LT203SEB LITERARY AND

CRITICAL THEORIES

WEEK 1: DEFINING CRITICISM,

THEORY AND LITERATURE
What is literature?
 Word meaning is “a writing formed with
letters”
 A published work
 A work of imagination and creative power
 A work with artistic/aesthetic qualities
 A work which tells a story (on human
values, emotions, ideas, actions)
 A work which is still read centuries after
its creation
Literature
 is a subjective discipline, which
means there can not be one certain
or unquestionable truth of a work of
literature. Literary works can be
interpreted in a number of ways and
can have more than one meaning. In
this aspect, literature differs from
the disciplines of science, which are
based on experimental facts.
What is criticism?
 Criticism is a term derived from the
Greek words “krino” meaning “to judge”
and “krites” meaning “a judge or jury
person”
 In general, criticism is the expression of
disapproval of someone or something on
the basis of perceived faults or mistakes.
 In literary terms, criticism is the analysis
and judgment of the merits and faults of
a literary work.
Literary Criticism

 Literary criticism is a disciplined

activity that attempts to describe,
study, analyze, justify, interpret and
evaluate works of literature. Anyone
who attempts to evaluate texts in this
fashion can be considered a literary
critic; in other words “a judge of
literature”.
Why is literary criticism
important?
 Through literary criticism, readers produce
different, often contradictory approaches and,
in this way, advance/deepen arguments.
 Literary criticism contributes to readers’
developing new perspectives and formulating
their ideas on literary texts.
 Through literary criticism, we can knowingly
explore the questions that help define our
humanity, critique our culture, evaluate our
actions, or simply increase our appreciation and
enjoyment of both a literary work and life itself.
When analyzing a text, literary critics
ask some basic questions about the
philosophical, psychological,
functional and descriptive nature of
the text itself:
 Does a text have only one correct meaning?
 Is a text always didactic-that is, must a reader
learn something from every text?
 Can a text be read only for enjoyment?
 Does a text affect every reader in the same
way?
 How does history inform the activity of
reading?
 What role does the reader play in
shaping meaning?
 Does the reader’s gender matter at all?
 Who is the author? Is there an author?
 What is the relationship between a text
and the context in which it is situated?
(Context: The circumstances that form
the setting for an event, statement, or
idea, and in terms of which it can be fully
understood)
 How does history inform the activity of
reading?
What is literary theory?
 Derived from the Greek word “theoria”, the word
theory means a “view or perspective of the Greek
stage.” Literary theory, then, offers to us a view
of life, an understanding of why we interpret
texts the way we do. Consider the various places
in the theatre the audience may sit. Depending
on our seats- whether we are close to the stage,
far back, to the far left, to the far right, or in the
middle row- our view and therefore our
interpretation of the events taking place on the
stage will change. Literary theory figuratively
and literally asks where we are “sitting” when we
are reading a text.
Literary Theory
 is the philosophical discussion of literary
criticism’s methods and goals
 A well-articulated literary theory assumes that an
innocent reading of a text or a sheerly emotional
or spontaneous reaction to a work cannot exist.
Theory questions the assumptions, beliefs, and
feelings of readers, asking why they respond to a
text in a certain way.
 Whereas literary criticism involves our analysis of
a text, literary theory is concerned with our
understanding of the ideas, concepts and
intellectual assumptions.
Literary Theory
 All readers have developed and continue to
develop a worldview through which they
construct meaning from a text and respond to a
work of art. Upon such a conceptual
framework rests literary theory. Using the
worldviews consciously or unconsciously,
readers respond to individual works of
literature. For this reason, readers can
establish different perspectives and approach
from different angles to the same text. In other
words “a reader brings to the text his or her
past experience and present personality” .
Literary Theory

 There can be no one literary theory

that encompasses all possible
interpretations of a text. Additionally,
there can be no one correct literary
theory because each literary theory
asks valid questions about a text and
no one theory is capable of responding
all questions to be asked about any
text.
Variety of literary theories
 One theory may stress the text itself,
believing that the text alone contains all
the necessary information to arrive at an
interpretation.
 Another theory may attempt to place a
text in its historical, political,
sociolagical, religious and economic
settings.
 Another theory may direct its chief
concern toward the text’s audience.
Literary theory
 Each literary theory establishes its own
theoretical basis and then proceeds to develop
its own methodology whereby readers can
apply the particular theory to an actual text. In
effect, each literary theory or perspective is
similar to taking a different seat in the theatre
and thereby obtaining a different view of the
stage. Different literary theorists may all study
the same text, but being in different seats, the
various literary theorists all respond differently
to the text because of their unique
perspectives.
Schools of criticism
 Although each reader’s theory and
methodology for arriving at a text’s
interpretation differs, sooner or later groups of
readers and critics declare allegiance to a
similar core of beliefs and band together,
founding schools of criticism. For example,
whereas critics who believe that social and
historical concerns must be highlighted in a
text are known as Marxist critics, reader-
oriented critics concentrate on readers’
personal reactions to the text and are called
reader-response critics.
Major schools of literary
criticism
Russian Formalism and New Criticism
 Reader-Oriented Criticism
 Modernity and Postmodernism: Structuralism
and Deconstruction
 Psychoanalytic Criticism
 Feminism
 Marxism
 New Historicism
 Mythological and Archetypal Approaches
 Ecocriticism
Applying theories on literary
works
In order to apply a theory on a literary work
readers need to have a well-developed
background about a theory apart from reading
the text itself carefully. If readers have a pre-
acquired knowledge about a literary theory
they will directly build relations between the
doctrines of the theory and the text itself even
during the process of reading. Every character,
incident, image or figüre of speech can serve
the reader to advance his reading from the
related theory’s perspective. As a result, this
effort will enable them to gain a more
intellectual insight to the text and the ability to
evaluate it thoroughly.
Applying theories on literary
works
 “A horse, my Kingdom for a horse” Richard III
cries out after he falls from his horse down on the
battlefield. Here, the image of “horse” can be
interpreted from the perspectives of literary
theories. A reader who read Sigmund Freud’s works
and some other texts of psychoanalytical literary
theory can claim that the horse represents “father”
or “patriarchal power”. In this case, Richard might
be seeing the horse as the representative of his
control/power over his country. By keeping the
horse under his rule Richard attempts to put himself
in the place of the figure of “father”, namely the
authority which he seeks after throughout the play.
Conclusion
 Because the various schools of criticism (and
theories on which they are based) ask different
questions about the same work of literature,
these theoretical schools provide an abundance
of options from which readers can choose to
broaden their understanding not only of texts but
also of their society, their culture and their own
humanity. By embracing literary theory, we learn
about literatüre, but importantly, we are also
taught tolerance for other people’s beliefs. By
rejecting or ignoring theory, we are in danger of
canonizing
Conclusion
 Ourselves as literary saints who possess divine
knowledge and who can, therefore, supply the only
correct interpretation for a given text. When we
oppose, disregard, or ignore literary theory, we are in
danger of blindly accepting our often unquestioned
prejudices and assumptions. By embracing literary
theory and criticism, we can participate in that
seemingly endless historical conversation about the
nature of humanity and of humanity’s concerns as
expressed in literatüre. In the process, we can begin
to question our concepts of ourselves, our society and
our culture and how texts themselveshelp define and
continually redefine these concepts