Introduction to Modern

Literary Theory
A discussion of theory, why we use it,
and how it helps us understand what
we read.
What is modern theory?
 Theory is a way to approach a text to gain a
better understanding of its meaning
 Theory changes with time and new theories
are always being added to the traditional
 Theory tries to explain why authors and
texts exist and what messages they are
sending to readers
 New Criticism
 Takes a text as an  Suggested
autonomous object, Websites:
non-related to the  "New Criticism Explain
author, the culture, or ed" by Dr. Warren Hedg
es (Southern Oregon Un
the event it stems from iversity)
 Explores the “world”
within the text  "Definition of the New
Criticism" - virtuaLit (B
 Started in 1920’s and eford-St. Martin's Reso
1930’s urce)
KEY TERMS:  Heresy of Paraphrase
- assuming that an
 Intentional Fallacy - interpretation of a
equating the meaning of literary work could
a poem with the consist of a detailed
author's intentions. summary or paraphrase.
 Affective Fallacy -  Close reading "a close
confusing the meaning and detailed analysis of
of a text with how it the text itself to arrive at
makes the reader feel. A an interpretation
reader's emotional without referring to
response to a text historical, authorial, or
generally does not cultural concerns"
produce a reliable (Bressler)
interpretation.
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages  Disadvantages
- Do not have to know -Text seen in isolation
the author’s -Cannot account for
background allusions
-Do not have to be -Ignores context of
familiar with historical work
context -Reduces literature to
-Can analyze language a series of rhetorical
and imagery… devices
Example:
 Using Poisonwood Bible, what would this
critical approach (new criticism) focus on
and what would it leave out?
 Marxism
 Sees art and literature  Suggested Websites:
as forced by the  "Definition of Marxist C
riticism" - virtuaLit (Be
conditions that existed dford-St. Martin's resou
rce)
in history
 Deals with clash  Marxist Theory and Crit
between classes icism - from the Johns
Hopkins Guide to Litera
 Articulation of ry Criticism
dominant class
 "Marxism and Ideology"
 Art reflects age in by Dr. Mary Klages - U
niversity of Colorado at
which it was created Boulder
Key Terms:
 Commodification –  Reflectionism - the
Wanting thing not for their
use but their ability to
impress others or to sell
 Conspicuous
consumption – Getting
things merely for selling or  Superstructure - The
trading
 Dialectical materialism
– the eternal struggle to
find a solution among
conflicting ideologies to
bring about change
 Material circumstances
- the economic conditions
underlying a society
superstructure of a society
mirrors its economic base
and, by extension, that a
text reflects the society that
produced it
social, political, and
ideological systems and
institutions that are
generated by the people
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages  Disadvantages
 Look at the work in  Have to be aware of
the context it was the culture and
written economic system in
 Allows you to place when written
research and  Have to assume “the
understand the culture man” was out to get
more the people
 Can see multiple  Has to be a class
perspectives from conflict, not race or
dominant and gender (class matters
dependent classes most)
Example
 What is a major class conflict that you have
seen in a movie or read in literature
recently? What was the dominant class’
point of view? What was the inferior class’
point of view? Briefly analyze how this
conflict was resolved or how it should have
been resolved using Marxist theory.
 Reader-Response Theory
 Analyzes reader’s role  Suggested Websites:
in production of 
"Reader Response: Vari
meaning ous Positions" - Dr. Joh
n Lye - Brock University
 Text itself means
nothing until someone  Reader Response Theor
reads it y and Criticism - Johns
Hopkins Guide to Litera
 Reading is a function ry Theory & Criticism
of personal identity
 "The Author, the Text, a
 Authors use strategies nd the Reader" - Clariss
to elicit responses a Lee Ai Ling, The Lond
on School of Journalism
from readers
Key Terms:
 Horizons of expectations
- a reader's "expectations" or
frame of reference is based
on the reader's past
experience of literature and
what preconceived notions
about literature the reader
possesses
 Implied reader - the
implied reader is "a
hypothetical reader of a
text”, a construct that is
unrelated to the “real” reader
-Developed by Wolfgang Iser
 Interpretive communities -
a concept, articulated by
Stanley Fish, that readers
within an "interpretive
community" share reading
strategies, values and
interpretive assumptions
 Transactional analysis - a
concept developed by Louise
Rosenblatt asserting that
meaning is produced in a
transaction of a reader with a
text. As an approach, then, the
critic would consider "how the
reader interprets the text as
well as how the text produces a
response in her"
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages  Disadvantages
 No one interpretation  Can be too subjective
 Interpretations change  No clear criteria to
over time account for differences
from one reader to the
next
 Highly personal at
times
 Postmodernism
 For Jean Baudrillard, postmodernism
marks a culture composed "of disparate
fragmentary experiences and images
that constantly bombard the individual
in music, video, television, advertising
and other forms of electronic media.
The speed and ease of reproduction of
these images mean that they exist only
as image, devoid of depth, coherence, or
originality"
Postmodernist Theories:
 Deconstruction
 Hermeneutics
 Semiotics
Deconstruction:
 Sees literature as fluid parts and not one
whole, with multiple meanings and ways to
look at and not one large meaning.
 Infinite number of signifiers
 Deconstruction - Stanford University
 Deconstruction - Johns Hopkins Guide t
o Literary Theory & Criticism
Hermeneutics:
 Sees interpretation as a circular process
whereby valid interpretation can occur by
seeing the literary work as a whole and as a
combination of its parts
 Can analyze the historical authorial intent and
at the same time the language within the text
to gain understanding
 Phenomenology Online - page developed by
Max van Manen
Semiotics:
 The science of signs
 Proposes that human actions and productions
have shared meaning to a group of people
 Linguistics is a branch of semiotics

"Semiotics for Beginners" - Dr. David Ch
andler (University of Wales)

 Semiotics - Johns Hopkins Guide to Lite

rary Theory & Criticism
 Signified and Signifier
 Sign vs. Symbol - According to Saussure, "words are
not symbols which correspond to referents, but rather
are 'signs' which are made up of two parts: a
mark,either written or spoken, called a 'signifier,' and a
concept (what is 'thought' when the mark is made),
called a 'signified‘”.
 Meaning--the interpretation of a sign--can exist only in
relationship with other signs. (I.e. The stoplight color
red signifies "stop," even though "there is no natural
bond between red and stop“) (105).
 Meaning is derived entirely through difference, e.g.,
referring back to the traffic lights' example, red's
meaning depends on the fact that it is not green and not
amber
 Psychoanalytic Criticism
 Applying the principles of  Suggested Websites:
psychologists like  "Definition of Psychoan
Sigmund Freud and Jung alytic Criticism" from vi
rtuaLit (Bedford-St.Mar
to a literary work tin's resource)
 Analyzing characters
within the work 
 Analyze writer’s psyche, "Introduction to Psycho
analysis" by Dr. Dino Fe
writing process, or the lluga
influence of the writer’s
thoughts on the novel  "The Mind and the Boo
 Effects of literature on k: A Long Look at Psych
oanalytic Criticism" by
readers Norman N. Holland
Key Terms: •Jungian Approach:
 Freud's model of the •Three parts of self
psyche:
 Id - completely unconscious part -Shadow (dark part of self)
of the psyche that serves as a -Persona (social part of
storehouse of our desires,
wishes, and fears. The id houses personality)
the libido, the source of
psychosexual energy.
-Anima (man’s “soul image”)
Ego - mostly to partially Neurosis occurs when
conscious part of the psyche someone fails to assimilate one
that processes experiences and
operates as a mediator between of these levels of
the id and superego. unconsciousness into his or her
Superego - often thought of as conscious and projects it onto
one's "conscience"; the superego someone else.
operates "like an internal censor
[encouraging] moral judgments
in light of social pressures"
(Bressler)
Key Terms: (cont…)
 Unconscious - the irrational part of
the psyche unavailable to a person's
consciousness except through
dissociated acts or dreams.
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages  Disadvantages
 Can help understand  Makes literature a
works with characters scientific case study
who have obvious  Can we
psychological issues psychologically
 Helps us understand analyze dead writers?
the writer’s mind and  Not all works allow
therefore his work for this approach
 Sex is overdone
Example:
 Choose a text that you have read, other than
Poisonwood Bible, where you could do a
psychological analysis on a character. Who
is that character and what are his or her
issues? Use the information from Freud or
Jung.
 Feminism
 Concerned with impact  Suggested Websites:
of gender on writing  Approaches to Feminis
m - Stanford Encyclope
and reading dia of Philosophy
 Desire for a new literary
canon (not men)  "What is Feminism and
Why Do We Have to
 Deals with conflicts Talk About It So
between often dominate Much?" by Dr. Mary
male and inferior female Klages - University of
in traditional literature Colorado at Boulder
 Deals with female  Feminist Theory: An
Overview - Elixabeth
issues Lee - The Victorian Web
 Key Terms:
 Androgeny- world  Phallologocentrism -
without genders
 Écriture féminine- style,
women must write
about their experiences
to strengthen the work
 Essentialism- a female
image above and
beyond social constructs
language ordered
around an absolute
Word (logos) which is
“masculine” [phallic],
systematically
excludes, disqualifies,
denigrates, diminishes,
silences the “feminine”
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages  Disadvantages
 Allows for more  Often attack works
female authors’ works solely based on male
to be read authorship
 Get to see an
 Often too theoretical
alternative perspective
in literature  Distinct female style
 Understand women often excludes
more elements that get
 Not all “dead white novels into the canon
men”
Example
 Look at a novel by Barbara Kingsolver
from the feminist perspective, whether it be
The Bean Trees or Poisonwood Bible.
What elements exist to show this political
battlefield that often exists in feminist
literature. List characteristics that make the
novel feminist.
 Historical/Cultural Criticism
A.K.A. New Historicism

 Takes the work and looks  Sources

at it in context of the -Any sight that deals with
world it came out of the history of the time
(opposite of New period a novel, play, or
Criticism) poem was written in
 Good to use for
Shakespearean works as
well as older works, to
gain more understanding
of authors and impact
 Analyzes historically
accurate influences on
author and storyline.
Key Terms:
 The intentional
fallacy: meaning
of a work is
determined by
author’s intention
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages  Disadvantages
 To fully understand works  Reduces art to level of
by some authors, one must
biography
be able to understand where
they are coming from. For  Works not necessarily
example, Milton was blind seen as universal
and one must know that to
 Can date certain works
get any meaning out of his
essay “On His Blindness” (feel not as applicable
 Necessary to place allusions to modern life.)
in appropriate context
 Good to recognize patterns
Example
 Choose a text that you have recently read
and are familiar with. What was your
personal response to that text? Why did
you react the way you did while reading it?
What did you see in the text that caused you
to react in one way or another?
 Existentialism
 Philosophy (Satre and  Suggested Websites:
Camus) that views  "Existentialism" -
each person as an Stanford Encyclopedia
isolated being thrust of Philosophy
into a universe with no  "The Ethics of Absolute
Freedom" by Dr. David
truths, values, or Banach
meanings
 "Jean-Paul Sartre: The
 Nothing to nothing Humanism of
 All choices possible Existentialism" by Dr.
Bob Zunjic (University
 Absurd and anguished of Rhode Island)
 Condemned to be free
Key Terms:
 Absurd - a term used to  "Leap of faith" -
describe existence--a
world without inherent
meaning or truth.
 Authenticity - to make
choices based on an
individual code of ethics
(commitment) rather
than because of societal
pressures. A choice
made just because "it's
what people do" would
be considered
inauthentic.
although Kierkegaard
acknowledged that
religion was inherently
unknowable and filled
with risks, faith
required an act of
commitment (the "leap
of faith"); the
commitment to
Christianity would also
lessen the despair of an
absurd world.
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages  Disadvantages
 Ultimate choice is the  Confined by
character’s, no constructs of society
external pull  Can drive you insane
 Potential explanation  Why are we here then?
for need for religion  I might as well just die
 Post-colonialism
 School of thought that
existed in the post-
European empire
period, the body of
theoretical literature that
existed in that time
 Takes us back to time
and place to examine
works (resurrect
culture)
 Free from modern
constructs of history
 Suggested Websites:
 "Post-Colonialism" -
Wikipedia Encyclopedia
 "Some Issues in
Postcolonial Theory" by
Dr. John Lye (Brock
University)
 "Introduction to
Postcolonial Studies" by
Dr. Deepika Bahri
(Emory University)
Key Terms:
 Alterity – Being different  Hybridity - The assimilation
than one’s community and adaptation of cultural
 Diaspora- Being forced as practices, the cross-
an ethnic culture to leave fertilization of cultures; can
original homeland and be seen as positive, enriching,
dispersed throughout world and dynamic, as well as as
 Eurocentrism –an oppressive
emphasis on European or  Imperialism- If you don’t
Western beliefs, often at know it I don’t know
expense of other cultures. you…
Aligned with current and
past power structures in the
world.
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages  Disadvantages
 Forces us to look at  Hard to completely
lost cultures and the remove from modern
origins of alternative realm
cultures (non-
Western)  Have to assume there
 Considers literature in is an oppressed people
context and therefore in order to use
makes it easier to  Cannot apply to all
understand at times Western works
Example
 Consider some of the American Literature
that you read last year. Was any of it from
a perspective other than a colonist? A
European? A white male? Were there any
characters that stood out as not fitting into
their culture or society? How or why?
So…
 Now you have the basics, and when I say that I
mean BARE minimum you need to know to begin
to understand the literary criticisms you will
become familiar with this year. Keep your notes
as we will refer back to them often, as we read
literary criticisms of the novels we read and as we
start to analyze literature ourselves.
 YOU HAVE THE KEYS, unlock the doors

Sources:
 Dr. Kristie Siegel
www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm
 Skylar Hamilton Burris
“Literary Resources Criticism”
http://editorskylar.tripod.com
 www.theory.org.uk
 Richter, David H. (2000). Falling Into
Theory. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.