Roberts Appendix A “Critical Approaches Important in the Study of Literature
There are a number of critical theories and approaches in understanding and interpreting
literature, and some are more user-friendly than others for certain types of discovery
1. Moral/Intellectual
a. Concerned with content, value and imparting morality. Philosophy or religion.
b. Discovers meaning as well as determines whether a work is TRUE and
SIGNIFICANT
c. Can the reader live a better life after reading it?
d. It should be left to the reader to decide whether to assimilate the ideas in the work;
it shouldn’t be a sermon
2. Topical/Historical
a. focuses on the relationship of a work to its historical period
b. criticized for removing focus from work onto history-gave way to NEW
HISTORICISM where historical knowledge is integrated into understanding of
the work
c. reader must use footnotes, dictionaries, library catalogues, histories and
handbooks
3. New Critical/formalist
a. Focuses on texts as formal works of art
b. Reaction against topical/historical approach
c. Emphasizes detailed examination and explanation
d. All aspects of a work are thought to have been in the conscious or subconscious
control of the author-there are no accidents
e. Does not claim infallible interpretations and does not exclude other readings of
the same work
f. Criticized for failing to deal with literary value and appreciation
4. Structuralist
a. Attempts to find relationships and connections among elements that appear to be
separate and discrete
b. Tries to discover patterns in apparently unrelated works
c. Enables critics to discuss works from a wide slection of eras or cultures
d. Like New Critical/formalist, structuralist aims at thorough description
e. Also closely related to archetypal approach as it organizes work into various
situations
f. Emphasizes how writers use different structures such as “surface structure” and
“deep structure”
5. feminist
a. believes that most literature presents a masculine-patriarchal view and roles of
women are minimalized, negated or stereotyped
b. attempts to stimulate a creation of a critical milieu that reflects a balanced view of
women’s nature and value
c. recognize past and present women writers
d. work toward transforming our language for more gender equality and equity
6. economic determinist/Marxist
a. features the individual in the class struggle
b. emphasizes lower class individuals and their trials/tribulations
c. what is the economic position of the characters
d. Marxism never caught on here and faded in the former Soviet Union
7. psychological/psychoanalytic
a. behavior is caused (in part?) by unconscious or hidden motives
b. Freud established psychodynamic theory, giving way to the scientific study of the
mind
c. Used to explain fictional characters (Hamlet suffers from an Oedipal complex)
d. Used to analyze authors and their artistic porcesses
8. archetypal/symbolic/mythic
a. derived from work of Carl Jung’s archetypes or patterns that make up life
b. similar to structuralist approach in stressing connections
c. the best literature has a basis in archetypal patterns
d. examples: adolescence, love, success, death
9. deconstructionist
a. developed by Jacques Derrida
b. stresses ambiguity and contradiction
c. there is no central, entire and knowable truth because intellect is govenered by
ever-changing circumstances and time
d. “All interpretation is misinterpretation”
e. All interpretations are valid and the “linguistic instability” means that there s
never one right interpretation, including any from the future
f. Critics hold that the author sometimes means ot be vague, such analysis is vague
and unoriginal and “priviledged readings” must frist eb recognized in order to be
disputed
10. Reader-response
a. Rooted in PHENOMENOLOGY-philosophical branch studies how things appear
b. Reality is perception; reality is not external
c. A work is not complete until a reader assimilates it
d. Personal and anecdotal
11.
`