1. Critical Approaches to Literature
Literary Theory

2. Unit Focus Questions
How do we study literature? How do viewpoint and bias affect our perception of reality?

3. Critical Approaches to the Study of Literature
Critical Approaches are different perspectives we consider when looking at a piece of literature. They seek to give us answers to these questions, in addition to aiding us in interpreting literature. 1. What do we read? 2. Why do we read? 3. How do we read?

4. Critical Approaches to Consider
Reader-Response Criticism
Formalist Criticism
Psychological/Psychoanalytic Criticism
Sociological Criticism
A. Feminist/Gender Criticism
B. Marxist Criticism
Biographical Criticism
New Historicist Criticism

5. Questions to Ponder for Each Theory/Approach
What are the benefits of each form of criticism?
What are potential problems with each form?
Is there a “right” or a “wrong” form?
Can the mode of criticism alter the entire meaning of a text?

6. 1. The Reader-Response Approach
2 Important Ideas in Reader-Response
An individual reader’s interpretation usually changes over time.
Readers from different generations and different time periods interpret texts differently.
Ultimately… How do YOU feel about what you have read? What do YOU think it means?

7. Rules of Reader Response Criticism:
Rule #1: Do not ADD anything to the text.
Rule #2: Do not IGNORE parts of the text.
Rule #3: Do not CHANGE parts of the text.
As long as readers do not manipulate the text to “fit” a contrived interpretation, and as long as readers can provide textual evidence, then any interpretation can be “valid” or “correct.”

8. Rule # 1: Do not ADD anything to the text
Let’s say that you like happy endings. You want every story to end harmoniously, and you feel that one can make a happy ending out of any situation.
If you interpret the ending of every story to be a positive one, are you breaking one of the reader response rules? Or is your interpretation valid?

9. Sorry, but not all endings can be happy ones.
Yes, you are breaking one of the reader response rules by making everything end happily.
Your interpretations is NOT valid.
Regardless of how much you want to see the positive, you cannot ADD WHAT IS NOT THERE to the text in order to
make the ending a happy one.

10. Rule #2: Do not IGNORE parts of the text
You are reading a story in which the main character makes his living by defrauding the elderly and stealing their money.
He lies to his elderly clients who trust him and shows little remorse for his crimes.
However, he demonstrates an amazing ability to empathize with disabled people and often volunteers his time and resources to help the disabled.

11. Rule #2: Do not IGNORE parts of the text
When writing an essay about the story, you paint the character as a cold-hearted predator and never mention his concern for the disabled.
If you present only the character’s crime, are you breaking one of the reader response rules? Or is your interpretation valid?

12. Sorry, but even bad guys have attributes.
Yes, you are breaking one of the reader response rules by ignoring the character’s attributes.
Your interpretation is NOT valid.
Regardless of how much you dislike a character, you cannot ignore all of the attributes of a character (even if you want to).

13. Rule #3: Do not CHANGE parts of the text
This one seems obvious—you cannot change the text. Most of the time, text-changing occurs in error. Be sure you have a solid understanding of the text before interpreting it.

14. 2. The Formalist Approach
Formalist Criticism emphasizes the form of a literary work to determine its meaning, focusing on literary elements and how they work to create meaning.
Examines a text as independent from its time period, social setting, and author’s background. A text is an independent entity.
Focuses on close readings of texts and analysis of the effects of literary elements and techniques on the text.

15. 2. The Formalist Approach
Two Major Principles of Formalism
A literary text exists independent of any particular reader and, in a sense, has a fixed meaning.
The greatest literary texts are “timeless” and “universal.”

16. 3. The Psychological/ Psychoanalytic Approach
Psychological Criticism views a text as a revelation of its author’s mind and personality. It is based on the work of Sigmund Freud.
Also focuses on the hidden motivations of literary characters
Looks at literary characters as a reflection of the writer

17. 4. The Sociological Approach
Sociological criticism argues that social contexts (the social environment) must be considered when analyzing a text.
Focuses on the values of a society and how those views are reflected in a text
Emphasizes the economic, political, and cultural issues within literary texts
Core Belief: Literature is a reflection of its society.

18. Feminist Criticism
Feminist literary criticism was launched in the twentieth century with Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929), in which the author examines why there was no female Shakespeare by highlighting the social and political conditions that made writing for women difficult or impossible. In 1969, Kate Millett examined, in Sexual Politics, how men represent women in famous texts. Since then, in conjunction with Feminist theory itself, Feminist literary critics have also examined
1. how women write their own experiences and representations
2. how women read about themselves
3. how to make feminist readings visible to readers
4. how women writers fared in given eras
5. how traditional texts by women are subversive of the social order

19. Strengths of this theory:
For centuries, women in literature, the roles of both men and women and how they were represented were not a focus of literary criticism. This theory finally examines how women and men are represented and deals with the importance of women in literature.
Weaknesses of this theory:
If this theory is the only one applied to a text, it can be rather limiting. It only examines one element of the text.

20.  Feminist – Questions to ask for Literary Criticism:
·    What is the protagonist’s attitude to male and female characters? How is this evident? How does this affect your response to the characters?
·    How are women represented in the text?
·  What roles do men and women play within family, work situations, etc. (hero, breadwinner, helper, cook, sex object)?
·   What were the social and historical conditions for women in this period that might help us understand their roles in the text?
·    How do women exercise their power in the text?
·   If you were to rewrite the text’s ending, what would happen to the female protagonist? The male protagonist?
· How and to what degree are the women’s lives limited or restricted in this text?

21. Marxist Criticism Background:
Marxism, which emerged in the nineteenth century as a result of the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, concerns itself with the economic struggles for power between the working class and the ruling class. These two men believed in an eventual classless society with communal ownership of all natural and industrial resources.
When Marxist theories are applied to literature, they provide a means for assessing the social significance of a text. Marxist criticism believes that literature is one form of cultural production of a complex society and, as such, reflects the forces shaping the society’s culture. This is to say that literature is not only a mirror which reflects society. But it is also a dynamic participant in the shaping of a culture.

22. Here are some points that a Marxist literary critic considers when analyzing a text:
Literature expresses the ideas, beliefs, and values of a culture.
Literature of any significance actively engages in controversy or argument.
Literature reveals power struggles (sexual power, economic power, social power, and so on) and how this operates and with what consequences.
Literature reveals how the author, reader, and characters demonstrate an awareness or lack or awareness of their economic and social situations and what oppresses them.
Literature and authors can manipulate readers into sympathizing with rather than critiquing the dominant (and oppressive) social order.

23. Strengths of this theory:
Like Archetypal criticism, this theory encourages a careful reading of a test. It also does not limit a reader to view the text in isolation, but allows the reader to think about the text in its social, historical, and current contexts.
Weaknesses of this theory:
The main concern some readers may have about this theory is that it only examines a limited aspect of the text. Some people feel threatened by the focus on “ideology.” It dismisses the beauty of writing and does not allow the reader to simply enjoy the text.

24. Marxist – questions to ask for Literary Criticism:
What or whose ideological values structure the text? How are these evident?
Who has power (and of what sorts) in the texts? How does this power operate and change as the text progresses?
What “master” or dominant social narratives are perpetuated or critiqued and disrupted in the text? (eg. the American Dream, whereby, with hard work and individual effort, a poor person can achieve success)‏

25. How do they respond? What affects their options for changing things?
   To what degree does the protagonist or other characters believe in and live by the prevailing social order?
At what point do characters recognize the oppressiveness of the prevailing social order?
How do they respond? What affects their options for changing things?
How is social objectification evident and how does it operate in the text?
What are the social forces that affect the author’s writing or the text’s marketing and reception?

26. 4A. The Marxist Approach
Marxist Criticism emphasizes economic and social conditions. It is based on the political theory of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Concerned with understanding the role of power, politics, and money in literary texts

27. 4A. The Marxist Approach
Marxist Criticism examines literature to see how it reflects
The way in which dominant groups (typically, the majority) exploit the subordinate groups (typically, the minority)
The way in which people become alienated from one another through power, money, and politics

28. 4B. The Feminist Approach
Feminist Criticism is concerned with the role, position, and influence of women in a literary text.
Asserts that most “literature” throughout time has been written by men, for men.
Examines the way that the female consciousness is depicted by both male and female writers.

29. 4B. The Feminist Approach
4 Basic Principles of Feminist Criticism
Western civilization is patriarchal.
The concepts of gender are mainly cultural ideas created by patriarchal societies.
Patriarchal ideals pervade “literature.”
Most “literature” through time has been gender-biased.

30. 5. The Biographical Approach
Biographical Criticism argues that we must take an author’s life and background into account when we study a text.

31. 5. The Biographical Approach
Three Benefits:
Facts about an author’s experience can help a reader decide how to interpret a text.
A reader can better appreciate a text by knowing a writer’s struggles or difficulties in creating that text.
A reader can understand a writer’s preoccupation by studying the way they apply and modify their own life experiences in their works.

32. 6. The New Historicist Approach
New Historicist Criticism argues that every literary work is a product of its time and its world.

33. 6. The New Historicist Approach
New Historicism:
Provides background information necessary to understand how literary texts were perceived in their time.
Shows how literary texts reflect ideas and attitudes of the time in which they were written.
New historicist critics often compare the language in contemporary documents and literary texts to reveal cultural assumptions and values in the text.

34. REMEMBER…
We will never look at a text STRICTLY from one standpoint or another, ignoring all other views. That is adverse to what we are trying to do.
We should always keep our focus on the text and use these critical approaches to clarify our understanding of a text and develop an interpretation of it.