Andrzej Diniejko Introduction to Literary Studies

5 Literary study Theories of Literature Literary Criticism

Literary study
The

study of literature or literary study is an essential component of humanistic or liberal education.

Literary study
It

is based on a systematic accumulation of literary knowledge, literary analysis, interpretation and evaluation of works of literature.

Literary study
Literary

study involves analysis and interpretation, i.e. a search for meaning which helps students of literature to understand better not only literature but also the world around them.

Intrinsic & extrinsic approach

Students

or critics of literature may assume two opposite approaches to the study of literature: the intrinsic and the extrinsic approach.

Intrinsic or formalistic approach

When

they analyse and interpret particular works of literature without reference to their historical context or to the life of the author, this approach is called intrinsic or formalistic.

Extrinsic approach
When

they relate works of literature to historical, economic or psychological contexts, such an approach is called extrinsic.

Theory of literature
Literary

study is based on a theory or theories of literature, i.e. a system/systems of categories, norms, principles, concepts and methods of analysis and interpretation of literary texts.

Briefly, we may reduce theories of literature to three general types:

The

imitative theory The expressive theory The affective theory

The imitative theory

According to the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC), the author of the earliest literary theory, which was formulated in his Poetics, art is an imitation of something.

Mimesis
The

Greek word for imitation is mimesis, a central term in aesthetic and literary theory since Aristotle. A literary work that is understood to be reproducing an external reality or any aspect of it is described as mimetic.

Mimesis

Mimesis carries a wide range of meanings, which include: imitation, representation, mimicry, the act of resembling, the act of expression, and the presentation of the self. Mimesis has been theorised by Plato, Aristotle, Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Erich Auerbach.

Mimetic criticism
Mimetic

criticism is the kind of criticism that assumes or insists that literary works reflect or imitate reality.

Mimetic criticism
Mimetic criticism studies works of literature with reference to external reality. Mimetic criticism views a literary work as a true imitation, reflection or representation of the world and human life.

Mimetic theory

Following the tenet of mimetic theory, we can conclude that Shakespeare imitated earlier authors and real life events.

Mimetic theory
However,

he did not merely imitate them; he recreated facts and characters and presented them to spectators and readers in a way in which they could perceive those facts and characters more fully and then derive certain truths about life in general.

Mimetic theory
After

reading a work of literature, we may feel that we have achieved an understanding of some phenomena or problems, therefore, we feel wiser.

The expressive theory

A significant shift from the imitative to expressive theory of literature occurred in Romanticism.

The expressive theory

William Wordsworth (17701850), the English Romantic poet, wrote in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1802) that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.

The expressive theory

He

claimed that a poet must not imitate or recreate reality as it actually is, but that he must express what he feels about it.

The expressive theory

In other words, literature should be rather an expression of the authors inward world than the outward one.

The expressive theory

Thus the expressive theory views literature as the product of some inner creative process. The expressive theory arose from a reaction to the excesses of Neoclassicism, which undermined the inner creative life of the poet.

The affective theory The affective theory deals with the effect of a work of literature rather than its creation. It holds that a work of literature ought to arouse a particular emotion or affect in the reader.

The affective theory

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), the outstanding Russian novelist, is credited with saying: Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings and also experience them.

Approaches to literature
Apart from a general theory of literature we should also be familiar with various practical approaches to literature. Practical or applied criticism of literature offers discussion of particular works of literature, literary movements, schools and genres.

Critical approaches Literary texts can be viewed from a variety of standpoints. Critical approaches to literature reveal how or why a particular work is constructed and what its social and cultural implications are.

Mimetic or naturalistic approach to literary study.

Mimetic

or naturalistic approach suggests that the role of literature is to give an accurate and fair representation of the world.

The mimetic or naturalistic approach

The mimetic or naturalistic approach was advocated by many writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, among others by Emile Zola in France, Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser in the USA, and George Moore and Arnold Bennet in England.

Historical / biographical approach

The historical / biographical approach relies on the information about the authors life and his world.

Historical/biographical aproach
According

to this approach, a literary work reflects the contemporary beliefs, opinions and prejudices of the author and his times.

Historical/biographical aproach
In

order to understand a literary work, the reader has to know the author and his time well, although it must be remembered that a work of literature is not a direct representation of his life and experiences.

Moral/philosophical approach
The moral / philosophical approach proposes that the aim of literature is to instruct. Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the English man of letters, believed that literature might help to make the world better.

Moral/philosophical approach

A hundred years later, Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), a poet and critic, supported Dr Johnsonss view. He thought that literature was a criticism of life and a guide to a deeper humanity, dignity and pathos.

Leavis, Holbrook, Walsh

In the 20th century, a group of critics, such as F. R. Leavis, David Holbrook, William Walsh and many others, saw literature as a civilising force.

Leavis, Holbrook, Walsh

The above-mentioned critics took a so-called moral or philosophical approach to literature, which implies that literature should be appreciated and enjoyed as a specific intellectual experience.

Moral/philosophical approach This approach is useful only for some literary works. For example, it can be applied to the analysis of the novels of Thomas Hardy and Joseph Conrad, but it will be ineffective for such works as James Joyces

Ulysses.

Sectarian approach
An extreme case of the moral / philosophical approach is, however, the sectarian approach or sectarianism. For example, some critics will seek proof of views which the author did not share.

Sectarian aproach Some Marxist critics, for example, tended to see the representation of class struggle in almost all great works of literature. Such diverse authors as Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy were perceived by Marxist critics as champions of the proletariat.

Aesthetic approach
The

aesthetic approach postulates to treat literature as an experience which enables the reader to escape from everyday routine in order to enjoy the more colourful and sublime aspects of life.

Aesthetic approach
The

aesthetic approach also holds that literature, and art in general, is self-sufficient and has no other purpose than its own.

Literary criticism
Literary

criticism is a study, analysis and evaluation of literary works done by specialists.

Literary criticism

It includes genre classification, analysis of the structure and style of a literary work, interpretation of meaning, comparison and evaluation of different literary works, etc.

Interpretation of literature
Reading

and interpretation of literature cannot be separated.

Interpretation
We

always interpret when we try to understand. Therefore, interpretation is part of the reading process. Interpretation is also part of literary criticism.

Ancient literary criticism

The most notable examples of ancient literary criticism are: Aristotles Poetics (4th century BC), and Horaces Ars Poetica (c.19 BC). In the medieval period Dantes De Vulgari Eloquentia (c.13031305) dealt with the problems of language appropriate to poetry.

The purpose of literary criticism is to help the reader:

better

understand a literary work and its various implications, better interpret literature, appreciate and evaluate literature

Critical perspectives
A

knowledge of critical perspectives will help you to understand, interpret, appreciate and evaluate a literary work as a multilayered construct of meaning.

Modern theories of literary criticism Traditional or old criticism Russian Formalism (1910-1930s) The New Criticism (1940s-1950s) Psychological (and psychoanalytical) criticism Hermeneutics Semiotics (Semiology) Structuralist criticism

Modern theories of literary criticism

Archetypal criticism Marxist and neo-Marxist criticism Feminist criticism Narratology Post-structuralism & deconstruction Post-structuralism & deconstruction Reader response criticism

Traditional or old criticism

Traditional or old criticism assumes that great works of literature are expressions of the authors genius, i.e. the extraordinary and unique powers of thought, skill and imagination, and offer ultimate truths and universal values. The value of literary works can be judged by absolute principles and rules of good taste.

Russian formalism

Russian Formalism developed in the 1920s and 1930s was an attempt to study literature, or rather its specific manifestation literariness from the linguistic point of view. Victor Shklovsky (1893-1984), Roman Jakobson (1896-1982), Yury Tynyanov (1894-1943), Boris Eichenbaum (18861959) and other Russian formalists studied literary language in terms of sound patterns, rhythmic structures, narrative devices and processes of literary development.

Formalist criticism

Formalist criticism ignored content and was exclusively interested in formal and stylistic matters. Literature was regarded as a unique use of language. A literary work was studied as an independent entity and a critics task was to analyse the relationships of various elements existing within a literary text without regard to outside reality.

The New Criticism

The New Criticism (1940s1950s), which developed mostly in the United States, focused its attention on the work without regard to the authors life and his social interrelations.

The New Criticism

The New Criticism was a reaction against the old criticism which treated literature as authorial selfexpression or applied external criteria to literature, such as moral values. The New Criticism regarded literary texts as autonomous and self-contained universes of discourses.

The New Criticism

The leading figures of the New Criticism in the US were: Richard Palmer Blackmur (1904-1965); Kenneth Burke (1897-1993); Cleanth Brooks (1906-1994); John Crowe Ransom (1988-1974); Allen Tate (1899-1979); Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989); William K. Wimsatt (b. 1907)

The New Criticism

The leading figures associated with the New Criticism in England were: Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) I. A. Richards (1893-1979), F. R. Leavis (1895-1978), and William Empson (1906-1984)

Psychological (and psychoanalytical) criticism

Psychological (and psychoanalytical) criticism applies psychological and psychoanalytical theories to the interpretation of literature. It may be particularly effective in character analysis. Freuds psychoanalytical theory had an influence on 20th century literary theory. Psychoanalysis suggests that all statements, narratives and dreams carry meaning which is, however, not always related to external reality.

Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics is the science or theory of interpretation of meaning. In the past hermeneutics was mostly concerned with questions how scriptural texts like the Bible should be read. It was revived and developed in the 1960s by Hans Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) and Jrgen Habermas (b. 1929) in Germany and Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) in France.

Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics

is mainly concerned with the phenomenon of understanding and interpretation of messages conveyed through literature.

Semiotics (Semiology)

Semiotics or semiology is the science of signs. It was created under the influence of two outstanding theorists, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) and Ferdinand de Saussure (18571913). According to semiotics, words have two aspects: a signifier, i.e. a written or spoken form and a signified, i.e. their concepts or referents.

Semiotics
In

language, words acquire meaning only when they enter a system of relations with other words. Semiotic analysis of literature is focused on the structure and coherence of literary works.

Semiotics
Literature

is thus a form of transmission of cultural messages through language.

Semiotics

The outstanding proponents of semiotics in literary criticism include Julia Kristeva and Umberto Eco. In the late 1960s Kristeva introduced the notion of intertextuality which has become an important contribution to literary theory. Intertextuality refers to the relationships between different works of literature. A literary text is treated as a dialogue with other texts.

Structuralist criticism

Structuralist criticism arose in France in the 1960s. The term structuralism itself appeared in the works of the French anthropologist Claude Lvi-Strauss, who exerted a significant influence on a number of structuralist and post-structuralist authors, such as Michel Foucault (19261984), Roland Barthes (1915-1980), Louis Althusser and Jacques Lacan.

Strcturalist criticism
Structuralists viewed literature as a coherent system of signs which convey meaning. They wanted to develop a grammar of plot structure, i.e. a system of narrative possibilities used by various authors.

Structuralist criticism Structuralism allows the interpretion of different aspects of human activity, including myth and literature, in terms of a code. When a particular code is decoded, it can be fully understood.

Structuralist criticism

Structuralists say that all features of life are significant as relations they bear to each other. Meanings are expressed through these relations which can be both textual (within a literary text) or extratextual (within culture, society, etc.).

Archetypal criticism
Structural

literary theory has an affinity with Northrop Fryes archetypal criticism, which is indebted to the anthropological study of myths and archetypes.

Archetypal criticism

Archetypal criticism argues that archetypes determine the form and function of literary works, i.e. the meaning of literary texts is shaped by myths and archetypes. Archetypes are basic forms manifested in recurring images, symbols, or patterns which may include motifs such as the journey during which the protagonist must overcome a series of obstacles before reaching his or her goal.

Archetypal symbols
The

quintessential journey archetype in Western culture is Homers Odyssey. Archetypal symbols include the forbidden fruit in John Miltons Paradise Lost, or the dragon in a number of literary works, including AngloSaxon Beowulf.

Marxist and neo-Marxist criticism

Marxist

and neo-Marxist criticism is derived from the historical, economic and sociological theory of Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895).

Marxist criticism

It focuses on the sociohistorical context that determines the content and form of literary works. A Marxist theory of literature is primarily interested in the content of literary works. The leading exponents of Marxist criticism were Mikhail Bakhtin (18851975) and Georg Lukcs (18851971).

Raymond Williams

In Britain Raymond Williams (1921-1988) was one of the most prominent Marxist critics. His most important works include Culture and Society (1958), The Country and the City (1973) and Marxism and Literature (1977).

Fredric Jameson

Fredric Jameson (b. 1934) is an American Marxist literary critic and theorist. He is best known for the analysis of contemporary cultural trends. Jameson's best-known books include

Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.

Feminist criticism

Feminist criticism emerged as an outgrowth of the feminist movement in the 1960s although important voices on womens issues could be heard in earlier periods. For example, Simone de Beauvoirs Le Deuxieme Sexe (1949) was an important landmark in the development of feminist criticism which is committed to examining works of literature in which gender issues are prominent.

Feminist criticism
Feminist criticism is concerned mainly with studies of writing by and about women. It provides an alternative view for what its exponents call a male-centred or male-dominated approach.

Feminist criticism

Feminist critics attempt to change the consciousness of readers and their relation to woman as a theme in literary works.

Feminist criticism

Feminist criticism explores the ways in which the experience of being male or female in a particular society and historical time is reflected through literary imagination.

Feminist criticism

Some feminist theorists believe that men and women tend to perceive and represent the world in different terms by virtue of their gendered interests, attitudes, emotions and values. In its extreme version, feminist criticism often tends to show that feminine standpoint is underrepresented in literature and literary criticism. The chief practitioners of feminist criticism are Ellen Mores, Sandra Gilbert, Elaine Showalter, Nina Baym, etc.

Narratology
Narratology,

or theory of discourse, is an offshoot of structuralism which attempts to construct a grammar of literary fiction by applying linguistic models to the analysis of narrative.

Narratology

The basic structure of all narrative forms is made up of story, which refers to the actual chronology of events in a narrative, and discourse, which refers to the manipulation of that story in the presentation of the narrative. Discourse also refers to all the stylistic devices an author adds to a story, e.g. metaphors, similes, synecdoche, verse or prose, etc.

Narratology
A.

J. Greimas and Grard Genette are regarded as the most influential representatives of narratology.

Post-structuralism & deconstruction

Post-structuralism and deconstruction, associated with Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) and Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), emerged in the mid 1970s. Poststructuralism, particularly in the form of deconstructive criticism, has had a stronger influence on AngloSaxon criticism than structuralism.

Deconstruction Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, J. Hillis Miller, Gayatri Spivak

Jacques Lacan

Jacques Lacan (19011981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis, philosophy, and literary theory.

Deconstruction

Deconstruction rejects the concept of structure and structural relations and claims that there is no objective interpretation of literary texts. Literary texts express basically through their language and reveal not relations but manifold references, such as biographical details, contemporary sociocultural conditions, literary tradition and convention, etc.

Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. His work has had a great impact on literary theory and continental philosophy. His best known work is Of Grammatology.

Deconstruction

References do not create a system of one explicit meaning. Therefore, literary texts can never be fully interpreted or explained. Deconstruction emphasises the impermanency of literary texts which is due to many factors, e.g. textual revisions, editors alterations.

Deconstruction

The central tenet of deconstruction is that literary texts may have an infinite number of contexts and since meaning is context-bound, it is impossible to determine one unequivocal meaning of a literary text.

New Historicism New Historicism, influenced by the ideas of the French cricitic Michel Foucault (1926-1984), argues that history is the best context for the study of literature. New Historicists criticise the tendency of the New Criticism to treat literature as wholly independent of its historical context.

New Historicism

New Historicists interpret problems of literature within the relevant historical context using the available tools. The most prominent representatives of New Historicism are Stephen Greenblatt, Jerome McGann, Marjorie Levinson, Marilyn Butler, and Hayden White.

New Historicism

According to Greenblatt, New Historicism is a form of analysis of the connections between literary and non-literary texts and a particular historical situation. New Historicism is also called cultural poetics.

New Historicism

Stephen Greenblatt,

Cultural criticism, or cultural studies

Cultural criticism, or cultural studies, is related to New Historicism. It examines social, economic and political conditions that affect institutions and products of culture, such as literature and the arts, including popular literature, popular music, film, soap opera, cartoons, and even food habits, etc.

Reader response criticism

Reader

response criticism rejects the tenet of the New Criticism that close analysis of the text is central for understanding a literary work and thus allows for alternative readings of the same texts.

Reader response criticism

In

this view, the interpretation of a literary work is not seen as the discovery of the pre-existing meaning created by the author, but rather as recreating a new meaning thanks to the readers unique cultural knowledge and intepretive skill.

Reader response criticism According to reader-response criticism, critical interpretation is an ongoing process of adjustment, revision and selfdiscovery. The critical reader is constantly revising his assumptions and makes new conclusions about the literary work he is reading.

Reader response criticism

The meaning of a literary work thus emerges for the reader through confrontation between the text and his cultural background; thus the significance of the literary text does not lie only in the intended meaning encapsulated by the author but above all in the meaning which the reader has recreated from the text. In this view, the meaning of a literary text is not objective

Postcolonial theory

Postcolonialism - focuses on the influences of colonialism in literature, especially regarding the historical conflict resulting from the exploitation of less developed countries and indigenous peoples by western nations Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Homi Bhabha