Name: ____________________________________________
Holleman’s Ridiculously Oversimplified Guide to Literary Theory
School of literary theory
Archetypal/Myth
Criticism
Cultural studies
Deconstruction
Dialogism
Feminism
Fundamental assumptions of school:
Typical questions a practitioner might apply to a text:
• Certain images, types of characters, narrative designs, and
themes (called archetypes) recur within works of literature
from a variety of time periods and cultures
• Archetypes represent the ‘psychic residue’ of repeated
experiences in the lives of humans in all places and times
• The study of archetypes in literature can reveal universal
truths about human nature that transcend time, place, and
culture
• “Culture” encompasses the ideas, customs, skills, and arts
that are shared by a group of people
• Literature both shapes and is shaped by the culture(s) in
which it exists
• By examining the interplay of the representations and
ideologies of class, gender, and race in a literary text, we
can gain insight into the cultures that influenced it and that
are reflected in it
• What universal character types (e.g. heroes) occur in the text?
• What archetypal narrative patterns (e.g. quests) occur in the text?
• What universal themes (e.g. good vs. evil) occur in the text?
• What universal truths about human nature do the archetypes included in this text
reveal?
• Words have too many possible meanings to ever have one
distinct meaning – words necessarily dismantle the very
meaning they are intended to construct
• Because works of literature are composed of imperfect
words, tensions will exist in the text between contradictory
meanings of the words used
• Ultimately, what is not expressed within the text is just as
important as what is expressed
• In what ways do words confound rather than illuminate the meaning?
• How does meaning break down or deconstruct itself in the language of the text?
• How are contradictory and opposing meanings expressed in the text?
• Are any definitive meanings possible to determine and establish in the text? How
does this affect your interpretation?
• How are implicit (and unstated) ideological values revealed in the work?
• Meaning is expressed through and depends upon dialogue:
communication requires both a speaker or writer and a
respondent
• How people use language is more important than the
structure of language itself
• Literary texts provide a means of dialogue between author
and audience
• Within works of literature, meaning is revealed through
characters’ dialogue
• In what different circumstances is language used in the text?
• For what purposes do different characters use language?
• What meaning might be revealed through the characters’ intonation?
• What meanings do the interplay of voices in the text suggest or reveal?
• Literature reflects the society and culture that produced it
• Western European societies have traditionally prevented
women from attaining positions of wealth and/or power
• By approaching gender as an arbitrary role constructed by
society rather than a fixed biological state, we can gain a
greater insight into the impact of society upon female
identity at large
• How are women portrayed in the text? How do men respond to them?
• What ideas about gender roles are propagated in the text?
• What relationships exist between men and women in the work? Are these
relationships sources of conflict? Do they provide resolution to conflict?
• Does the work challenge or uphold traditional ideas about women?
• How are different classes, races, and genders portrayed?
• What roles do characters of diverse backgrounds play?
• What sort of behavior does the work seem to uphold as a model?
• Who has power within the culture(s) portrayed the text?
• What groups of people are oppressed by those in power, and how?
• What stereotypes does the text create or perpetuate?
• How do those with less power try to subvert those with more power?
Freudian
Psychoanalysis
Genre theory
Historicism
Lacanian
psychoanalysis
• Human beings (in the realm of literature, authors and
characters) are controlled by the unconscious
• One’s personality -- the self -- is developed through the
repression of biological desires as a child progresses
through the oral, anal, phallic, latent, and adult stages
• Failure to successfully navigate a sexual stage results in
fixation and/or other disorders
• By examining literature as a product of the unconscious
(like a dream), we can better understand the author’s state
of mind and motivation to write
• By studying the words and actions of characters, we can
discover what unconscious desires control them
• What does the story reveal about the author’s unconscious or repressed desires?
• Are dreams, repressions, and desires presented consciously or unconsciously by the
author?
(Author analysis – currently out of favor with many scholars)
• The ultimate end of reading literature is to derive pleasure
from the experience
• A large part of the pleasure of reading comes from the
comfort of knowing what sorts of things to expect from a
particular work of literature
• Works of literature can be categorized into different types
according to a few distinctive characteristics, structures,
and conventions.
• The study of different types of literature gives us greater
insight into the nature of literature and its ability to provide
pleasure
• How would I classify this piece of literature – epic? novel? poem? drama?
• What subcategories might apply to this text – gothic? science fiction?
• What criteria did I use to answer the first two questions?
• How appropriate is the treatment of the subject matter to the nature of the subject
matter itself?
• How does the text uphold my expectations of what it should be? In what ways does
it challenge those expectations?
• How does literature of this type entertain, and in what ways does it differ (in nature
and effectiveness) from other types?
• Literature does not transcend culture, it is a product of a
specific point in place and time
• One should strive to read texts from the past in the same
way they were read when they were new; one does this by
stepping outside of his experiences and biases to read
objectively
• Historical fact can be applied and used to understand and
explain a literary text
• How does the work reflect the time period in which it was written?
• How does the work reflect the time period it depicts?
• What literary or historical influences helped to shape the form and content of the
work?
• To what extent is the historical context (both that of the work and that of the reader)
important to understanding the work?
• Human beings (in the realm of literature, authors and
characters) are controlled by the unconscious
• One’s sense of self is developed through the learning of
language. Words -- “I,” “boy,” “girl,” “son,” “daughter,”
“friend,” etc. -- confer identity
• Words represent the self but are not actually the self;
language informs and reflects the unconscious, and viceversa
• One’s use of language (in speech, literature, etc.) reveals
much about the unconscious
• What does the language in the text reveal about the author’s/characters’ state of
mind?
• Are any characters trapped in the mirror stage? Do any complications arise as a
result of being unable to transcend the mirror stage?
• In what ways does language fail to provide a character with a satisfactory
identity/sense of self?
• What underlying problems or motivations does a character’s use of language reveal?
• What do the characters’ emotions and behaviors reveal about their states of mind or
personality types?
• Do any of the characters demonstrate an oral fixation? an anal fixation? How do
these disorders influence their actions?
• What significance does the text have that the author may have been unaware of?
(Character analysis – more generally accepted among scholars)
Marxism
Media theory
New criticism
New historicism
Postcolonialism
• Works of art or literature are, at least to some extent, always
products of historical forces that result from material
conditions
• Works of art and literature reflect a society’s ideologies and
class struggles
• Most modern societies consist of two classes: the “have’s”
and the “have not’s”, and the former will always exploit
the latter
• Literary study is a means whereby to uncover social
injustice
• How are class differences presented in the text?
• How do economic conditions determine the courses of the characters’ lives?
• Are characters aware or unaware of the socio-economic forces that affect their lives?
• What ideological values are implicit or explicit?
• Does the text challenge or affirm the social order it describes?
• The emergence of new technology in the twentieth century
has given rise to new media and thus new types of texts
(radio and television programs, movies, etc.)
• The medium through which a message is communicated is
just as important as the message itself (if not more so).
• To fully realize and appreciate the message of an electronic
(or any other) text, it is important to first understand the
nature of the medium through which the text is
communicated
• What medium is being used to convey the message?
• How does this medium influence and affect me in ways that other media do not?
• How is the author utilizing properties of this media to manipulate my interpretation
of the text (camera angles, music, light/shadow, scenery,etc.)?
• Judgments about the meaning or quality of a text should be
based on the text and the text alone – not historical
background, biographical information about the author, etc.
• To assume that the author’s original intent (as if it could be
known for certain) should influence our interpretation is to
fall prey to the intentional fallacy
• To assume that a text’s quality or value can be judged
according to how deeply it moves a reader emotionally is
to fall prey to the affective fallacy
• How do various elements of the work – plot, character, point of view, setting, tone,
diction, imagery, symbolism, etc. – reveal and reinforce its meanings?
• How do the elements contribute to the whole?
• What is the work’s major organizing principle? How is its structure unified?
• What issues does the work raise? How does it resolve those issues?
• Literature does not transcend culture; it is the subjective
product of a specific place and time
• The reader can never escape his/her own experiences and
cultural biases to read works of other cultures objectively
• The full significance of a work can only be understood and
appreciated by members of the culture that produced it.
All other readers should strive towards as “close” a reading
as possible
• One can achieve a “close” reading by striving to understand
the culture which produced the text through research of
primary documents (popular texts, legal documents)
• What historical or cultural events might illuminate the text?
• What does the text reveal about connections between language, knowledge, and
power in a particular culture?
• What divisions and struggles existed in the society that produced the text?
• In what ways might struggles for power have affected the text?
• Literature both informs and reflects cultural identity
• A culture that is colonized by another becomes changed
forever – cultural identity can never return to what it was
• Consequences of colonization are both positive and
negative, and they can be unconscious and lasting
• Is the text written in the language of the colonizing or the colonized culture?
• What aspects of the literature reflect indigenous culture, and what aspects reflect the
superimposed culture?
• Does the work support autonomy and political independence, or does it encourage
continuing (if subtle) dependence upon another culture?
• What does the text reveal or suggest about changing notions in regard to ownership
of land, the role of women in society, gender roles, cultural identity, etc.?
Queer theory
Reader response
Structuralism
Womanism
• Literature reflects and informs personal identity, addressing
such issues as sex, gender, and desire
• Sex (a biological status), gender (a socially defined role),
and desire (either homosexual or heterosexual) are
independent of one another: i.e. Madonna can dress and act
like a man, pursue men and/or women sexually, and always
remain female.
• The study of literature can provide insight into the nature of
identity
• What distinguishes one character from another in the text? Upon what are the
identities of each character based?
• In what ways are sex, gender, and desire portrayed in the work?
• To what extent do sex, gender, and desire inform the identity of each character?
• The meaning of a work of literature does not reside within
the text; it is up to each reader to decide what the meaning
of the book is for himself or herself
• No reader can tell another reader what a text means; the
meaning varies for each person
• One’s interpretation of a text depends largely upon one’s
past experiences and personal belief system
• “How do you respond to the work?”
• “How do your own experiences and expectations affect your reading and
interpretation?”
• “What is the work’s original or intended audience? To what extent are you similar to
or different from that audience?”
• “Do you respond to the work in the same way after more than one reading?”
• Until we assign a label, or word, to an object, we have no
way of identifying it to ourselves or others. It is only when
we label an object that it becomes “real.” Thus we use
language to construct reality.
• A word by itself does not really have “meaning.” It is only
when a word holds a place within a structure that it can be
compared to other words and take on its own meaning.
• Literature reflects a structured reality, and by examining
literature we can gain insight into the way humans
perceive, think, and feel.
• How are word values and meanings established in the text?
• What different levels of meaning might one word possess?
• How does word order impact meaning?
• What does the structure of the language in the text reveal about the ways in which
members of the culture perceive and think about the world?
• Literature reflects the society and culture that produced it; it
both informs and reflects cultural identity
• Feminism is largely a white movement: African-American
women have not been subject to the same forces that have
traditionally suppressed European and European-American
women
• Literature by African-American women has fostered a
strong sense of cultural identity by addressing issues that
impact black women specifically and uniquely – among
these are slavery, racism, sexual abuse, and gender identity.
• Womanism comprises a world view that is almost
exclusively limited to black women
• What were the author’s sources of inspiration?
• In what ways do the black women in the text relate to men and to one another? What
do the relationships reveal?
• What does this work reveal about the strength and resiliency of African-American
women?
• What historical truths does the text reveal about the shared experience of AfricanAmerican women?
• What does the work reveal about black female identity in general?