Schleter 1

Brooke Schleter
Dr. Michael Kearns
ENG 448.001
Defense of Literary Theory
04/28/2015
Why Study Literary Theory?
Literary theory is a topic often feared and loathed by English majors. As a
whole, some have dismissed it as an irrelevant field of study, arguing that it does not
provide a complete interpretation of a text, has little practical application outside
academia, and even that its practice depreciates the value of a text (Phillips). The
basis for these arguments is absolutely relevant. An individuals ability to hold an
educated opinion and understanding of a work of literature does not, by any means,
hinge on his or her mastery of literary theory. Literary theory will never provide a
reader with any concrete answers about a work, nor will it even provide a set of
possible answers based on concrete evidence. If it were possible to objectively define
literature or to understand its exact meaning with any degree of certainty, then literary
theory would cease to exist. Literature would be classified as easily and as scientifically
as leaves on a particular tree. Because this is not the case, it is my argument that
literature is impossible to define and that to study literary theory is to understand
literature from multiple perspectives, thereby freeing an individual to create their own
unique way of reading and understanding a text.
Literature was once seen by the Formalists as a set of deviations from a norm,
as a 'special' kind of language, in contrast to the 'ordinary' language we commonly
use, (Eagleton). By this definition, literature is any text that goes beyond the way in

Schleter 2
which people normally speak or is written in a unique form. If this were true, much of
the packaging on shampoo bottles would be considered literature. Because package
labels are not considered literature by the majority (and also because they could be
considered literature by some) the Formalists definition does not work.
The definition of literature as a collection of quality pieces of writing does not
work for the same reason. There is a great deal of debate about what quality pieces of
literature are, and there are thousands of well-written works that are never recognized
as literature. There is no definition in existence to which all scholars of literature can
nod their heads in agreement, because the very nature of literature is that its reception
is subjective. Literature is whatever your interpretive community says that it is, noted
Dr. Paul Fry, in his 2009 open lecture series on literary theory (Introduction). The
reason he uses the term interpretive community is because individuals do not decide
of their own accord what they deem to be literature without any external influences.
This judgement is based on the historical, political, social, and economical context in
which the reader exists. For example, the reason that I feel uncomfortable with some
of the language used in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is because I am reading from a
historical context that does not tolerate racism and a social context that finds the
language used in the novel extremely offensive. Readers from a century ago clearly did
not share my sentiment, because the novel was not dismissed by their age and has
been canonized as great literature. This is due to the fact that their interpretive
community influenced a different reception of the text than mine would if the novel
were first published today.

Schleter 3
These influences are so deeply embedded into the human experience that both
authors and readers can be completely submerged in the ideology of their time without
even having an awareness of it or control over it. That is why literary theory is
essential. All works of literature are created and read by real human beings with
uniquely complex lives, ideas, and experiences that are produced by socioeconomic,
political and historical conditions. Choosing not to study literary theory does not, by
any means, emancipate an individual from already having their own. To study literary
theory is to gain an awareness of the fact that much of what a person believes to be
their own thoughts are often not really theirs. They are merely a reproduction of the
ideologies of their society. This affects the way people create and interpret literature.
The study of literary theory exposes these influences, and it enables readers to explore
and further develop their own personal literary theory.
For example, reading Samuel Becketts All That Fall from a Marxist perspective
provides a completely different insight into the text than reading the same play from a
feminist perspective. This is true of each of the different literary theories.
Feminist criticism would challenge phallocentric details within the play in order to
include the female voice. For example, Mrs. Rooneys flirtatious behavior toward the
men who offer her a ride to the train station, and specifically her willingness to accept a
ride only from the man in a limousine, suggests that Mrs. Rooney is shallow and driven
by prestige and monetary gain. Because Mrs. Rooneys actions are depicted as being
normal within the play and are never challenged, the text is suggesting that this
behavior is typical of all women. Mrs. Rooney is extremely talkative, another negative

Schleter 4
stereotype of women, and the fact that what she has to say is consistently dismissed
and oversimplified by the men in the play reflects the patriarchal setting of the play.
A Marxist critic would make note of the commodification that occurs when Mrs.
Rooney accepts a ride from Mr. Slocum because he is driving a limousine, but rejects
transportation from Christys cart full of manure and Mr. Tylers bicycle. All three
modes of transportation would get her to the train station, but she values the limousine
for its power to impress others. Marxism would also tell us that the hopelessness that
the characters display when they burst into laughter after hearing Psalm 145:14 is
driven by the fact that they are the proletariat masses being ruled by the Bourgeoisie.
It would also suggest that the characters, while clearly unhappy, are not doing anything
to correct the system. They are not coerced, but rather they are consenting to the
oppressive system that theyre in, and attempting to utilize religion as a Band-Aid for it.
Having multiple interpretations of a single text is valuable regardless of the time
the text was written or what kind of text it is. Using multiple approaches to Faulkners
Barn Burning can also help a reader to create a more thorough understanding of a
text.
A new historicist, for example, would view Barn Burning as a product and
maker of complex and sometimes conflicting historical forces (Dobie). As I wrote in
my Notes on New Historicism earlier in the semester, while a traditional historicist
would use this text to tell a story that fits in with the master narrative, a new historicist
would use the text to try to get a snapshot that includes as many people in it as
possible during a given moment in time. They want to obtain the discourses of

Schleter 5
everyone living at a given period of time in order to expose them where they are
ignored in the master narrative. Even after as many discourses are obtained as
possible, new historicists still do not claim to have found the truth, because they
believe that due to the multiple biases in recorders, readers, and interpreters, actual
historical truth can never be found. So, when reading Barn Burning they might ask,
Well, how big of a deal was it to burn someones barn at that time? In order to
answer this, they would look into historical records, the price of barns at the time in
relation to an individuals income, and court cases that were filed related to barn
burning. They would also ask What does this short story tell us about the way that
Faulkners interpretive community perceived the events that took place in the story?
Answering this question would help researchers learn Faulkners possible authorial
intent, which would tell them about the culture he was writing for.
Reader response critics say that without the reader, a text is no more than words
on paper, so in a reader response interpretation of Barn Burning, one might delve into
the receptionist category of reader response and ask How do readers of Barn Burning
today perceive the text compared to how it was perceived by its audience when it was
first written? They would then ask present day readers and historical readers (based
on critical reviews of the text written at that time) if the events fall into a pattern that
they have seen before, how it relates to their previous experience with the genre, and
what parts of the story cause the reader to experience confusion, disagreement,
approval, or another feeling. Reader response in general would ask the same questions
of different readers within the same time period as well in order to expose differences.

Schleter 6
If I were doing a reader response approach to the text, I would note the frustration
that I felt toward Abner Snopes and the discomfort that I felt when he hit his son. I felt
generally sympathetic towards the whole family and despair in the fact that the Snopes
family was following a constant cycle of crime, barn burning, and new town.
In reading a poem, a reader might choose to take on a new critics perspective in
order to find the relationship between the content of the poem and the structure in
which it was written. For example, in Jorie Grahams Existence and Presence a new
critic would ignore Grahams authorial intent, which they call the intentional fallacy, and
ignore the readers interpretation of the text, which they call the intentional fallacy.
They argue that neither the author nor the readers thought process and interpretation
can provide an accurate interpretation of a text, and they seek to find one single
accurate interpretation. Viewing this poem through the scope of new criticism enables
readers to see an otherwise difficult to comprehend poem broken down into
understandable and concrete parts that relate to the form in which they were written.
This approach allows a reader to determine that the poem is a series of thoughts and
phrases that fit a particular theme, but it does not have a defined overall meaning.
They would note that it consists of 18 lines written in free verse with a stream-ofconsciousness writing style. The lack of authorially stated meaning is conveyed in the
diction and literary devices of the poem as well as the actual structure and rhythm. The
lines that read I think I feel my thinking-self and how it \ stands, are the only lines
that have a defined rhythm in the poem. The fact that they are surrounded by lines

Schleter 7
with mixed rhythm reflects the content of the poem which has a few phrases of
absolute clarity surrounded by ambiguous meaning and irregular sentence structure.
In reading the same poem, a structuralist would either try to find a pattern
among it and several other literary works, or it would attempt to match the poem to a
particular structural system. They would look at Northrop Fryes theories of modes,
symbols, myths and genres to analyze the poem to classify it or find a pattern. They
might classify Existence and Presence into the genre of verse, but note that its lack of
rhythmic pattern sets it apart from a lot of poetry, subcategorizing it into free verse.
Even in the subcategory of free verse, the poem doesnt have a defined meaning as
most free verse poems do, but rather Graham seeks to invoke feelings for her readers,
giving them an abstract experience of images and symbols, rather than using the
stanzas to ultimately make a point. Understanding that there is no defined meaning
would be a rule of interpretation that a reader must follow in order to make sense of
the text. Reading the text from this perspective allows readers to see where this poem
falls into the category of genre, how it sets itself apart from its genre, and how the
meaning of its words are only defined by their relation to other words and the meaning
of the poem as a whole is defined by how it compares to other poetry.
Of the literary theories mentioned above, six different possible interpretations of
a text were mentioned, but there are far more than six fields of literary theory, all of
which interpret literature differently. When a reader perceives a text on his or her own
without any prior knowledge of literary theory, he or she might only been seeing the
text from a single perspective. This perspective is largely formed by the ideologies of

Schleter 8
his or her interpretive community and perhaps values gained through personal
experiences. While this can still lead to an understanding of a literary text and an
interpretation of it, the interpretation can be mistaken as one uniquely created by the
reader, when in actuality, it is forced upon them based on their socioeconomic, political,
and cultural influences, often without the readers knowledge or control. Gaining an
understanding of the ways in which these influences affect a readers interpretation,
and making an effort to understand multiple points of view is what the study of literary
theory seeks to accomplish. The purpose of studying all of these theories is so that a
reader can dismiss every single one of them in the pursuit of exploring and further
developing their own. In doing so, the act of reading can become more personal,
interesting, and uniquely an individual experience, and readers can take comfort in
knowing that the way they interpret not only literature, but also the world around them,
isnt a mere product of their surroundings, but rather a way of reading and perceiving
that they have chosen on their own.

Schleter 9
Works Cited
Dobie, Ann B. Theory into Practice: An Introduction to Literary Criticism. 4th ed.
Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2015. Print.
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Second ed. Minneapolis: U of
Minnesota, 1983. Print.
Introduction. Perf. Dr. Paul Frye. YouTube. Yale Courses, 1 Sept. 2009. Web. 26 Apr.
2015.
Phillips, John. "What Is Literary Theory and Do We Need to Study It." Course Web
Page of John Phillips. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.