Reading a Text through a Lens
Why is this important?
• We always bring our own perspective (“lens”)
to anything that we read.
– Our values, experiences, and social expectations
shape the way we read.
– No “natural” response.
Reading and Personal Experience
. . . a man must bring
To music what his mother spanked him for
When he was two: bits of forgotten hate,
Devotion: whether or not his mattress hurts:
The little dream his father humored: the thing
His sister did for money: what he ate
For breakfast—and for dinner twenty years
Ago last autumn: all his skipped desserts.
—“The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith”
Gwendolyn Brooks
All of us read through our own lenses .
..
But in literary theory,
that lens is more explicit (stated
rather than implied).
We can also “try on” different lenses
to develop different points of view.
“Literary theory functioned in my life as a prism, which I could turn to
refract different spectral patterns of language use in a text, as one
does daylight. Turn the prism this way, and one pattern emerges; turn
it that way and another pattern configures.”
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
What is “Theory”?
• It used to refer to theories about literary form
and language.
• Now, it has expanded—philosophy, social
histories, intellectual histories, etc.
• All of this is considered “Critical Theory” or
“Theory.”
Theories of Language and Form
• Structuralism
• Post-Structuralism
• New Criticism
– Now considered more “old-fashioned”
– Focus on the text itself (apart from social or
political context)
– “Close Reading”
Social Criticism and Cultural Studies
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•
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Post-colonialism
Critical Race Theory
New Historicism
Marxist Theory
Feminist Theory
Gender Studies
Queer Theory
– Grew out of Gay and Lesbian Studies
Social Criticism and Cultural Studies
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Post-colonialism
Critical Race Theory
New Historicism
Marxist Theory
Feminist Theory
Gender Studies
Queer Theory
– Grew out of Gay and Lesbian Studies
Social Criticism and Cultural Studies
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Post-colonialism
Critical Race Theory
New Historicism
Marxist Theory
Feminist Theory
Gender Studies
Queer Theory
– Grew out of Gay and Lesbian Studies
Social Criticism and Cultural Studies
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Post-colonialism
Critical Race Theory
New Historicism
Marxist Theory
Feminist Theory
Gender Studies
Queer Theory
– Grew out of Gay and Lesbian Studies
How does this work?
Let’s look at Cinderella . . .
Marxist Reading
Feminist Reading
Intersectionality
• Combines multiple theories
– Acknowledges that no identity or social force exists in
isolation.
Snow White
Snow White
Feminist Theory
Snow White
Feminist Theory + Critical Race Theory