Critical Theory or LensFrom Schakel + Ridl’s

Approaching Literature

All readers approach reading from different theories or critical perspectives

Awareness of critical theories helps students read for multiple meanings and interpretations

Reasons people read:› Pleasure› High culture› Moral improvement

Critical Lenses

Philology – study for language – attention to historical context, authoritative text, extensive footnotes, and thorough glossaries› Generally, classical texts like Greek and

Roman classics› Medieval texts

Biographical Lens

Focus on the author Uses details from the author’s life to

shed a light on the works How does the author’s experiences and

literary influences in turn influence the writing› Frankenstein › A Prayer for Owen Meany

Historical Lens

Social Political Cultural Intellectual Authors to consider:

› Mary Shelley› Charles Dickens› Ernest Hemingway› F. Scott Fitzgerald

Marxism

Class conflict› Economic power and how it can be

distorted and manipulated The effect of ideology

› “Ideology includes everything that shapes the individual’s [perception] of life experience”

› This lens focuses on exposing the attitudes, values, and beliefs through which characters/authors perceive reality

Psychological

1940s & 1950s – Freudian concepts Conscious vs. Unconscious

› Conscious: the things we are aware of› Preconscious: feelings and sensations we

are not presently aware of but can know through reflection

› Subconscious: things we are unaware of but that have great influence over us

Psychological continued

Id, Ego, Superego (ultra-simplified)› Id: biological impulses and drives; needs

instant gratification (hunger, heat/cold, “relief,” etc)

› Ego: rational, controlled; concerned with pleasure and self-preservation

› Superego: internalized rules/taboos imposed by authority/society

Psychological continued Oedipus complex, Electra complex

› Part of normal emotional development is for a child to wish to eliminate/replace the parent of its gender in the affections of the parent of the opposite gender

› Although this theory has been largely discredited, it still has influence in literature and critical theory

Repression› Memories of painful, threatening or guilt-laden

situations are pushed into the unconscious› May interfere with a person’s adult personality

Mythological

Archetypes – symbols, character types, and plot lines repeated in cultures across time and distance

Seasonal cycles: life, death, rebirth Monomyth

› Hero cycle› Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a

Thousand Faces› Foster’s How to Read…Like a Professor

Formalism (New Criticism)

Most influential in the 20th century Concentration on the formal elements

of a work Examines a work for its primacy & is

appreciated:› As worthwhile for its own sake› For its aesthetic beauty› For its understanding of the human

condition in general

Formalism (New Criticism) continued

Explication means to explain in detail (annotations help with this)!› Explain interconnections and ambiguities› Detailed close analysis› Author’s intention isn’t relevant› What matters is what the work actually

says and does› New critics read the work multiple times.

Formalism (New Criticism) continued

Unity of form and meaning› Meaning cannot be separated from form› Focuses on

The speaker Conflicts and tensions Arrangement of parts and details The relationships between all of the above

› Pays particular attention to Metaphors Irony Paradox

Formalism (New Criticism) continued

Looks especially for issues of significance to all people, in all times

Literature has its own kind of knowledge› “experiential knowledge conveyed

imaginatively”› This is superior to impersonal knowledge of

science› Claims overreliance on scientific approach

leads to fragmentation within society and individuals.

Formalism (New Criticism) continued

Literature offers a hope› Of wholeness› Of a “unified sensibility” combining

intellect and feeling› Of redemption from the division,

specialization, and alienation that science has sometimes inflicted on the modern world

Reader-Response

Focuses primarily on the reader instead of the text

On individual effect rather than universal meaning

Assumes reading a transaction between an author, a reader and a text in its cultural context

Does not describe the response but explains the activity in reading› How the work produces the effects and feelings

it does in the reader

Reader-Response continued Subjective view

› Cannot mean just anything the reader says› Reader must

Pay close attention to the text Notice and follow the cues in the text Be able to provide evidence from the text to

support the reader’s interpretation. Interpretive communities: groups of

people with similar circumstances or assumptions who agree on the conventions, context and meaning

Reader-Response continued

Collective judgments: role of interpretive communities is not to find the “right” or “best” answer but rather to support or discourage interpretations› Constraints exist: they grow out of the

strategies, assumptions and conventions of the community

Feminist Criticism

Prior to 1970 most critics and professors were white, male academics› The literary canon therefore favored works

by white male authors, poets and playwrights

› Consequently, issues of importance to “marginal groups” – women, people of color, lower class – were overlooked

Feminism is a rethinking of the literary canon

Feminist Criticism continued

Feminist criticism reacted against the power of male critics to choose the canon

1st: What happens to a work written by a male author when it is read from a consciously female perspective?

Becoming a “resisting reader”› Exposes masculine biases› Pay attention to not only what is said, but

what is not said?

Feminist Criticism continued

2nd: Moved on to study literature written by women› Not only reexamining the few accepted

female authors in the canon› But also discovering or rediscovery

neglected/forgotten female authors past & present

3rd: “something else”› While women are female, they are also

something else (class, orientation, race, etc.)› Must examine this also

Feminist Criticism continued

4th: Marginalized groups› Took the lead in same questions for ethnic

minorities How are the treated by the white patriarchy? Are they stereotyped in insensitive or

demeaning ways?, etc. Orientation not method

› Looks at a set principles that can be fused with a variety of other lenses

Gender Studies

Beyond feminist criticism to focus “on the idea that gender is socially constructed on attitudes toward masculinity and femininity”

Sex vs. gender› Sex: physical characteristics of male/female› Gender: traits designated as

feminine/masculine› Simone de Beauvoir: “One is not born a

woman, one becomes one.”

Gender Studies continued

Binary oppositions› Masculine/feminine› Father/mother› Son/daughter› Brother/sister› Active/passive› Reason/emotion› Intelligent/sensitive

“Covers all ‘the critical ramifications of sexual oppression’”.

Deconstruction

Most controversial and difficult Challenges the logical principles on which

Western thinking is based like binary oppositions but includes other contradictions:› conscious/unconscious› Being/nonbeing› Reality/image› Right/wrong› Thing/sign› Speech/writing

Deconstruction continued

Challenge the “impulse to divide and stratify”› Not always separate and opposed› Can be interdependent and interactive

Questioning assumptions› Propose that a text has no stable reference› Question the ability of language to represent

reality› Claims “language is not fixed and limited: It

always conveys meanings different from or beyond what [is] intend[ed].”

Deconstruction continued

Focuses on gaps and ambiguities in the text Looks for the “crack” in unity or coherence “Meaning” not present but filled in by the

act of reading Meaning is totally contextual Works don’t reflect reality but create their

own reality Text is “self-referential”: cannot go outside

the text to the author’s intentions to determine its signification

Cultural Criticism

Explores the relationship between the author and his/her work and the cultural context in which they exist.› Specific time in a specific place› Author inevitably influenced by

contemporary events and attitudes› How people relate to all levels of art,

music, literature› What the work conveys about social

attitudes and social relations

New Historicism

Different from “old historicism” which emphasizes facts and events and focuses on the kinds of events recorded in official documents and textbooks

New historics assume it is almost impossible to recreate the past.

New historicism attempts to demonstrate:› how art is shaped by and shapes, social,

historical and economical conditions› How art is affected by politics and has political

effects itself

Postcolonial Criticism

Deals with cultural expression and behavior relating the formerly/currently colonized parts of the world

Analysis of writers from colonized parts of the world

Themes:› Identity› Independence› Clashes of culture

Postcolonial Criticism continued

Deals with› Struggles when one culture is subjugated by

another› Creation of otherness (us/them, same/other,

white/colored, rational/irrational, ordered/chaotic)

› Colonized people’s loss of past, history, culture, loss of cultural beliefs and practices

› Confronts loss of language and the cooperation with conquerors necessary to be economically viable