English 4U
by Carlinda D’Alimonte
This presentation is partly based on a PowerPoint by
Suzann Ledford.
Any piece of text can be read with a number of
different sets of “glasses,” meaning you are
looking for different things within the text.
Literary Criticism helps readers understand a
text in relation to the author, culture, and other
texts.
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.
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
The following slides discuss specific 20th century
literary theories. 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.
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Links to Critical/Theoretical Approaches:
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New Criticism
Archetypal/Myth Criticism
Psychoanalytic Criticism
Marxism
Postcolonialism
Existentialism
Phenomenology, and Hermeneutics
Russian Formalism/Prague Linguistic Circle/Linguistic Criticism/Dialogism
Avant-Garde/Surrealism/Dadaism
Structuralism and Semiotics
Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction
Postmodernism
New Historicism
Reception and Reader-Response Theory
Feminism
Genre Criticism
Autobiographical Theory
Travel Theory
Links to Other General Literary Theory Websites
General Resources - Bibliography of Critical Theory Texts
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Moral Criticism, Dramatic Construction (~360 BC-present)
Formalism, New Criticism, Neo-Aristotelian Criticism (1930spresent)
Psychoanalytic Criticism, Jungian Criticism(1930s-present)
Marxist Criticism (1930s-present)
Reader-Response Criticism (1960s-present)
Structuralism/Semiotics (1920s-present)
Post-Structuralism/Deconstruction [Post-Modernism] (1966present)
New Historicism/Cultural Studies (1980s-present)
Post-Colonial Criticism (1990s-present)
Feminist Criticism (1960s-present)
Gender/Queer Studies (1970s-present)
(Brizee)
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Biographical/Historical
Modernism/Formalism/New Criticism
Psychoanalytic
Archetypal/Mythological
Sociological
Marxist
Reader-Response
Structuralism
New Historian/Cultural Studies
Post-Modernism
Feminist
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Analyzes an author’s life in regard to their
work can enhance the understanding of a work
Work is analyzed for relevance to its author
Understanding the work helps us understand
the author and visa versa
Works are placed in their historical context to
grasp meaning
Research into the time period in which the
piece was written enlightens understanding
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What events in the author’s life helped to shape
the work?
What beliefs and prejudices have influenced
the work?
How has the author’s cultural milieu
influenced the work?
Has the author’s age, race, religion, etc. shaped
the work?
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Wilde had an intimate knowledge of
“Bunburying” because he led a doublelife too in his homosexual relationship
with a young Oxford student.
The characters’ flippant attitude about
marriage mirrors Wilde’s own casual
devotion to his wife.
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Rejected traditional ways of reading
literature (historical, autobiographical,
etc.)
Text contains meaning that can be
understood apart from external factors
focuses on symbol, metaphor, imagery,
foreshadowing, alliteration, and so on
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Has the advantage of forcing writers
to evaluate a work on its own terms
rather than to rely on “accepted”
notions of the writer’s work
Works best when applied to poetry
and short fiction.
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Attempts to discover meaning by close
reading of a work of literature. Focus is
on:
 Form, organization, and structure
 Word choice and language
 Multiple meanings
Considers the work in isolation,
disregarding author’s intent, author’s
background, context, and anything else
outside of the work itself.
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The formalist movement began in
England with the publication of I.A.
Richards’ Practical Criticism (1929).
American critics (such as John Crowe
Ransom, Robert Penn Warren, and
Cleanth Brooks) adapted formalism and
termed their adaptation “New
Criticism.”
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New Criticism varied from formalism in
that New Criticism focuses on image,
symbol, and meaning. Traditional
formalists often attacked New Critics for
their lack of attention to the form of the
work.
Seminal works on New Criticism include
John Crowe Ransom’s The New
Criticism (1941) and Cleanth Brooks’ The
Well Wrought Urn (1947).
Today, few critics adhere only to the
Modernist, Formalist or New
Criticism theory. However, its backto-the-basics approach pervades
many other critical theories.
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How does the work use imagery to develop its own symbols? (i.e. making
a certain road stand for death by constant association)
What is the quality of the work's organic unity "...the working together of
all the parts to make an inseparable whole..." (Tyson 121)? In other words,
does how the work is put together reflect what it is?
How are the various parts of the work interconnected?
How do paradox, irony, ambiguity, and tension work in the text?
How do these parts and their collective whole contribute to or not
contribute to the aesthetic quality of the work?
How does the author resolve apparent contradictions within the work?
What does the form of the work say about its content?
Is there a central or focal passage that can be said to sum up the entirety
of the work?
How do the rhythms and/or rhyme schemes of a poem contribute to the
meaning or effect of the piece?
(Brizee)
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Analyzes literature to reveal insights about the
way the human mind works.
Is based on the work of Sigmund Freud and his
disciples.
Works well as a method of analyzing
characters’ actions and motivations.
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All actions are influenced by the
unconscious.
Human beings must repress many of
their desires to live peacefully with
others.
Repressed desires often surface in the
unconscious, motivating actions.
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The mind has three major areas of
activity:
 Id: Area in the unconscious that works
for gratification through the pleasure
principle
 Superego: An internal censor bringing
social pressures to bear on the id.
 Ego: Area in the consciousness that
mediates among demands of social
pressure, the id, and the superego.
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Drives governing human behavior
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Id – the animal nature that says, “Do what feels good.”
Ego – the reality-based part of your personality that
makes decisions to satisfy the Id and Superego
Superego – the socialized “conscience” that tells you
what’s right or fair
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Macbeth kills King Duncan because he
unconsciously recognizes the king as a fatherfigure. Hence, Duncan is a rival for power and
the affections of the people.
In the latter acts of the play, Macbeth has
indulged his id so often that his ego has lost the
ability to restrain it.
How do the operations of repression structure or inform the
work?
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Are there any oedipal dynamics - or any other family dynamics are work here?
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How can characters' behavior, narrative events, and/or images be
explained in terms of psychoanalytic concepts of any kind (for
example...fear or fascination with death, sexuality - which
includes love and romance as well as sexual behavior - as a
primary indicator of psychological identity or the operations of
ego-id-superego)?
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What does the work suggest about the psychological being of its
author?
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What might a given interpretation of a literary work suggest about
the psychological motives of the reader?
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Are there prominent words in the piece that could have different
or hidden meanings? Could there be a subconscious reason for the
author using these "problem words"?
(Brizee)
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Largely attributed to Carl Jung, a
disciple of Sigmund Freud
Archetype: a model or pattern from
which all other things of a similar
nature are made
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Collective Unconscious--there are certain
basic and central images and experiences
that are inherent in the human psyche
Analyzes what in a work evokes a
similar response in people, regardless of
culture
Concerned with enduring patterns and
how they are reflected in literature
Common Themes:
 Stories of quest and initiation
 Descents into the underworld
 Ascents into heaven
 Search for father/mother
 Fall from innocence
Characters:
 Scapegoat
 Hero/Villian
 Outcast
 Temptress
 Mother/Father
 Mentor
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Beowulf is the archetypal hero because
his bravery and righteous behavior
embodies the ideals and hopes of AngloSaxon society.
Grendel, the outsider, represents both the
alien invaders of neighboring, warring
tribes and the threat of supernatural
monsters, which, as pagans, the AngloSaxons truly believed existed.
What connections can we make between elements of the text
and the archetypes? (Mask, Shadow, Anima, Animus)
 How do the characters in the text mirror the archetypal
figures? (Great Mother or nurturing Mother, Whore,
destroying Crone, Lover, Destroying Angel)
 How does the text mirror the archetypal narrative patterns?
(Quest, Night-Sea-Journey)
 How symbolic is the imagery in the work?
 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?
(Brizee)
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Examines structure to find meaning
Uses patterns or codes of interpretation
“’Structuralism is used in literary theory, for
example, "...if you examine the structure of a large
number of short stories to discover the underlying
principles that govern their
composition...principles of narrative
progression...or of characterization...you are also
engaged in structuralist activity if you describe the
structure of a single literary work to discover how
its composition demonstrates the underlying
principles of a given structural system’ (Tyson 197198)” (Brizee).
What patterns exist within the text that connect it
to the larger "human" experience? In other words,
can we connect patterns and elements within the
text to other texts from other cultures to map
similarities that tell us more about the common
human experience? This is a liberal humanist move
that assumes that since we are all human, we all
share basic human commonalities.
 What rules or codes of interpretation must be
internalized in order to 'make sense' of the text?
(Brizee)
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Sees the reader as essential to the
interpretation of a work.
 Each reader is unique, with different
educations, experiences, moral values,
opinions, tastes, etc.
 Therefore, each reader’s interaction
with a work is unique.
Analyzes the features of the text that
shape and guide a reader’s reading.
Emphasizes recursive reading—
rereading for new interpretations.
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Reader-response theory has been
criticized as being overly impressionistic
and guilty of the affective fallacy (too
focused on the emotional effect of the
work). Less tactful critics have plainly
said that it is not intellectual.
These attacks resulted in an adaptation of
reader-response criticism called
reception theory.
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How does the interaction of text and reader create meaning?
What does a phrase-by-phrase analysis of a short literary
text, or a key portion of a longer text, tell us about the
reading experience prestructured by (built into) that text?
Do the sounds/shapes of the words as they appear on the
page or how they are spoken by the reader enhance or
change the meaning of the word/work?
How might we interpret a literary text to show that the
reader's response is, or is analogous to, the topic of the
story?
What does the body of criticism published about a literary
text suggest about the critics who interpreted that text
and/or about the reading experience produced by that text?
(Tyson 191)
(Brizee)
Maintains that the literary work cannot be
separated from the social context in
which it was created. In general,
sociological criticism examines one of
these two aspects:
 Conditions of production, such as
schools, magazines, publishers, and
fashions.
 The applicability of a given work—
fiction especially—in studying the
dynamics of a given society.
Sociological theory is so broad that it
can be subdivided in many different
categories. Two dominant theories
we’ll study are
 Marxist criticism
 Feminist criticism
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Marxist criticism is based on the social and
economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels. Their beliefs include the following:
 Value is based on labor.
 The working class will eventually overthrow
the capitalist middle class.
 In the meantime, the middle class exploits
the working class.
 Most institutions—religious, legal,
educational, and governmental—are
corrupted by middle-class capitalists.
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Marxist critics apply these economic and
social theories to literature by analyzing:
 Ideologies that support the elite and
place the working class at a
disadvantage
 Class conflict
Marxism strongly influenced fiction,
particularly American fiction, in the
1930s.
Whom does it benefit if the work or effort is
accepted/successful/believed, etc.?
 What is the social class of the author?
 Which class does the work claim to represent?
 What values does it reinforce?
 What values does it subvert?
 What conflict can be seen between the values the
work champions and those it portrays?
 What social classes do the characters represent?
 How do characters from different classes interact
or conflict?
(Brizee)
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Feminist criticism grew out of the
women’s movement that followed World
War II.
Feminist critics analyze the role of
gender in works of literature. Leading
critic Elaine Showalter describes two
purposes of feminist criticism:
 Feminist critique: The analysis of
works by male authors, especially in
the depiction of women’s writing
 Gynocriticism: The study of women’s
writing
Feminist critics have been responsible for
recovering neglected works by women authors
through the ages and creating a canon of
women’s writing.
A case in point is Kate Chopin. She was fairly
widely published in the 1890s, but her work
was largely neglected by literary critics until
the 1960s, when Chopin was “rediscovered” by
feminist critics.
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How is the relationship between men and women portrayed?
What are the power relationships between men and women (or
characters assuming male/female roles)?
How are male and female roles defined?
What constitutes masculinity and femininity?
How do characters embody these traits?
Do characters take on traits from opposite genders? How so? How
does this change others’ reactions to them?
What does the work reveal about the operations (economically,
politically, socially, or psychologically) of patriarchy?
What does the work imply about the possibilities of sisterhood as
a mode of resisting patriarchy?
What does the history of the work's reception by the public and by
the critics tell us about the operation of patriarchy?
(Brizee)
Reception theory is applied to the
general reading public rather than
an individual reader.
 Each generation has different
experiences, values, issues, etc.
 Therefore, each generation will read
a work differently.
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New historicist critics view literature as
part of history, and furthermore, as an
expression of forces on history.
New historicism compares literary
analysis to a dynamic circle:
 The work tells us something about the
surrounding ideology (slavery, rights
of women, etc.)
 Study of the ideology tells us
something about the work.
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New historicism takes two forms:
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Analysis of the work in the context in which it was
created
Analysis of the work in the context in which it was
critically evaluated.
New historicists assert that literature “does not
exist outside time and place and cannot be
interpreted without reference to the era in
which it was written” (Kirszner and Mandell
2038).
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Readers are influenced by their culture,
so no objective reading of a work is
possible.
Critics should consider how their own
culture affects their interpretation of the
historical influence on a work.
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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?
Can it be seen to do both?
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?
(Brizee)
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In its simplest terms, postmodernism consists of the period
following high modernism and includes the many theories
that date from that time, e.g., structuralism, semiotics, poststructuralism, deconstruction, and so forth . . .
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" (Childers and Hentzi 235).
“Postmodernism, in contrast [to Modernism}, doesn't lament
the idea of fragmentation, provisionality, or incoherence,
but rather celebrates that. The world is meaningless? Let's
not pretend that art can make meaning then, let's just play
with nonsense” Klages)
How does the work undermine or contradict generally
accepted truths?
 How does the author (or a character) omit, change, or
reconstruct memory and identity? How does a work fulfill
or move outside the established conventions of its genre?
 How does the work deal with the separation (or lack
thereof) between writer, work, and reader? What ideology
does the text seem to promote?
 What is left out of the text that if included might undermine
the goal of the work? If we changed the point of view of the
text - say from one character to another, or multiple
characters - how would the story change?
 Whose story is not told in the text? Who is left out and why
might the author have omitted this character's tale?
(Brizee)
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Abrams, M.H. The Mirror and the Lamp. London: Oxford UP, 1953. Print.
Aljohani, Aouda, and Thamer Al-Ghamdi. Literary Criticism Map. 2003.
Web. 2 Sept. 2010. <http://wwww.ksu.edu.sa/colleges/art/eng/461Eng/Literary%20Criticism%20Map.htm>.
Arnold, Matthew. “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time.” Selected
Prose. Ed. P.J. Keating. London: Penguin, 1970. 130-157. Print.
Brizee, Allan, and J. Cole Tompkins. "Literary Thoery and Schools of
Criticism." OWL Purdue Online Writing Lab. Purdue University, April 20,
2010. Web. 31 Aug 2010.
<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/01/>.
Childers and Hentzi, The Columbia Dictionary of Literary and Cultural Theory.
Columbia University Press, May 1995. Print.
Holman, C. Hugh and William Harmon. A Handbook to Literature. 6th ed.
New York: Macmillan, 1992. Print.
Klages, Mary. Literary Theory: A Guide for the Perplexed. Contunuum Press,
January 2007. Web. 31 Auguast 2010.
<http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/pomo.h
tml>.
Keating, P.J. Introduction. Selected Prose. By Matthew Arnold. Ed. Keating.
London: Penguin, 1970. 9-36. Print.
Kirszner, Laurie G. and Stephen R. Mandell. Literature: Reading, Reacting,
Writing. 3rd ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1997. Print.
Pope, Alexander. An Essay on Criticism. The Norton Anthology of English
Literature. 7th Major Authors ed. Ed. M.H. Abrams and Stephen
Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2001. 1123-1134. Print.