An Overview of Literary Theory
and Criticism
ENG 4U1
WHAT is Literary THEORY?
• Literary theory is the ideas and methods we
use to interpret and analyze literature from a
variety of perspectives
• It opens up the possibilities of what literature
can MEAN to the reader
• It is a toolbox for explaining and interpreting
literary texts
What is Literary CRITICISM?
• Literary Criticism is the practice of judging
and commenting on the qualities and
character of literary works.
• During the process of criticism, a person may
use literary theory to support the judging and
commenting of the literary works
De Villiers 1830 – Caricature of literary critics removing
passages from literature that displease them
WHY?
• Understanding and applying these theories
opens up new angles and perspectives from
which we can study literature and formulate
OUR criticism of these texts
• You will see the “big picture” of literature – how
it impacts our society and world, both past,
present and future
• YOU will get to be the critic!
For example...
• If a critic is working with certain Marxist
theories, s/he might focus on how the characters
in a story interact based on their economic
situation. If a critic is working with post-colonial
theories, s/he might consider the same story but
look at how characters from colonial powers
(Britain, France, and even America) treat
characters from, say, Africa or the Caribbean.
Why now?
• You will probably find many familiar elements of
the theories we will be learning more about
• In other words, you have already been
examining texts from these viewpoints – you just
may not have been explicitly taught about them
▫ “The Danger of the Single Story” ENG 3U1
(Cultural)
▫ Making connections/responding to what you read
(Reader Response)
▫ Analyzing the elements of the story – plot, theme,
character, setting, etc. (Formalism)
How many theories are out there?
• Moral and Dramatic Construction (Traditional)
▫ Plato
▫ Aristotle
• Formalism/New Criticism
• Psychoanalytical
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▫ Sigmund Freud
▫ Carl Jung/Archetypal
Marxism
Reader Response
New Historicism/Cultural Studies
Post Colonial
Feminist
Gender Studies and Queer Theory
Moral and Dramatic Construction
(Traditional)
• Plato and the moral view
▫ Art must teach morality and ethics to be
important to society
• Aristotle and the elements of literature
▫ A good story must have effective components:
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Plot
Character and Catharsis (emotion/pity)
Diction
Thought
Rhythm
Formalism
• Builds on Aristotle’s ideas about an effective text
• Studies elements such as language, imagery, point of
view, plot structure, and/or character development and
motivation
• Pays no attention to either the authors or readers of texts
• Directs readers to be neutral or unemotional
• Gives no consideration to social and historical context
• New Criticism (a type of formalism) focuses on the
elements of fiction and emphasizes how they work
together to create, in a work of quality, a coherent whole:
a unity of plot, theme and character, through use of tone,
point of view, imagery, purposeful action, dialogue, and
description
• Is often analyzed and written as a “close reading”
Formalism: It’s all about Form!
Strengths
Weaknesses
• The reader does not need
additional knowledge, other
than what’s in the text, for
interpreting the literary work
• It ignores the author’s intentions
• It assumes that “good” literature
is “coherent” and that a text that
is not coherent by its standards is
not “good” literature. This
means many works don’t get read
or considered to be of value
• It divorces literature from its
larger cultural context
• It assumes that readers can
refrain from investing emotionally
in their reading and can / should
respond objectively to texts
Applying Formalism
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Who is the protagonist?
What conflicts does the protagonist experience?
What is the climax of the story?
What is the protagonist’s role in the climax?
How is the setting relevant for this particular story?
What is the theme of the story?
How do character, plot and setting develop the
story?
• How does the work use imagery to develop its own
symbols?
• How are the various parts of the work
interconnected?
Psychoanalytical/Archetypal
• Using the theories developed by psychologists
such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung can
provide useful clues to the sometime baffling
symbols, actions, and settings in a literary work
• Applying only these theories can be dangerous
as it can provide a very narrow view of the text
• We will explore Freud’s Oedipus Complex and
Jung’s Individuated Person ideas when we study
Hamlet
Archetypal
• Examines how texts rely on archaic patterns for their meaning. The
word archetype derives from Greek, with arche meaning “first” and
typos meaning “form” or “type”. According to the Gage dictionary,
archetype means “an original model or pattern from which copies
are made.”
• Depends on the original narrative models and patterns on which
western literary textual conventions come from (Judeo-Christian
scripture and Greco-Roman mythology). Archetypal literary critics
identify how and to what effect patterns from these ancient sources
are used in folk tales, epics, media texts, comics, and other texts.
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Maternal Figure
Wise old man
Hero
Trickster
Evil Figure
• Focus is on inter-textual connections, unlike formalists who view a
text as an isolated unit
Archetypal – Patterns over time
Strengths
Weaknesses
• This theory encourages a close
and careful reading and
subsequent analysis of the text.
It is also an exciting and
interesting theory because it can
link a text or idea from 500 years
ago with a text written today
• One concern some people have
with this theory is that it limits
personal interpretation.
However, some personal
interpretation is needed in
determining which archetypal
patterns the literature reflects.
This theory can also be limiting
because it only analyzes one
aspect (archetypes) of
literature.
Applying Archetypal Theory
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What is the protagonist’s starting point and end point for the journey that
he/she takes?
What greater significance do the settings or situations convey? (e.g., spring
= rebirth)
How does the protagonist link to other protagonists from other texts or real
life people?
What symbols or archetypes remind you of other texts you have read or
other experiences you have had? (e.g., does a man with a black hat in a
mystery novel make you think about how the “bad guys” in Westerns always
wear black?)
How does the protagonist reflect the hero of myth?
Does the “hero” embark on a journey in either a physical or spiritual sense?
Is there a journey to an underworld or land of the dead?
What trials or ordeals does the protagonist face? What is the reward for
overcoming them?
Marxism
• Emerged in the nineteenth century as a result of the theories of Karl
Marx and Friedrich Engels, concerns itself with the economic struggles
for power between the working class and the ruling class
• Believed in an eventual classless society with communal ownership of
all natural and industrial resources
• Applied to literature, they provide a means for assessing the social
significance of a text. Marxist criticism believes that literature is one
form of cultural production of a complex society and, as such, reflects
the forces shaping the society’s culture. This is to say that literature is
not only a mirror which reflects society, but also a dynamic participant
in the shaping of a culture
• Focused on the idea that the lower/working class is always oppressed in
a society
Applying Marxism to Literature...
• Literature expresses the ideas, beliefs, and values of a
culture
• Literature of any significance actively engages in
controversy or argument
• Literature reveals power struggles (sexual power, economic
power, social power, and so on) and how this operates and
with what consequences
• Literature reveals how the author, reader, and characters
demonstrate an awareness or lack or awareness of their
economic and social situations and what oppresses them
• Literature and authors can manipulate readers into
sympathizing with rather than critiquing the dominant (and
oppressive) social order
Marxism: Clashing of the Social Classes
Strengths
Weaknesses
• Like Archetypal criticism, this
theory encourages a careful
reading of a text. It also does
not limit a reader to view the
text in isolation, but allows the
reader to think about the text in
its social, historical, and current
contexts.
• The main concern some readers
may have about this theory is
that it only examines a limited
aspect of the text. Some people
feel threatened by the focus on
“ideology.” It dismisses the
beauty of writing and does not
allow the reader to simply enjoy
the text.
Applying Marxism:
What or whose ideological values structure the text? How are these evident?
Who has power (and of what sorts) in the texts? How does this power
operate and change as the text progresses?
What “master” or dominant social narratives are perpetuated or critiqued
and disrupted in the text? (e.g., the American Dream, whereby, with hard
work and individual effort, a poor person can achieve success)
To what degree does the protagonist or other characters believe in and live
by the prevailing social order?
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At what point do characters recognize the oppressiveness of the prevailing
social order?
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How do they respond? What affects their options for changing things?
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How is social objectification evident and how does it operate in the text?
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What are the social forces that affect the author’s writing or the text’s
marketing and reception?
Reader Response
• The role of the reader is pivotal in the
understanding of literature – they can use a
psychoanalytical, structural, feminist, etc.
approach to formulate their criticism – in other
words, anything goes!
• Readers are active in the reading process – they
cannot read literature passively – they must
react and therefore bring meaning to the text
Some Positions of Reader Response
Theory
• Meaning is in act of reading not text itself
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You can read in a literary manner or aesthetically. “In aesthetic reading,
the reader’s attention is centred directly on what he is living through during
his relation with that particular text”
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Your interpretation changes each time your read the same text because
your experiences have changed
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A community of readers (those with similar experiences and backgrounds)
are likely to read and interpret a text similarly, even if they are not in
complete agreement
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The intended reader of a text is the general audience the author is trying to
reach—those who have the ability and perspective to appreciate the author’s
intentions
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The resisting reader reads from a perspective that is directly opposed to the
author’s. He/She might read from the position of the antagonist or
marginal character
Reader Response – What do you think?
Strengths
Weaknesses
• Recognizes the importance of
the reader and reading as an
intellectual and active activity
• Gives readers the freedom to
provide meaning to a text,
allowing for multiple
interpretations of a text
• No one controls the meaning of
a text. There is no objective
party to assist readers if they
don’t agree with one another.
Also, there is no objective way
for people, such as teachers, to
evaluate responses fairly
because how can one person say
that another reader’s
interpretation is wrong even
though that reader may not
really understand the text?
Applying Reader Response
• How do you feel about this text? Why did you like/dislike
it?
• Explain how the text connects to an experience you have
had.
• Why do you think the characters acted as they did?
• In a similar situation, how would you have behaved?
• Who do you think is the intended reader for this selection?
• Create a poem, collage or letter to one of the characters in
the text with whom you most identify. Explain in your
piece why you identify with this character.
New Historicism/Cultural Studies
• New Historicism assumes that every work is a
product of the historic moment that created it
• New historicists do not believe that we can look
at history objectively, but rather that we
interpret events as products of our time and
culture
• Texts are examined with an eye for how they
reveal the economic and social realities,
especially as they produce ideology and
represent power or subversion
Applying New Historicism/Cultural
Studies
• What language/characters/events present in the work reflect the current
events of the author’s day?
• Are there words in the text that have changed their meaning from the time
of the writing?
• How are such events interpreted and presented?
• How are events' interpretation and presentation a product of the culture of
the author?
• Does the work's presentation support or condemn the event?
• How does this portrayal criticize the leading political figures or movements
of the day?
• How does the literary text function as part of a continuum with other
historical/cultural texts from the same period...?
• How can we use a literary work to "map" the interplay of both traditional
and subversive discourses circulating in the culture in which that work
emerged and/or the cultures in which the work has been interpreted?
• How does the work consider traditionally marginalized populations?
Post-Colonial Criticism
• Focus is on works created by Colonial powers
and the impact on those Colonized
• Approach is similar to New Historicism/Cultural
Studies
Applying Post-Colonialism
• How does the literary text, explicitly or allegorically, represent
various aspects of colonial oppression?
• What does the text reveal about the problematics of post-colonial
identity, including the relationship between personal and cultural
identity and such issues as double consciousness and hybridity?
• What person(s) or groups does the work identify as "other" or
stranger? How are such persons/groups described and treated?
• What does the text reveal about the politics and/or psychology of
anti-colonialist resistance?
• What does the text reveal about the operations of cultural difference
- the ways in which race, religion, class, gender, sexual orientation,
cultural beliefs, and customs combine to form individual identity in shaping our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world in
which we live?
• Are there meaningful similarities among the literatures of different
post-colonial populations?
Feminism
• Though a number of different approaches exist in feminist criticism, there
exist some areas of commonality. This list is excerpted from Tyson:
▫ Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and
psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which they are kept
so
▫ In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is 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 and
death in the world
▫ While biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our gender
(masculine or feminine)
▫ All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its
ultimate goal to change the world by prompting gender equality
▫ Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience,
including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously
aware of these issues or not (91).
Feminism: An on-going battle for
equality
Strengths
Weaknesses
• For centuries, women in
literature, the roles of both men
and women and how they were
represented were not a focus of
literary criticism. This theory
finally examines how women
and men are represented and
deals with the importance of
women in literature
• If this theory is the only one
applied to a text, it can be rather
limiting. It only examines one
element of the text.
Applying Feminism
• What is the protagonist’s attitude to male and female characters? How is
this evident? How does this affect your response to the characters?
• How are women represented in the text?
• What roles do men and women play within family, work situations, etc.
(hero, breadwinner, helper, cook, sex object)?
• What were the social and historical conditions for women in this period that
might help us understand their roles in the text?
• How do women exercise their power in the text?
• If you were to rewrite the text’s ending, what would happen to the female
protagonist? The male protagonist?
• How and to what degree are the women’s lives limited or restricted in this
text?
Gender Studies and Queer Theory
• Explores issues of sexuality, power, and
marginalized populations (woman as other) in
literature and culture.
• Maintains that cultural definitions of sexuality
and what it means to be male and female are in
flux – an attractive woman can wear jeans and
flannels and be assertive whereas previously that
same woman would need to be wearing a dress
and in a passive state to be viewed as attractive
Applying Gender Studies and 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 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 identify with that community?
• How does the literary text illustrate the problematics of sexuality and sexual
"identity," that is the ways in which human sexuality does not fall neatly
into the separate categories defined by the words homosexual and
heterosexual?
How will we use this information?
• We will now be able to apply these theories to
the texts we study in class
• We can use the questions posed in the
application section to help guide our study of the
text from the theory being applied
References
• http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/literary/