what are literary theory essay

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What Is Literary Theory and Why Do We Need It?

Alice Lopez

Too Long; Didn’t Read (TL; DR)

Literary theory is a set of tools we use to analyze and find deeper meaning in the texts we read. Each different theory sheds light on a specific aspect of literature and written stories, which in turn provides us with a focus for interpretation of them. You also might have heard of this kind of theory referred to as critical theory. According to Jonathan Culler, a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University, what we refer to as theory “includes works of anthropology, art history, film studies, gender studies, linguistics, philosophy, political theory, psychoanalysis, science studies, social and intellectual history, and sociology” (3-4). These works have had an impact beyond the field of study they came from because their ideas are widely applicable, including to literature.

When we read literature, we tend to make sense of what we read through our own experiences. In the introduction to the book Literary Theory: An Introduction , Terry Eagleton explains that: “[…] we always interpret literary works to some extent in the light of our own concerns” (10). So in order to deepen our personal interpretation of a text and to explore different viewpoints on it, we rely on literary theory.

Literary theory is a critical approach that you can choose to focus your textual analysis. In this context, the word “critical” does not mean engaging in scathing commentary on a text. Rather, a critical approach is one where you evaluate what you read and think about it from different perspectives. The word theory, in this instance, is not as abstract as it may sound – a theory is just an idea that was explored in depth in order to explain and interpret complex social systems or phenomena. A theory is not something that is simple or obvious, as it must be researched and fleshed out, and it usually has not been created specifically for literature analysis. Instead, a theory is made of “[…] writings from outside the field of literary studies [that] have been taken up by people in literary studies because their analyses of language, or mind, or history, or culture, offer new and persuasive accounts of textual and cultural matters” (Culler 3-4). These writings from different fields help us use specialized knowledge. Depending on what you are most interested in exploring within a text, you will choose a theory that can provide the most insight into this specific area.

These different theories are sometimes described as critical lenses. I like to think of a critical lens as a set of colored glasses: when wearing them, some colors will be made less visible, while others will stand out and become easier to focus on. For example, imagine wearing glasses with pink lenses. Everything you see will have a pink tint to it, which will alter the way you see colors: some colors will be accentuated, while others (like blue light) will be less noticeable. Wearing the colored lenses might also change your depth perception, or how well you see the contours of your environment. In short, changing the color of the lens on your glasses will allow you to see a different view than you would with the naked eye. Theory does similar for a text, helping us see it with a different view than we could while reading it alone. Some of the most common and widely-used literary theories are psychoanalytic theory, feminist theory, structuralism/ post-structuralism, and Marxist theory.

In his introduction to literary theory, Jonathan Culler shares the following list of characteristics of theory:

• Theory is interdisciplinary – discourse with effects outside an original discipline
• Theory is analytical and speculative – an attempt to work out what is involved in what we call sex or language or writing or meaning or the subject
• Theory is a critique of common sense, of concepts taken as natural
• Theory is reflexive, or thinking about thinking; enquiry into the categories we use in making sense of things, in literature and in other discursive practices (14-15)

Note that using theory requires using ideas from different fields of study (interdisciplinarity) to explore ideas that we might take for granted: we must examine our views and thoughts about certain topics. It also asks that we read the text closely and engage in critical thinking to break down the story’s topics (analysis). Finally, working with theory means that we propose potential ideas to answer the questions we ask of the text (speculation).

Why would we need the help of theoretical texts to find new or deeper meaning in what we read? To put it simply, literary theory helps us understand what lies beneath the storyline and gives us the words to describe this. For example, by providing us with definitions, descriptions, and explanations of abstract ideas, literary theory becomes a means to explore the psychology of the narrative’s characters, delve into the historical and sociopolitical context of the story, or articulate the structure of the text, among other things. With literary theory, we can question the assumptions, values, and ideologies underlying the narrative.

Here is a quick example. Let’s pretend you are reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for a class. You know that this book is one of the first examples of science fiction and in the genre of Gothic horror. Interestingly, at a time when most books were written by well-to-do men, this ever-so-famous classic was authored by a young woman between the ages of 18 and 19. As you read, you cannot help but think that the main protagonist, Victor, has a bit of a strange relationship with Elizabeth and with his mother. You can describe what takes place in the book and express your opinion, but you begin asking questions that go beyond the plot of the text itself. Are the characters acting within the boundaries of expected gender roles? Is Victor’s view of women common for the time? Are author Mary Shelley’s own attitudes about gender showing through her characters?

In order to take your analysis further, you pick a theory to work with. In this case, you decide to use feminist theory to think about gender roles in the book. If instead you had an interest in the economic power structure depicted in this book, then you could choose to analyze the text using Marxist theory. This critical lens focuses on the struggle between different social classes. In this case, Victor Frankenstein and his monster could be viewed as belonging to two different classes (bourgeois and proletariat, respectively). When viewed in this way, the struggle between these two characters and its resolution take on a different meaning (Moretti).

If you would like to see some examples of how to analyze a text with the writings of a theorist, I recommend Jonathan Culler’s “Chapter 1: What is Theory” in Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction .

Over time, philosophers and theorists from different fields of study have explored and offered many ideas to think about and make sense of our world. As literature became a field of study in “the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,” there was an “emergence of literary studies in universities in Germany, France, England, America, and elsewhere, and that institutional development made necessary the development of methods of teaching that were associated with methods for conducting literary research” (Ryan 3). For example, in the mid- to late-20th century, a movement called Postmodernism (led, among others, by philosophers like Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes) discussed how society defines some people as “other,” creating categories such as deviant . What these authors wrote can help us understand some of the social mechanisms in place to categorize us, to make us conform, and to control us. Another example of theory is postcolonialism, a school of thought that considers the impact of colonialism and offers ways to resist and unsettle colonial power structures. One last example of a framework you could work with is disability studies, a branch of study analyzing and questioning definitions of disability and the role of society in controlling and erasing the existence of disabled bodies and minds.

In a Lumen Learning article titled “Introduction to Critical Theory,” William Stewart provides a chronological list of critical theories. Here is an abbreviated version of this list:

• Aestheticism – often associated with Romanticism, a philosophy defining aesthetic value as the primary goal in understanding literature. (This includes both literary critics who have tried to understand and/or identify aesthetic values, as well as those like Oscar Wilde who have stressed art for art’s sake.)
• Cultural studies – emphasizes the role of literature in everyday life
• Deconstruction – a strategy of “close” reading that elicits the ways that key terms and concepts may be paradoxical or self-undermining, rendering their meaning undecidable
• Gender studies (see also: feminist literary criticism) – emphasizes themes of gender relations
• Formalism – a school of literary criticism and literary theory having mainly to do with structural purposes of a particular text
• Marxism (see also: Marxist literary criticism) – emphasizes themes of class conflict
• New Criticism – looks at literary works on the basis of what is written, and not at the goals of the author or biographical issues
• New Historicism – examines works through their historical context(s) and seeks to understand cultural and intellectual history through literature
• Postcolonialism – focuses on the influences of colonialism in literature, especially regarding the historical conflict resulting from the exploitation of developing countries and indigenous peoples by Western nations
• Postmodernism – criticism of the conditions present in the twentieth century, often with concern for those viewed as social deviants or the Other
• Psychoanalysis (see also: psychoanalytic literary criticism) – explores the role of consciousnesses and the unconscious in literature including that of the author, reader, and characters in the text
• Queer theory – examines, questions, and criticizes the role of gender identity and sexuality in literature

When it comes to applying these theories to literature, we start with the idea that a text is the product of its time: a reflection of society at the time and/or an expression of the author’s beliefs and views. Literature opens a window through which we can view a moment in time. We then explore some aspects of the text that we read through the lens of a theory.

You might be reading this article to prepare for a specific assignment. It is common for literature courses to ask students to analyze, interpret, and discuss the texts they read. You will generally begin to think about how you should analyze a text when you are engaging in close reading: you will notice recurring themes, salient ideas, etc. Depending on what interests you, you can then determine which theory (or theories) you would like to use.

While reading your text, you want to take notes about thoughts you have. You can take these notes in any way that works best for you: paper notepad, voice recordings, digital notepad, etc. Make sure to note page numbers, save important quotes, and document other relevant information so that you are able to reference your findings later. As you do so, you will notice patterns, or parts of the story will stand out to you. Reflect on why you are interested in specific aspects of the story, as this will guide you in choosing which theoretical framework to use. Your professor will likely have introduced you to a few literary theories. Ask yourself which one seems the most relevant to what you would like to analyze.

If you are writing an essay that uses literary theory, it could have the following structure:

• Briefly introduce the text you will be analyzing:

It is important to provide your audience with some information about when the text was written, to share a few details about the author, and to summarize the main plot points of the story.

• Share and explain the theory you will be using:

Once you have situated the text, you will write a couple of paragraphs where you name the theory you will be using, cite its main authors, and explain its most important or relevant ideas.

• Make a broader argument about the text:

This is where the analysis starts in earnest. You will draw out ideas from the theory you chose and analyze specific portions of your text with them. You will quote the text to show your audience specific examples of your argument. It is in this section that you will provide depth to your argument. Coming back to the earlier example of Frankenstein , you might have decided to look at the text through the lens of feminist theory. You describe the gender roles portrayed in the story and provide examples from the book showing that women tend to be confined to the home while men work outside. You explore whether this was traditionally the case at the time the book was written and argue that the gender roles in the story reflect that of the era. Continuing to rely on feminist theory, you could then explore whether the gender roles described in the book empower or subjugate the female characters, and you make sure to provide examples from the text to support your argument.

• Provide a conclusion:

Reiterate the main points you have made in the body of your paper. A conclusion is also a great opportunity to open your findings to broader interpretations.

By now, you should feel clearer on what constitutes literary theory and how it is used in analysis. You should also have a sense of the different theories available and their respective emphases. Literary analysis is a fantastic way to be curious about what lies beneath a narrative and to unsettle assumptions in the text. It offers frameworks to think critically about larger social questions, many of which still affect us today. Such analyses even provide us with opportunities to reflect on our own perceptions and biases. As literary theory enhances our critical skills and allows us to engage in deeper inquiries, we develop an important skillset that we can rely on in situations beyond the classroom.

Works Cited

Culler, Jonathan D. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford University Press, 1997.

Eagleton, Terry . Literary Theory: An Introduction, University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

Moretti, Franco. Signs Taken For Wonders: Essays in the Sociology of Literary Forms. Verso, 1997.

Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan, editor . Literary Theory: An Anthology. 3rd ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2017.

Ryan, Michael, editor. Literary Theory: A Practical Introduction. 3rd ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2017.

Stewart, William. “Introduction to Critical Theory.” Lumen , https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-herkimer-english2/chapter/introduction-to-critical-theory/ . Accessed 31 March 2024.

About the author

name: Alice Lopez

institution: Salt Lake Community College

Alice Lopez is a professor in the D epartment of English, Linguistics & Writing Studies at SLCC. She r eceived her BA in Writing Studies and MA in Rhetoric & Composition from the University of Utah. She is currently a student in the Rhetoric & Composition PhD program at the U. She is interested in multimodal composition and disability studies. In her free time, Alice can be found taking photos, playing with fountain pens or typewriters, and taking care of her Sphynx cats .  

Literary Studies @ SLCC Copyright © 2023 by Stacey Van Dahm; Daniel Baird; and Nikki Mantyla is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What is literary theory? An Introduction

What is literary theory? Let’s Understand! 

This question pops up to me every time I meet youngsters who have just begun studying English literature. Moreover, also when I get together with research scholars and professors. And therefore, it would not be an exaggeration to say that literary theory is in fashion and it has been the case for a long time. Today, in this article, I would do my best to make sure that anyone who reads this article to the last line goes home with a complete understanding of the concept that we call literary theory. It should be interesting to note while many of us, students and beginners, know this or that thing about deconstruction, ecocriticism, structuralism and other theories, we seldom bother defining literary theory! Amusing, isn’t it? I have also made a video, short and comprehensive, on this topic and I will add that video here as well as on YouTube so that the readers who rather like to have a visual presentation can enjoy that as well. Without getting into the infinite of arguments and caveats, let’s get into the subject now.

Literary Theory: The idea before we get a suitable definition

The purpose of this section is to introduce the readers to the basics of literary theory before we get into defining that idea. The term theory generally hints at how & why of any execution, action or plan. Here also, even if we have added ‘literary’, the meaning of the term theory does not change. However, when we add literary before theory, we are certainly impacting the connotations. We are limiting the scopes of the term theory. So, the questions or notions relating to how and why of anything relating to literature will be dealt with by the concept called literary theory. Do you get this thing? In simple terms, the very idea of it concerns with literary interpretations, studies, assumptions and conclusions. It impacts the mindset of a reader during the reading of any literary work as well as during critically approaching any literary work. I hope the basic idea should have been easily understood by the readers by now. I will get to the best possible definition of our subject in the next section.

Definition of Literary Theory:

Though it would certainly be naive to put it forth, however, it is surprising that none of the authors with very wonderful titles in the field of literary theory have ventured to define this very thing called literary theory. It would certainly have been encouraging reading the definitions of this broadly-connoting idea by the scholars who have made name for themselves. However, since we don’t have that luxury, it is our job to make our efforts and try to construct a suitable definition. While there are many definitions already available on the internet, I think an easier, comprehensive and a little more than short definition would make the whole concept simple for beginners and comprehensive for advanced level students. Here is an attempt:

“A Literary Theory is a body of logically derived and not easily refutable ideas in a systematic order that we can use while we critically interpret a literary text.”

This definition leads us to understand the act called literary criticism and the person called a literary critic. The act of critically interpreting any literary text with a certain literary theory in mind is called literary criticism and the person involved in this intellectual (rarely emotional) exercise is called a literary critic . The act of literary criticism, in the modern context, has become synonymous (almost) with the idea tossed by I. A. Richards – practical criticism.

Relationship between Literary Theory & Literary Criticism: 

To be frank, it is too naive a question to ask if someone really falls for it. What is the relationship between literary theory and literary criticism? Look at the names themselves. Both theory and criticism have literary as the prefix. Therefore, it is natural that there must be something common between them in the context of their concern with literature. A work of literature or a literary text becomes the playground where a literary critic comes up with a literary theory after an extensive analysis of the given text. Once the theory is established and becomes popular, other concerned people with literature learn about that particular literary theory and subsequently use that theory when they study any literary text in the direction specified in that particular theory. So, in short, the literary text is the basis of this relationship at the outset. This may have become an elaborated background but it was necessary for the beginners to understand the connection in the context of origins of literary theory and literary criticism.

Now, to cut things short and to establish the relationship at a logical level, between literary theory and literary criticism, a very simple idea can drive the cause to its conclusion. Any particular literary theory is the foundation for an act of literary criticism in a particular direction or context or purview. For example, Ecocriticism theory will be the foundation of any study undertaken by a scholar to trace the environmental references in the work of T. S. Eliot.

Though this was the shortcut to establish this relationship which was necessary because many students have asked me about it, I will be writing an entirely different article on this subject. That will be advanced in connotations and meanings and will be useful for those who want to dive to the depths of this wonderful relationship.

Differences between Literary Theory and Literary Criticism:

Once again, this question is too naive if someone asks what are the differences between literary theory and literary criticism. Why do I say so? This is too easy to comprehend. One is a set of ideas or rules that become guiding principles for an act that is called literary criticism. So, the basic and the fundamental difference between literary theory and criticism is that one is theoretical and another is practical. Literary theory is the theoretical part and literary criticism is the practical part of the same larger idea that concerns with the analysis of a literary text.

Like I shared above, I will also be writing an entirely different piece on this subject. I will write it very soon and I will share the link here so that the curious readers who want to go into further details of differences between literary theory and literary criticism can enjoy that article. Right now, we will get into other interesting details related to our major topic. Read the detailed article here: Difference between literary criticism and literary theory

Going into the depths of literary theory and literary criticism:

While this is not very wise to get into the depths of the idea called literary theory and criticism for the beginners and ‘early days’ students of English literature , I will give all of you a 360° view of some of the important, also absurd, contributions, interesting facts and complicated ideas related to literary theory. Let’s begin this happening journey:

• The Ambiguity: Applications of literary theories are possible before and after the production of a literary work. Does this idea sound weird? Well, if you consider Aristotle as a literary critic or a literary theorist, you will have to accept that the theories created by him about an ideal tragedy helped many dramatists in Elizabethan age in writing the best-known tragedies. If you consider Longinus and Horace as literary theorists, you will have to admit that their theories in terms of poetry helped many poets in various ages of English literature in producing the poetry of the best possible degree. So, it’s about when any particular theory was propagated and when a literary critic or a writer accesses it and brings into the application. Today, we use theories established the structuralist school, Deconstructionists, Eco-Critical theorists and many others mainly to analyse the text. However, just suppose someone studying any of these theories and modelling a literary work on any of these theories, isn’t that artist using literary theory? He is!
• Literary theory is not only about literature: Yes, get it right now! The domain of literary theory is broad and it does not concern only with literature and literary works. It concerns with human evolution, psychology, philosophy, sociology and language and many other elements (with wide ramifications of this term – elements). The obvious reason is that literature itself is not limited to written works by authors. Literature is an ever-expanding idea and if not ever-expanding, literary theory is also an occasionally expanding idea. Therefore, when you begin studying literary theories, you should be open to facing many ideas that will take you in various directions in terms of academic subjects.
• Science vs Arts or Intellect vs Emotions: Once you begin digging deeper, you will realise that many literary theories have their foundations in the hardcore scientific notions. However, the problem does not lie there. The problem starts when a literary critic implies that all the aesthetic beauty in a poem by John Keats MUST be subdued because he isn’t saying anything new as he is using the same words which have already been repeated more than billion times… won’t you find yourself in a bemused situation? Well, then you realise that anything other than practical criticism method – reading the text closely and not going beyond the paper – is the only best method applicable when analysing literary texts.

As we have had our time with some of the weird ventures into the world of literary theory and criticism, let’s get to the next stage and we will learn the basics of the popular literary theories.

Literary Theories of different types: 

Dear readers, now, it’s time to read about types of literary theories. To know more about popular literary theories and their basic introduction, you should read the next article in this series. Click the link below to read it now:

Next article in the series: Types of Literary Theories

This article was written by Alok Mishra for English Literature Education. Alok Mishra is a well-known literary opinion maker, book critic, literary critic and a dedicated literary philanthropist. If you want to join him on his mission to make English Literature easy and freely accessible without the necessary burden of forced interpretations and complicated notions, you can write get in touch with him by visiting his official website: Alok Mishra

Read related articles from this category:

Marxist Theory in Literature: Introduction, Origins, Key Figures, Analysis, Applications & More for English Literature Students

Creative Writing as a Research Method by Jon Cook: Summary and Critical Analysis

Structuralism Theory in English Literature Details of the Structuralist Approach & Key Theorists

Have something to say? Add your comments:

24 Comments . Leave new

Thanks for this amazing article… enjoyed reading it. Helpful and handy for beginners in literary theory studies.

Very helpful article… genuinely impressed. I was confused about literary theory. You have helped me with your easy to understand analysis of this difficult topic for many students. Many thanks.

Wonderful article! Thanks for sharing it! I was totally confused about the concept. I am just a beginner.

I must thank you for this helpful article , literary theory that was very clearly explained that because I’m very happy 😄 thanks 👍 for provide us 😊

Very well done dear Mr. Alok Mishra… The concept ‘literary theory’ is made very clear. The easy & familiar style makes even an average student have a good idea. The other two articles on the subject are also quite enlightening & facilitating for students as well as teachers. Love you…

I must thank you for this helpful article. It helped me understand the very essential meaning of literary theory with its contexts. After reading a few articles, I was confused and almost gave up hope. And then, this site was opened with less hope. Many thanks again sir! I will be a regular reader now. Your writing style is friendly for students. keep up.

Very helpful article! thanks for sharing this. I am an MA student and it helped me understand theory and its purpose.

I liked the way you have presented this article. It helped me a lot with my preparation for the exams at hand.

That’s a wonderful article. I really appreciate the words you have put up here for many to learn and understand literary theory. Keep doing the great job!

This is a very well-explained article! Many thanks for putting such a work online for free.

Very well explained… I was very confused about literary theory until I read this article on this website. This explains the concept aptly and also discusses theories of various kinds in detail in the next articles. Thanks again.

सर शायद विभिन्न स्रोतों से पढ़ने के कारण मैं कन्फ्यूज हो गई हूँ जिससे मैं अभी भी इसे समझ नहीं पा रही हूँ आशा है जल्द ही समझ जाऊँगी

आपका बहुत बहुत धन्यवाद

एक से अधिक स्त्रोतों से अध्ययन में सहायता लेना सर्वथा ही उचित है, अनामिका! यद्यपि, यह अवश्य ध्यान रहे की आप जिन स्त्रोतों का चयन अपने अध्ययन के लिए करती हैं वो उस योग्य हों। तत्पश्चात, यह भी सुनिश्चित करें के आप सर्वप्रथम किसी सर्वमान्य स्त्रोत से इस विषय की प्रारंभिक जानकारी एकत्र करें एवं उसे सम्पूर्णता से समझ लें! आशा है उसके पश्चात आपकी समस्या नहीं रहेगी। इस आलेख को पढ़ने के लिए धन्यवाद!

Thanks very much for your effort, I can say you are almost there. I would like you to please do a video on how to critically analyze a text using any theory ( marxist perspective, ecocriticism, feminisms, negrotudism, post coloniality etc. )

that’s very amazing sir,but sorry!! I want to ask you important question, firstly I’m an English student/student that loves English very plenty but my major problem concerning English is literature in English/literature!! I don’t know how to read a text and find out the settings, and the rest of them,so please can you help me with an ideas of how to find out the settings, plots,and whatsoever?

The part talking about science VS art is hard for me to understand;help plz

honestly speaking, whenever; i need help i look durectly for indins videos and articuls. Guys you

Very much pleased with that explanation

First ,I must say thank you.your View about literay text and techniques are intersting and acceptable.

Hello Sir! I come across with your page and I love your cause of sharing great things about literature. Please allow me to work with you 🙂

Thanks for your message, Mayet! We truly appreciate your wish and you will receive a message from our side very soon. Best wishes!

well done, thanks

I would like to thank the author of this article. I understood what literary theory is and also its differences with literary criticism. The article is written in a simple language and it really helped me. Please write about other literary theories in detail so that I can have a complete idea of different literary theories. thanks again!

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Literary Theories Simplified For Beginners

Table of Contents

Introduction

Literary Theories Simplified For Beginners For novices in particular, literary theory can frequently seem like an intimidating and complicated subject. It could be challenging to comprehend how literary theories work or why they are important given the diversity of approaches and schools of thinking. But for any student, critic, or fan who wants to interact with literature more deeply, it is essential to comprehend the basic ideas of literary theory.

By dissecting important ideas and offering concise illustrations of their literary applications, this guide aims to make literary theories easier for novices to understand. This article will demystify the various literary theories and explain how each one advances our comprehension of texts, regardless of whether you’re a student learning about literary theory for the first time or someone trying to hone your critical reading abilities.

1. What Is Literary Theory?

Understanding what literary theory is is crucial before delving into the various kinds of literary theories. Scholars and critics utilize literary theory as a collection of frameworks or concepts for interpreting, analyzing, and assessing literature. It gives readers the means to investigate texts’ deeper meanings, comprehend the historical and cultural settings in which they are composed, and evaluate the ideals and ideologies that influence literature.

While literature itself consists of the works—novels, poems, plays, and more—literary theory provides the lenses through which we analyze these works. It helps us move beyond just “what happens” in a text and instead asks questions like “why does this happen?” and “what does this reveal about society, culture, or human nature?”

• Understanding Literary Devices: A Comprehensive Guide

2. Key Literary Theories Explained

Here we will break down some of the most common and influential literary theories, providing simplified explanations and examples for each.

2.1 Formalism (New Criticism)

Overview : Formalism, also known as New Criticism, focuses purely on the text itself, disregarding outside factors such as author biography, historical context, or reader responses. The central idea of formalism is that the text has intrinsic meaning, and this meaning can be uncovered through careful analysis of its structure, language, and literary devices.

Key Features :

• Emphasizes close reading, focusing on the language, imagery, symbolism, and form of the text.
• Investigates how elements like plot structure, rhyme, meter, and narrative techniques contribute to the overall meaning.

Example : A formalist reading of The Great Gatsby might focus on how Fitzgerald’s use of symbolism (such as the green light or the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg) contributes to the novel’s themes of the American Dream and the moral decay of society.

Why It Matters : Formalism highlights the importance of the text itself, encouraging readers to appreciate the literary craft and the power of language.

2.2 Marxist Criticism

Overview : Marxist criticism examines literature through the lens of social class, power dynamics, and economic forces. This theory is based on the ideas of Karl Marx, who argued that all aspects of society—including literature—are influenced by the material conditions of life and the economic structures of the time.

• Focuses on class struggle, the distribution of wealth, and the influence of capitalist systems on social relations.
• Analyzes how texts reflect or challenge social inequalities.

Example : A Marxist reading of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities might explore the divide between the aristocracy and the working class, examining how the novel critiques the oppressive nature of wealth and class hierarchies.

Why It Matters : Marxist criticism reveals the underlying power dynamics in literature, encouraging readers to consider how economic and social factors shape characters and narratives.

2.3 Feminist Criticism

Overview : Feminist criticism examines literature from the perspective of gender, focusing on the roles, representations, and power relations between men and women. This theory is concerned with how literature reflects or perpetuates patriarchal structures and explores how female characters are portrayed.

• Investigates the depiction of women in literature and how gender roles are reinforced or subverted.
• Analyzes the ways in which literature reflects the social and historical contexts of gender.

Example : A feminist reading of Jane Eyre might explore how Charlotte Brontë’s portrayal of the heroine challenges Victorian ideals of femininity and the limitations placed on women in 19th-century society.

Why It Matters : Feminist criticism helps readers identify and question gender biases in literature, while highlighting the importance of diverse and authentic female voices in storytelling.

2.4 Psychoanalytic Criticism

Overview : Psychoanalytic criticism is based on the theories of Sigmund Freud and later psychoanalysts, who suggested that literature can reveal unconscious desires, anxieties, and conflicts. This approach emphasizes the psychological motivations of characters, as well as the author’s subconscious influences.

• Explores the unconscious mind, dreams, repressed memories, and the Oedipus complex.
• Investigates characters’ relationships, especially those that reveal deeper emotional or psychological undercurrents.

Example : A psychoanalytic reading of Hamlet might explore Hamlet’s relationships with his mother, Gertrude, and his father’s ghost, examining the psychological tension that arises from repressed feelings and unresolved grief.

Why It Matters : Psychoanalytic criticism provides a deeper understanding of human behavior, revealing how internal conflicts and desires shape characters and narratives.

2.5 Postcolonial Criticism

Overview : Postcolonial criticism focuses on the effects of colonialism and imperialism on literature and culture. It examines the power dynamics between colonizers and the colonized, often highlighting the struggles of marginalized voices and the legacies of colonial rule.

• Analyzes how colonial powers have shaped the identities, cultures, and histories of colonized peoples.
• Focuses on themes like hybridity, displacement, and resistance.

Example : A postcolonial reading of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad might explore how the novel reflects colonial exploitation and the dehumanization of both the colonizers and the colonized.

Why It Matters : Postcolonial criticism helps readers understand the lasting impact of colonialism, offering insights into the complexities of cultural identity, power, and resistance.

2.6 Queer Theory

Overview : Queer theory examines literature through the lens of sexuality and gender, focusing on non-normative sexualities and identities. It challenges traditional notions of gender and sexuality, exploring how these concepts are socially constructed and represented in literature.

• Focuses on how LGBTQ+ identities are portrayed in literature.
• Analyzes the fluidity of gender and sexuality and challenges binary thinking (male/female, heterosexual/homosexual).

Example : A queer theory reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray might explore Dorian’s relationships with other men and how his actions subvert conventional ideas of masculinity and sexual identity.

Why It Matters : Queer theory opens up conversations about diverse sexual identities and encourages readers to consider how literature constructs or deconstructs societal norms around gender and sexuality.

3. How to Apply Literary Theories to Texts

Understanding literary theory is one thing; applying it to texts is another. Here’s a simplified guide to help you apply these theories to literature:

3.1 Step 1: Select a Literary Work

Choose a text that interests you. It could be anything from a classic novel to a contemporary poem, depending on your area of focus.

3.2 Step 2: Choose a Literary Theory

Decide which literary theory or theories you’d like to apply. Keep in mind that some texts may lend themselves more easily to certain approaches. For example, a novel focused on class struggle may be ideal for a Marxist reading.

• How To Write A Perfect Literature Essay In 2024

3.3 Step 3: Identify Key Themes and Elements

Seek out plot points, characters, symbols, and themes that relate to the hypothesis. For example, feminist critique focuses on the representation of female characters, whereas psychoanalytic criticism emphasizes the psychological motivations of characters.

3.4 Step 4: Analyze and Interpret

Using the chosen literary theory, analyze the text. Examine how it aligns with the principles of the theory, and interpret the meaning of various literary elements. Make sure to support your interpretations with textual evidence.

3.5 Step 5: Draw Conclusions

Finally, draw conclusions based on your analysis. How does the theory enhance your understanding of the text? How does it shed light on new meanings, themes, or interpretations?

Although it may appear overwhelming at first, literary theory is a vital tool for any serious reader or critic, offering a wide range of tools for analyzing literature. Beginners can interact with texts on a deeper level and learn about the motivations of characters, the social situations in which works were written, and the wider meanings of themes by grasping the fundamentals of various literary theories.

Literary theories are vital resources that provide fresh perspectives on literature, whether you’re reading for enjoyment or getting ready for an academic analysis.

• The Art Of Close Reading: Tips For Students

1. What’s the difference between literary theory and literary criticism?

Literary theory is the framework or lens through which we analyze literature, while literary criticism refers to the actual analysis and interpretation of literary texts. Literary criticism can be guided by literary theory but isn’t limited to it.

2. Can I use more than one literary theory to analyze a text?

Yes, it is possible to use multiple literary theories to analyze a text. In fact, doing so can provide a richer, more nuanced understanding. For example, you could use feminist and postcolonial theories together to analyze a text’s depiction of gender and colonialism.

3. Do I have to agree with the theory I use?

No, you don’t necessarily have to agree with the theory. Literary theories are tools that help us interpret texts, and you can use them to critique and challenge the ideas they present. Feel free to apply the theory critically, while keeping in mind that it’s a lens for analysis, not an absolute truth.

4. How can I know which literary theory to choose for a specific text?

It’s often helpful to consider the themes, context, and characters of the text. For example, if a novel focuses heavily on economic disparities, a Marxist reading might be fitting. If the text addresses issues of identity and gender, a feminist or queer reading could provide valuable insights.

5 . Do I need to know all these literary theories to be a good reader?

While it’s not strictly necessary to be familiar with all literary theories, understanding a few key theories can enhance your reading experience and deepen your understanding of literature. The more theories you explore, the more tools you have to interpret and analyze texts.

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Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Literary theory.

“Literary theory” is the body of ideas and methods we use in the practical reading of literature. By literary theory we refer not to the meaning of a work of literature but to the theories that reveal what literature can mean. Literary theory is a description of the underlying principles, one might say the tools, by which we attempt to understand literature. All literary interpretation draws on a basis in theory but can serve as a justification for very different kinds of critical activity. It is literary theory that formulates the relationship between author and work; literary theory develops the significance of race, class, and gender for literary study, both from the standpoint of the biography of the author and an analysis of their thematic presence within texts. Literary theory offers varying approaches for understanding the role of historical context in interpretation as well as the relevance of linguistic and unconscious elements of the text. Literary theorists trace the history and evolution of the different genres—narrative, dramatic, lyric—in addition to the more recent emergence of the novel and the short story, while also investigating the importance of formal elements of literary structure. Lastly, literary theory in recent years has sought to explain the degree to which the text is more the product of a culture than an individual author and in turn how those texts help to create the culture.

Table of Contents

• What Is Literary Theory?
• Traditional Literary Criticism
• Formalism and New Criticism
• Marxism and Critical Theory
• Structuralism and Poststructuralism
• New Historicism and Cultural Materialism
• Ethnic Studies and Postcolonial Criticism
• Gender Studies and Queer Theory
• Cultural Studies
• General Works on Theory
• Literary and Cultural Theory

1. What Is Literary Theory?

“Literary theory,” sometimes designated “critical theory,” or “theory,” and now undergoing a transformation into “cultural theory” within the discipline of literary studies, can be understood as the set of concepts and intellectual assumptions on which rests the work of explaining or interpreting literary texts. Literary theory refers to any principles derived from internal analysis of literary texts or from knowledge external to the text that can be applied in multiple interpretive situations. All critical practice regarding literature depends on an underlying structure of ideas in at least two ways: theory provides a rationale for what constitutes the subject matter of criticism—”the literary”—and the specific aims of critical practice—the act of interpretation itself. For example, to speak of the “unity” of Oedipus the King explicitly invokes Aristotle’s theoretical statements on poetics. To argue, as does Chinua Achebe, that Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness fails to grant full humanity to the Africans it depicts is a perspective informed by a postcolonial literary theory that presupposes a history of exploitation and racism. Critics that explain the climactic drowning of Edna Pontellier in The Awakening as a suicide generally call upon a supporting architecture of feminist and gender theory. The structure of ideas that enables criticism of a literary work may or may not be acknowledged by the critic, and the status of literary theory within the academic discipline of literary studies continues to evolve.

Literary theory and the formal practice of literary interpretation runs a parallel but less well known course with the history of philosophy and is evident in the historical record at least as far back as Plato. The Cratylus contains a Plato’s meditation on the relationship of words and the things to which they refer. Plato’s skepticism about signification, i.e., that words bear no etymological relationship to their meanings but are arbitrarily “imposed,” becomes a central concern in the twentieth century to both “Structuralism” and “Poststructuralism.” However, a persistent belief in “reference,” the notion that words and images refer to an objective reality, has provided epistemological (that is, having to do with theories of knowledge) support for theories of literary representation throughout most of Western history. Until the nineteenth century, Art, in Shakespeare’s phrase, held “a mirror up to nature” and faithfully recorded an objectively real world independent of the observer.

Modern literary theory gradually emerges in Europe during the nineteenth century. In one of the earliest developments of literary theory, German “higher criticism” subjected biblical texts to a radical historicizing that broke with traditional scriptural interpretation. “Higher,” or “source criticism,” analyzed biblical tales in light of comparable narratives from other cultures, an approach that anticipated some of the method and spirit of twentieth century theory, particularly “Structuralism” and “New Historicism.” In France, the eminent literary critic Charles Augustin Saint Beuve maintained that a work of literature could be explained entirely in terms of biography, while novelist Marcel Proust devoted his life to refuting Saint Beuve in a massive narrative in which he contended that the details of the life of the artist are utterly transformed in the work of art. (This dispute was taken up anew by the French theorist Roland Barthes in his famous declaration of the “Death of the Author.” See “Structuralism” and “Poststructuralism.”) Perhaps the greatest nineteenth century influence on literary theory came from the deep epistemological suspicion of Friedrich Nietzsche: that facts are not facts until they have been interpreted. Nietzsche’s critique of knowledge has had a profound impact on literary studies and helped usher in an era of intense literary theorizing that has yet to pass.

Attention to the etymology of the term “theory,” from the Greek “theoria,” alerts us to the partial nature of theoretical approaches to literature. “Theoria” indicates a view or perspective of the Greek stage. This is precisely what literary theory offers, though specific theories often claim to present a complete system for understanding literature. The current state of theory is such that there are many overlapping areas of influence, and older schools of theory, though no longer enjoying their previous eminence, continue to exert an influence on the whole. The once widely-held conviction (an implicit theory) that literature is a repository of all that is meaningful and ennobling in the human experience, a view championed by the Leavis School in Britain, may no longer be acknowledged by name but remains an essential justification for the current structure of American universities and liberal arts curricula. The moment of “Deconstruction” may have passed, but its emphasis on the indeterminacy of signs (that we are unable to establish exclusively what a word means when used in a given situation) and thus of texts, remains significant. Many critics may not embrace the label “feminist,” but the premise that gender is a social construct, one of theoretical feminisms distinguishing insights, is now axiomatic in a number of theoretical perspectives.

While literary theory has always implied or directly expressed a conception of the world outside the text, in the twentieth century three movements—”Marxist theory” of the Frankfurt School, “Feminism,” and “Postmodernism”—have opened the field of literary studies into a broader area of inquiry. Marxist approaches to literature require an understanding of the primary economic and social bases of culture since Marxist aesthetic theory sees the work of art as a product, directly or indirectly, of the base structure of society. Feminist thought and practice analyzes the production of literature and literary representation within the framework that includes all social and cultural formations as they pertain to the role of women in history. Postmodern thought consists of both aesthetic and epistemological strands. Postmodernism in art has included a move toward non-referential, non-linear, abstract forms; a heightened degree of self-referentiality; and the collapse of categories and conventions that had traditionally governed art. Postmodern thought has led to the serious questioning of the so-called metanarratives of history, science, philosophy, and economic and sexual reproduction. Under postmodernity, all knowledge comes to be seen as “constructed” within historical self-contained systems of understanding. Marxist, feminist, and postmodern thought have brought about the incorporation of all human discourses (that is, interlocking fields of language and knowledge) as a subject matter for analysis by the literary theorist. Using the various poststructuralist and postmodern theories that often draw on disciplines other than the literary—linguistic, anthropological, psychoanalytic, and philosophical—for their primary insights, literary theory has become an interdisciplinary body of cultural theory. Taking as its premise that human societies and knowledge consist of texts in one form or another, cultural theory (for better or worse) is now applied to the varieties of texts, ambitiously undertaking to become the preeminent model of inquiry into the human condition.

Literary theory is a site of theories: some theories, like “Queer Theory,” are “in;” other literary theories, like “Deconstruction,” are “out” but continue to exert an influence on the field. “Traditional literary criticism,” “New Criticism,” and “Structuralism” are alike in that they held to the view that the study of literature has an objective body of knowledge under its scrutiny. The other schools of literary theory, to varying degrees, embrace a postmodern view of language and reality that calls into serious question the objective referent of literary studies. The following categories are certainly not exhaustive, nor are they mutually exclusive, but they represent the major trends in literary theory of this century.

2. Traditional Literary Criticism

Academic literary criticism prior to the rise of “New Criticism” in the United States tended to practice traditional literary history: tracking influence, establishing the canon of major writers in the literary periods, and clarifying historical context and allusions within the text. Literary biography was and still is an important interpretive method in and out of the academy; versions of moral criticism, not unlike the Leavis School in Britain, and aesthetic (e.g. genre studies) criticism were also generally influential literary practices. Perhaps the key unifying feature of traditional literary criticism was the consensus within the academy as to the both the literary canon (that is, the books all educated persons should read) and the aims and purposes of literature. What literature was, and why we read literature, and what we read, were questions that subsequent movements in literary theory were to raise.

3. Formalism and New Criticism

“Formalism” is, as the name implies, an interpretive approach that emphasizes literary form and the study of literary devices within the text. The work of the Formalists had a general impact on later developments in “Structuralism” and other theories of narrative. “Formalism,” like “Structuralism,” sought to place the study of literature on a scientific basis through objective analysis of the motifs, devices, techniques, and other “functions” that comprise the literary work. The Formalists placed great importance on the literariness of texts, those qualities that distinguished the literary from other kinds of writing. Neither author nor context was essential for the Formalists; it was the narrative that spoke, the “hero-function,” for example, that had meaning. Form was the content. A plot device or narrative strategy was examined for how it functioned and compared to how it had functioned in other literary works. Of the Russian Formalist critics, Roman Jakobson and Viktor Shklovsky are probably the most well known.

The Formalist adage that the purpose of literature was “to make the stones stonier” nicely expresses their notion of literariness. “Formalism” is perhaps best known is Shklovsky’s concept of “defamiliarization.” The routine of ordinary experience, Shklovsky contended, rendered invisible the uniqueness and particularity of the objects of existence. Literary language, partly by calling attention to itself as language, estranged the reader from the familiar and made fresh the experience of daily life.

The “New Criticism,” so designated as to indicate a break with traditional methods, was a product of the American university in the 1930s and 40s. “New Criticism” stressed close reading of the text itself, much like the French pedagogical precept “explication du texte.” As a strategy of reading, “New Criticism” viewed the work of literature as an aesthetic object independent of historical context and as a unified whole that reflected the unified sensibility of the artist. T.S. Eliot, though not explicitly associated with the movement, expressed a similar critical-aesthetic philosophy in his essays on John Donne and the metaphysical poets, writers who Eliot believed experienced a complete integration of thought and feeling. New Critics like Cleanth Brooks, John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren and W.K. Wimsatt placed a similar focus on the metaphysical poets and poetry in general, a genre well suited to New Critical practice. “New Criticism” aimed at bringing a greater intellectual rigor to literary studies, confining itself to careful scrutiny of the text alone and the formal structures of paradox, ambiguity, irony, and metaphor, among others. “New Criticism” was fired by the conviction that their readings of poetry would yield a humanizing influence on readers and thus counter the alienating tendencies of modern, industrial life. “New Criticism” in this regard bears an affinity to the Southern Agrarian movement whose manifesto, I’ll Take My Stand , contained essays by two New Critics, Ransom and Warren. Perhaps the enduring legacy of “New Criticism” can be found in the college classroom, in which the verbal texture of the poem on the page remains a primary object of literary study.

4. Marxism and Critical Theory

Marxist literary theories tend to focus on the representation of class conflict as well as the reinforcement of class distinctions through the medium of literature. Marxist theorists use traditional techniques of literary analysis but subordinate aesthetic concerns to the final social and political meanings of literature. Marxist theorist often champion authors sympathetic to the working classes and authors whose work challenges economic equalities found in capitalist societies. In keeping with the totalizing spirit of Marxism, literary theories arising from the Marxist paradigm have not only sought new ways of understanding the relationship between economic production and literature, but all cultural production as well. Marxist analyses of society and history have had a profound effect on literary theory and practical criticism, most notably in the development of “New Historicism” and “Cultural Materialism.”

The Hungarian theorist Georg Lukacs contributed to an understanding of the relationship between historical materialism and literary form, in particular with realism and the historical novel. Walter Benjamin broke new ground in his work in his study of aesthetics and the reproduction of the work of art. The Frankfurt School of philosophers, including most notably Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse—after their emigration to the United States—played a key role in introducing Marxist assessments of culture into the mainstream of American academic life. These thinkers became associated with what is known as “Critical theory,” one of the constituent components of which was a critique of the instrumental use of reason in advanced capitalist culture. “Critical theory” held to a distinction between the high cultural heritage of Europe and the mass culture produced by capitalist societies as an instrument of domination. “Critical theory” sees in the structure of mass cultural forms—jazz, Hollywood film, advertising—a replication of the structure of the factory and the workplace. Creativity and cultural production in advanced capitalist societies were always already co-opted by the entertainment needs of an economic system that requires sensory stimulation and recognizable cliché and suppressed the tendency for sustained deliberation.

The major Marxist influences on literary theory since the Frankfurt School have been Raymond Williams and Terry Eagleton in Great Britain and Frank Lentricchia and Fredric Jameson in the United States. Williams is associated with the New Left political movement in Great Britain and the development of “Cultural Materialism” and the Cultural Studies Movement, originating in the 1960s at Birmingham University’s Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies. Eagleton is known both as a Marxist theorist and as a popularizer of theory by means of his widely read overview, Literary Theory . Lentricchia likewise became influential through his account of trends in theory, After the New Criticism . Jameson is a more diverse theorist, known both for his impact on Marxist theories of culture and for his position as one of the leading figures in theoretical postmodernism. Jameson’s work on consumer culture, architecture, film, literature and other areas, typifies the collapse of disciplinary boundaries taking place in the realm of Marxist and postmodern cultural theory. Jameson’s work investigates the way the structural features of late capitalism—particularly the transformation of all culture into commodity form—are now deeply embedded in all of our ways of communicating.

5. Structuralism and Poststructuralism

Like the “New Criticism,” “Structuralism” sought to bring to literary studies a set of objective criteria for analysis and a new intellectual rigor. “Structuralism” can be viewed as an extension of “Formalism” in that that both “Structuralism” and “Formalism” devoted their attention to matters of literary form (i.e. structure) rather than social or historical content; and that both bodies of thought were intended to put the study of literature on a scientific, objective basis. “Structuralism” relied initially on the ideas of the Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure. Like Plato, Saussure regarded the signifier (words, marks, symbols) as arbitrary and unrelated to the concept, the signified, to which it referred. Within the way a particular society uses language and signs, meaning was constituted by a system of “differences” between units of the language. Particular meanings were of less interest than the underlying structures of signification that made meaning itself possible, often expressed as an emphasis on “langue” rather than “parole.” “Structuralism” was to be a metalanguage, a language about languages, used to decode actual languages, or systems of signification. The work of the “Formalist” Roman Jakobson contributed to “Structuralist” thought, and the more prominent Structuralists included Claude Levi-Strauss in anthropology, Tzvetan Todorov, A.J. Greimas, Gerard Genette, and Barthes.

The philosopher Roland Barthes proved to be a key figure on the divide between “Structuralism” and “Poststructuralism.” “Poststructuralism” is less unified as a theoretical movement than its precursor; indeed, the work of its advocates known by the term “Deconstruction” calls into question the possibility of the coherence of discourse, or the capacity for language to communicate. “Deconstruction,” Semiotic theory (a study of signs with close connections to “Structuralism,” “Reader response theory” in America (“Reception theory” in Europe), and “Gender theory” informed by the psychoanalysts Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva are areas of inquiry that can be located under the banner of “Poststructuralism.” If signifier and signified are both cultural concepts, as they are in “Poststructuralism,” reference to an empirically certifiable reality is no longer guaranteed by language. “Deconstruction” argues that this loss of reference causes an endless deferral of meaning, a system of differences between units of language that has no resting place or final signifier that would enable the other signifiers to hold their meaning. The most important theorist of “Deconstruction,” Jacques Derrida, has asserted, “There is no getting outside text,” indicating a kind of free play of signification in which no fixed, stable meaning is possible. “Poststructuralism” in America was originally identified with a group of Yale academics, the Yale School of “Deconstruction:” J. Hillis Miller, Geoffrey Hartmann, and Paul de Man. Other tendencies in the moment after “Deconstruction” that share some of the intellectual tendencies of “Poststructuralism” would included the “Reader response” theories of Stanley Fish, Jane Tompkins, and Wolfgang Iser.

Lacanian psychoanalysis, an updating of the work of Sigmund Freud, extends “Postructuralism” to the human subject with further consequences for literary theory. According to Lacan, the fixed, stable self is a Romantic fiction; like the text in “Deconstruction,” the self is a decentered mass of traces left by our encounter with signs, visual symbols, language, etc. For Lacan, the self is constituted by language, a language that is never one’s own, always another’s, always already in use. Barthes applies these currents of thought in his famous declaration of the “death” of the Author: “writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin” while also applying a similar “Poststructuralist” view to the Reader: “the reader is without history, biography, psychology; he is simply that someone who holds together in a single field all the traces by which the written text is constituted.”

Michel Foucault is another philosopher, like Barthes, whose ideas inform much of poststructuralist literary theory. Foucault played a critical role in the development of the postmodern perspective that knowledge is constructed in concrete historical situations in the form of discourse; knowledge is not communicated by discourse but is discourse itself, can only be encountered textually. Following Nietzsche, Foucault performs what he calls “genealogies,” attempts at deconstructing the unacknowledged operation of power and knowledge to reveal the ideologies that make domination of one group by another seem “natural.” Foucaldian investigations of discourse and power were to provide much of the intellectual impetus for a new way of looking at history and doing textual studies that came to be known as the “New Historicism.”

6. New Historicism and Cultural Materialism

“New Historicism,” a term coined by Stephen Greenblatt, designates a body of theoretical and interpretive practices that began largely with the study of early modern literature in the United States. “New Historicism” in America had been somewhat anticipated by the theorists of “Cultural Materialism” in Britain, which, in the words of their leading advocate, Raymond Williams describes “the analysis of all forms of signification, including quite centrally writing, within the actual means and conditions of their production.” Both “New Historicism” and “Cultural Materialism” seek to understand literary texts historically and reject the formalizing influence of previous literary studies, including “New Criticism,” “Structuralism” and “Deconstruction,” all of which in varying ways privilege the literary text and place only secondary emphasis on historical and social context. According to “New Historicism,” the circulation of literary and non-literary texts produces relations of social power within a culture. New Historicist thought differs from traditional historicism in literary studies in several crucial ways. Rejecting traditional historicism’s premise of neutral inquiry, “New Historicism” accepts the necessity of making historical value judgments. According to “New Historicism,” we can only know the textual history of the past because it is “embedded,” a key term, in the textuality of the present and its concerns. Text and context are less clearly distinct in New Historicist practice. Traditional separations of literary and non-literary texts, “great” literature and popular literature, are also fundamentally challenged. For the “New Historicist,” all acts of expression are embedded in the material conditions of a 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. Like much of the emergent European social history of the 1980s, “New Historicism” takes particular interest in representations of marginal/marginalized groups and non-normative behaviors—witchcraft, cross-dressing, peasant revolts, and exorcisms—as exemplary of the need for power to represent subversive alternatives, the Other, to legitimize itself.

Louis Montrose, another major innovator and exponent of “New Historicism,” describes a fundamental axiom of the movement as an intellectual belief in “the textuality of history and the historicity of texts.” “New Historicism” draws on the work of Levi-Strauss, in particular his notion of culture as a “self-regulating system.” The Foucaldian premise that power is ubiquitous and cannot be equated with state or economic power and Gramsci’s conception of “hegemony,” i.e., that domination is often achieved through culturally-orchestrated consent rather than force, are critical underpinnings to the “New Historicist” perspective. The translation of the work of Mikhail Bakhtin on carnival coincided with the rise of the “New Historicism” and “Cultural Materialism” and left a legacy in work of other theorists of influence like Peter Stallybrass and Jonathan Dollimore. In its period of ascendancy during the 1980s, “New Historicism” drew criticism from the political left for its depiction of counter-cultural expression as always co-opted by the dominant discourses. Equally, “New Historicism’s” lack of emphasis on “literariness” and formal literary concerns brought disdain from traditional literary scholars. However, “New Historicism” continues to exercise a major influence in the humanities and in the extended conception of literary studies.

7. Ethnic Studies and Postcolonial Criticism

“Ethnic Studies,” sometimes referred to as “Minority Studies,” has an obvious historical relationship with “Postcolonial Criticism” in that Euro-American imperialism and colonization in the last four centuries, whether external (empire) or internal (slavery) has been directed at recognizable ethnic groups: African and African-American, Chinese, the subaltern peoples of India, Irish, Latino, Native American, and Philipino, among others. “Ethnic Studies” concerns itself generally with art and literature produced by identifiable ethnic groups either marginalized or in a subordinate position to a dominant culture. “Postcolonial Criticism” investigates the relationships between colonizers and colonized in the period post-colonization. Though the two fields are increasingly finding points of intersection—the work of bell hooks, for example—and are both activist intellectual enterprises, “Ethnic Studies and “Postcolonial Criticism” have significant differences in their history and ideas.

“Ethnic Studies” has had a considerable impact on literary studies in the United States and Britain. In W.E.B. Dubois, we find an early attempt to theorize the position of African-Americans within dominant white culture through his concept of “double consciousness,” a dual identity including both “American” and “Negro.” Dubois and theorists after him seek an understanding of how that double experience both creates identity and reveals itself in culture. Afro-Caribbean and African writers—Aime Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, Chinua Achebe—have made significant early contributions to the theory and practice of ethnic criticism that explores the traditions, sometimes suppressed or underground, of ethnic literary activity while providing a critique of representations of ethnic identity as found within the majority culture. Ethnic and minority literary theory emphasizes the relationship of cultural identity to individual identity in historical circumstances of overt racial oppression. More recently, scholars and writers such as Henry Louis Gates, Toni Morrison, and Kwame Anthony Appiah have brought attention to the problems inherent in applying theoretical models derived from Euro-centric paradigms (that is, structures of thought) to minority works of literature while at the same time exploring new interpretive strategies for understanding the vernacular (common speech) traditions of racial groups that have been historically marginalized by dominant cultures.

Though not the first writer to explore the historical condition of postcolonialism, the Palestinian literary theorist Edward Said’s book Orientalism is generally regarded as having inaugurated the field of explicitly “Postcolonial Criticism” in the West. Said argues that the concept of “the Orient” was produced by the “imaginative geography” of Western scholarship and has been instrumental in the colonization and domination of non-Western societies. “Postcolonial” theory reverses the historical center/margin direction of cultural inquiry: critiques of the metropolis and capital now emanate from the former colonies. Moreover, theorists like Homi K. Bhabha have questioned the binary thought that produces the dichotomies—center/margin, white/black, and colonizer/colonized—by which colonial practices are justified. The work of Gayatri C. Spivak has focused attention on the question of who speaks for the colonial “Other” and the relation of the ownership of discourse and representation to the development of the postcolonial subjectivity. Like feminist and ethnic theory, “Postcolonial Criticism” pursues not merely the inclusion of the marginalized literature of colonial peoples into the dominant canon and discourse. “Postcolonial Criticism” offers a fundamental critique of the ideology of colonial domination and at the same time seeks to undo the “imaginative geography” of Orientalist thought that produced conceptual as well as economic divides between West and East, civilized and uncivilized, First and Third Worlds. In this respect, “Postcolonial Criticism” is activist and adversarial in its basic aims. Postcolonial theory has brought fresh perspectives to the role of colonial peoples—their wealth, labor, and culture—in the development of modern European nation states. While “Postcolonial Criticism” emerged in the historical moment following the collapse of the modern colonial empires, the increasing globalization of culture, including the neo-colonialism of multinational capitalism, suggests a continued relevance for this field of inquiry.

8. Gender Studies and Queer Theory

Gender theory came to the forefront of the theoretical scene first as feminist theory but has subsequently come to include the investigation of all gender and sexual categories and identities. Feminist gender theory followed slightly behind the reemergence of political feminism in the United States and Western Europe during the 1960s. Political feminism of the so-called “second wave” had as its emphasis practical concerns with the rights of women in contemporary societies, women’s identity, and the representation of women in media and culture. These causes converged with early literary feminist practice, characterized by Elaine Showalter as “gynocriticism,” which emphasized the study and canonical inclusion of works by female authors as well as the depiction of women in male-authored canonical texts.

Feminist gender theory is postmodern in that it challenges the paradigms and intellectual premises of western thought, but also takes an activist stance by proposing frequent interventions and alternative epistemological positions meant to change the social order. In the context of postmodernism, gender theorists, led by the work of Judith Butler, initially viewed the category of “gender” as a human construct enacted by a vast repetition of social performance. The biological distinction between man and woman eventually came under the same scrutiny by theorists who reached a similar conclusion: the sexual categories are products of culture and as such help create social reality rather than simply reflect it. Gender theory achieved a wide readership and acquired much its initial theoretical rigor through the work of a group of French feminist theorists that included Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous, and Julia Kristeva, who while Bulgarian rather than French, made her mark writing in French. French feminist thought is based on the assumption that the Western philosophical tradition represses the experience of women in the structure of its ideas. As an important consequence of this systematic intellectual repression and exclusion, women’s lives and bodies in historical societies are subject to repression as well. In the creative/critical work of Cixous, we find the history of Western thought depicted as binary oppositions: “speech/writing; Nature/Art, Nature/History, Nature/Mind, Passion/Action.” For Cixous, and for Irigaray as well, these binaries are less a function of any objective reality they describe than the male-dominated discourse of the Western tradition that produced them. Their work beyond the descriptive stage becomes an intervention in the history of theoretical discourse, an attempt to alter the existing categories and systems of thought that found Western rationality. French feminism, and perhaps all feminism after Beauvoir, has been in conversation with the psychoanalytic revision of Freud in the work of Jacques Lacan. Kristeva’s work draws heavily on Lacan. Two concepts from Kristeva—the “semiotic” and “abjection”—have had a significant influence on literary theory. Kristeva’s “semiotic” refers to the gaps, silences, spaces, and bodily presence within the language/symbol system of a culture in which there might be a space for a women’s language, different in kind as it would be from male-dominated discourse.

Masculine gender theory as a separate enterprise has focused largely on social, literary, and historical accounts of the construction of male gender identities. Such work generally lacks feminisms’ activist stance and tends to serve primarily as an indictment rather than a validation of male gender practices and masculinity. The so-called “Men’s Movement,” inspired by the work of Robert Bly among others, was more practical than theoretical and has had only limited impact on gender discourse. The impetus for the “Men’s Movement” came largely as a response to the critique of masculinity and male domination that runs throughout feminism and the upheaval of the 1960s, a period of crisis in American social ideology that has required a reconsideration of gender roles. Having long served as the de facto “subject” of Western thought, male identity and masculine gender theory awaits serious investigation as a particular, and no longer universally representative, field of inquiry.

Much of what theoretical energy of masculine gender theory currently possesses comes from its ambiguous relationship with the field of “Queer theory.” “Queer theory” is not synonymous with gender theory, nor even with the overlapping fields of gay and lesbian studies, but does share many of their concerns with normative definitions of man, woman, and sexuality. “Queer theory” questions the fixed categories of sexual identity and the cognitive paradigms generated by normative (that is, what is considered “normal”) sexual ideology. To “queer” becomes an act by which stable boundaries of sexual identity are transgressed, reversed, mimicked, or otherwise critiqued. “Queering” can be enacted on behalf of all non-normative sexualities and identities as well, all that is considered by the dominant paradigms of culture to be alien, strange, unfamiliar, transgressive, odd—in short, queer. Michel Foucault’s work on sexuality anticipates and informs the Queer theoretical movement in a role similar to the way his writing on power and discourse prepared the ground for “New Historicism.” Judith Butler contends that heterosexual identity long held to be a normative ground of sexuality is actually produced by the suppression of homoerotic possibility. Eve Sedgwick is another pioneering theorist of “Queer theory,” and like Butler, Sedgwick maintains that the dominance of heterosexual culture conceals the extensive presence of homosocial relations. For Sedgwick, the standard histories of western societies are presented in exclusively in terms of heterosexual identity: “Inheritance, Marriage, Dynasty, Family, Domesticity, Population,” and thus conceiving of homosexual identity within this framework is already problematic.

9. Cultural Studies

Much of the intellectual legacy of “New Historicism” and “Cultural Materialism” can now be felt in the “Cultural Studies” movement in departments of literature, a movement not identifiable in terms of a single theoretical school, but one that embraces a wide array of perspectives—media studies, social criticism, anthropology, and literary theory—as they apply to the general study of culture. “Cultural Studies” arose quite self-consciously in the 80s to provide a means of analysis of the rapidly expanding global culture industry that includes entertainment, advertising, publishing, television, film, computers and the Internet. “Cultural Studies” brings scrutiny not only to these varied categories of culture, and not only to the decreasing margins of difference between these realms of expression, but just as importantly to the politics and ideology that make contemporary culture possible. “Cultural Studies” became notorious in the 90s for its emphasis on pop music icons and music video in place of canonical literature, and extends the ideas of the Frankfurt School on the transition from a truly popular culture to mass culture in late capitalist societies, emphasizing the significance of the patterns of consumption of cultural artifacts. “Cultural Studies” has been interdisciplinary, even antidisciplinary, from its inception; indeed, “Cultural Studies” can be understood as a set of sometimes conflicting methods and approaches applied to a questioning of current cultural categories. Stuart Hall, Meaghan Morris, Tony Bennett and Simon During are some of the important advocates of a “Cultural Studies” that seeks to displace the traditional model of literary studies.

10. References and Further Reading

A. general works on theory.

• Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
• During, Simon. Ed. The Cultural Studies Reader . London: Routledge, 1999.
• Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory . Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
• Lentricchia, Frank. After the New Criticism . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
• Moore-Gilbert, Bart, Stanton, Gareth, and Maley, Willy. Eds. Postcolonial Criticism . New York: Addison, Wesley, Longman, 1997.
• Rice, Philip and Waugh, Patricia. Eds. Modern Literary Theory: A Reader . 4 th edition.
• Richter, David H. Ed. The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends . 2 nd Ed. Bedford Books: Boston, 1998.
• Rivkin, Julie and Ryan, Michael. Eds. Literary Theory: An Anthology . Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1998.

b. Literary and Cultural Theory

• Adorno, Theodor. The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture . Ed. J. M. Bernstein. London: Routledge, 2001.
• Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy: And Other Essays. Trans. Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971.
• Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Trans.
• Willard R. Trask. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953.
• Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1981.
• Barthes, Roland. Image—Music—Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Hill and Wang, 1994.
• Barthes, Roland. The Pleasure of the Text . Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Hill and Wang, 1975.
• Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex . Tr. H.M. Parshley. New York: Knopf, 1953.
• Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken, 1988.
• Brooks, Cleanth. The Well-Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry. New York: Harcourt, 1947.
• Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology . Trans. Gayatri C. Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1976.
• Dubois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1903.
• Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.
• Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Volume 1. An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1981.
• Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage, 1973.
• Gates, Henry Louis. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism . New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
• hooks, bell. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism . Boston: South End Press, 1981.
• Horkheimer, Max and Adorno, Theodor. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments . Ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.
• Irigaray, Luce. This Sex Which Is Not One . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985.
• Jameson, Frederic. Postmodernism: Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
• Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits: A Selection. London: Routledge, 2001.
• Lemon Lee T. and Reis, Marion J. Eds. Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1965.
• Lukacs, Georg. The Historical Novel . Trans. Hannah and Stanley Mitchell. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1962.
• Marcuse, Herbert. Eros and Civilization . Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Genealogy of Morals . Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage, 1969.
• Plato. The Collected Dialogues. Ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961.
• Proust, Marcel. Remembrance of Things Past. Trans. C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin. New York: Vintage, 1982.
• Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978.
• Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men . Between Men: English literature and Male Homosocial Desire . New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.
• Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky Epistemology of the Closet . London: Penguin, 1994.
• Showalter, Elaine. Ed. The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory . London: Virago, 1986.
• Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs : the Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790- 1860. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
• Wellek, Rene and Warren, Austin. Theory of Literature . 3 rd ed. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1956.
• Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City . New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.

Author Information

Vince Brewton Email: [email protected] University of North Alabama U. S. A.

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ENGL300: Introduction to Theory of Literature

• ENGL300: Introduction to Theory of Literature Part of the Open Yale Courses series, this survey course, taught by Professor Paul H. Fry, covers the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. There are 26 sessions. Visit the site to learn more about the course and access course materials. The video and audio elements of the course are available on YouTube and iTunes. Watch the introductory lecture on YouTube and access links to the balance of the sessions.

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What is Literary theory?

Literary theory is one of the most significant tools to comprehend literary works and almost any art form. This article introduces to literary theory and criticism, and provides an overview of popular theories of the past and present.

This article includes:

• Classical Literary Theory
• Medieval Literary Theory
• Renaissance Theory and Criticism
• Romantic theory and Criticism

Psychoanalysis

• Hermaneutics and Reception Theory

Structuralism and Semiotics

• Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction

Feminist Literary Theory

• Post-Colonial Literary Theory

New Historicism

• Cultural Studies

Queer Theory

Difference between literary theory and criticism.

• Importance of Literary Theory

To understand literary theory, let us assume that you are reading “Pride and Prejudice” written by Jane Austen.

While reading, you find the novel to be a classic love story between the rich and powerful Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy and headstrong Elizabeth Bennet. The novel initially begins with hostility between the two, but eventually ends up with mutual love and respect for each other. Despite marriage being unquestionably essential for a woman’s economic stability, Elizabeth refuses to marry only for economic security. She initially refuses Mr. Darcy’s proposal due to his disrespect towards her family, and only accepts him once she has grown to respect and love him.

This is just one interpretation of the novel.

As you read Pride and Prejudice as a romance, you could not help but notice how women hardly had any viable options for economic stability except for marriage. You notice how Mr. Bennet’s daughters, being women, cannot inherit their father’s property at Longbourn. Instead, it is their distant cousin, Mr. Collins who is destined to inherit their property just because he is a male. You begin to realize how women had no economic agency apart from marrying a financially stable man. On one hand this makes women feel trapped and desperate, so much so that they begin plotting and scheming in order to secure an economically advantageous marriage. On the other hand, men are reduced to just a source of financial security. This completely removes any scope of a marriage based on love, respect, and mutual understanding. Charlotte Lucas very cleverly orchestrates her proposal by Mr. Collins and marries him not because she loves and respects him, but because he is her only source of economic stability and a comfortable home.

This, as you can see, is reading the classic in a brand new light. Your focus is now shifting from romance to some equally important realities that the book offers.

Another possible train of thought while reading Pride and Prejudice might be around class discrimination. You might have noticed how Mr. Darcy, during his first proposal in Chapter 34 cites economic differences between Elizabeth and himself as obstacles and setbacks for him. The absolutely disrespectful and condescending behavior of Lady Catherine towards Elizabeth and her belief that Darcy marrying Elizabeth will bring nothing but disgrace to him, highlight the stark class differences included in the novel.

As we can now realize and perhaps have already often known, a single work of literature (in this case Pride and Prejudice), can and most often has several interpretations. These interpretations might occur to the reader within one reading, or might take several readings to uncover and realize subtler and hidden meanings in the work.

Another very important factor that impacts interpretations is the reader. For example, who is reading Pride and Prejudice? A literary student’s deliberate interpretation of the classic might be different and more detailed from a reader reading it for leisure. Interpretation also depends on individual sensibilities and awareness and might be extremely subjective.

Time, is another factor that significantly impacts interpretations. How we interpret Pride and Prejudice is not the same as its interpretation and reception when it was published.

What do we mean by Literary theory?

Literary theory refers to the various school of thoughts that shape and affect our interpretations of a literary work. It is theory that facilitates impactful and effective criticism of literature. For example, your understanding of the feminist theory will facilitate the feminist criticism of a literary work. You will be better equipped to uncover any underlying oppression of women, and projected and internalized misogyny. At the same time you might also be able to recognize the subtle ways a literary work might empower women. Thus, literary theory is an indispensable tool that empowers a reader to not only understand a literary work better, but also discover new possible meanings of a work, thus maintaining its relevance with time.

Reading almost any text , simple or dense, is a complex and unlimited activity. This is one of the beneficial things that theory teaches us. Theory resembles philosophy as it asks foundational questions and creates systems at times. However, literary theory also involves a certain amount of skepticism. It involves a variety of doubts about the foundations of our perceptions and what we can think. This does not mean that all theories are skeptical. In fact, some of the most powerful and profound literary theories are positive. Nevertheless we will come to this realization that most of the texts that we read today have a prevalent sense of skepticism facilitated by theory.

Popular Literary theory through the years

From classical literary theory to the latest queer theory, there have been numerous ways literature has been perceived and interpreted. This section includes a short introduction for all the popular literary theories from the classical period to the present day.

Classical Literary Theory: 5th Century B.C.E. to 5th Century C.E

Sophists, plato, aristotle, and horace.

We begin with classical literary theory because its impact and influence is still prevalent. Aristotle, Plato and Horace are among the most influential and seminal classical theorists, followed by Gorgias, Quintilian and others.

The Sophists

Sophists prioritized winning or succeeding over everything else. The early Sophists such as Gorgias and Thrasymachus did not view language and poetry as a medium for representing the truth. Instead, they considered language as a tool of thought formation and persuasion. The Sophists utilized language and poetry to persuade the audience to conform and comply with their point of views. They prioritized influencing the audience over representing truth, wisdom, and reality.

Plato (429?–347 B.C.E.)

Plato’s disregard for poetry stemmed from his reaction towards the early sophists. He did not believe that poetry was a source of knowledge and reality. For Plato, reality was only constituted in the transcendental world of Ideas and Forms. This world could be comprehended only through reason.

On the other hand, our world was a sensory illusion, a departure from the ideal world of Forms. Thus, poetry only offered an inferior mimesis of an illusory world of the senses, and was thrice removed from the absolute reality and truth. For Plato poetry is:

• Irrational and based on inspiration rather than knowledge
• Does not represent reality or truth
• Does not teach morality
• Depicts false role models and images

Therefore, Plato believed that the poet must be banned from society. The only kind of poetry acceptable to him was one that praised God.

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.)

One of the most important contributors to classical literary theory, Plato’s student Aristotle believed that poetry was capable of representing the truth as it mirrors life creatively, not passively. He believed, where history was just a record of accidental events, poetry rises above such accidental incidents and represents and highlights universal truths. Aristotle believed that humans were naturally gifted for imitation that imparts learning along with pleasure. In addition to defending poetry, Aristotle also laid emphasis on tragedy.

Quintus Horatius Flaccus also known as Horace

Horace agreed with Aristotle and believed that poets must not only imitate nature but must also mirror great writers. For Horace, the main function of poetry was to combine “pleasure with usefulness” or “delight and instruct”.

Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism 5th to 15th Century

The medieval theory includes documents on the practice of reading, theory of language, and the nature and use of literature.

Majority of medieval theory was formed from the interpretation of sacred Scriptures and most medieval writers explored how to read and interpret the Book of God’s Word or the Bible. Hugh of St. Victor, a leading theologian, described reading as an imitation or reflection of God’s works. Hugh perceived the entire world as a book written by God. Thus for him, reading was not just a pale imitation of nature (as believed by Plato) but was more comparable with reading the world.

The art of reading and interpretation is founded on Augustine’s notion that the human language is a reflection of the word of God of Logos. It guarantees the unity of meaning in the Bible and the book of Nature, even when the meaning is not immediately perceptible. For Augustine, language exists exclusively to impart the meaning that pre-exists in it. It is not playful (as possible in poetry). For Augustine, language is “transparent”.

Medieval writers accepted Augustine’s theory of language and his distrust of figurative language and poetic fables. They tried to highlight the truth and transparency of simple language and discredit and highlight the futility of poetic fictions. However their efforts were largely in vain as they could not ignore the presence of poetry and figurative language in the Bible, the text of Christianity. Upon this, the medieval writers argued that God could only be represented indirectly through figurative and poetic language. In this case, the heroic songs and psalms in the Old Testament, and Christ’s parables in the New Testament were perceived as metaphors that created similitude between this world and the next. For Augustine such similitudes were crucial and he argued that “by means of corporeal and temporal things we may comprehend the eternal and spiritual.” In the end, the medieval defense of poetry was that it should not be just for the ears, must not be merely ornamental but must encourage the reader to perform good deeds.

During the medieval age, the writers fundamentally focused on detailed and rigorous textual interpretations. Most significant were the exegetical genres of the gloss found in the works of ancient grammarians, that were utilized in the interpretation of the Bible. The glosses were explanatory words written in the margin or between the lines of an otherwise dense text. Commentaries were much more extensive that initially appeared only in the textual margins but later appeared as continuous texts. An example of such commentary is Bernardus Sylvestris’s comments on the First Six Books of Virgil’s “Aeneid”. Thus, glosses and commentaries shaped the approach to authoritative texts. During that time, all texts were in the form of manuscripts full of glosses and commentary that facilitated the future interpretation of texts.

The main technique of medieval gloss and commentary was allegory. They were read for their underlying esoteric meanings. Quintilian defined allegory as “one thing in the words, another in the senses”. However allegory did not remain just a figure of speech. Due to Augustinian belief that poetry was a means to understand an otherwise transcendental and inaccessible world, allegory became a critical tool to control and spread the meanings of sacred texts and scriptures. It was only later that it became a literary genre.

Following Quintilian’s definition of allegory, medieval writers elaborated upon four levels of allegorical interpretation and utilized it for interpreting and spreading the meaning of the Bible. These four allegorical levels were:

• The literal or historical
• The allegorical or spiritual
• The tropological or moral
• The anagogic or mystical

If we take an example of the story in the New Testament where Christ raises Lazarus from the dead, it can be interpreted at four levels:

• On the literal or historical level, this story serves as a record of an event that occurred
• On the spiritual or allegorical level, this story indicates the death of Christ, his descent into hell and his resurrection.
• On the moral or tropological level, it represents the sacrament of Penance, through which a soul is raised from sin’s death
• On the mystical or anagogical level, the story portrays the resurrection of the body after the Last Judgment.

By the 12th century, this interpretation of the Bible was extended to the study of pagan mythologies, along with classic works such as Aeneid by Virgil. Afterall, medieval christians were unable to accept pagan Gods, nor were they able to read stories simply as “fables”. They instead perceived them as expressions of philosophical ideas. The allegorical interpretation eventually phased out after the Middle Ages, but regained popularity and influence during the late 20th century. Both Northrop Frye, and Fredrich Jameson formed ways of interpreting a text on multiple levels.

Another major involvement of the Medieval theory and criticism was prescriptive poetry. Prescriptive poetry deals with how to write poetry and was mainly inspired by Horace’s “Ars Poetica”. Ars Poetica coherently combined classical views of rhetoric, style, and grammar, and became a guide to compose.

The medieval ages considered the poet as someone who preserved the past by developing ways of extending it.

Renaissance Theory and Criticism: 16th to 18th century

The Renaissance theory and criticism demonstrated a renewed interest in Greek and Latin classics. There is also a focus on vernacular language and national literature. During this time there were debates between the ancient and the modern that began in Italy and eventually spread throughout the western Europe.

Ancient Critics

Critics and writers who defended the ancients focused on classic genres such as tragic drama and epic and considered them as models for literary compositions. In the beginning, they not only emphasized on imitating the genres but also to use Latin as the befitting language. They preferred to comply strictly with the classical form. This preference stemmed from a combination of Poetics by Aristotle, and Ars Poetica by Horace.

The Renaissance critics appreciated distinguished genres. One of the most famous doctrines of the time was that of the “three unities” (of action, place, and time) derived from Aristotle’s theory. Aristotle stated that dramas don't have just one action but also one setting and a short span of fictional time (preferably within a day). Aristotle’s description of Greek tragedies became a set of rules to write plays.

These rules first emerged in commentaries on Aristotle by Ludovico Castelvetro, an Italian Renaissance critic. It became extremely influential a century later, in the writings of Pierre Corneille (a French dramatist), and John Dryden. Both of them dedicated their works to their native languages and literatures and artfully combined ancient and modern perspectives.

The Aristotelian concept of three unities was also accompanied with Horatian focus on “verisimilitude”. This concept meant excluding fantastic events and beings and focusing on the depiction of historical realities and facts. The fantastical events were perceived acceptable only if they could be explained by Christian beliefs (for instance, the actions of Gods and demons). Critics emphasized important passages in Horace which focused on the importance of decorum and the importance of copying the strategies and techniques of literary predecessors. The critics of this time imitated the classics in order to imitate nature. This tendency was advocated by Julius Caesar Scaliger, the Italian critic. His notions were summarized by Alexander Pope in his “Essay on Criticism”. For these critics, “To copy nature is to copy Them”.

The Modern Critics

The moderns appreciated and encouraged new literary forms and genres that were far removed from the celebrated and imitated classical genres. Works such as Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto, and Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser were criticized due to them not following the classical forms and deviating from unity of form and verisimilitude. However, Giambattista Giraldi appreciated Ariosto for constituting a new genre that was independent of classical forms. Similarly, Dante’s dream allegory in his “Divine Comedy” was appreciated by Giacopo Mazzoni for its completely imaginative imitation. Both Mazzoni and Giraldi appreciated the creative and unbridled powers of a poet. This was further celebrated by Sir Philip Sidney and this laid the foundation for Shakespeare who aptly stated, “ Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done, neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-much-loved earth more lovely: her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden.”

Along with the celebration of the power of a poet’s creativity, came recognition and celebration of vernacular languages rather than of Latin. Now the critics as well as poets began to believe that they could achieve greatness at par with the Greek and Roman classics if they wrote in their vernacular language instead of Latin.

Thus, works in Italian were celebrated and appreciated by Giraldi and Mazzolini; the French language was supported by Joachim du Bellay and Pierre de Ronsard; and the English language was supported by Sir Philip Sidney and George Puttenham. The inclination towards the vernacular language was also due to the evolving national consciousness and a rising preoccupation with a recognizable literary tradition.

The Romantic Literary theory and criticism: Late 18th century

Romantic theory and criticism evolved in the late 18th century and flourished during the early 19th century. Romanticism was impacted and inspired by the French and American revolutions. The major focus of this theory was on the individual. Romantic theory was heavily influenced by Immanuel Kant and his focus on how our understanding of the world is entirely subjective. Romantic theory was a departure from the Neoclassical adherence to classical forms. There was now a regard for individuality, sensibility, and originality, which first germinated in the mid 18th century.

Celebration of the individual led to the perception of poetry as the personal expression of a poet. This was drastically different from neoclassical standards and perception of poetry. While neoclassicism preferred tradition, decorum, and preoccupation with the genre, romantics considered art intimately intertwined with their personal feelings, impressions, and sentiments.

How did Romantic critics see poetry?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his ' Biographia Literaria' said that a poet “diffuses a tone and spirit of unity, that blends, and (as it were) fuses, each into each, by that synthetic and magical power, to which we have exclusively appropriated the name of imagination.”

Romanticism viewed a poem as an organic form that was created by the individual imagination of a poet. This viewpoint was in stark contrast to the neoclassical point of view that poetry must strictly abide by and imitate the previous classics and adhere to the rules of classical genres. This was the age when Shakespeare’s works that were criticized by the neoclassical critics for not complying with the unities of time, action, and place, gained renewed appreciation.

Apart from their preoccupation with the harmonizing and synthesizing power of imagination, the romantics also focused on symbols. This focus on symbols is evident in the works of Coleridge, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The poetic symbol expressed universal ideas and concepts through particular details, images, and metaphors. This was a deviation from allegory. The romantics condemned allegory and viewed it as a mechanical way of forcing morality and meaning in poetry. In contrast to allegory, symbols depicted meanings organically, thereby depicted beauty, truth, as well morality. According to Friedrich von Schiller, when you read a poem, you reconcile the general with the particular, and get an uplifting sense of freedom, which is mutually shared by the poet. This saves both, the reader as well as the poet from the alienation and despair caused by the modern world. Thus, poetry, through symbols, humanizes an extremely dehumanized world.

The dominantly preferred genre during the romantic era was lyric poem which replaced the epic poem preferred by the Neoclassicals. The Romantics wrote lengthy poetry that included arrangements of lyrical pieces. William Wordsworth’s Prelude is a typical example of a romantic lyric poem. The preference for the lyric poem was due to the fact that it was the best genre to accommodate the expression of individual emotions.

Another diversion from neoclassical poetry was the presence of occasional fragmentation in the lyric poetry. This was a departure from neoclassical preference of unity, wholeness, and rational design. There was also an attempt to attain “sublime” (the meeting of the inner, emotional world with the outer natural world).

Although the English novel was yet to be taken seriously, it flourished during the romantic era.

Another significant feature of the romantic era was emphasizing the historical stages of development. Romantics began to dwell on literary and cultural history due to the changing social, political, and economic circumstances around them. Critics such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, G.W.F Hegel, and, Germaine de Staël, among others attempted to correlate art and literature to historical periods. The poetic genre was identified as belonging to the time when the people were more intuitive than rational.

Marxism- 19th Century

The difference in people’s social class and history forms the core of Marxist theory. Marxist criticism dominantly stems from the works of Karl Mark, a 19th century German philosopher and economist.

One of the major components of marxist theory is “modes of production”. Marxism states that the human history can be divided into 7 modes of production:

• Tribal Hordes
• Neolithic kinship societies
• Oriental despotism
• Ancient slaveholding societies

Every mode of production has a basic class struggle pattern. The capitalist mode of production has a conflict between the industrial labor or working class (the proletariat), and the owners of the means of production (the bourgeoisie). Other classes such as the unemployed criminals also known as lumpenproletariat, and aristocracy are mere witnesses from the historical margins.

Eventually, this conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie leads to the victory of the former, and the foundation of the communist mode of production. This communist mode of production frees the society from exploitation, class-struggle, and polarizing inequality.

The Marxist structure of society.

According to the marxists, the foundational structure of the society constitutes the socioeconomic elements. However, all the cultural elements such as law, education, religion, philosophy, and politics comprise its superstructure. Ideology includes the ideas, values, and belief systems of the ruling class and are circulated throughout all cultural spheres. The working class that believes and follows the ideology displays “false consciousness” as following the ideology ignores the ground realities of their working-class life.

The term “hegemony” denotes the perpetual dominance of the ruling class’s ideology on all classes through non-violent mediums such as church, family, school, family, media, mainstream art, technoscientific establishments, etc. Louis Althusser, a leading marxist critic called these institutions “Ideological State Apparatuses”. These institutions maintained social order and tackled any instability or conflict. These work outside the official state power.

According to Marxism, art and culture is not outside the influence of social forces, and are not independent. In fact, they play an important role in the transmission of ideology and maintaining hegemony. However this does not imply that art and culture are just mouthpieces of the dominant class. There are many instances when art has explicitly rejected and protested against the ruling systems, while implicitly pointing out their shortcomings.

Art often presents counterhegemonic images thereby suggesting liberative possibilities and providing them with socially critical undertones.

Class Conflict in Stylistics

In stylistics, the class conflict gives rise to “heteroglossia” as stated by Bakhtin. Heteroglossia is the depiction of multiple points of views in an artistic work. Thus, from the stylistic point of view, a work will constitute different dialects, generational slangs, literary genres, class mannerisms, etc, of the English language. Ulysses by James Joyce incorporates such conflicts through the heteroglot discourse. He depicts a carnivalization of different languages protesting against the official style.

Commodity, Commodity fetishism, and Commodification.

Marx’s concepts for commodity, commodity fetishism, and commodification are often used by marxists in their theory.

• Commodities : Commodities are goods that are primarily produced for monetary exchange and profit. For example, a farmer will produce crops to sell and not for his personal use. For him, the crop does not have use value but only exchange value. Labour is now bought and sold in the money economy. Labour is no longer done by individual workers at the time of producing the goods for their personal use. Workers now labor for another to earn money and then exchange it for items required for subsistence.
• Commodity fetishism: This term denotes our fascination and attraction for the array of brand new goods in a store. We forget the labor of the workers that went into the production of that particular product. For example, in the current situation we are so used to ordering online, where it has almost become a habit. The entire process of production, packing, transit, escapes us. Another example is ordering food online on a whim, irrespective of the weather or other conditions, and completely forgetting the effort of the delivery agent. There is a displacement of use value from the product or commodity and it has been transformed into being of exchange value. This causes alienation of workers from their own labor. The producer no longer cares about what it produces. Moreover, the key element of commodity exchange is exploitation that occurs because owners extract a high profit margin from the workers.
• Commodification: The accelerated phenomenon of goods production by the workers not for their use value but for their exchange value is called commodification. This phenomenon is taking over almost all aspects of our life. Everything today can be purchased as a commodity. Be it sexual mates, or art. According to marxists, commodification leads to the reduction of people and human relations to mere objects with a price tag. For example in the field of art, commodification results in artists hawking their works, writing it to facilitate sale, in a competitive and impersonal market. Commodification also results in buying of critics by the rich thus rendering the role of criticism futile.

Marxists and cultural theorists worry how the market and the media is taking over every form of resistance. They often wonder that if radical movements that aim for a complete social change, such as surrealism, gangsta rap, punk, etc, can become commodities for profit, how is it possible to oppose hegemony in the first place. Commodification diffuses the force of subversive artistic practices and turns them into hot stories or merchandise meant for market economy. Marxist literary theory and cultural studies enquire about this system.

According to psychoanalysis theory, the human psyche is made unconscious and conscious. Most parts of our psyche are out of sight and are a part of the unconscious. On the other hand, our consciousness constitutes a smaller part of the psyche. According to the psychoanalysts, fantasies, slip of the tongue, dreams represent repressed and censored wishes. The techniques utilized by psychoanalysts to interpret dreams and other unconscious material were adopted by literary and cultural critics who too were trying to decipher symbolic texts.

According to Freud, the formation of dreams includes the censorship of wishes. Therefore the dreams undergo four kinds of distortion before reaching our consciousness. These four kinds of distortions are:

• Condensation
• Displacement
• Symbolization, and
• Secondary revision or elaboration.

It is due to these distortions that dreams appear as nonsense. Psychoanalysts try to make sense of such dreams. They consider these distortions creative and the nonsense meaningful. Literary critics too have to often deal with texts that appear nonsensical and distorted just like dreams.

Critics have often found the archetypes by Carl Jung extremely useful. These archetypes include universal symbols such as the garden and the desert, fire and water, the monster and the hero, death and birth, that are stored in the collective unconscious of humanity.

Modern and postmodern literary theories are extremely impacted by the psychoanalyst concept of the unconscious.

Harold Bloom’s “A nxiety of influence ” and écriture féminine of French feminism highlight the complexity of psychoanalytic theory. According to the “Anxiety of Influence”, a book by Harold Bloom, every poet belonging to the Anglo-American tradition, from the early Romantics to the late modern period, suffers from an anxiety of influence that is both devastating and productive. The role model of a new poet serves both as a competition as well as an inspiration. The budding artist naturally wishes and aims to compete against and one day himself/herself surpass the already established poet. Before the neoclassical and romantic era, literary influence was entirely advantageous (for instance influence of Spenser on John Milton). However, with the rise of lyric poem as the dominant genre, the influence of a predecessor became a source of anxiety. It involved the aspiring poet’s primal repression of the predecessor and caused eventual psychological defenses against the role model such as masochistic reversals, sublimations, introjections, regressions, and projections. Bloom refers to these as “misprision”, which means misinterpreting, misreading or mistaking.

Harold Bloom was criticized for focusing on competition rather than collaboration, and for preferring canonical poets over newer poets. However he has never been questioned about his understanding of unconscious repression or of distortion.

The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan was a major influence behind the concept of écriture féminine or feminine/female writing. It was then revised by the French feminist Hélène Cixous. According to the theory of female writing, during its earliest stages of psychosocial development, an infant moves from an imaginary order that is a mother-centric, presymbolic, pre-oedipal space, to a space of “symbolic order” which is a separation of self from the mother, of law, of social codes, and patriarchy. The feminine writing is a departure from the patriarchal writing with its strict grammar , genres and boundaries. This writing taps into imagination, and provides voice to the unconscious, the body, and to the polymorphous drives. Even though this kind of writing can be written by both males and females, it is a psychopoetics that Cixous positions against patriarchal values and practices.

In both the theories of “anxiety of influence” by Bloom and “écriture féminine” by Lacan and Cixous, Freud’s theory of the “Oedipus complex” plays a pivotal role.

What is Freud’s theory of “Oedipus complex”?

According to Sigmund Freud’s Oedipus complex, an infant must undergo three stages of development: oral, anal, and oedipal, for his psychological well-being. During the oedipal stage, the male child must detach from his mother and begin to identify with his father while entering into the Symbolic order. Oedipus complex is defined by the hostility and rivalry harbored by the male child towards his father as he begins to consider his father as a competition for his mother’s love and attention. According to Sigmund Freud, the Oedipus Complex is shown by males with insufficient oedipal development.

Anti-Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari

In their book ‘Anti-Oedipus’, French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze and French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, impactfully revised Freud’s theory of Oedipus complex. They criticized many aspects of freudian theory and refuted Freud’s belief that the nuclear family was the universal foundation for normal human development. Through their works, Deleuze and Guattari argued:

• Freud’s theory attempts to dominate the unconscious to the hegemonic order of a patriarchal family, capitalist economy, and the rule of the law.
• Since freudian psychoanalysis is confined to the oedipal triangle, it fails to acknowledge the complex nature of subjectivity.

Formalist Literary Theory 

Early 20th century.

The formalist literary theory was a departure from the subjective theories of literature such as critical impressionism which was both relativistic, and solipsistic. The formalists are not interested in:

• A poet’s feelings or emotions
• Responses of readers
• Representation of wisdom, truth, or reality.

Instead, formalist literary theory only caters to the artistic structure and form of literature. It prioritizes literary work over the artist, universe or the audience. Anglo-American New Criticism and Russian formalism are the most influential and popular schools of formalist criticism.

New Criticism

The New Critics view poetry as an independent and autonomous entity and focus on its form and structure. For them, the most important characteristic of literature was “organic unity”. There is a conscious departure and separation of literary criticism from:

• Background sources
• Biographies
• Historical and social contexts
• Reception contexts

Formalist literary theory ‘depersonalizes’ a poem and the poet is replaced by a persona who is an abstract and dramatic character internal to the said poem. The formalists support a close reading of poetry in the context of its structure, and complex stylistic orchestrations. New Critics highlight and try to seek organic relationships of literary elements such as images, tropes, symbols, style, genre and its features, setting, tone, etc.

According to New Criticism, any attempt of relating the literary work to its writer/author is known as the “intentional fallacy”. On the other hand, our attempts to focus the responses of readers is known as “affective fallacy”.

The Russian formalists

Russian Formalists Roman Jakobson and Boris Eichenbaum also differentiated between the literary and the non-literary. They separated literary criticism from psychology, intellectual history, and sociology and focused on highlighting the "literariness" of literature. According to the formalists, literature constitutes the works that draw attention to its complexity of formal devices and strategies such as narrative structure, versification, style, etc..

Where New Criticism aims to study the convergence of literary elements in a structure, the formalists, on the other hand are inclined towards creative deviation of literary elements from the conventional norms.

Hermeneutics and Reception Theory

Understanding Reception theory or Reader-response theory

According to contemporary literary theory, there are various types of readers:

• Ideal readers : They are the ones who are hypothetical and are capable of decoding a literary work perfectly, and know everything required to comprehend it.
• Superreaders: All innovative and original literary works require a super reader. Super Readers are ideal readers who have exceptional literary and linguistic proficiency along with a superior aesthetic sensibility.
• Implied readers : These are the readers whom the text seems to be addressing to. While reading a novel we might assume the presence of a reader, who might even function as a character occasionally. For example, in ‘Heart of Darkness’ by Joseph Conrad, Marlow narrates his stories to the characters, who function as implied readers.
• Virtual readers: Virtual reader is the one to whom the literary text is vaguely addressed by the writer/author.
• Real readers: Real readers are those whose responses to drama, poetry, novels, and other literary texts have been registered by theorists. In some cases unique responses by the real readers have been analyzed by critics.
• Historical readers : Historical readers are the ones who read the text at the time of its publication
• Resisting and critical readers: Critical and resisting readers belong to a specific time in history and have strong values. They oppose, question, and interrogate texts.

The Reception theory takes into consideration each reader’s interpretation and perception while arriving on the meaning of a literary text. Some reader-response literary theories believe that meaning is contained within the text. The readers arrive at an objective meaning through paraphrasing the text.

On the other hand, there are reception theorists who believe that reading through time keeps changing along with shifting and evolving perceptions, emotions, and ideas of the readers. Thus, the meaning of a text , too, is present in the moment and is not permanent. Meaning, to these theorists, is a continuous process, rather than a product. This subjectivist literary theory perceived reading as a private activity, and experience as an unconditioned, conscious process.

New Critics on the meaning of a literary text

According to the New Critics, paraphrasing the content of a literary work to understand its meaning was a huge mistake. For them, textual paraphrasing makes literature similar to philosophy, politics, and religion, thereby making it compete with these fields. New Critics discourage to find the meaning of a literary text in the emotional response of a reader, or in the intentions of the author. According to New Criticism, the meaning of a text is not dependent on such external factors or agents. New Criticism became popular as it accurately pointed out what meaning is not-

• Meaning of a literary text is not propositional truth
• It is not constituted in the intentions of the author
• It is not reflected in the response of the reader.

What is Hermeneutics?

Hermeneutics studies textual interpretation and understanding of literary, spiritual, and legal discourses. It comes from the modern German philosophy and the works of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm Dilthey, Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. According to the philological tradition of Schleiermacher and Eric Donald Hirsch, meaning is both stable and changing. This is due to the ever evolving subjective interpretations, textual reconstruction, and psychological discoveries and identifications. However they prioritized objective and fixed meaning.

In contrast to the philological tradition, the liberal phenomenological tradition in hermeneutics perceived meaning as an open-ended performance, an intimate interaction with life’s expectations and experience.

Hermeneutics of Suspicion and Positive Hermeneutics

Paul Ricoeur , a distinguished French philosopher distinguished between hermeneutics of suspicion and positive hermeneutics. Hermeneutics of suspicion along with Marxism, Psychoanalysis, and Post-structuralism clarifies illusions. They uncover hidden and unconscious motives, reveal ideology, and deconstruct conventional binary concepts.

Positive Hermeneutics, on the contrary, give access to utopian impulses, communal dialogue, and possibilities of happiness-all essential sources of life.

In his book Political Unconscious, Fredric Jameson stated that the Hermeneutics of suspicion during the ideological analysis must be accompanied with a Marxist positive hermeneutics.

During the early 21st century, critics and theorists complained about the dominance and prevalence of the hermeneutics of suspicion, and the in-depth reading associated with marxism, feminism, cultural studies, and psychoanalysis. New formalists urgently called for descriptive "looking at" literature, rather than "looking through" it.

Concepts of structuralism have crucially assisted critics and theorists in their understanding of culture. Semiotics or semiology has evolved from the structuralist methodology. It studies codes, sign-systems and all kinds of conventions such as human and animal languages, language of fashion, food, as well as written literature. Semiotics in literary theory perceives literature as a system.

The structuralist literary theory is founded on Ferdinand de Saussure's linguistics. Saussure focused on the underlying rules and regulations that facilitated the language to operate. He did not focus on its individual utterances.

Nature of the Linguistic Sign

Langue and Parole

Thus, structuralism analyzes the underlying rules and systems of language i.e langue , rather than the actual speech, or parole.

Structuralism resembles marxism, and psychoanalysis, as it values deep structures over surface phenomenon. Structuralism decenters the individual and supports modern antihumanism and posthumanism. It views the sense of self as a construct and a product of impersonal systems

According to structuralism, we do not control or cause the conventions of our society, mother-tongue, or mental life. We are mere subjects and are a product of social and cultural systems.

To understand structuralist mind-set we can take an example of the fashion system. We know which fabric, styles, textures go with which. For instance, although we are never explicitly told so, we know that sneakers will not go with a saree. Similarly, different occasions call for different dress-codes. You will not wear casual jeans and a t-shirt at a wedding. A bride is culturally expected to wear red in a typical North-Indian wedding. These are some well-known but unconscious rules.

Similarly, in structural literary theory, authors and readers have knowledge of not so explicit literary conventions of reading and interpretation. For structuralists and semiotics, literature is a system made of various conventions. These conventions are the most visible in literary genres.

Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction 

Late 20th century, what is deconstruction.

The very act of attempting to define deconstruction goes against the theory. The term " deconstruction " comes from Martin Heidegger's concept of " destruktion ". Deconstruction involves decentering and unmasking the problems with fixed centers. Deconstruction was primarily founded by Jacques Derrida who caused a major academic shift through his seminal lecture at John Hopkins University in 1966. This lecture was titled "Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences".

According to Derrida, almost all of the Western thought was founded on centers such as- Origin, Truth, the Ideal Form, a God, a presence, etc. The center constitutes all meaning. Derrida found the centers problematic because they marginalized, repressed, and ignored any alternatives or differences. For instance, a male dominated society completely marginalizes and ignores the existence of a female. Thus, the center attempts to freeze the play of binary opposites.

What are Binary opposites?

According to Derrida, we are able to access reality only through codes, concepts, and binary pairs. Let's take the examples of binary pairs such as Nature/Culture, Man/Woman, and Christian/Pagan. The members at the left-side in these pairs are the ones at the center and are considered reality. The secondary term becomes marginalized and is repressed or omitted. This restricts the free play between the pairs. While one takes the center, the other is simply not catered to and is just reduced to a tool to cement the position of the central concept.

Thus, the deconstruction literary theory does the following :

• Focuses on binary oppositions within a text.
• It then highlights how these binary opposites are related to each other. How one constitutes the center and is perceived as natural, privileged, and central, while the other is repressed and marginalized.
• It then subverts this relationship where the marginalized becomes the center, and the meaning of the text shifts and changes from its prior interpretation.
• Lastly, both the terms are seen in a free-play of non-hierarchical and more importantly unstable meanings.

Deconstruction literary theory emphasizes that reality and language don't have a singular center. We try to construct new centers out of our impulsive anxiety and marginalize everything different. Deconstruction literary theory encourages us to see the free play in our languages and texts.

What is Post-Structuralism?

Poststructuralism was a movement associated with French intellectuals such as Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, and Michel Foucault. These theorists were critical as well in debt to structuralism. Structuralism understands literature through structures and believes that truth and reality reside within a structure. Post-structuralism criticizes structures. Post-structuralist literary theory emphasizes that there is no universal truth or reality, and that they are just constructions.

Post-Structural literary theory:

• Problematizes linguistic referentiality
• Emphasis on heteroglossia (presence of differences in a language).
• Decentres the subject and considers it as a cultural construct
• Does not accept reason as universal
• Rejects Humanism
• Stresses on differences.

Feminst Literary Theory

As a part of the broader political movement, feminist literary theory highlights and rectifies discrimination on the grounds of gender. Feminist literary theory focuses on:

• Exposing masculinist stereotypes
• Marginalization, distortion, and commission of women in male-dominated literatures
• Studying female creativity genres, literary styles, themes, and literary traditions
• Discovering and reading the neglected literature created by women
• Developing feminist theoretical methods and concepts.
• Evaluating forces that impact and shape the lives of women and their literature. These include psychology, politics, biology, and cultural history.
• Creating new roles and opportunities for women.

Feminist literary theory criticizes sexist representations and advocates institutional and social reforms.

Gynocriticism

Toward a Feminist Poetics by Showalter

Feminist literary theory argues that women have a literature of their own. They have their own themes, genres, styles, forms, characters, and canons. This notion is best represented by Elaine Showalter's " A Literature of Their Own – British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing ". According to Showalter, women create a subculture and share distinct economic, political, and professional realities. Literature created by women highlights and depicts problems and artistic preoccupations exclusive to females.

Another crucial contribution to feminist literary theory is " The Madwoman in the Attic " by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. Gilbert and Gubar contrasted Harold Bloom's concept of ' anxiety of influence ' with their ' anxiety of authorship '. Anxiety of authorship is the paralyzing fear and belief that they cannot write. There were women like Aphra Behn, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Anne Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, and Emily Brontë, who overcame this anxiety of authorship and wrote. Thus, they became like a precursor mother/sister author and helped the new female writers write against a severely male-dominating society. The anxiety of authorship is not competitive like anxiety of influence. The relationship between female writers is nurturing and cooperative rather than competitive.

Judith Fetterley's "The Resisting Reader: A feminist Approach to American Fiction" highlighted how women read differently than males. She accurately states that masculine literature is often labeled as universal literature. This forces women to identify against themselves . Moreover, they have to think like men. Reading masculine literature does not express or legitimize the experiences of women. Eventually, they begin to conform to the male viewpoint, and accept oppression and sexist hostility. Thus, women must become resistant readers through feminist literary theory and challenge misogynistic conventions.

Psychoanalysis also forms an important aspect of feminism. However, most of the feminist psychoanalysis criticized and revised "phallocentric" concepts of pioneer psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, etc.

Postcolonial Literary Theory

Postcolonial literary theory aims to describe the mechanisms of colonization, and recovers the oppressed and marginalized voices. One of the most seminal postcolonial works, "Orientalism" by Edward Said, examines how the Western representation of the third world only serves their own political interests.

Postcolonial literary theory also highlights how an unbalanced power relation shapes knowledge production. For example, the West constructs the subaltern as the "Other". This creates a binary pair where the West becomes the normalized, privileged center, while the "other" is ignored and repressed. This repressive relationship becomes a stereotype and is eventually circulated through literature, mass media such as television, news, and the internet.

Postcolonialism focuses on literature about colonization, created by the colonized subjects. Postcolonial literary theory exposes the colonial educational institution, and exposes the antagonistic relationship between the pre-colonial cultures and the imposed imperial culture.

Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak

Conceptualized under the influence of Stephen Greenblatt and Michel Foucault, new historicism is a field in literary theory that studies literary texts as material artifacts that are intensively involved with social, political, and cultural forces. It understands intellectual history through literary texts and emphasizes the text's historicity by relating it to ideology and society of that time.

The socio-economic conditions at the time of conception and publication of the text become co-texts in new historicism. Just like post-structuralism, this branch of literary theory rejects the notion that characters, readers, and writers share a common, universal human nature. Instead, identity and meanings are hybrid and plural. Even a critic of a literary text is affected by his/her socio-political circumstances, and ideology white interpreting a literary work.

Cultural Studies 

Culture is the cumulative product of language, morality, beliefs, laws, and customs acquired and practiced by human beings. Therefore, literary theory inevitably involves cultural studies. Culturalism argues that literature and what constitutes literature is not static and is subject to inevitable change with time, place, and readers.

Cultural studies can be viewed as opposite to formalist literary theory. While formalism offers an extremely focused and aesthetical reading of literature, culturalism offers a broader reading of literary works, involving psychology, politics, and sociology.

It is an interdisciplinary field that draws from sociology, history, anthropology, and political science. It studies the ways in which culture is created and the ways it changes and evolves over time.

Queer literary theory criticizes central hetrosexual binary, masculine/feminine, as it not only marginalizes any other sexuality but also perceives it as abnormal, and more dangerously, criminal. It attacks the homophobic and patriarchal notions of heterosexuality.

Queer literary theory is not confined to lesbian and gay theories. Instead it focuses and studies all other deviant and alternative sexualities such as sodomite, hermaphrodite, and homosexual. Queer theory emphasizes how like all identities, sexual identity is also a social construct subject to rules, conventions, and norms, and resists fluidity and instabilities.

Literary theory comprises a set of perceptions, concepts and principles that impacts our understanding of literary works. The application of these perceptions and concepts to a text is called literary criticism.

To understand this better, let us consider the concept that women are oppressed and ignored in a male dominating society. This repression and marginalization is extended in all spheres- society, family, politics, literature, etc. This train of thought is not entirely abstract but is substantiated through historical evidence.

The set of concepts that emphasizes discrimination on the ground of gender are included in feminist literary theory. Once we are introduced to feminist theory, we become better equipped to notice and highlight any explicit or subtle repression of women in a literary text. The moment we begin to interpret and critique a literary work using feminist theory, it becomes feminist criticism.

Importance of Literary theory.

Literary theory consists of diverse concepts and perceptions. It has been argued that theory distances a reader from the actual text. However, it also equips the reader with an all-rounded and informed perception. With literary theory, we are no longer passive readers who are easily persuaded or swayed. We begin to see what a text is explicitly or subtly attempting to do. For instance, postcolonial literary theory helps us see the marginalization of colonized, subtle racism, and imperialism in a literary text. We are able to see racism in popular and celebrated literary texts such as William Shakespeare's Othello and the Tempest, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, because postcolonial literary theory made us sensitive to the prevalence of such practices.

Literary theory is also instrumental in bringing about societal changes. It enables literature to help evolve its readers. The fact that we are today more sensitive and intolerant towards racism, misogyny, and any form of marginalization, is significantly because of theory.

Theory empowers readers. For instance, marxism emphasizes how literature acts as one of the mediums through which the bourgeoisie perpetuates its ideology without any physical force. Thus, the reader through the marxist literary theory becomes aware of the persuasive powers of literature and enables him/her to resist it.Literary theory enriches our reading experience. Once we are introduced to the diverse perceptions and concepts founded by the brightest minds in history, our reading experience is drastically enriched and we become more aware of the political and social systems around us. Through theory, literature becomes a powerful instrument of mental and societal changes. In his book "The Literary in Theory" Jonathan Culler accurately observes that " We are inexorably in theory, whether we champion or deplore it".

Habib, Rafey. Modern Literary Criticism and Theory : A History. John Wiley & Sons, 2008

M A R Habib. Literary Criticism from Plato to the Present : An Introduction. Chicester, Wiley-Blackwell (An Imprint Of John Wiley & Sons, 2011

Leitch, Vincent B, et al. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 3rd ed., New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.

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Literary Theory Reference Works

Throughout your studies of literature, you will encounter a wide range of literary theories and critical frameworks. These are often employed by scholars to assist with the interpretation of a text or an analysis of the text’s significance.

Some essay questions will require you to adopt a particular framework, while others will allow you to choose your own. When it comes to deciding which literary theories or critical frameworks to draw on, it is usually best to respond to what you see as the text’s key themes or most interesting  aspects. Whichever approach you choose, you should ensure that your analysis is supported by the text itself.

Below you’ll find a few of the more common critical frameworks used in literary studies today. Feel free to explore these and do further reading on those of interest.

Structuralism and semiotics

Narratology and rhetoric , reception theory and reader-response criticism , post-structuralism , deconstruction , marxism and critical theory , psychoanalysis , postcolonialism , feminism .

• Gender studies and queer history 

New historicism 

• Ecocriticism
• Aesthetics 

Developing out of Russian Formalism and New Criticism in the 1960s, structuralism tends to strive toward objective and scientific approaches to texts and their interpretation. It sees the meanings of texts as rooted in their form and structure, or how the different elements of the text relate to one another.

Semiotics, the study of signs and how they create meaning, often went hand-in-hand with structuralism, as it focused on the structures of language.

An example of structuralism and semiotics can be found in the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, whose studies of mythical stories emphasised their common structures (key plot points, narrative developments, and so on).

Further reading:

• Claude Lévi-Strauss,  "The Structural Study of Myth"  (1955)
• Northrop Frye,  Anatomy of Criticism  (1957)
• Roland Barthes,  Mythologies   (1957) and   Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives   (1966)
• Umberto Eco,  The Role of the Reader  (1979)

Narratology grew out of structuralism and can be seen as the application of the principles and objectivity of structuralism, to narratives.

Thus, narratological studies tend to focus on the form, structure and composition of narratives, identifying how texts deploy different narrative techniques, styles and devices. For example,

Today, narratology generally attempts to avoid structuralism’s more reductive tendencies, incorporating insights from reception theory and post-structuralist theory.

• Wayne C. Booth’s  The Rhetoric of Fiction  (1961)
• Gérard Genette’s  Narrative Discourse  (1972)
• James Phelan’s   Narrative as Rhetoric  (1996)

Reader-response criticism focuses on how readers experience or encounter literary texts, being much less interested in the circumstances of a text’s authorship than its impact on readers. Reception theory, similarly, focuses on the unique responses of individual readers to literary texts.

Proponents of reception theory tend to see readers, not authors, as the creators of meaning. When examining texts, they might choose to consider how readers have responded to, or interpreted, the text in the past, or study how the text itself attempts to elicit a particular response from the reader.

• Wolfgang Iser's  The Act of Reading   (1978)
• Stanley Fish’s   Is There a Text in This Class?   (1980)
• Hans Robert Jauss’s  Toward an Aesthetic of Reception   (1982)
• Elizabeth Freund’s  The Return of the Reader   (1987)

In the mid-1960s, post-structuralism emerged as a critique of structuralism and semiotics. These existing frameworks were seen to be overly restrictive, while not accurately reflecting the complexity of language and meaning.

Post-structuralists tend to emphasise the instability of language and see meaning as highly subjective (in no way fixed or objective). Early post-structuralists focused on critiquing traditional notions of authorship and, in turn, looking at the many possibilities for interpretation and meaning available to readers.

• Roland Barthes’s  "The Death of the Author"  (1967) and  S/Z  (1970)
• Julia Kristeva’s  The Kristeva Reader   (ed. Toril Moi) (1986)
• Gilles Deleuze’s  Difference and Repetition  (1968)
• Michel Foucault’s  “What Is an Author?”  (1969)

Deconstruction, a key component of the post-structuralist movement, focuses on dismantling commonly accepted social, cultural and political concepts.

A common deconstructionist approach involves critiquing accepted binary oppositions (such as male/female, black/white) and highlighting their underlying ideologies, thereby undermining them as concepts.

A deconstructionist approach to a novel, for example, might consider how the text attempts to maintain a binary opposition between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, while reflecting on how this distinction is ideologically motivated and ultimately undermined in the novel itself.

• Jacques Derrida’s  “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences"  (1966),  Of Grammatology  (1967) and  Acts of Literature  (1992)
• Martin McQuillan (ed.),   Deconstruction: A Reader   (2000)
• Judith Butler,  Bodies that Matter   (1993)
• Simon Critchley,  The Ethics of Deconstruction  (3rd ed., 2014)
• Derek Attridge,  Reading and Responsibility: Deconstruction's Traces  (2010)

Critical theory focuses on the cultural, historical and ideological aspects of texts. It typically involves Marxist or post-Marxist critiques of social, political and economic structures. In this sense, critical theory reflects a kind of  historical materialism , being fundamentally concerned with the material circumstances of individuals at different points in history.

When it comes to reading texts, a Marxist approach might analyse the representation of characters from different social classes, the power dynamics between these characters, or how characters experience economic inequality.

• Karl Marx,  Capital  (1867)
• Max Horkheimer,  “Traditional and Critical Theory”  (1937)
• Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Bertolt Brecht, and Georg Lukács,  Aesthetics and Politics  (2011)
• Terry Eagleton,  Marxism and Literary Criticism  (1976)
• Fredric Jameson,  Marxism and Form   (1971)
• Andrew Milner and Jeff Browitt,  Contemporary Cultural Theory  (3rd ed., 2002)
• Fred Rush (ed.),  Cambridge Companion to Critical Theory   (2004)

Pioneered by Sigmund Freud in the late nineteenth century, psychoanalysis focuses on uncovering and analysing people’s ‘unconscious’ thoughts. It works off the premise that it’s human nature to repress certain parts of ourselves, and thus all literary texts can be read in terms of the manifestations of these ‘unconscious’ parts.

In particular, the psychoanalysis of literature looks at either the author of work, the text’s contents and formal construction, the reader of the text, or a combination of these (ref: Eagleton).

With Freudian analysis, these meanings often relate to unconscious desire or anxiety over pleasure and gratification. Studies often explore concepts such as the Oedipus complex, and the id, ego and superego.

• Sigmund Freud,  The Interpretation of Dreams , (1899)
• Carl Jung,  Psychology of the Unconscious  (1912)
• Jacques Lacan,  The Four Fundamental Concepts  (1973)
• Harold Bloom,  Anxiety of Influence  (1973)
• Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar "The Anxiety of Authorship" in  The Madwoman in the Attic   (1979)
• Matthew Sharpe,  Understanding Psychoanalysis  (2008)
• Laura Marcus and Ankhi Mukherjee,  A concise companion to psychoanalysis, literature, and culture   (2014)
• Maud Ellmann,  Psychoanalytic literary criticism   (1994)

Postcolonial criticism explores authors or texts representing the legacy of colonisation, which includes the exploitation and repression of colonised cultures by imperial powers.  Postcolonial literary theory focuses on exposing and critiquing existing power structures in colonised cultures, with an emphasis on cultural literatures.

Key concepts include the politics of knowledge concerning cultural and national identity, the Orient (East) and the Occident (West), and the Other, or subaltern.

• Edward Said,  Orientalism  (1978)
• Gayatri Spivak,  In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics  (1987)
• Homi Bhabha,  The Location of Culture  ( 1994)
• Frantz Fanon,  The Wretched of the Earth  (1961)
• Neil Lazarus,  The Cambridge companion to postcolonial literary studies  (2004)
• Pramod K. Nayar,   Postcolonialism: A Guide for the Perplexed   (2010)

Feminist theory is primarily concerned with exposing and examining the prevailing patriarchal structures in society, and advocating political, economic and social equality for women.

There are lots of branches of feminism, and as approaches have changed over time some scholars find it helpful to separate out theories into first wave (late 1700s to early 1900s), second wave (early 1960s to late 1970s) and third wave (early 1990s to present) feminism. The feminist movement remains very diverse and encompases a wide range of perspectives on how to improve equality for women.

Feminist literary theory examines many aspects of literature, including the exclusion of women from the traditional literary canon, problems of female authorship, the performativity of gender in texts, and the female experience in and of literature.

• Judith Butler,  Gender Trouble  (1990)
• Simone de Beauvoir,  The Second Sex  (1972)
• Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar,  The Madwoman in the Attic  (1979)
• bell hooks,  Feminist Theory, from Margin to Center   (1984), and  Feminism is for Everybody   (2000)
• Jessica Bomarito & Jeffrey W Hunter (eds.),  Feminism in Literature : a Gale critical companion  (Jeffrey W. Hunter ; Jessica Bomarito)
• Ellen Rooney (ed.),  The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary Theory  (2006)

Gender studies and queer theory 

Growing out of post-structuralist feminist theories in the 1970s, gender studies and queer theory often reject binary classifications such as female and male, and use the language of deconstruction to explore new implications and meanings of texts.

In literary studies, this approach often includes examinations of the politics and poetics of gender and queer representations in texts, and how these reflect (or challenge) social attitudes around gender and sexuality.

• Hélène Cixous,  "The Laugh of the Medusa"  (1976)
• Michel Foucault,  The History of Sexuality , (1980)
• Judith Butler,  "Imitation and Gender Insubordination"  (1991)
• Lee Edelman,  "Homographesis"  (1989)

Developed in the 1980s, new historicism views texts as products of specific cultural and political periods. Thus, new historicism focuses on analysing texts, authors and critics in their historical contexts, which often includes examining power structures and ideologies.

New historicism is a transdisciplinary critique, combining post-structuralist concepts and the study of history. Such studies often consider the circumstances of texts’ production and subjective interpretations of history.

• Michel Foucault,  Discipline and Punish   (1975), and  The History of Sexuality  (1976)
• Stephen Greenblatt,  Renaissance Self-Fashioning  (1980)   and   Towards a Poetics of Culture  (1987)
• Aram H. Veeser,   The New Historicism   (1989)
• Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt,  Practicing New Historicism   (2000)

Ecocriticism 

Ecocriticism focusses on the role of nature in literature, often involving an interrogation of ecological values in texts. Ecocriticism is a transdisciplinary approach that is often informed by related scientific fields, such as ecology and the environmental sciences.

Ecocriticism often examines the notion of “place” in literature, while challenging ideas of anthropocentrism (human-centeredness). Ecocritical studies of literature may also focus on representations of climate change, natural disaster, and animal life.

• Raymond Williams,   The Country and The City  (1975)
• Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm (eds.)  The Ecocriticism Reader  (1996)
• Axel Goodbody and Kate Rigby (eds.)  Ecocritical Theory  (2011)
• Kate Rigby’s  Dancing with Disaster   (2015)

Broadly, aesthetics is a branch of philosophy concerned with art and the notion of the beautiful. Such studies date back to Plato and Aristotle, who reflected on the nature of art and its many forms, and were further developed by philosophers such as Immanuel Kant.

Aesthetic studies of literature tend to focus on philosophical questions of the nature of literary art and the enjoyment of literature, while asking what constitutes a “good” or “beautiful” text.

Traditional aesthetics often concerns itself with the notion of “art for art’s sake”, while recent works might connect the field with broader socio-political contexts. Such studies often seek

a framework through which to make judgements concerning the value of different kinds of literature for specific social or political ends.

• Theodor W. Adorno,  Aesthetic Theory   (1970)
• David Davies,  Aesthetics and Literature   (2007)
• Jeffrey R. Di Leo (ed.),  Criticism after Critique: Aesthetics, Literature, and the Political  (2014)
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Introduction

When writing an essay on a work of literature, you are engaging in literary criticism . Before writing your essay, you may find it helpful to know what previous critics have said about the text you are analyzing: existing critical interpretations can be found in both article and book form: check the links for Articles , Books , and History of Criticism . 

Literary criticism does not exist in a vacuum. Every critical analysis of a text depends, whether implicitly or explicitly, on a theory —a theory of language, of history, of genre, or of subjectivity, for example. For identifying and developing your own theoretical approach, or for identifying and understanding the theoretical approach of articles and books you read, it can be useful to know something about literary theory in a broader sense.

Starting Point

The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism REF Z6514.C97 J64 1994 Online (2012)

Other Resources

There are many additional reference works (i.e. dictionaries, encyclopedias, histories) dealing with literary theory in the Reference section of the Library between PN44 and PN86. Here are a few particularly useful titles:

A Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory REF PN44.5.H37 2000

The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism REF PN81.C656 1995t

Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms REF PN81.E54 1993t

The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism REF PN86.C27 1989

Because "theory" is a very broad term, of relevance to students in many disciplines besides Literature, you will also find a number of useful books in other parts of the Reference collection, e.g. A Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory (REF HM101.D527 1996).

Finally, keep in mind that every call number in the Reference collection corresponds to a call number in the stacks. Thus, it is well worth going up to the fourth floor and browsing through the PN 44 to PN 86 range, where you will find a great many books on literary theory. Some particularly important resources are:

Lentricchia, Frank & Thomas McLaughlin., eds. Critical Terms for Literary Study. PN81.C84 1995.

Barry, Peter . Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory.   PN81.B367 2002

Bressler, Charles E. Literary criticism : an introduction to theory and practice.   PN81.B666 1999

Starting Points

Voice of the Shuttle - Literary Theory

Literary Resources - Theory

Additional Sites Recommended by Queen's Faculty

Academic Info - Comparative Literature: Literary Theory

Introductory Guide to Critical Theory ( Dino Felluga, Purdue University)

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Key Resource

Includes more than 240 entries on critics and theorists, critical schools and movements, and the critical and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods.

• Last Updated: Oct 9, 2024 2:16 PM
• Subjects: English Literature