Introduction to Modern
Literary Theory
A discussion of theory, why we use
it, and how it helps us understand
what we read.
A Good Analogy:
Examine the ink blots on the next
slides.
What do you see in the image?
Write down a short explanation of
what you see.
Be prepared to share.
What is modern theory?
 In the study of literature, “theory” has traditionally
referred to a set of general principles that can be
used to classify or otherwise analyze a literary
work. In some cases, theory is used to interpret
or even evaluate texts.
 A critical essay may not clearly ground itself in a
particular literary theory, but some general theory
or set of assumptions about literature is implied
in most interpretations or analyses.
 Theory changes with time and new theories
are always being added to the traditional
What Theory Tries to Explain:
What is literature?
How is it produced?
How can it be understood?
What is its purpose?
Why we study theory
Literary criticism has two main functions:
1. To analyze, study, and evaluate works of
literature.
2. To form general principles for the
examination of works of literature.
Common Characteristics of Theory
M.H. Abrams points out in The Mirror and the
Lamp that “any reasonably adequate
theory takes some account of . . . four
elements” (6). These elements are
1. The work itself
2. The artist who creates the work
3. The universe or the nature that is being
imitated by the work
4. The audience of the work
Keep an Open Mind
 As we discuss these, you may find yourself
agreeing with one or two theories while
disagreeing heartily with another. Keep in
mind that no single theory offers the “right”
answer about a work of literature; good
literature is simply too varied. Keeping an
open mind and listening to other points of
view can enrich your own insights; that is
the purpose of criticism.
Perspective
 Literary interpretation is often influenced by a
person’s perspective. For instance, an African,
may have a very different reaction to The Color
Purple than a reader with no experiences or
appreciation for African culture.
 A female, for example, may have a stronger
reaction to an individualized, feminist character
than a chauvinist male might.
 It’s all about how YOU, the reader, views a certain
text. What perspective are you brining to the
table? The truth is, there is no one correct way!
Psychoanalytic Criticism
 Applying the principles of
psychologists like
Sigmund Freud and Jung
to a literary work
 Analyzing characters
within the work
 Analyze writer’s psyche,
writing process, or the
influence of the writer’s
thoughts on the novel
 Effects of literature on
readers
 Suggested Websites:
 "Definition of
Psychoanalytic
Criticism" from
virtuaLit (BedfordSt.Martin's resource)
 "Introduction to
Psychoanalysis" by Dr.
Dino Felluga
 "The Mind and the
Book: A Long Look at
Psychoanalytic
Criticism" by Norman
N. Holland
Key Terms:
•Jungian Approach:
 Freud's model of the
•Three parts of self

-Shadow (dark part of self)
psyche:
Id - completely unconscious part
of the psyche that serves as a
storehouse of our desires,
wishes, and fears. The id houses
the libido, the source of
psychosexual energy.
Ego - mostly to partially
conscious part of the psyche
that processes experiences and
operates as a mediator between
the id and superego.
Superego - often thought of as
one's "conscience"; the superego
operates "like an internal censor
[encouraging] moral judgments
in light of social pressures"
(Bressler)
-Persona (social part of
personality)
-Anima (man’s “soul image”)
Neurosis occurs when
someone fails to assimilate one
of these levels of
unconsciousness into his or her
conscious and projects it onto
someone else.
Key Terms: (cont…)
 Unconscious - the irrational part of
the psyche unavailable to a person's
consciousness except through
dissociated acts or dreams.
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages
 Disadvantages
 Can help understand
 Makes literature a
works with characters
who have obvious
psychological issues
 Helps us understand
the writer’s mind and
therefore his work
scientific case study
 Can we
psychologically
analyze dead writers?
 Not all works allow
for this approach
 Sex is overdone
Example:
 Given the “Essential Questions for a
Psychoanalytic Reading”, and the
information on Hesse (the author), practice
using psychoanalytic theory on Siddhartha.
New Criticism
 Takes a text as an
autonomous object,
non-related to the
author, the culture, or
the event it stems from
 Explores the “world”
within the text
 Started in 1920’s and
1930’s
 Suggested
Websites:
 "New Criticism
Explained" by Dr.
Warren Hedges
(Southern Oregon
University)
 "Definition of the New
Criticism" - virtuaLit
(Beford-St. Martin's
Resource)
KEY TERMS:
 Intentional Fallacy -
equating the meaning of
a poem with the
author's intentions.
 Affective Fallacy confusing the meaning
of a text with how it
makes the reader feel. A
reader's emotional
response to a text
generally does not
produce a reliable
interpretation.
 Heresy of
Paraphrase assuming that an
interpretation of a
literary work could
consist of a detailed
summary or
paraphrase.
 Close reading "a close
and detailed analysis of
the text itself to arrive
at an interpretation
without referring to
historical, authorial, or
cultural concerns"
(Bressler)
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages
- Do not have to know
the author’s
background
-Do not have to be
familiar with historical
context
-Can analyze language
and imagery…
 Disadvantages
-Text seen in isolation
-Cannot account for
allusions
-Ignores context of
work
-Reduces literature to
a series of rhetorical
devices
Example:
 Using Poisonwood Bible, what would this
critical approach (new criticism) focus on
and what would it leave out?
Marxism
 Sees art and literature
as forced by the
conditions that existed
in history
 Deals with clash
between classes
 Articulation of
dominant class
 Art reflects age in
which it was created
 Suggested Websites:
 "Definition of Marxist
Criticism" - virtuaLit
(Bedford-St. Martin's
resource)
 Marxist Theory and
Criticism - from the
Johns Hopkins Guide to
Literary Criticism
 "Marxism and Ideology"
by Dr. Mary Klages University of Colorado
at Boulder
Key Terms:
 Material
circumstances - the
economic conditions
underlying a society
 Commodification –
Wanting thing not for
 Reflectionism - the
their use but their
superstructure of a
ability to impress others
society mirrors its
or to sell
economic base and, by
extension, that a text
 Conspicuous
reflects the society that
consumption –
produced it
Getting things merely
for selling or trading
 Superstructure - The
social, political, and
 Dialectical
ideological systems and
materialism – the
institutions that are
eternal struggle to find
generated by the people
a solution among
conflicting ideologies to
bring about change
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages
 Look at the work in
 Disadvantages
 Have to be aware of
the context it was
written
 Allows you to
research and
understand the culture
more
 Can see multiple
perspectives from
dominant and
dependent classes
the culture and
economic system in
place when written
 Have to assume “the
man” was out to get
the people
 Has to be a class
conflict, not race or
gender (class matters
most)
Example
 What is a major class conflict that you have
seen in a movie or read in literature
recently? What was the dominant class’
point of view? What was the inferior class’
point of view? Briefly analyze how this
conflict was resolved or how it should have
been resolved using Marxist theory.
Reader-Response Theory
 Analyzes reader’s role
in production of
meaning
 Text itself means
nothing until someone
reads it
 Reading is a function
of personal identity
 Authors use strategies
to elicit responses
from readers
 Suggested Websites:
 "Reader Response:
Various Positions" - Dr.
John Lye - Brock
University
 Reader Response
Theory and Criticism Johns Hopkins Guide to
Literary Theory &
Criticism
 "The Author, the Text,
and the Reader" Clarissa Lee Ai Ling,
The London School of
Journalism
Key Terms:
 Horizons of expectations
- a reader's "expectations" or
frame of reference is based
on the reader's past
experience of literature and
what preconceived notions
about literature the reader
possesses
 Implied reader - the
implied reader is "a
hypothetical reader of a
text”, a construct that is
unrelated to the “real” reader
-Developed by Wolfgang Iser
 Interpretive
communities - a concept,
articulated by Stanley Fish,
that readers within an
"interpretive community"
share reading strategies,
values and interpretive
assumptions
 Transactional analysis - a
concept developed by Louise
Rosenblatt asserting that
meaning is produced in a
transaction of a reader with
a text. As an approach, then,
the critic would consider
"how the reader interprets
the text as well as how the
text produces a response in
her"
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages
 Disadvantages
 No one interpretation
 Can be too subjective
 Interpretations change
 No clear criteria to
over time
account for differences
from one reader to the
next
 Highly personal at
times
Postmodernism
 For Jean Baudrillard, postmodernism
marks a culture composed "of disparate
fragmentary experiences and images
that constantly bombard the individual
in music, video, television, advertising
and other forms of electronic media.
The speed and ease of reproduction of
these images mean that they exist only
as image, devoid of depth, coherence, or
originality"
Postmodernist Theories:
 Deconstruction
 Hermeneutics
 Semiotics
Deconstruction:
 Sees literature as fluid parts and not one
whole, with multiple meanings and ways to
look at and not one large meaning.
 Infinite number of signifiers
 Deconstruction - Stanford University
 Deconstruction - Johns Hopkins Guide
to Literary Theory & Criticism
Hermeneutics:
 Sees interpretation as a circular process
whereby valid interpretation can occur by
seeing the literary work as a whole and as a
combination of its parts
 Can analyze the historical authorial intent
and at the same time the language within the
text to gain understanding
 Phenomenology Online - page developed by
Max van Manen
Semiotics:
 The science of signs
 Proposes that human actions and
productions have shared meaning to a group
of people
 Linguistics is a branch of semiotics
 "Semiotics for Beginners" - Dr. David
Chandler (University of Wales)
 Semiotics - Johns Hopkins Guide to
Literary Theory & Criticism
Signified and Signifier
 Sign vs. Symbol - According to Saussure, "words
are not symbols which correspond to referents, but
rather are 'signs' which are made up of two parts: a
mark,either written or spoken, called a 'signifier,' and
a concept (what is 'thought' when the mark is made),
called a 'signified‘”.
 Meaning--the interpretation of a sign--can exist only
in relationship with other signs. (I.e. The stoplight
color red signifies "stop," even though "there is no
natural bond between red and stop“) (105).
 Meaning is derived entirely through difference, e.g.,
referring back to the traffic lights' example, red's
meaning depends on the fact that it is not green and
not amber
Feminism
 Concerned with impact  Suggested Websites:
 Approaches to
of gender on writing
Feminism - Stanford
and reading
Encyclopedia of
 Desire for a new literary
Philosophy
canon (not men)
 "What is Feminism and
Why Do We Have to
 Deals with conflicts
Talk About It So
between often dominate
Much?" by Dr. Mary
male and inferior female Klages - University of
in traditional literature
Colorado at Boulder
 Deals with female
 Feminist Theory: An
Overview - Elixabeth
issues
Lee - The Victorian Web
Key Terms:
 Androgeny- world
without genders
 Écriture féminine- style,
women must write
about their experiences
to strengthen the work
 Essentialism- a female
image above and
beyond social constructs
 Phallologocentrism -
language ordered
around an absolute
Word (logos) which is
“masculine” [phallic],
systematically
excludes, disqualifies,
denigrates, diminishes,
silences the “feminine”
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages
 Allows for more
female authors’ works
to be read
 Get to see an
alternative perspective
in literature
 Understand women
more
 Not all “dead white
men”
 Disadvantages
 Often attack works
solely based on male
authorship
 Often too theoretical
 Distinct female style
often excludes
elements that get
novels into the canon
Example
 Look at a novel by Barbara Kingsolver
from the feminist perspective, whether it be
The Bean Trees or Poisonwood Bible.
What elements exist to show this political
battlefield that often exists in feminist
literature. List characteristics that make the
novel feminist.
Historical/Cultural Criticism
A.K.A. New Historicism
 Takes the work and looks
at it in context of the
world it came out of
(opposite of New
Criticism)
 Good to use for
Shakespearean works as
well as older works, to
gain more understanding
of authors and impact
 Analyzes historically
accurate influences on
author and storyline.
 Sources
-Any sight that deals with
the history of the time
period a novel, play, or
poem was written in
Key Terms:
 The intentional
fallacy: meaning
of a work is
determined by
author’s intention
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages
 Disadvantages
 To fully understand works
 Reduces art to level of
by some authors, one must
biography
be able to understand where
they are coming from. For  Works not necessarily
example, Milton was blind
seen as universal
and one must know that to
 Can date certain works
get any meaning out of his
(feel not as applicable
essay “On His Blindness”
to modern life.)
 Necessary to place allusions
in appropriate context
 Good to recognize patterns
Example
 Choose a text that you have recently read
and are familiar with. What was your
personal response to that text? Why did
you react the way you did while reading it?
What did you see in the text that caused you
to react in one way or another?
Existentialism
 Philosophy (Satre and
Camus) that views
each person as an
isolated being thrust
into a universe with no
truths, values, or
meanings
 Nothing to nothing
 All choices possible
 Absurd and anguished
 Condemned to be free
 Suggested Websites:
 "Existentialism" -
Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy
 "The Ethics of Absolute
Freedom" by Dr. David
Banach
 "Jean-Paul Sartre: The
Humanism of
Existentialism" by Dr.
Bob Zunjic (University
of Rhode Island)
Key Terms:
 Absurd - a term used
to describe existence--a
world without inherent
meaning or truth.
 Authenticity - to make
choices based on an
individual code of
ethics (commitment)
rather than because of
societal pressures. A
choice made just
because "it's what
people do" would be
considered inauthentic.
 "Leap of faith" -
although Kierkegaard
acknowledged that
religion was inherently
unknowable and filled
with risks, faith
required an act of
commitment (the "leap
of faith"); the
commitment to
Christianity would also
lessen the despair of an
absurd world.
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages
 Disadvantages
 Ultimate choice is the
 Confined by
character’s, no
external pull
 Potential explanation
for need for religion
constructs of society
 Can drive you insane
 Why are we here then?
 I might as well just die
Post-colonialism
 School of thought that
 Suggested Websites:
existed in the postEuropean empire
period, the body of
theoretical literature that
existed in that time
 Takes us back to time
and place to examine
works (resurrect
culture)
 Free from modern
constructs of history
 "Post-Colonialism" -
Wikipedia Encyclopedia
 "Some Issues in
Postcolonial Theory" by
Dr. John Lye (Brock
University)
 "Introduction to
Postcolonial Studies" by
Dr. Deepika Bahri
(Emory University)
Key Terms:
 Alterity – Being different
 Hybridity - The assimilation
than one’s community
and adaptation of cultural
 Diaspora- Being forced as
practices, the crossan ethnic culture to leave
fertilization of cultures; can
original homeland and
be seen as positive, enriching,
dispersed throughout world
and dynamic, as well as as
oppressive
 Eurocentrism –an
emphasis on European or
 Imperialism- If you don’t
Western beliefs, often at
know it I don’t know
expense of other cultures.
you…
Aligned with current and
past power structures in the
world.
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages
 Forces us to look at
 Disadvantages
lost cultures and the
origins of alternative
cultures (nonWestern)
 Considers literature in
context and therefore
makes it easier to
understand at times
remove from modern
realm
 Have to assume there
is an oppressed people
in order to use
 Cannot apply to all
Western works
 Hard to completely
Example
 Consider some of the American Literature
that you read last year. Was any of it from
a perspective other than a colonist? A
European? A white male? Were there any
characters that stood out as not fitting into
their culture or society? How or why?
So…
 Now you have the basics, and when I say that I
mean BARE minimum you need to know to begin
to understand the literary criticisms you will
become familiar with this year. Keep your notes
as we will refer back to them often, as we read
literary criticisms of the novels we read and as we
start to analyze literature ourselves.
 YOU HAVE THE KEYS, unlock the doors

Sources:
 Dr. Kristie Siegel
www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm
 Skylar Hamilton Burris
“Literary Resources Criticism”
http://editorskylar.tripod.com
 www.theory.org.uk
 Richter, David H. (2000). Falling Into
Theory. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.