1. LITERARY THEORY AND SCHOOLS OF CRITICISM

2.  Characterized by close reading  The text is studied without a consideration of era or author  Questions typically asked using this approach:  What are the literary techniques used to create meaning?  How are the parts of the work unified into a whole? FORMALISM / NEW CRITICISM

3.  Every work is a product of the time in which it was produced.  Historicism asks, “What can the text tell us about history?”  New Historicism asks “What can the historical context tell us about this author and text?”  Concerned with the interpretation of events and what that says about human nature. NEW HISTORICISM

4.  The author’s experiences and beliefs must be taken into account when analyzing his work.  Similar to New Historicism, the context of the work is considered.  What is the author’s intent?  What biases does the author bring to the work?  What personal experiences have shaped the author’s writing? BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM

5.  Freudian:  What repressed desires or fears are being surfaced?  What are the hidden/subconscious meanings?  Jungian  the collective unconscious/racial memory  Shadow self  archetypes/hero’s journey PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICISM

6.  Concerned with class, economics and the politics of power.  cycles of social repression and revolution  What is the class of the author?  What does the text say about “work”?  Who does this work benefit? MARXIST CRITICISM

7.  Applies to both colonial powers and the persons being colonized.  Generally post- colonial literature is written in the language of the colonial power.  Concerned with the concept of the “other” or the marginalized  Concerned with loss of cultural identity  Concerned with attitudes of moral and/or intellectual superiority of colonial power POST-COLONIAL CRITICISM

8.  Feminist Criticism is concerned with the oppression of women, economically, politically, physically, socially, and psychologically.  Looks at the portrayal of women in literature, as well as the exclusion of women writers in the teaching of literature. FEMINIST CRITICISM

9.  Concerned with non- normative gender or sexual representations.  Concerned with the traditional binary view of sexual identity.  In what way is gender and sexuality discussed?  How are non- heterosexual elements coded in literature? QUEER THEORY

10.  Similar to phenomenology.  Meaning is created in the interaction between text and reader.  What a text does cannot be separated from what a text is.  Reading is not a passive activity.  This literary theory can work in combination with other schools of criticism. READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM

11.  Some of this information is based upon the work of Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins, and Libby Chernouski at https://owl.english.purdue. edu/owl/resource/722/01/  OWL website last edited: 2012-05-14 12:46:21