What is literature?

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What is literature?
Any work with a unique aesthetic quality? Texts
that have stood the test of time? Works of the
imagination/creative writing? Works with a
particular set of qualitiese.g., plot,
character, tone, setting, etc.? Works that
emphasize universal themes (i.e., transcend the
merely social or political)? Works that fit
the parameters of literary genres poem, essay,
short story, novel? Anything that is written?
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What is literary theory?

• The capacity to generalize about phenomena and to
  develop concepts that form the basis for
  interpretation and analysisin this instance, of
  a literary text.

3
What is literary criticism?

• The disciplined application of theoretical
  principles for the purpose of analyzing,
  interpreting, and evaluating literary texts.

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THE 4 CRITICAL VARIABLES of LITERARY THEORY
CRITICISM
1. The World
2. The Author
3. The Text
Other Texts
Real World
Beyond the World
Text Ideologically constructed language
ITS CONTEXT
Text Objective reality
Text Symbol,
Archetype
4. The Reader

Gender Studies WORLD/author/text/reader
Postcolonial AUTHOR/world/text/reader Marxist
WORLD/text Territorial TEXT/?reader/
author/world)
Formalism the TEXT (as art) Structuralism the
TEXT (as language system) Psychoanalytic
AUTHOR/READER/text Reader Response
READER/TEXT/community of readers w/shared values
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SOME TRADITIONAL APPROACHES

• Historicalauthors historical moment is key to
  understanding a literary text
• Biographicalauthors personal experiences are
  central to understanding the text
• Social realism (?)social transparency is key to
  understanding the text

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Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893)

• Applying the scientific method to artassumes
  language is factual, reality is absolute, the
  truth can be verified.
• Taines three major factors for interpreting a
  text
• Racei.e., national characteristics of the
  artists historical place and time
• Milieui.e., sum total of artists experience
• Momentintellectual philosophical currents of
  artists historical place and time

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Wellek and WarrenTheory of Literature (1949)

• Key issues to understanding a text
• The writers heredity environment (Taines
  milieu)
• The fictional world of the text vis-à-vis the
  world outside the text (Taines race moment
• The audience for which the text was intended

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Irresolvable problem with traditional (pre-1970)
social approaches to literary interpretation

• Practitioners assumed that historical,
  biographical, and social information could be
  accurately gathered and verified. They viewed
  language as transparent, facts as reliable,
  history as objective. Poststructuralist theories
  about the ideological appropriation of language
  by dominant groups postmodernist
  disillusionment with objective reality both
  undermine old-style criticism.

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NEW CRITICISM

• Meaning resides in the textnot in reader,
  author, or world
• Texts may contain numerous messages, but must
  have a unifying central theme created by the
  perfect union of all artistic elements.
• Texts are artistic creations
• Close reading is the basis of new critical
  analysis
• The methodology for finding meaning is clear-cut
  the tools are unique to literary analysis
• one type of formalism

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READER RESPONSE

• Text has many interpretationstext reader
  interact to create meaning
• Meaning ultimately resides in the readers mind
• or the consensual mind of a community of
  readers (this class, for example)
• A texts truth is relative
• Readers may reach the same conclusions about a
  work--but approach the task quite differently

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STRUCTURALISM

• Meaning resides in the structure of language, not
  in art nor in the readers mind
• Scientific approach to literary analysis
• structure of language as a logical sign
  system determines meaning
• Two levels of language langue (the Kings
  English) parole (everyday speech)
• Interpret a text or part of a text by taking its
  language apart (study word derivations, sentence
  syntax, etc.)

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POSTSTRUCTURALSOCIAL CRITICISM
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meaning
meaning
Deconstruction

• Textscomposed of language, an unstable sign
  system that always defers meaning.
• Truth is constructed, not given, so theres no
  such thing as A correct interpretation
• Look for an apparent meaning of some aspect of
  the text show how the text undermines
  (deconstructs) it look again show how the text
  undermines the latest interpretation, etc.
• Look for oppositions good vs. evil, e.g. Show
  how the text undermines first one, then the other
  so that good and evil are exposed as empty
  concepts

Jacques Derrida
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NEW HISTORICISM

• Literature is one among many socially constructed
  texts. If there is a difference, its the
  intentional use of the imagination to convey
  ideas.
• History is every bit as subjective as
  intentionally imaginative texts
• Purpose of analyzing literature is to locate
  hidden social messages, especially those that
  promote oppression.
• Texts have no final interpretation
• Language, though socially constructed, is stable
  enough to be useful.
• Find a small intriguing or odd piece of the text
  and interpret it by comparing it to contemporary
  sign systemsmagazines, newspapers, fads, laws.
  Try to locate uses abuses of power.

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POSTCOLONIALISM

• Meaning resides in text, history, and ideology
• Literature is a political toolthose in power
  decide what is art
• Truth is relative
• Study the authors (and readers) life
  times locate tensions between conflicting
  cultures explore the double consciousness of
  colonized postcolonized writers observe how
  colonizers refashion the colonized

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MARXISM

• Meaning resides in text, history, ideology
  messages of oppression class conflict
• Texts are commodities, not timeless works of art
• Truths are socially constructed.
• Look for evidence of oppressive ideologies of the
  dominant social group look for uses abuses of
  power

What workers look like to a capitalist
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FEMINIST CRITICISM

• Meaning is socially constructed.
• Texts have more than one interpretation
• Texts are commodities (products of society)
• Truth is relative, highly dependent on arbitrary
  categories of difference, esp. those based
  on sex and gender
• Look for systems of containment for evidence of
  repression, oppression, suppression, subversion,
  rebellion in texts by women study womens
  unique ways of understanding and writing about
  the human condition.

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Territorialism

• Possessions (objects of desire) are metaphors for
  who we are or how we wish to be perceivedaspects
  of the self.
• Possessions may be tangible or intangible (my car
  or my idea, e.g.)
• They occupy mental space cognitive, affective,
  and conative.
• These spaces strongly resemble territorieswith
  rights of ownership, markers, boundaries, rules
  of in and out, defensive strategies, etc.
• Look for territorial behaviors determine the
  object(s) of desire what aspect of self is in
  play? Who owns the object? Who wants it? Why?
  Identify the territorial act acquisition,
  management, or defense? How does this information
  improve our understanding of the text?