1. Introduction to Literary Criticism
English 12
Ms. O’Connor

2. Can you read this man’s mind?

3. How about this man’s?

4. Or this woman’s?

5. The old way This was the old way of reading.
Authors were seen sole proprietors of the meaning of their writing.
Readers take it at face value.

6. Romanticism
centered on the artist and creative genius
text was indebted to previous writers and ideas
The power of the natural world

7. Romanticism
centered on the artist and creative genius
text was indebted to previous writers and ideas
The power of the natural world

9. Realism
Art should replicate the world around us.
Literature represents the times it is written

12. Modernism
Overturn traditional modes of representation and express the new sensibilities of their time.
The Artist as savior.
"irrationality at the roots of a supposedly rational world“
Michel-André Bossy

16. Postmodernism
Resist definition or classification
The artist is impotent, and the only recourse against "ruin" is to play within the chaos.
Death of the author.

21. Literary Criticism and Theory
Any piece of text can be read with a number of different sets of “glasses,” meaning you are looking for different things within the text.
Literary Criticism helps readers understand a text in relation to the author, culture, and other texts.

22. The Most Common Critical Stances for Literature
Formalistic
Biographical
Historical/Cultural
Psychological
Archetypical
Feminist or Gender
Deconstructionist
Marxist

23. What is theory?
Interdisciplinary
Speculative
Thinking about
thinking

24. The Author is Dead The reader's role: active agent who
imparts "real existence“
to the work and
completes its meaning
through interpretation

25. Questioning? Dispute “common sense” meanings
Literary theory suggests that we cannot know what the writer “had in mind”.
The text holds no “truths”
Instead there are various ways of reading a text and interpreting a text.
Be suspicious of that which we find “natural”.

27. Formalist Criticism
A formalist (aka New Criticism) reading of a text focuses on symbol, metaphor, imagery, and so on.
Formalism ignores the author’s biography and focuses only on the interaction of literary elements within the text.
It’s what you do
most often in
English literature.

28. A Formalist Reading of “The Three Little Pigs”
What does the wolf symbolize?
Notice the consonance of “I’ll huff and I’ll puff…”
How does the story foreshadow the final fate of the pigs?
What does the wolf’s dialogue tell us about his character?

29. Marxist Capitalism is a social system based on the principle
of individual rights.
means of production are
privately owned
Key points
exploitation of an entire class
of society by another
the ruling class controls the means of
production
Subjectification of working class

30. Questions Marxist theorists ask…
Whom does it benefit if the work or effort is accepted/successful/believed, etc.?
What is the social class of the author?
Which class does the work claim to represent?
What values does it reinforce?
What values does it subvert?
What conflict can be seen between the values the work champions and those it portrays?
What social classes do the characters represent?
How do characters from different classes interact or conflict?

31. The Hunger Games
What are some of examples you could use to support a Marxist argument?

32. Psychological Criticism
Psychological critical theory applies the theories of psychology to a text to better understand its characters
Based largely on Freud, this theory hinges on the belief that an examination of people’s (characters’) unconscious desires.

33. Psychological Criticism
Drives governing human behaviour
Id – the animal nature that says, “Do what feels good.”
Ego – the reality-based part of your personality that makes decisions to satisfy the Id and Superego
Superego – the socialized “conscience” that tells you what’s right or fair

34. Psychological Criticism
Oedipus Complex – Every boy has the unconscious desire to have sex with their mother; consequently, sons are deeply afraid of their fathers, and fathers are deeply threatened by their sons.
Elektra Complex – Every daughter has the unconscious desire to have sex with their father; consequently, daughters are deeply afraid of their mothers, and mothers are deeply threatened by their daughters.

35. Psychological Criticism
Of course, these complexes have their origins in literature and mythology.
Psychological criticism is a way to understand characters, not diagnose them.

36. Questions Psycho-analytical theorists ask…
How do the operations of repression structure or inform the work?
Are there any oedipal dynamics - or any other family dynamics - are work here?
How can characters' behavior, narrative events, and/or images be explained in terms of psychoanalytic concepts of any kind (for example...fear or fascination with death, sexuality - which includes love and romance as well as sexual behavior - as a primary indicator of psychological identity or the operations of ego-id-superego)?
What does the work suggest about the psychological being of its author?
What might a given interpretation of a literary work suggest about the psychological motives of the reader?
Are there prominent words in the piece that could have different or hidden meanings? Could there be a subconscious reason for the author using these "problem words"?

37. A Psychological Reading of Macbeth
Macbeth kills King Duncan because he unconsciously recognizes the king as a father-figure. Hence, Duncan is a rival for power and the affections of the people.
In the latter acts of the play, Macbeth has indulged his id so often that his ego has lost the ability to restrain it.

38. Archetypical Criticism
This stance is not about mythology.
It is about the universal elements of human life common in all cultures.
Like ancient mythology, all literature is a window to creating meaning for human life.
In other words, stories make us feel like our lives are more significant.

39. Archetypical Criticism
Central to the Archetypical theory is the concept of archetypes.
Simply put, archetypes those universal elements present in the literature of all cultures.

40. Archetypical Criticism
Common Archetypes
The Hero = Beowulf, Spiderman, Luke Skywalker, Braveheart
The Outcast = Macbeth’s clown, Grendel, Cain
The Quest = LOTR, Star Wars, Beowulf
Sacrificial King = Jesus, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, LOTR
Evil Personified = Wicked Witch of the West, the Devil, the Emperor in SW, the Borg

41. Archetypical Criticism
The goal of Archetypical Criticism seeks to understand how the story constructs meaning in the human existence through archetypes.
For example, note the ways texts have examined betrayal.

42. A Archetypical Reading of Beowulf
Beowulf is the archetypal hero because his bravery and righteous behavior embodies the ideals and hopes of Anglo-Saxon society.
Grendel, the outsider, represents both the alien invaders of neighboring, warring tribes and the threat of supernatural monsters, which, as pagans, the Anglo-Saxons truly believed existed.

43. Gender Criticism
Gender criticism analyzes literature through the lens of socially-constructed gender roles.
The largest part of gender criticism is feminism, which critiques and seeks to correct women’s subordination to men in society.
In its purist form, feminism is about equality.

44. Feminism
Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
An example of a
marginalized group’s
attempt to re-appropriate
meaning.

45. Concerned with the
ways in which literature
reinforce or undermine
the economic, political,
social, and psychological
oppression of women
inherently patriarchal

46. Patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which women are politically, economically, psychologically or socially oppressed.
Women as “other”: she is marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values
All of western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for example, in the biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin in the world.
Biology determines our sex (male or female); culture determines our gender (masculine or feminine

47. Questions Feminist theorists ask…
How is the relationship between men and women portrayed?
What are the power relationships between men and women (or characters assuming male/female roles)?
How are male and female roles defined?
What constitutes masculinity and femininity?
How do characters embody these traits?
Do characters take on traits from opposite genders? How so? How does this change others’ reactions to them?
What does the work reveal about the operations (economically, politically, socially, or psychologically) of patriarchy?
What does the work imply about the possibilities of sisterhood as a mode of resisting patriarchy?
What does the history of the work's reception by the public and by the critics tell us about the operation of patriarchy?
What role the work play in terms of women's literary history and literary tradition? (Tyson)

48. A Feminist Reading of Goldilocks
As a single, young woman, Goldilocks finds herself without means or opportunity because she is unattached to a father or a husband. Perhaps, this is why she’s alone in the woods.
An independent woman,
then, is a threat to the
“normal” nuclear family,
represented by the
three bears.

49. Gender Criticism: Queer Theory
A newer segment of gender criticism is “queer theory,” which looks for the influence of homosexuality within texts.
Research of this type is fairly difficult because, as you’ve learned, homosexuality was largely suppressed in Europe and America, and it hasn’t been openly discussed until the last few decades.

50. Gender Studies/Queer Theory
What elements of the text can be perceived as being masculine (active, powerful) and feminine (passive, marginalized) and how do the characters support these traditional roles?
What sort of support (if any) is given to elements or characters who question the masculine/feminine binary? What happens to those elements/characters?
What elements in the text exist in the middle, between the perceived masculine/feminine binary? In other words, what elements exhibit traits of both (bisexual)?
What are the politics (ideological agendas) of specific gay, lesbian, or queer works, and how are those politics revealed in...the work's thematic content or portrayals of its characters?
What does the work contribute to our knowledge of queer, gay, or lesbian experience and history, including literary history?
How is queer, gay, or lesbian experience coded in texts that are by writers who are apparently homosexual?
What does the work reveal about the operations (socially, politically, psychologically) homophobic?
How does the literary text illustrate the problems of sexuality and sexual "identity”?

52. More Literary Theory
New ways of viewing literature (and the world) continue to develop, but these are the main theories you’ll come in contact with.