FORMALISM

Formalism. Formalism is an early twentieth century mode of criticism that has its roots in Russian
Formalism or the work of linguists such as Roman Osipovich Jakobson, and a group of linguists and critics
who formed the society Opuyaz or the Society for the Study of Poetical Language in 1915.

Formalism, also called Russian Formalism, innovative 20th-century Russian school of literary criticism. It
began in two groups: OPOYAZ, an acronym for Russian words meaning Society for the Study of Poetic
Language, founded in 1916 at St. Petersburg (later Leningrad) and led by Viktor Shklovsky; and the
Moscow Linguistic Circle, founded in 1915. Other members of the groups included Osip Brik, Boris
Eikhenbaum, Yury Tynianov, and Boris Tomashevsky.

A formalist approach is one that studies a text as a text and nothing more. For example, a formalist
reading of a poem would focus on its rhythms, rhymes, cadences, and structure. It would not seek to
locate the poem in a wider political or cultural context except insofar as it helped to improve the reader's
understanding of the text itself.

STRUCTURALISM

A movement of thought in the humanities, widespread in anthropology, linguistics, and literary theory,
and influential in the 1950s and ’60s. Based primarily on the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure,
structuralism considered language as a system of signs and signification, the elements of which are
understandable only in relation to each other and to the system. In literary theory, structuralism
challenged the belief that a work of literature reflected a given reality; instead, a text was constituted of
linguistic conventions and situated among other texts. Structuralist critics analyzed material by
examining underlying structures, such as characterization or plot, and attempted to show how these
patterns were universal and could thus be used to develop general conclusions about both individual
works and the systems from which they emerged. The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss was an
important champion of structuralism, as was Roman Jakobsen. Northrop Frye’s attempts to categorize
Western literature by archetype had some basis in structuralist thought. Structuralism regarded language
as a closed, stable system, and by the late 1960s it had given way to poststructuralism.

PSYCHOANALYTIC

The psychoanalytic literary criticism is influenced by psychoanalysis and the tradition begun by Sigmund
Freud. This approach to literary criticism not only rests on the theories of Freud; it may even be said to
have begun with Freud, who wrote literary criticism as well as psychoanalytic theory.

The first aspect of the psychoanalytic criticism begins with the analysis of a particularly interesting
character in a work. The fictional characters should be evaluated based on the interpretive process of
Freudian concepts: Oedipus complex, Freudian slips, Id, ego, and superego and dreams if given in the
material.

This type of criticism helps in understanding difficult symbols, actions, metaphors, and settings in a
literary work. However, as in all forms of criticism, there are limitations. Many psychoanalysts believe
that this approach applies to any literary work. Yet, most critics argue that no one approach can
adequately explain everything about a complex work.

Freud’s theory cannot be the only approach used in literary criticism. A great work cannot be placed in
one slot because it may have a more than one approach needed to fully understand the work.

MYTHOLOGICAL/ARCHETYPAL CRITICISM

written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer, was the first influential text dealing with
cultural mythologies. Frazer was part of a group of comparative anthropologists working out of
Cambridge University who worked extensively on the topic.

The Difference between mythological and archetypal criticism:

MYTHOLOGICAL CRITICISM:

Has references to famous mythological stories in works of literature

These references are included in the hopes of getting a universal reactions from all readers

It is similar to a psychological approach because it also is concerned with the things that underlie human
behavior

Myths are symbolic of people’s hopes fears, values, and other philosophical ideas.

ARCHETYPAL CRITICISM:

· First of all, archetypes are similar ideas, motifs, and images found in many different myths

· Normally defined as “universal symbols"

· Examples of archetypes are images (such as water, sun, certain colors or numbers, circles, the
serpent, garden, tree, desert) “the hero,” "the earth mother", "the soul mate," "the trickster," motifs or
pattern, and genres

Using Mythological and Archetypal Criticism:

Unlike the more traditional form of criticism that focuses on the history of the author and the piece
itself, mythological and archetypal focuses on the history of the gods, goddesses, and other allusions
mentions in the piece that involve mythology. Reason for this approach:

Only recently was the proper means to use this type of criticism through the studies of anthropology,
psychology, and cultural history

Many are skeptical of this approach, since it appears to lean towards the occult
There is also much confusion over the definitions of the objects in the actual myths, and the fact that
people are more interested in concrete ideas

Three Different Facets of Mythological and Archetypal Criticism:

Anthropology: Anthropological studies began to advance at the end of the 19th century, and has been
one of the biggest influences on mythological criticism. They study of anthropology have a new
understanding to the Greek myths, which are the most well known and often used allusions.

Jungian Psychology: C.G. Jung was a student of Freud and psychologist and philosopher, who came up
with many new insights to archetypes. Jung felt that Freud’s approach was too narrow. He contributed
to this criticism approach through his theory of racial memory and archetypes. He felt that archetypes
were not inherited ideas, but a response to certain stimuli. Myths are ways to show archetypes (ideas)
in an actual form.

The American Dream: The idea of the “American Dream,” which is relatively new, is considered to be
myth in many ways. The characters created by American authors represent different aspects, both good
and bad, of the American Dream. The myth comes from the Myth of Edenic Possibilities, which involves
the idea of creating a second paradise.

FEMINISM

Feminist criticism is a form of literary criticism that's based on feminist theories. Broadly, it's understood
to be concerned with the politics of feminism, and it uses feminist principles to critique the male-
dominated literature.

Feminist criticism's roots are in women's social, political, economic and psychological oppression. By
seeking to view women in a new perspective and discover women's contributions to literary history,
feminist criticism aims to reinterpret the old texts and establish the importance of women's writing to
save it from being lost or ignored in the male-dominated world. It also seeks to establish female
perspectives as being of equal importance relative to male perspectives.

First Wave Feminism: Men's Treatment of Women

In this early stage of feminist criticism, critics consider male novelists' demeaning treatment or
marginalisation of female characters. First wave feminist criticism includes books like Marry Ellman's
Thinking About Women (1968) Kate Millet's Sexual Politics (1969), and Germaine Greer's The Female
Eunuch (1970). An example of first wave feminist literary analysis would be a critique of William
Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew for Petruchio's abuse of Katherina.

Second Wave Feminism: Gynocriticism

Elaine Showalter pioneered gynocriticism with her book A Literature of Their Own (1977). Gynocriticism
involves three major aspects. The first is the examination of female writers and their place in literary
history. The second is the consideration of the treatment of female characters in books by both male and
female writers. The third and most important aspect of gynocriticism is the discovery and exploration of
a canon of literature written by women; gynocriticism seeks to appropriate a female literary tradition. In
Showalter's A Literature of Their Own, she proposes the following three phases of women's writing:

The 'Feminine' Phase - in the feminine phase, female writers tried to adhere to male values, writing as
men, and usually did not enter into debate regarding women's place in society. Female writers often
employed male pseudonyms during this period.

The 'Feminist' Phase - in the feminist phase, the central theme of works by female writers was the
criticism of the role of women in society and the oppression of women.

The 'Female' Phase - during the 'female' phase, women writers were no longer trying to prove the
legitimacy of a woman's perspective. Rather, it was assumed that the works of a women writer were
authentic and valid. The female phase lacked the anger and combative consciousness of the feminist
phase.

EXISTENTIALISM

Existentialism in its currently recognizable form was developed by the 19th Century Danish philosopher
Søren Kierkegaard and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, although neither actually used the
term in their work. The Phenomenology of Martin Heidegger was another important influence on the
later development of the movement. It can be argued that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Arthur
Schopenhauer were also important influences on the development of Existentialism, if only due to
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche's opposition to Hegelianism and German Idealism.

The Phenomenologist Martin Heidegger was an important philosopher in the movement, especially his
influential 1927 work "Being and Time", although he vehemently denied being an Existentialist in the
Sartrean sense. Other major influences include Max Stirner (1806 - 1856), Karl Jaspers (1883 - 1969) and
Edmund Husserl, and writers like the Russian Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881) and the Czech Franz Kafka
(1883 - 1924).

Existentialism is a movement in philosophy and literature that emphasizes individual existence, freedom
and choice. It began in the mid-to-late 19th Century, but reached its peak in mid-20th Century France. It
is based on the view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions
despite existing in an irrational universe. It focuses on the question of human existence, and the feeling
that there is no purpose or explanation at the core of existence. It holds that, as there is no God or any
other transcendent force, the only way to counter this nothingness (and hence to find meaning in life) is
by embracing existence.

MARXISM

Marxism

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was primarily a theorist and historian (less the evil pinko commie demon that
McCarthyism fretted about). After examining social organization in a scientific way (thereby creating a
methodology for social science: political science), he perceived human history to have consisted of a
series of struggles between classes--between the oppressed and the oppressing. Whereas Freud saw
"sexual energy" to be the motivating factor behind human endeavor and Nabokov seemed to feel artistic
impulse was the real factor, Marx thought that "historical materialism" was the ultimate driving force, a
notion involving the distribution of resources, gain, production, and such matters.

The supposedly "natural" political evolution involved (and would in the future involve) "feudalism"
leading to "bourgeois capitalism" leading to "socialism" and finally to "utopian communism." In
bourgeois capitalism, the privileged bourgeoisie rely on the proletariat--the labor force responsible for
survival. Marx theorized that when profits are not reinvested in the workers but in creating more
factories, the workers will grow poorer and poorer until no short-term patching is possible or successful.
At a crisis point, revolt will lead to a restructuring of the system.

According to Marxists, and to other scholars in fact, literature reflects those social institutions out of
which it emerges and is itself a social institution with a particular ideological function. Literature reflects
class struggle and materialism: think how often the quest for wealth traditionally defines characters. So
Marxists generally view literature "not as works created in accordance with timeless artistic criteria, but
as 'products' of the economic and ideological determinants specific to that era" (Abrams 149). Literature
reflects an author's own class or analysis of class relations, however piercing or shallow that analysis may
be.

The Marxist critic simply is a careful reader or viewer who keeps in mind issues of power and money, and
any of the following kinds of questions:

What role does class play in the work; what is the author's analysis of class relations?

How do characters overcome oppression?

In what ways does the work serve as propaganda for the status quo; or does it try to undermine it?

What does the work say about oppression; or are social conflicts ignored or blamed elsewhere?

Does the work propose some form of utopian vision as a solution to the problems encountered in the
work?

REALISM

Realism is a movement in art, which started in the mid nineteenth century in France, and later spread to
the entire world. Realism entered literature at almost at the same time. Its real objective was to root out
what is called fantastic and romantic in literature and art, to insert what is real.

In literature, writers use realism as a literary technique to describe story elements, such as setting,
characters, themes, etc., without using elaborate imagery, or figurative language, such as similes and
metaphors. Through realism, writers explain things without decorative language or sugar-coating the
events. Realism is something opposite to romanticism and idealism.
In general, realism in art and literature refers to the attempt to represent familiar and everyday people
and situations in an accurate, unidealized manner. More specifically, the term "realism" refers to a
literary and artistic movement of the late 1800's and early 1900's. This movement was a reaction against
romanticism. Romanticism was an earlier movement that presented the world in much more idealized
terms.

Almost every work of literature has some degree of realism. This is because it is important for readers to
recognize and identify with the characters and the world they inhabit. But realism as a distinct style and
literary movement dates back to France in the early 1800's. That was when authors began writing works
that possessed several unique characteristics: The stories, or plots, were simple and were secondary to
the characters; the characters tended to be from the lower or middle class and spoke as people really
did, not in poetic language; and the author's voice, such as in comments or asides, was rarely (if ever)
heard. Honoré de Balzac led the way with his masterwork, The Human Comedy (1824-47). In this series
of novels and stories, the lives of every class of people come alive on the pages through long, lively
descriptions. His plots, however, retained the romantic quality of melodrama. Gustave Flaubert's
Madame Bovary (1857) was the first major work to fully embrace the realist style. It provided a frank,
true-to-life portrayal of a woman seeking to escape her boring life through romantic involvements. This
was shocking to readers of its day.

Great realist works in English literature include George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871-72) and the novels of
Thomas Hardy. In the United States, realism was a popular style from the mid-1800's to about 1900.
Among its practitioners were William Dean Howells (The Rise of Silas Lapham, 1885) and Henry James
(The Portrait of a Lady, 1881). Great Russian works of realism include Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons
(1862) and Leo Tolstoi's War and Peace (1869).

NATURALISM

The term naturalism describes a type of literature that attempts to apply scientific principles of
objectivity and detachment to its study of human beings. Unlike realism, which focuses on literary
technique, naturalism implies a philosophical position: for naturalistic writers, since human beings are, in
Emile Zola's phrase, "human beasts," characters can be studied through their relationships to their
surroundings. Zola's 1880 description of this method in Le roman experimental (The Experimental Novel,
1880) follows Claude Bernard's medical model and the historian Hippolyte Taine's observation that
"virtue and vice are products like vitriol and sugar"--that is, that human beings as "products" should be
studied impartially, without moralizing about their natures. Other influences on American naturalists
include Herbert Spencer and Joseph LeConte.

Naturalism is a literary genre that started as a movement in late nineteenth century in literature, film,
theater, and art. It is a type of extreme realism. This movement suggested the roles of family, social
conditions, and environment in shaping human character. Thus, naturalistic writers write stories based
on the idea that environment determines and governs human character.
We also see use of some of the scientific principles in naturalistic works, and humans struggling for
survival in hostile and alien society. In fact, naturalism took its cue from Darwin’s theory of evolution,
which holds that life is like a struggle and only the fittest survive.

Naturalism vs. Realism

Both naturalism and realism are literary genres and interlinked. However, there are some differences
between them:

Naturalism suggests a philosophical pessimism in which writers use scientific techniques to depict
human beings as objective and impartial characters; whereas realism focuses on literary technique.

Realism depicts things as they appear, while naturalism portrays a deterministic view of a character’s
actions and life.

Naturalism concludes that natural forces predetermine a character’s decisions, making him/her act in a
particular way. Realism poses that a decision of a character comes from his response to a certain
situation.

QUEER THEORY AND GENDER STUDIES

Gender studies and queer theory explore issues of sexuality, power, and marginalized populations
(woman as other) in literature and culture. Much of the work in gender studies and queer theory, while
influenced by feminist criticism, emerges from post-structural interest in fragmented, de-centered
knowledge building (Nietzsche, Derrida, Foucault), language (the breakdown of sign-signifier), and
psychoanalysis (Lacan).

A primary concern in gender studies and queer theory is the manner in which gender and sexuality is
discussed: "Effective as this work [feminism] was in changing what teachers taught and what the
students read, there was a sense on the part of some feminist critics that...it was still the old game that
was being played, when what it needed was a new game entirely. The argument posed was that in order
to counter patriarchy, it was necessary not merely to think about new texts, but to think about them in
radically new ways" (Richter 1432).

Many critics working with gender and queer theory are interested in the breakdown of binaries such as
male and female, the in-betweens (also following Derrida's interstitial knowledge building). For example,
gender studies and queer theory maintains that cultural definitions of sexuality and what it means to be
male and female are in flux: "...the distinction between "masculine" and "feminine" activities and
behavior is constantly changing, so that women who wear baseball caps and fatigues...can be perceived
as more piquantly sexy by some heterosexual men than those women who wear white frocks and gloves
and look down demurely" (Richter 1437).

Moreover, Richter reminds us that as we learn more about our genetic structure, the biology of
male/female becomes increasingly complex and murky: "even the physical dualism of sexual genetic
structures and bodily parts breaks down when one considers those instances - XXY syndromes, natural
sexual bimorphisms, as well as surgical transsexuals - that defy attempts at binary classification" (1437).

Links:

Psychoanalytic Criticism, public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/psycho.crit.html.

Mythological and Archetypal Criticism, ragingdove12603.tripod.com/id11.html.

Marxist Criticism, public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/marxist.crit.html.

“A Brief Guide to Formalist Criticism: How to Go About It - A Research Guide.” A Research Guide for
Students, 21 Aug. 2018, www.aresearchguide.com/formalist-criticism-a-guide.html.

“A Guide into Feminist Theories and Criticism.” A Research Guide for Students, 23 Aug. 2018,
www.aresearchguide.com/feminist-theories.html.

“A Guide to Psychoanalytic Criticism.” A Research Guide for Students, 30 Aug. 2018,

www.aresearchguide.com/psychoanalytic-criticism.html.

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Formalism.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia

Britannica, Inc., 25 Feb. 2016, www.britannica.com/art/Formalism-literary-criticism. “Existentialism.”
Existentialism - By Movement / School - The Basics of Philosophy,
www.philosophybasics.com/movements_existentialism.html.

“Feminist Approaches to Literature.” Feminist Approaches to Literature | Great Writers Inspire,

writersinspire.org/content/feminist-approaches-literature. “Literary Realism.” The Reading Experience,
www.thereadingexperience.net/the_reading_experience/2004/08/i_have_some_pro.html.

“Naturalism - Examples and Definition of Naturalism.” Literary Devices, 1 Oct. 2017,

literarydevices.net/naturalism/. Purdue Writing Lab. “Gender Studies and Queer Theory // Purdue
Writing Lab.” Purdue Writing Lab,
owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/literary_theory_and_schools_of_cri
ticism/gender_studies_and_queer_theory.html.

“Structuralism.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-

terms/structuralism.