TYPES OF LITERATURE THEORY

Literary analysis is a critical response to a literary text in the form of a critical essay or an oral
commentary. It includes a thorough interpretation of the work. Such analysis may be based from a
variety of critical approaches or movements, e.g. archetypal criticism, cultural criticism, feminist
criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, Marxist Criticism, New Criticism (formalism/structuralism), New
Historicism, post-structuralism, and reader-response criticism.

1. Archetypal Criticism

Archetypal criticism is a critical approach to literature that seeks to find and understand the purpose
of archetypes within literature. These archetypes may be themes, such as love, characterizations,
such as the hero; or patterns, such as death and rebirth. Archetypal criticism draws on the works of
the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, literary critic Northrop Frye, and others. Unlike psychoanalytic critics,
archetypal critics such as Frye do not attempt to explain why the archetypes exist.

Archetype: something that represents the essential elements of its category or class of things; the
word is Greek for “original pattern” from which all copies are made, a prototype. Certain themes of
human life (e.g. love, loss) character types (e.g. the rebel, the wise elder), animals (e.g. snake) and
patterns (e.g. the quest, the descent into the underworld) are considered to be archetypal, forming a
part of the collective unconscious (the sum of society’s inherited mental images). For example, a
character in a TV series who continuously changes careers might be said to be the archetypal
“seeker”.

2. Cultural Criticism

Cultural criticism is a recent movement in criticism that is interdisciplinary by extending the range of
examined texts beyond just the literary works themselves to objects or practices that can be
interpreted as representative of a culture’s beliefs, values, laws, for example. Practitioners of cultural
criticism view a text in relation to the dominant or competing ideologies (belief systems) of the time
and place in which the text was written. Works are therefore considered in light of their historical
and cultural contexts. For example, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness may be read in terms of
practices of European imperialists, race relations in Africa, or the economic history of ivory and
other raw products in the continent.

3. Feminist Criticism

Feminist Criticism is literary criticism based on feminist theories. It considers texts with the
knowledge that societies treat men and women inequitably. Feminist criticism will analyze texts in
light of patriarchal (male dominated) cultural institutions, phallocentric (male centred) language,
masculine and feminine stereotypes, and the unequal treatment of male and female writers. Feminist
criticism developed primarily in the 1960’s and 1970’s, although it is evident in earlier works as
well, for example in the works of Virginia Woolf and Mary Wollstonecraft. More recent feminist and
gender studies investigate social constructions related to gender as they appear in literature.
 4. Marxist Criticism

Based on the writings of Karl Marx (1818-1883) this school of thought contends that history and
culture is largely a struggle between economic classes, and literature is often a reflection of the
attitudes and interests of the dominant class. An often-repeated statement from Marx expresses a
basic idea specific to this form of criticism. “It’s not the consciousness of men that determines their
being, but on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness”.

5. New Criticism

New Criticism is a movement in literary criticism that proposes close reading and textual analysis of
the text itself. It is referred to as “New” because it operates contrary to the previously favoured focus
on the author’s biography, the historical context, and the perceived parallels between these and the
text. Practitioners focus on both the “external form” (e.g. ballad, ode) and the “internal forms” (e.g.
structure, repetition, patterns of figurative language, plot/content, syntax/diction, tone, mood,
context/setting, style, literary devices, theme). These practitioners reject consideration of the author’s
intention and the affect on the reader as illegitimate. The movement is also referred to
as formalism or structuralism.

6. New Historicism

New Historicism is a range of critical practices that examine works in their cultural and historical
contexts. Practitioners of the critical movement developed it by examining a wide range of texts such
as newspapers, advertisements, popular music, historical accounts, poetry, novels, and diaries.
Practitioners believe that works cannot be viewed in isolation from history and culture. A reading of
a work must take into account its intention, genre, and historical situation.

7. Post-structuralism

Post-structuralism refers to a critical approach to language, literature, and culture that questions or
criticizes structuralism. Like structuralists, post-structuralists rely on close readings of texts;
however, post-structuralists believe that language is inherently unstable in meaning and the meaning
of the texts is ultimately indecipherable. The best known post-structuralist approach is
deconstructionism.

8. Psychoanalytic Criticism

Psychoanalytic criticism is literary criticism grounded in psychoanalytic theory of the founder of

psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Practitioners attempt to psychoanalyze the author’s
unconscious desires, the reader’s responses, and the characters in the work. The last approach
involves examining the text for symbols and psychological complexes. In addition to Freud, key
figures are psychiatrist Carl Jung and, most recently, Jacques Lacan.

9. Reader-Response Criticism
Reader-response criticism is a critical approach that shifts the emphasis to the reader from the text or
the work’s author and context. This approach focuses on the individual reader’s evolving response to
the text. The readers, through their own values and experiences, “create” the meaning of the text and
therefore there is no one correct meaning.

When analyzing a text, from which a student will write a major paper, it is advised that the student
should first focus on the elements of a story: plot, setting, atmosphere, mood, character, theme and
title. The next logical approach is to look at the language (devices and patterns) and form of the text
(structure). Then the student might consider any of the following approaches such as New
Historicism, New Criticism, Archetypal Criticism or Cultural Criticism.

10. Intertextual theory

Intertextual theory is a study of text that involves other texts by searching and examining the
relationships contained in the text. According to Kristeva Intertekstual is the relationship of a text
with other texts. In each text is a mosaic of quotations, each text is an infiltration and transformation
of other texts. When the author writes, the author will take other text components as the basic
material to create his work. All of them are arranged and colored with adjustments, and if necessary
they may be added in order to become a complete work.

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5. Roman Jakobson: Distinctive features

Russian-born linguist and literary theorist Roman Jakobson had many influential ideas about
language; most remarkably, he changed the way scholars studied phonology, the sound structure of
language. Specifically, he proposed the idea of distinctive features, which suggests that all sounds of
speech are marked by binary contrasts which can be described and quantified. The difference
between “p” and “b”, for instance, is that “b” uses our vocal chords (it’s voiced), whereas “p” does
not (it’s unvoiced). Similarly, “b” and “m” are the same, except in “m”, air comes out of the nose
(it’s nasal), whereas in “b”, it does not (try it!). Though the idea of distinctive features has been
questioned in recent years, it allowed linguistics to classify the sounds of languages in an organized,
hierarchical structure, which had previously been impossible.

6. Edward Sapir (1884 - 1939): Linguistic relativity

 Edward Sapir was a linguistic anthropologist whose thorough classification of indigenous
American languages is still widely used today. Sapir is most famous, however, for a concept known
as linguistic relativity, which he developed with his student, Benjamin Whorf. This hypothesis, in its
strongest form, claims that the language one speaks drastically influences the way in which one
perceives the world. This hypothesis has been largely dismissed by modern linguists, but caused
significant discussion and consideration about the link between language and culture.

7. Paul Grice (1913 - 1988): Cooperative principle

Paul Grice is one of the most important contributors to pragmatics, which is the study of how
context contributes to meaning. His best-known idea is the cooperative principle, which breaks down
how people behave in conversations in order to enable effective communication. In general terms,
Grice articulates that speakers must be truthful, relevant, and unambiguous, and must say neither too
much nor too little. If a speaker violates one of these principles (known as “maxims” in Grice’s
terminology), communication is compromised. A classic example of a violation of the cooperative
principle is if somebody says to you, “I love you. Do you love me?” and you answer, “Yes.” This is
saying too little, which suggests that your answer might be a lie.

8. Eve Clark (1942 - ): First language acquisition

Users of Immersia are most likely interested in learning a second (or third, or fourth!)
language. However, in order to understand how it’s best to learn a second language, we must also
understand how we acquire our first language. Eve Clark is a pioneer in the field of first language
acquisition, and has revolutionized the way in which we understand how children pick up language.
From babbling to coherent conversation, Eve Clark proposes theories and cites evidence that sheds
insight into the mystifying topic of how children learn their first language so successfully and
efficiently. Ultimately, this information will help us understand how to maximize efficiency in
second language acquisition, too.

9. Steven Pinker (1954 - ): Popularizing linguistics

In his wildly popular books such as The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker argues for a
biological basis of language acquisition. As the title suggests, he proposes that language is an instinct
— a behavior which, like any other instinct, was formed by natural selection, and has adapted to suit
humans’ communicative needs throughout time. His accessible, fun-to-read books have made great
strides in popularizing the field of linguistics, and making it accessible to those outside the realm of
academia.

10. Paul S. Cohen

 Paul Sheldon Cohen (born February 24, 1941) is an American linguist (M.A. Columbia
University, 1970), who has been professionally active in language-related areas since 1963, when he
took a position as an editor on the Random House Dictionary of the English Language. From 1965 to
1967 he worked with William Labov and coauthored several reports on African American
Vernacular English.

He has spent the majority of his career (most of the period from 1968 to 2002) working
for IBM in such areas as automatic speech recognition, text-to-speech, and natural language
processing as a Research Staff Member, and also in development (Senior Computational Linguist)
and strategy (Program Manager, Speech Technology). During that period, in addition to a stint as
Senior Product Developer / Linguist (2000 to 2001) at Net2Phone, Inc., he also held various editorial
and consulting positions (inside and outside IBM), and was a member of the committee that
formulated the original Electric Company television series.

Cohen holds seven patents in various areas of speech processing. Since 2002, he has been a
consultant and independent researcher, and has published several articles in the fields of Indo-
European studies and English etymology and philology.