior “Other” by patriarchal systems.
GENDER STUDIES/QUEER THEORY—(1970s-present, Judith Butler, etc.), another critique of oppression, looks at homosexual representation/analysis within literature, sexuality as a performative identity, “gender as a discourse that imposed binary social norms on human beings’ diversity”.
POSTCOLONIAL CRITICISM—(20th century-present, Edward Said), another critique of oppression: the colonized person who is stripped of any agency/power, “Western culture feminized and objectified the East”, concerns texts that have been published after colonized countries have gained “independence”, and it explores the complications with identity that have ensued.
ECO-CRITICISM—(Romantic Movement, esp.), the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment, critics examine the various ways literature treats the subject of nature.
EMPHASIS ON THE TEXT———————————————————————————————————-
NEW CRITICISM—(popular 1920s-1970s, mostly British/American), looks at “the intrinsic qualities of a unified literary work” rather than the ideals of the author or the reader, “The text […] refers to itself: its medium is its message”, looks at objective things such as the title, style, words, order of ideas/lines, etc.
STRUCTURALISM—(mostly French, Ferdinand de Saussure), “drawn to scientific objectivity and at the same time wary of political commitment”, “sought an objective system for studying the principles of language”, “study shared systems of meaning, such as genres or myths that pass from one country or period to another, rather than a certain poem in isolation (i.e. New Criticism)”, “arbitrary association between a word and what it is said to signify –[…] between signifier and signified.”, a text is considered a network of conventions.
POSTSTRUCTURALISM—(mostly French, German), relativist, “philosophical position that attacks the objective, universalizing claims of most fields of knowledge since the eighteenth century.”, “doubt the possibilities of certainties of any kind, since language signifies only through a chain of other words rather than through any fundamental link to reality”, argued against separate equality of dualisms (such as masculine/feminine, mind/body, light/dark, etc.)—rather, that they are easily manipulated.
DECONSTRUCTION—(Jacques Derrida), “insists on the logical impossibility of knowledge that is not influenced or biased by the words used to express it”, “language is incapable of representing any sort of reality directly”, irresolvable doubt (aphoria) is the desired result from interpreting a text, creative power of language> creative power of author, begins to feature the role of the reader as well.