Introduction to Literary Criticism

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Introduction to Literary Criticism

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• Ms. OConnor

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• Can you read this mans mind?

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• How about this mans?

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• Or this womans?

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The old way

• This was the old way of reading.
• Authors were seen sole proprietors of the meaning
  of their writing.
• Readers take it at face value.

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Romanticism centered on the artist and creative
genius text was indebted to previous writers and
ideas The power of the natural world
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Romanticism centered on the artist and creative
genius text was indebted to previous writers and
ideas The power of the natural world
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Realism Art should replicate the world around us.
Literature represents the times it is written
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Modernism Overturn traditional modes of
representation and express the new sensibilities
of their time. The Artist as savior. "irrationalit
y at the roots of a supposedly rational world
Michel-André Bossy
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Postmodernism Resist definition or
classification The artist is impotent, and the
only recourse against "ruin" is to play within
the chaos. Death of the author.
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Literary Criticism and Theory

• Any piece of text can be read with a number of
  different sets of glasses, meaning you are
  looking for different things within the text.
• Literary Criticism helps readers understand a
  text in relation to the author, culture, and
  other texts.

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The Most Common Critical Stances for Literature

• Formalistic
• Biographical
• Historical/Cultural
• Psychological
• Archetypical
• Feminist or Gender
• Deconstructionist
• Marxist

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What is theory?

• Interdisciplinary
• Speculative
• Thinking about
• thinking

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The Author is Dead

•  The reader's role
• active agent who
• imparts "real existence
• to the work and
• completes its meaning
• through interpretation

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Questioning?

• Dispute common sense meanings
• Literary theory suggests that we cannot know what
  the writer had in mind.
• The text holds no truths
• Instead there are various ways of reading a text
  and interpreting a text.
• Be suspicious of that which we find natural.

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Formalist Criticism

• A formalist (aka New Criticism) reading of a text
  focuses on symbol, metaphor, imagery, and so on.
• Formalism ignores the authors biography and
  focuses only on the interaction of literary
  elements within the text.
• Its what you do
• most often in
• English literature.

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A Formalist Reading of The Three Little Pigs

• What does the wolf symbolize?
• Notice the consonance of Ill huff and Ill
  puff
• How does the story foreshadow the final fate of
  the pigs?
• What does the wolfs dialogue tell us about his
  character?

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Marxist

• Capitalism is a social
• system based on the principle
• of individual rights.
• means of production are
• privately owned
• Key points
• exploitation of an entire class
• of society by another
• the ruling class controls the means of
• production
• Subjectification of working class

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Questions Marxist theorists ask

• Whom does it benefit if the work or effort is
  accepted/successful/believed, etc.?
• What is the social class of the author?
• Which class does the work claim to represent?
• What values does it reinforce?
• What values does it subvert?
• What conflict can be seen between the values the
  work champions and those it portrays?
• What social classes do the characters represent?
• How do characters from different classes interact
  or conflict?

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The Hunger Games

• What are some of examples you could use to
  support a Marxist argument?

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Psychological Criticism

• Psychological critical theory applies the
  theories of psychology to a text to better
  understand its characters
• Based largely on Freud, this theory hinges on the
  belief that an examination of peoples
  (characters) unconscious desires.

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Psychological Criticism

• Drives governing human behaviour
• Id the animal nature that says, Do what feels
  good.
• Ego the reality-based part of your personality
  that makes decisions to satisfy the Id and
  Superego
• Superego the socialized conscience that tells
  you whats right or fair

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Psychological Criticism

• Oedipus Complex Every boy has the unconscious
  desire to have sex with their mother
  consequently, sons are deeply afraid of their
  fathers, and fathers are deeply threatened by
  their sons.
• Elektra Complex Every daughter has the
  unconscious desire to have sex with their father
  consequently, daughters are deeply afraid of
  their mothers, and mothers are deeply threatened
  by their daughters.

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Psychological Criticism

• Of course, these complexes have their origins in
  literature and mythology.
• Psychological criticism is a way to understand
  characters, not diagnose them.

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Questions Psycho-analytical theorists ask

• How do the operations of repression structure or
  inform the work?
• Are there any oedipal dynamics - or any other
  family dynamics - are work here?
• How can characters' behavior, narrative events,
  and/or images be explained in terms of
  psychoanalytic concepts of any kind (for
  example...fear or fascination with death,
  sexuality - which includes love and romance as
  well as sexual behavior - as a primary indicator
  of psychological identity or the operations of
  ego-id-superego)?
• What does the work suggest about the
  psychological being of its author?
• What might a given interpretation of a literary
  work suggest about the psychological motives of
  the reader?
• Are there prominent words in the piece that could
  have different or hidden meanings? Could there be
  a subconscious reason for the author using these
  "problem words"?

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A Psychological Reading of Macbeth

• Macbeth kills King Duncan because he
  unconsciously recognizes the king as a
  father-figure. Hence, Duncan is a rival for power
  and the affections of the people.
• In the latter acts of the play, Macbeth has
  indulged his id so often that his ego has lost
  the ability to restrain it.

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Archetypical Criticism

• This stance is not about mythology.
• It is about the universal elements of human life
  common in all cultures.
• Like ancient mythology, all literature is a
  window to creating meaning for human life.
• In other words, stories make us feel like our
  lives are more significant.

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Archetypical Criticism

• Central to the Archetypical theory is the concept
  of archetypes.
• Simply put, archetypes those universal elements
  present in the literature of all cultures.

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Archetypical Criticism

• Common Archetypes
• The Hero Beowulf, Spiderman, Luke Skywalker,
  Braveheart
• The Outcast Macbeths clown, Grendel, Cain
• The Quest LOTR, Star Wars, Beowulf
• Sacrificial King Jesus, The Lion the Witch and
  the Wardrobe, LOTR
• Evil Personified Wicked Witch of the West, the
  Devil, the Emperor in SW, the Borg

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Archetypical Criticism

• The goal of Archetypical Criticism seeks to
  understand how the story constructs meaning in
  the human existence through archetypes.
• For example, note the ways texts have examined
  betrayal.

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A Archetypical Reading of Beowulf

• Beowulf is the archetypal hero because his
  bravery and righteous behavior embodies the
  ideals and hopes of Anglo-Saxon society.
• Grendel, the outsider, represents both the alien
  invaders of neighboring, warring tribes and the
  threat of supernatural monsters, which, as
  pagans, the Anglo-Saxons truly believed existed.

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Gender Criticism

• Gender criticism analyzes literature through the
  lens of socially-constructed gender roles.
• The largest part of gender criticism is feminism,
  which critiques and seeks to correct womens
  subordination to men in society.
• In its purist form, feminism is about equality.

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Feminism

• Belief in the social, political, and economic
  equality of the sexes.
• An example of a
• marginalized groups
• attempt to re-appropriate
• meaning.

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• Concerned with the
• ways in which literature
• reinforce or undermine
• the economic, political,
• social, and psychological
• oppression of women
• inherently patriarchal

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• Patriarchal ideology is the primary means by
  which women are politically, economically,
  psychologically or socially oppressed.
• Women as other she is marginalized, defined
  only by her difference from male norms and values
• All of western (Anglo-European) civilization is
  deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for
  example, in the biblical portrayal of Eve as the
  origin of sin in the world.
• Biology determines our sex (male or female)
  culture determines our gender (masculine or
  feminine

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Questions Feminist theorists ask

• How is the relationship between men and women
  portrayed?
• What are the power relationships between men and
  women (or characters assuming male/female roles)?
• How are male and female roles defined?
• What constitutes masculinity and femininity?
• How do characters embody these traits?
• Do characters take on traits from opposite
  genders? How so? How does this change others
  reactions to them?
• What does the work reveal about the operations
  (economically, politically, socially, or
  psychologically) of patriarchy?
• What does the work imply about the possibilities
  of sisterhood as a mode of resisting patriarchy?
• What does the history of the work's reception by
  the public and by the critics tell us about the
  operation of patriarchy?
• What role the work play in terms of women's
  literary history and literary tradition? (Tyson)

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A Feminist Reading of Goldilocks

• As a single, young woman, Goldilocks finds
  herself without means or opportunity because she
  is unattached to a father or a husband. Perhaps,
  this is why shes alone in the woods.
• An independent woman,
• then, is a threat to the
• normal nuclear family,
• represented by the
• three bears.

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Gender Criticism Queer Theory

• A newer segment of gender criticism is queer
  theory, which looks for the influence of
  homosexuality within texts.
• Research of this type is fairly difficult
  because, as youve learned, homosexuality was
  largely suppressed in Europe and America, and it
  hasnt been openly discussed until the last few
  decades.

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Gender Studies/Queer Theory

• What elements of the text can be perceived as
  being masculine (active, powerful) and feminine
  (passive, marginalized) and how do the characters
  support these traditional roles?
• What sort of support (if any) is given to
  elements or characters who question the
  masculine/feminine binary? What happens to those
  elements/characters?
• What elements in the text exist in the middle,
  between the perceived masculine/feminine binary?
  In other words, what elements exhibit traits of
  both (bisexual)?
• What are the politics (ideological agendas) of
  specific gay, lesbian, or queer works, and how
  are those politics revealed in...the work's
  thematic content or portrayals of its characters?
• What does the work contribute to our knowledge of
  queer, gay, or lesbian experience and history,
  including literary history?
• How is queer, gay, or lesbian experience coded in
  texts that are by writers who are apparently
  homosexual?
• What does the work reveal about the operations
  (socially, politically, psychologically)
  homophobic?
• How does the literary text illustrate the
  problems of sexuality and sexual "identity?

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More Literary Theory

• New ways of viewing literature (and the world)
  continue to develop, but these are the main
  theories youll come in contact with.