The Worlds of Critical Theory:

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The Worlds of Critical Theory

• Shine a Light on Literature, Music, Film, More

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Why Critical Theory?

• Basic Background
• Since theres been literature, theres been
  theory of it (think Aristotles Poetics),
• But it became esp. prevalent during the Age of
  Enlightenment (Edgar Allan Poe was a critic)
• During the 1900s it was an established scholarly
  practice

• Why the need for theory?
• The way we see and understand the world (our
  paradigms) are all perceptions interpretation
  (even history is not all fact history is
  written by the victors)
• Thus, critical theory challenges our paradigms
  and allows us to interpret what we read, hear,
  and see in a myriad of ways
• But you have to learn how to do this in order to
  be able to see what is not so apparent

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The Modes (well, the major ones the ones you
should know)

• Formalist
• Historical
• Biographical
• Structuralism
• Post-structuralism /Deconstructionist
• Psychological
• Mythological
• Sociological Marxist, Feminist, Postcolonial
• Postmodern

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Myriad Approaches

• Important No single theory is necessarily
  correct or true above any other
• Critical approaches usually derive from personal
  discretion or applicability
• Some approaches naturally lend themselves to
  particular works

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For example

• Any work by Edgar Allan Poe would naturally lend
  itself to a biographical approach

• It would be tough to talk about Animal Farm
  without understanding the historical context

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Formalist Criticism

• Pure Theory

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Formalist Criticism (aka New Criticism)

• Regards literature as a unique form of human
  knowledge to be regarded in its own terms
• Apart from or above biographical, social,
  historical, or cultural influences

• Literature is understood through its intrinsic
  literary features
• TEXT-CENTERED focus on words (think TIQATIQA)

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Formalist contd

• Close Reading
• Focus on intense relationships in a work
• Form and content cannot be meaningfully separated
• Interdependence of form and content make a text
  literary

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Biographical Criticism

• The authors life impacts their work

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Biographical Criticism

• Considers that literature is written by actual
  people
• Understanding of authors life helps comprehend
  the work
• Authors experience SHAPES the creation of the
  work
• Practical advantage illuminates text
• Be judicious--base interpretation on what is in
  the text itself

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Historical Criticism

• The authors time period affects their work

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Historical Criticism

• Investigation of social, cultural, and
  intellectual contexts that produced the work
• Necessarily includes authors biography and
  milieu
• Impact and meaning on original audience (as
  opposed to todays)
• How a texts meaning has changed over time
• Connotations of words, images (1940, America)

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Structuralism Moving beyond meaning

• The authors language system affects their work

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Structuralism

• Began with the French anthropologist Claude
  Levi-Strauss
• Through studying myth, culture, and language, he
  concluded that language is a binary system
• Binary because it could be divided into two
  competing categories
• Nature vs. culture
• Raw vs. cooked

• From this, he deduced that in language there are
  no identities, only differences
• Differences makes identity possible
• Then, Michel Foucault took this understanding and
  explained how meaning of language changes over
  time creating a new picture of the world

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Structuralism

• Key Terms Ideas
• Semiotics study of signs symbols
• Binary System a contrasting duality that
  struggle for prevalence
• Sign sound / word
• Signifier sound image
• Signified mental concept (object)
• Other a word has meaning through what it is
  not, not any kind of natural relation to the
  object
• Why is a cat called cat?

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Structuralism in Literature

• Texts were analyzed and reduced to a binary
  system of themes, such as
• Man vs. woman
• Love vs. hate
• Destiny vs. freewill (ring a bell?)

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Deconstruction / Post-structuralist Criticism
Moving beyond the beyond

• The authors language system is unstable and thus
  their work has no meaning or many meanings?

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Post-structuralism / Deconstructionist Criticism

• This took the binary system a step further and
  stated that language is inaccurate
• Language fundamentally unstable
• Literary texts, therefore, have no fixed meaning

• Mostly credited to the word of Jacques Derrida
  who elaborated upon the idea that if language is
  made up of differences, then so is the word
• Thus, if language is continuously changing and
  has no identity, neither does the world nor how
  we understand the world

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Key Terms

• Deconstruction to break down/reverse
• Differance presence/arises out of differences
• Paradox seemingly contradictory but true
  statement Language has no identity but makes
  identity possible?
• Micro-narratives understanding of the world is
  broken up into smaller stories from varying
  perspectives

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Deconstructionist contd..

• Attention shifts from what is being said to how
  language is being used in a text
• Paradox Deconstructionist criticism often
  resembles formalist
• Both involve close reading
• BUT decon. critics break text down into mutually
  irreconcilable positions

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Deconstructionist contd..

• REJECTION of myth that authors control language
• Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault call for the
  death of the author
• No author, no matter how brilliant, can fully
  control the meaning of a text
• No truths only rival interpretations
• In textual studies, this theory is used to
  reverse the binary systems and investigate the
  myriad stories within the larger story.

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Pscyhoanalytical Criticism

• The authors mommy/daddy issues affect their work

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Psychological Criticism

• Owes much to the work of Sigmund Freud
• Analysis of Oedipus--considered Sophocles
  insight into human mind influential
• Painful memories (esp. from childhood) repressed,
  stored in subconscious
• Freud and followers (including Carl Jung)
  believed that great literature truthfully
  reflects life

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Key Terms

• Repressed desires, feelings, memories that are
  controlled and remained locked in subconscious
• Oedipus Complex the innate (but repressed)
  desire to marry your mother and kill your father
• Id pleasure principle (seeks immediate
  gratification of desires)
• Ego reality principle (understands there are
  certain social behaviors that need to be
  followed)
• Superego conscience

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Visualization of Id, Ego, Superego
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Freuds Main Principles

• Oedipus Complex (this is how he famously analyzed
  Hamlet)
• Id/Ego/Superego heroes or villains can be
  analyzed through their repressed desires and how
  they either control them or revel in them
• Dreams they reveal repressed desires and novels
  can be interpreted as dreams
• These can be used to analyze the author, the
  characters, or the art itself

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Mythological Criticism

• The authors work is a new version of the same
  story thats been told since time began.

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Mythological Criticism

• Based on work of Karl Jung and Joseph Campbell
• In Campbells The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he
  studied religious and literary stories (Jesus,
  Buddha, Gilgamesh, and other myths) and found
  commonalities
• Seeks recurrent universal patterns
• Combines insights of many disciplines
• Anthropology
• Psychology
• History
• Comparative religion

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Key Terms

• Archetype A symbol, character, situation, or
  image that evokes a deep universal response
• Collective Unconscious Set of primal memories
  common to the human race (existing below
  conscious mind)

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Mythological contd

• Explores artists common humanity (as opposed to
  individual emphasis in pysch. crit.)
• Important to link text to other texts with
  similar or related archetypal situations
• Looks for archetypes across mythology, as well as
  in characters whose collective unconscious is
  triggered by common symbols the sun, moon,
  starts, earth, etc.

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Archetypical Themes

• Death rebirth
• The Journey Underground
• The Heavenly Ascent
• The Search for the father
• The false father
• Heaven/hell
• Rebel-hero
• The Scapegoat
• The Earth Goddess
• The femme fatale

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Campbells Hero Cycle
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Sociological Criticism Marxist, Feminist,
Postcolonial

• The authors social structure affect their work

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Sociological Criticism

• Examines literature in the cultural, economic,
  and political context in which it is written or
  received
• Art not created in a vacuum
• Relationship between author and society
• Social status of author
• Social content of a work (values presented)
• Role of audience in shaping literature

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Different Fields

• Marxist
• Feminist
• Post-colonial

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MarxistBasic Principles

• Bourgeoisie rich capitalists oppressed workers
• Proletariat working class
• History was subject to change because of economic
  changes
• Every piece of art reflects its economic and
  class struggles of the historical time period
• Ex The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

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Marxist contd

• Economic and political elements of art
• Explores ideological content of literature
• Content determines form therefore all art is
  political
• DANGER imposing critics politics on work in
  question can sway evaluation based on how closely
  (or not) the work endorses ideology
• VALUE illuminates political and economic
  dimensions of literature that other approaches
  may overlook

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Feminist Theory

• Examines how sexual identity influences the
  creation and reception of literary works
• Began with feminist movement, but largely
  influenced by Structuralism and Deconstructionism
  (work on Julia Kristeva, pupil of Derrida)
• Feminist critics see a world saturated with
  male-produced assumptions
• Seek to correct imbalance by battling patriarchal
  attitudes

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Key Terms

• Patriarchy system where men are in charge (can
  be in terms of hereditary of simply
  political/economical
• Phallo-centric centered around man
• Emasculate to take away a mans power
• Objectification women are viewed/presented as
  objects of desire by the male gaze
• Conform meet demands of patriarchy

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Feminist contd

• Feminist criticism analyzes how an authors
  gender influences ideas
• Also, how sexual identity influences reader
• Reader sees text through eyes of his or her sex
• Examination of social forces responsible for
  gender inequality

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Feminist Theory

• Originally showcased patriarchal and unequal
  systems within novel that were primarily
  concerned with men
• In more modern context, still show inequalities,
  but focus more on how women subvert, reject, and
  triumph over these inequalities
• Think of structuralism and then deconstruction
• The binary was first man vs. woman but its been
  deconstructed to show how women can triumph or to
  show there is no difference between
• Instead of conforming, more modern scholars look
  at how women reject the patriarchy or subvert it
  (undermine it from the inside)

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Postcolonialism

• With the expansion of readership beyond European
  American authors, came a theory that examined
  the more-established literature and world
  literature through the lens of colonialism how
  the authors and characters were affected by their
  countrys imperialist past
• Greatly impacted by the work of Edward W. Said
  Orientalism Western Representations of the
  Orient

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Postcolonial Criticism Key Terms

• Imperialism the European colonization of parts
  of the world, which came to an end, starting in
  the 1800s all the way through the 1950s
• Alterity "lack of identification with some part
  of one's personality or one's community,
  differentness, otherness"
• Diaspora to refer to any people or ethnic
  population forced or induced to leave their
  traditional ethnic homelands, being dispersed
  throughout other parts of the world
• Eurocentrism emphasis revolves around European
  (i.e. white) culture and understanding of the
  world.
• Hybridity a blend of cultures, refusing to
  choose to one or the other

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Postcolonial Main Cornerstones

• Like feminism, it owes a lot to structuralism and
  deconstruction
• The Native characters are often considered as
  others and the European characters define
  themselves by how they are different from the
  natives
• These third world countries (again to separate
  them from first world countries) are still
  feeling the impacts of a past of foreign rule and
  so their characters lack a sense of identity
  are they the colonizer or are they the colonized?
• More modern texts, resolve this with hybridity
  I am not the colonizer or the colonized I can
  be both.
• In the US, this is especially central to the work
  of immigrant Americans or Americans of minority
  status
• Also, important in analyzing African American
  Literature and the lingering impacts of slavery
  and segregation

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Postmodern Criticism

• The authors work is influenced by everything but
  the kitchen sink on second thought, throw the
  sink in as well (a broken one, though).

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Postmodern Criticism

• Just like deconstrutionism followed
  structuralism, postmodern criticism developed as
  a an extension and rejection of modern (esp.
  formalism) scholarly work
• Greatly influenced by the work of Jean
  Baudrillard Simulacra and Simulation
• It argues for a broken view of meaning and an
  exaggerated reality because of the influence of
  media
• Politically, this can be like anarchy, but when
  it comes to criticism of the arts, its more about
  having a loose approach (it can even be fun like
  pop art)

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Key Terms

• Simulacra narratives/stories (our paradigms)
  Ex Columbus discovered America
• Hegemony control or dominating influence by one
  person or group
• Hyper-reality an inauthentic world that is
  too much (too perfect as in Disneyworld) or too
  saturated with media (like Times Square)
• Fragmentation broken up, in terms of story,
  body, or voice

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Rejection of Master Simulacra, Celebration of
Many Simulacra

• Postmodernism rejects one truth, one story, one
  history
• It embraces a variegated, fragmented view (many
  narratives think of novel w/more than one
  narrator)
• It also embraces a hyperreality

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Credits

• Kennedy, X.J. and Gioia, D., eds. Literature An
  Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.
  Eighth edition. New York Longman, 2002.
• All images courtesy of Google Images

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THE END

• Deconstructionist, Jacques Derrida
• 1930-2004
• Or is it?