Lesson 2: Approaches in Understanding Literature ENG S211

The Key to Understanding Literature—Critically

Hey, what’s up, everyone? I hope you’re having a good time while you’re listening to this. And yes,
you’re here with me again for another discussion about literature. This time, I’d be telling you about the
critical approaches in appreciating and understanding literature.
Yup, that’s the thing about literature—it has to be appreciated and understood. That’s maybe why
a lot of people find it boring at times. Because what’s next after reading and understanding it, right? But
as I've told you before, literature is just more than the surface. It’s more than just reading it. It’s a mystery
case you have to solve. It’s a discovery.
Ever wondered why despite you and your classmates reading the same literary text--say a poem
or a short story--you still got different interpretations? You feel like this is the meaning but your
classmate says otherwise. Well, that’s because you’re looking at it through different perspectives. This is
also the reason why sometimes, some of the stories you read did not appeal to you as much as it did to
others. And you ask yourself why, right? Or maybe they ask you why and you tell them a bunch of
reasons why you didn’t like it.
You might not be aware of it but you’re somehow critiquing a literary piece already. You just
didn’t know what technique, approach, or theory you used in doing so. Maybe because you’re not that
much aware of it yet.
Literary Criticism is one of the most interesting things about literature. With this, understanding
literature has never been more fun. It’s like solving a mystery or putting puzzle pieces together using
literary theories you think are useful.
But what is it, you ask? Literary criticism and literary theory are two connected terms. When we
say literary criticism, it is the study, evaluation, close reading, and scrutiny of a piece of literature. Take
note also that criticism doesn’t equate to fault finding. You don’t look at what made it ugly, but you
examine it closely--its parts, its influences, and other factors that have probably affected the way it was
honed by the writer. It is how one interprets a literary work, finding out its meaning or the elements that
make it outstanding. So once you say this poem is the best, or that story could’ve been better, that is
somehow already a portion of what literary criticism is, but not quite.
Because for you to be able to reach a certain criticism about a piece of literature, you need to
make use of literary theories. These theories are schools of thought or set of ideas and philosophies
created to view the world in different lenses. You see, literature is the imitation of life and life is an
imitation of literature also at some point. So literary theories or these schools of criticism view the page of
literary pieces--the characters, the story, the motivations, intents, conflicts, and many other elements as if
they’re real existing people.
There are many schools of thought that we could use in critiquing a literary piece. Some of them
are even somehow the same or are greatly influenced by each other. But for this discussion, I’m only
going to talk about a few and probably the most basic literary theories that we have.
I always like talking about literary theories and criticism by grouping the theories into three. This
doesn't mean that all the theories fall into three categories only. It’s just that to understand the basic and
earliest form of literary theories, we could group them into three: author dependent approach, text
ENG S211: 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
MLCGR
So Lit: Podcast for Literature
Lesson 2: Approaches in Understanding Literature ENG S211

dependent approach, and reader dependent approach. Under these groups are more specific literary
theories.
Let’s first start with the “author-dependent approach.” Now, this approach is basically founded
with the idea that a piece of literature is written by someone--a person, who was alive and had existed at a
specific point in time; a person who had experiences. Thus, this approach suggests that a literary piece
wouldn’t be written if there is no one who wrote it and therefore, the author is the central part of it all.
Under the author-dependent approach is the historical-biographical approach. This approach is
basically a combination of two different literary theories--historical approach, which focuses on the
events of that time period, and biographical approach, which looks at the life of the author--the significant
events, relationships, ideologies, beliefs-- and how these could have probably helped shape the work.
Therefore, when a critic makes use of the historical-biographical approach in understanding the piece of
literature, one must undergo a thorough research on the life and times of the author. One question that we
could ask ourselves when we want to use this approach is: What does the work reveal about the life and
times of the author? Let’s take Dr. Jose Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo.” In
understanding those pieces, one must be familiar with the then on-going oppression of the Spaniards,
especially the friars to the Filipinos. The horrors of that timeline was what captivated and fuelled Rizal to
write his masterpieces.
Another literary theory under the author-dependent approach is the ‘moral-philosophical
approach’ which is said to be probably the oldest type of approach in appreciating literature. In here, the
critic is much interested to know what lessons or morals the text has. According to Aristotle in his book
Poetics, literature’s main goal is to cleanse or make the audience/ readers feel catharsis or purgation. This
is why, usually at school, especially when you were still in elementary and were asked to read a story,
your teacher would ask you the moral of the story and you’d be throwing in all sorts of lessons and
realizations you’d had about it.
However, certain critics have also felt that the earlier ways of critiquing mentioned focused too
much on the author when in fact, it should’ve highlighted the content of the literary work. Thus, we have
the text-dependent approach. Under text dependent approach are formalism and structuralism.
Formalism, as the name suggests, is much more concerned with the form of the literary piece
rather than the outside forces that may have had or had not contributed to the meaning of the piece. This
literary theory started as a movement in Russia, so we have what we call specifically the Russian
formalism. And since then, this theory has grown so much and spiraled into other theories grounded from
it like new criticism, structuralism, postmodernism, and deconstruction. Sounds pretty heavy, right?
But in the core, formalism is a literary theory that suggests that as critics, we should read the text
closely and forget about all the other extrinsic factors. We should focus more on the language and how it
was used by the author.
Formalist critics would look at the parts and parcels of a work of literature. If it is fiction, they
would look at how each element was strung together to create a meaningful piece. Thus, a critic would
look closely on the plot, the characters, setting, and the other elements vital to complete the story. If it
was poetry, the critic would look at the form of the poem, determine whether it has meter and rhyme and
what have these elements contributed to highlight the meaning communicated by the poem. Formalists
critics could also probably be held accountable as to why our literature teachers would always ask us
about what figure of speech was used in a piece and why the author used it that way? How do the parts

ENG S211: 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
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So Lit: Podcast for Literature
Lesson 2: Approaches in Understanding Literature ENG S211

contribute to the aesthetic value of the whole piece? Or how does the form of the piece contribute to the
meaning it conveys?
Structuralism, on the other hand, looks at tinier pieces of the literary work. This theory sprung
from the idea that language, not only letters but gestures, is a "sign system" and that there are patterns as
to how we understand each other and everything else in the world. This theory originally started with the
ideas of linguists, or those who are experts in language. The most accounted for this theory is Ferdinand
de Saussure. Since linguists and proponents of this theory view language as a sign system, they tend to
look at certain words or elements in the piece of literature that triggers the same reaction or interpretation
from the readers. In Semiotics, or the study of signs, these are called signifiers and the meaning we make
out of it are referred to as the signified. Structuralists believe that the meanings we make out of the
symbols or signifiers are inherent to us and are universal to almost all people from all cultures.
Moreover, structuralists also look at the patterns similar to most literary works and are able to classify
certain works as to what genre it is based on the elements. So for example, when you classified a work of
literature as fiction and decided that it’s a romance story, you’re basically using your knowledge in
structuralism as you were able to determine the patterns present on it that’s also present on other short
stories categorized as romance.
Or take this as an example: A character is introduced in the story-- a woman in her twenties,
wearing black and is looking sullen as she stares in the far distance. As a structuralist, you paid close
attention even with the color of the clothes worn by the woman, wondering why the author even brought
that up in the story. Then, you thought it was probably because she was mourning a loss, since you
decoded ‘black’ as a ‘signifier’ of grief and mourning.
Aside from the author-dependent and text-dependent approach, we also have a literary theory
focused on the reader and how readers make meanings out of the words arbitrarily given meanings.
Aside from the author-dependent and text-dependent approach, we also have a literary theory
focused on the reader and how readers make meanings out of the words. The reader- dependent approach
or reader response theory gives credit to the readers’ active participation in making out meanings out of
the literary text. It argues that a piece of poetry, for example, will remain meaningless until a reader reads,
examines, and tells his/her opinion about it. As readers employing reader-dependent approach, we may
ask ourselves: How do we feel when we read a certain poem or a passage from a novel? Why do we feel
that way?

You might think that this is probably the easiest and the least complicated literary theory to use
since at its basic, you will just be sharing what your reaction is about the literary piece—what do you
think, what do you feel, why did you think and feel that way?

However, the ‘readers’ this approach is referring to should be ‘informed or competent readers’
whose schemas or experiences are activated once they read a literary piece. Since this theory is relying on
the fact that readers can make meanings, a reader can use different lenses in looking at the piece. Say for
example, a reader who has feminist perspective reads Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and is greatly affected by
it—angered even—because of how women were treated in the story? Basically, what the reader-response
criticism suggests is that the readers are the sole responsible entity in making sense of what the literary
piece meant depending also on the lens they’d be looking at. This theory enables us to use any of the
aforementioned schools of thoughts and the other literary theories, even combine them if we want to.

ENG S211: 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
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So Lit: Podcast for Literature
Lesson 2: Approaches in Understanding Literature ENG S211

Since we have talked about the reader response theory now, I would also like to highlight some
literary theories that you could also use, or might already be using, when you read a piece of literature.

As I have mentioned, Feminism, as a literary theory analyzes how sexual identity influences the
reader of the text. In this theory, the reader focuses on how the images of men and women in imaginative
literature reflect or reject the social forces that have historically kept the sexes from achieving equality. In
here, we investigate if the characters conform to the stereotypes of their gender or are battling and trying
to unshackle themselves from this notion. For example, one could take note of how Maria Clara in Noli
Me Tangere was reduced into a simple woman—soft spoken, innocent, submissive, religious. Her whole
existence in the story was mostly defined by her beauty. And maybe, you ask, why? That is because her
characteristics were built from what the standards of women were at that time. She was the definition of a
Filipina. Or in contrast, Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games series. Why was she presented as
rebellious, strong, smart? A huntress, the victor, and basically the face of rebellion?

Gender Criticism, on the other hand, is a literary theory that was created because of Feminism.
This theory examines how sexual identity influences the creation and reception of literary works. It offers
different approaches such as the so-called “masculinist” approach advocated by poet Robert Bly. Also,
this approach could be a highly applicable theory to use to understand the dynamics of characters or
personas of the third sex present in works of literature. This theory is interested on the manner in which
gender and sexuality is discussed in the piece of literature.

A good approach also in understanding literary pieces is Marxism, which sprung from the idea of
Karl Marx, saying that there has always been a struggle between the rich and the poor. This theory
focuses on the economic and political elements of art, often emphasizing the ideological content of
literature and illuminates political and economical dimensions of literature other approaches overlook.
Marxist theorists focus on how the economic status of characters in fiction, for example, and how this
shapes the characters’ attitude and the circumstances in their lives. It looks at the probable struggle of the
poor and the exploitation done by the rich and the capitalists to them.

Another popular approach to understanding literature is through psychological criticism. This

approach is kind of complicated as psychology is a broad branch of science that studies people’s mind
and behavior. One of the fundamental figures in psychology is Sigmund Freud who introduced
psychoanalysis. Notable ideas from Freud were his theories on how humans behave because of “wish
fulfillment, sexuality, the unconscious, and repression” (Solmerano, Ondevilla, Palencia, Jerusalem, Cruz,
2017). Freud said that people’s behavior are driven by our unconscious—meaning we tend to do things,
fear things, and desire things for reasons we are not aware of. This unconscious is heavily influenced by
what we experienced as a child.

Another notable idea from Freud is the existence of id, ego, and superego wherein he explained
the id as the area of the mind that has no moral compass, the location of all desires. Ego is the part of the
mind that balances the id and the superego, which is the location of human’s judgment to self and to
others.

The thing about psychological criticism is that it’s too broad to use. However, it is also one of the
most interesting theories to use because you get to really understand the characters, say for example in a
novel, by noting what caused them to behave in a certain way in the narrative—scrutinizing their motives,
desires, fears, etc. It’s like decoding a real life person, although in this case, it’s in a page, and you pay

ENG S211: 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
MLCGR
So Lit: Podcast for Literature
Lesson 2: Approaches in Understanding Literature ENG S211

close attention to how the character speaks and acts and is described by the narrator. Moreover, you can
even ask about what the work suggests about the psychological being of its author.

Aside from these literary theories that I mentioned, there are many other school of criticisms out
there that you can use and check out so that the next time you get a book to read, you don’t just get to
understand it in a literal way but in a deep and a more interesting way you didn’t think was possible
before.

References:

Cruz, A. (2017, March 9). Madonna and the madwoman: on the women of Jose Rizal’s

classic Noli Me Tangere. Retrieved from Book Riot: https://bookriot.com/madonna-madwoman-

women-jose-rizals-classic-noli-tangere/

Formalism (2020). Retrieved from Shmoop University Inc: https:// www.

shmoop.com/study-guides/literary-schools-of-theory/formalism

Napikoski, Linda. (2020, February 11). Feminist Literary Criticism. Retrieved from

https://www.thoughtco.com/feminist-literary-criticism-3528960

Reader Response Theory Introduction. (2020). Retrieved from Shmoop University Inc:

https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literary-schools-of-theory/reader-response-theory

Solmerano, E., Ondevilla, M., Palencia, M., Jerusalem, V., & Cruz, J. (2017). 21st century
literature from the Philippines and the world (2nd ed.). Manila: Fastbooks Educational
Supply, Inc.

Structuralism. (2020). Retrieved from Shmoop University Inc: https://www.shmoop.

com/study- guides/literary-schools-of-theory/structuralism

The Writing Lab, T. O. (1995-2020). Marxist Criticism (1930s-present). Retrieved from

Purdue University: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_

writing/writing_in_literature/literary_theory_and_schools_of_criticism/marxist_criticism.html

The Writing Lab, T. O. (1995-2020). Psychoanalytic Criticism (1930s-present). Retrieved

from Purdue University:https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing

/writing_in_literature/literary_theory_and_schools_of_criticism/psychoanalytic_criticism.html

The Writing Lab, T. O. (1995-2020). Structuralism and Semiotics (1920s-present). Retrieved

ENG S211: 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
MLCGR
So Lit: Podcast for Literature
Lesson 2: Approaches in Understanding Literature ENG S211

from Purdue University: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/

writing_in_literature/literary_theory_and_schools_of_criticism/structuralism_and_semiotics.html

ENG S211: 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
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So Lit: Podcast for Literature