1. Contemporary Literary Theory

2. The Literary Text is at the center other literary texts author ------------ literary text ------------ readers world in which text was produced

3. Who focuses on the literary text? New Critics / formalists – “new” in 1920’s – dominate mid-20 th C literary studies – focus on forms: lit devices, genres, irony, etc. – begun in reaction to historically based criticism Deconstructionists – see language as inherently unstable & fluctuating – arises from work of linguists & existentialist philosophers

4. Who focuses on other literary texts? Archetypal critics – look for common motifs among literary works Psychoanalytic critics – see literary works as expressions of commonly held neuroses found in literature and life Literary influence critics – look at how one literary work may be written in response to another

5. Who focuses on the author? Some feminist, gender & Marxist criticsfeministgenderMarxist – expanding the canon by women, by those of alternative sexualities, by the economically disadvantaged, etc. – arises from the “hypenated-American” syndrome – only one aspect of these critical schools

6. Who focuses on the reader? Some feminist, gender & Marxist criticsfeministgenderMarxist – interested in which gender or sexual orientation or socio- economic class purchases which sort of literary experience Some cultural studies critics – Interested in what sort of subjectivity is “created” by the literary work Reader-response critic – sees “meaning” in literary works as something made by a community of readers, and not as belonging or adhering to the work itself, hence changing over time.

7. Who focuses on the world in which the literary text is produced? Old & New HistoricistsNew Historicists – both focus on older literature & see literary works as closely embedded in their cultures Cultural Studies critics Cultural Studies – see literary works as one cultural product among many arising from a particular culture at a discrete moment Marxist critics Marxist – see literary texts as going out into the world to “work” on shaping the ideologies of their consumers