Assignment #3 Draft

1.
Formalism
Etymology:
The word ‘formalism’ has derived from the word ‘form’. The ‘ism’ is a belief or an approach of looking
at things. So, ‘formalism’ is the approach of looking at things strictly adhering to their forms.
What is Formalism?
Formalism is an object-centered theory of critical approach to literature. It focuses only on the work
itself and completely ignores the author of the work, time and background information of the work,
and the audiences’ feeling or perception about the work.
Formalism asserts that formal properties are the only things that matter about literature.
The formal properties of a literary work include:
Words (meaning of the words)
Shape/structure of the text
Harmony of the words
The rhythm of the sentences
Rhyming of the words
Meaning of the text as a whole
The formal properties of a literary work do NOT include:
Time of the work
Background of the work
Representation of the work
The symbolism of the words
Author’s moral, religious, or political values
Author’s personal life
Formalist Criticism analyzes the form of a literary work to discover its true meaning (not what the
audiences think but what the text says). Formalism holds that true meaning can be determined only
by analyzing the literary elements of the text and by understanding how these elements work together
to form up a cohesive whole.
Formalist critics examine a text regardless of its time period, social/political/religious setting, and
author’s background. They believe that true meaning of the text lies only in the text. Other issues
create a false impression of the text and thus jeopardize the audiences’ interpretation. So the
formalist critics believe that a text should not be interpreted based on a reader's response to it
(affective fallacy), the author's stated or inferred intention (intentional fallacy), author's life
(biographical fallacy), and historical/religious/social contexts (contextual fallacies). According to
formalism, these fallacies are the subjective biases and a text should be analyzed objectively to
determine its true meaning. https://www.basic-concept.com/c/definition-of-formalism-including-
properties
Related Studies on Formalism:
One story that is closely examined in a formalist fashion is Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. A man
named Gregor Samsa is suddenly transformed into a bug. His “abrupt and unexplained
transformation is juxtaposed with a lot of really mundane day-to-day details” (Shmoop Editorial Team,
2008). From a close reading, one can get a glimpse of the loneliness that Gregor feels on a daily
basis and the transformation could be a literal manifestation of Gregor’s alienation from society.
Another literary work that can be closely examined is Translations from the Natural World by Les
Murray. In this poetry book, “Murray makes birds, cows, bats, and other favorites of the animal
kingdom talk” (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008). The structure, language, and literary devices
presented in each poem provide a unique way in which Murray can express a different emotion. By
closely analyzing the text, one can appreciate the artistry of his words while also understanding the
importance of viewing life through a different lens.
Formalist Approach to Shakespeare's Lyrical Cycle.docx
https://www.academia.edu/38337490/Formalist_Approach_to_Shakespeares_Lyrical_Cycle_docx
Damir Kahrić
University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Philosophy

Graduate Student
Published on 2019
The Russian Formalist literary theory applied in Shakespeare's lyrical cycle, through the analysis of
Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 144. The paper describes the formalist analysis of two of William
Shakespeare's most popular sonnets, whereas it implies that the basic focus will be on the exact form
of the sonnets, rather than on their content. It firstly explains the notions of three different types of
European sonnets: Petrarchan sonnets, Shakespearean and Spenserian ones. Secondly, is
examines the form, the rhyming scheme, the metre, Shakespeare's syntax, and the literary devices
(metaphors) used in the process of writing. Finally, this paper will comparatively analyse Sonnet 18
and Sonnet 144 back to back, presenting certain similarities and dissimilarities between the two short
poems, or "little songs".
A strictly formalist critic would, for example, approach The Great Gatsby as a structure of words,
ignoring the details of Fitzgerald’s life and the social and historical contexts of the novel. However,
formalism, or the concept of strict literary formalism, has often been attacked by individual literary
critics or schools of criticism on the grounds that it reduces the text to nothing more than a series of
words, thereby limiting its meaning and power. It is true that the Russian Formalists in the early
years of the century attempted to examine the text in this way, but Western formalist approaches
have tended to be much less theoretical. In practice, such critics have been very responsible to the
meaning and themes of the work in question, rather than adopting a linguistic approach. For
example, from the 1930s onwards, a movement in Britain and America, loosely called the ‘New
Criticism’ began to dominate critical activity and teaching methods.
Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this theory:
Russian Formalism
 Victor Shklovsky
 Roman Jakobson
 Victor Erlich - Russian Formalism: History - Doctrine, 1955
 Yuri Tynyanov
New Criticism
 John Crowe Ransom - The New Criticism, 1938

 I.A. Richards
 William Empson
 T.S. Eliot
 Allen Tate
 Cleanth Brooks
Neo-Aristotelianism (Chicago School of Criticism)
 R.S. Crane - Critics and Criticism: Ancient and Modern, 1952

 Elder Olson
 Norman Maclean
 W.R. Keast
 Wayne C. Booth - The Rhetoric of Fiction, 1961
2. Reader Response Theory
A theory, which gained prominence in the late 1960s, that focuses on the reader or audience reaction
to a particular text, perhaps more than the text itself. Reader-response criticism can be connected
to poststructuralism’s emphasis on the role of the reader in actively constructing texts rather than
passively consuming them. Unlike text-based approaches such as New Criticism, which are grounded
upon some objective meaning already present in the work being examined, reader-response criticism
argues that a text has no meaning before a reader experiences—reads—it. The reader-response
critic’s job is to examine the scope and variety of reader reactions and analyze the ways in which
different readers, sometimes called “interpretive communities,” make meaning out of both purely
personal reactions and inherited or culturally conditioned ways of reading. The theory is popular in
both the United States and Germany; its main theorists include Stanley Fish, David Bleich, and
Wolfgang Iser.
(https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/reader-response-theory)
Related Studies on Reader-Response Theory:

Applying the Reader-Response Theory to Literary Texts in EFL-Pre-Service Teachers’ Initial
Education
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282414735_Applying_the_Reader-
Response_Theory_to_Literary_Texts_in_EFL-Pre-Service_Teachers'_Initial_Education
Eliana Garzón Duarte Harold Castaneda-Pena July 2015
This article presents the pedagogical implementation of the reader-response theory in a class of
English as a foreign language with language pre-service teachers as they experience the reading of
two short stories. The research took place over a 16 week period in which students kept a portfolio of
their written responses to the stories. Participants also discussed their interpretations in class. The
core constructs of this study are the reader-response theory, the use of literature in English as a
foreign language classes and its relation to critical thinking. Results showed that the application of
tasks based on the reader-response theory encourages a meaning seeking process as well as the
development of higher order thinking skills in future language teachers.
Reader-Response Theory and Literature Discussions : a Springboard for Exploring Literary Texts
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334605167_Reader-
Response_Theory_and_Literature_Discussions_a_Springboard_for_Exploring_Literary_Texts
Cagri Tugrul Mart July 2019

Reader-response theory is based on the assumption that a literary work takes place in the mutual
relationship between the reader and the text. According to this theory, the meaning is constructed
through a transaction between the reader and the text within a particular context. Readers assume
multiple roles when responding to a variety of forms of literature. The process of developing
responses facilitates active and meaningful reading and increases emotional and intellectual
participation in the text, which ultimately provides learners with better comprehension and awareness
of the text. The potential value of classroom discussions helps learners to express their emotional
reactions, to elicit their responses, to nourish their perspectives for furthering depth of their
interpretation, to corroborate their opinions and share their responses for building a social
relationship. It is crucial that learners are directed to perform more adequately in response to texts
and actively engage in dialogues to pose literal and inferential questions, to explore a range of
possible meanings and to foster cognitive development and comprehension.
Iser, Crutcher, and the Reader: Creating the World of Sarah Byrnes.
https://eric.ed.gov/?q=+Reader+Response+Theory+literaries&id=EJ644821
Daley, Patricia A.
Journal of Children's Literature, v28 n1 p32-38 Spr 2002
Applies the reader response theory of literary critic Wolfgang Iser to the reading of Chris Crutcher's
novel "Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes." Examines both the reader's engagement with the novel and
Eric Calhoune's engagement with the world of Sarah Byrnes. (RS)
Lewis Carroll, as we found out in previous chapters, is most famous for two books: Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1872). These books follow the
adventures of the 7–year-old, Alice, who tumbles down a rabbit hole (Wonderland) and enters a
magic mirror (Looking-Glass), entering a nonsensical world of the imagination.
Reader-response theory suggests that the role of the reader is essential to the meaning of a literary
text, for only in the reading experience does the literary work come alive. Frankenstein (1818) doesn’t
exist, so to speak, until the reader reads Frankenstein and reanimates it to life, becoming a cocreator
of the text.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein (1831; University of Virginia Electronic Text
Center, 1994), http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/SheFran.html.
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/literary_theory_and_schools_
of_criticism/reader_response_criticism.html
Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this
theory:
 Peter Rabinowitz - Before Reading, 1987

 Stanley Fish - Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive
Communities, 1980
 Elizabeth Freund - The Return of the Reader: Reader-Response Criticism, 1987
 David Bleich
 Norman Holland - The Dynamics of Literary Response, 1968
 Louise Rosenblatt
 Wolfgang Iser - The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction
from Bunyan to Beckett, 1974
 Hans Robert Jauss
3. STRUCTURALISM
of_criticism/structuralism_and_semiotics.html
The structuralist school emerges from theories of language and linguistics, and it looks for underlying
elements in culture and literature that can be connected so that critics can develop general
conclusions about the individual works and the systems from which they emerge. In fact,
structuralism maintains that "...practically everything we do that is specifically human is expressed in
language" (Richter 809). Structuralists believe that these language symbols extend far beyond written
or oral communication.
For example, codes that represent all sorts of things permeate everything we do: "the performance of
music requires complex notation...our economic life rests upon the exchange of labor and goods for
symbols, such as cash, checks, stock, and certificates...social life depends on the meaningful
gestures and signals of 'body language' and revolves around the exchange of small, symbolic favors:
drinks, parties, dinners" (Richter 809).
Structuralism in Literary Theory
Structuralism is used in literary theory, for example, "...if you examine the structure of a large number
of short stories to discover the underlying principles that govern their composition...principles of
narrative progression...or of characterization...you are also engaged in structuralist activity if you
describe the structure of a single literary work to discover how its composition demonstrates the
underlying principles of a given structural system" (Tyson 197-198).
Northrop Frye, however, takes a different approach to structuralism by exploring ways in which
genres of Western literature fall into his four mythoi (also see Jungian criticism in the Freudian
Literary Criticism resource):
theory of modes, or historical criticism (tragic, comic, and thematic);
theory of symbols, or ethical criticism (literal/descriptive, formal, mythical, and anagogic);
theory of myths, or archetypal criticism (comedy, romance, tragedy, irony/satire);
theory of genres, or rhetorical criticism (epos, prose, drama, lyric) (Tyson 240).
Peirce and Saussure
Two important theorists form the framework (hah) of structuralism: Charles Sanders Peirce and
Ferdinand de Saussure. Peirce gave structuralism three important ideas for analyzing the sign
systems that permeate and define our experiences:
"iconic signs, in which the signifier resembles the thing signified (such as the stick figures on
washroom doors that signify 'Men' or 'Women';
indexes, in which the signifier is a reliable indicator of the presence of the signified (like fire and
smoke);
true symbols, in which the signifier's relation to the thing signified is completely arbitrary and
conventional [just as the sound /kat/ or the written word cat are conventional signs for the familiar
feline]" (Richter 810).
A movement of thought in the humanities, widespread in anthropology, linguistics, and literary theory,
and influential in the 1950s and ’60s. Based primarily on the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de
Saussure, structuralism considered language as a system of signs and signification, the elements of
which are understandable only in relation to each other and to the system. In literary theory,
structuralism challenged the belief that a work of literature reflected a given reality; instead, a text was
constituted of linguistic conventions and situated among other texts. Structuralist critics analyzed
material by examining underlying structures, such as characterization or plot, and attempted to show
how these patterns were universal and could thus be used to develop general conclusions about both
individual works and the systems from which they emerged. The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss
was an important champion of structuralism, as was Roman Jakobsen. Northrop Frye’s attempts to
categorize Western literature by archetype had some basis in structuralist thought. Structuralism
regarded language as a closed, stable system, and by the late 1960s it had given way
to poststructuralism.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/structuralism#:~:text=In%20literary%20theory
%2C%20structuralism%20challenged,and%20situated%20among%20other
%20texts.&text=Structuralism%20regarded%20language%20as%20a,had%20given%20way%20to
%20poststructuralism.
Structuralism, in a broader sense, is a way of perceiving the world in terms of structures. First seen in
the work of the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss and the literary critic Roland Barthes, the essence
of Structuralism is the belief that “things cannot be understood in isolation, they have to be seen in
the context of larger structures they are part of”, The contexts of larger structures do not exist by
themselves, but are formed by our way of perceiving the world. In structuralist criticism, consequently,
there is a constant movement away from the interpretation of the individual literary work towards
understanding the larger structures which contain them. For example, the structuralist analysis
of Donne‘s poem Good Morrow demands more focus on the relevant genre (alba or dawn song), the
concept of courtly love, etc., rather than on the close reading of the formal elements of the text.
Related Studies on Structuralism:
The fundamental belief of Structuralism, that all human activities are constructed and not natural or
essential, pervades all seminal works of Structuralism. Beginning with the trailblazers, Levi
Strauss and Barthes, the other major practitioners include A. J. Greimas, Vladimir Propp, Terence
Hawkes (Structuralism and Semiotics), Robert Scholes (Structuralism in Literature), Colin
MacCabe, Frank Kermode and David Lodge (combined traditional and structuralist approaches in his
book Working with Structuralism). The American structuralists of the 1960s were Jonathan Culler and
the semioticians C. S. Peirce, Charles Morris and Noam Chomsky.
The French social anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss applied the structuralist outlook to cultural

phenomena like mythology, kinship relations and food preparation. He applied the principles of
langue and parole in his search for the fundamental mental structures of the human mind. Myths
seem fantastic and arbitrary yet myths from different cultures are similar. Hence he concluded there
must be universal laws that govern myths (and all human thought). Myths consist of 1) elements that
oppose or contradict each other and 2) other elements that “mediate” or resolve those oppositions
(such as trickster / Raven/ Coyote, uniting herbivores and carnivores). He breaks myths into smallest
meaningful units called mythemes. According to Levi-Strauss, every culture can be understood, in
terms of the binary oppositions like high/low, inside/outside, life/death etc., an idea which he drew
from the philosophy of Hegel who explains that in every situation there are two opposing things and
their resolution, which he called “thesis, antithesis and synthesis”. Levi-Strauss showed how opposing
ideas would fight and also be resolved in the rules of marriage, in mythology, and in ritual.
In interpreting the Oedipus myth he placed the individual story of Oedipus within the context of the
whole cycle of tales connected with the city of Thebes. He then identifies repeated motifs and
contrasts, which he used as the basis of his interpretation. In this method, the story and the cycle part
are reconstituted in terms of binary oppositions like animal/ human, relation/stranger, husband/son
and so on.
https://literariness.org/2016/03/20/structuralism/
4. SEMIOTICS
Stéphanie Walsh Matthews 26 JULY 2017
https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780190221911/obo-9780190221911-
0024.xml
Semiotics, the study of signs, has experienced a great rise in interest since the 1990s primarily
through its application in the interpretation of literary texts and, by extension, culture. The role of
semiotics in literary criticism is to establish key theoretical models that can provide insights so that the
connection of the texts to broader meaning structures within literary practices can be better
understood. In the late 19th century, Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (b. 1857–d. 1913) put
forward the proposal of a discipline, called sémiologie, to study and elucidate the nature and function
of signs, focusing on language as the main system of signs, but also suggesting the extension of its
purview to embrace nonverbal signs. A continent away but almost contemporaneously, the American
philosopher, Charles S. Peirce (b. 1839–d. 1914) also described a science of signs (a “doctrine”) that
he called semeiotics (using the same spelling of John Locke before him). Since these two proposals,
semiotics has developed into a sophisticated and productive discipline for studying all aspects of the
production and interpretation of signs—known as “semiosis.” As it pertains to literary works, semiotic
analysis has been grounded on several streams of thought, including the so-called Russian
Formalists, the Tartu School, and the school of Algirdas Greimas. From these foundations, semiotics
has become a major tool of literary criticism since it connects the literary text to the “universe of signs”
and thus to the network of sign systems that interact to imbue the text with its particular, historically
based meanings. Literary critics in the semiotic tradition typically extend the literary text to a larger
reading of the culture in which it was created and to the more universal structures that are inherent
within it. European schools of literary semiotics have focused on the rhetorical structure of texts,
seeing this as the main vehicle into the nature of literary texts.
The Theory of Signification: Semiotic Criticism and Literature
Murat Kalelioglu December 2017
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321979108_The_Theory_of_Signification_Semiotic_Criticis
m_and_Literature
As a signification theory, semiotic criticism attracts considerable interest from researchers in different
disciplines. Literature is one of the fields where the theory is used for signifying practices. Literary
semiotics has emerged as a sub-discipline as a result of the efficient interaction between semiotics
and literature. The process of meaning creation in texts can be elucidated through literary semiotics.
Semiotics has idiosyncratic rules and concepts in its system to accomplish its goal that bars new
researchers from benefiting the theory's data in penetrating and unfolding different meaning stratums.
This paper will argue the critical steps and tools of a systematized semiotic analysis within the
process of signification to overcome such obstacles. The relationship between language and
literature, literary semiotics and analysis tools will be addressed through the discussion of the
historical development of sign studies within the scope of semiotics as a signification theory.
Related Studies on Semiotics:

Semiotics and Symbolism in Literary Communication
Kenneth Chukwu September 2014
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325668354_Semiotics_and_Symbolism_in_Literary_Comm
unication
Among the concerns of semiotics is how the workings of sign systems enable the understanding of
the richly textured significations of all kinds of cultural texts, for instance, actions and events in a
novel, action films etc. On the other hand, among the striking features of a literary work are its
structure which depicts its organization or arrangement of events and actions (to show the
development of plots); its use of contrast, its patterns of imagery; setting and characterization. Most
literary artists employ various devices to represent their observations about the incidents and
characters’ actions and feelings in certain situations. Dibia Humphrey recreates in his novel virtues
and vices of man as he presents a society where crime, drug trafficking, money laundering, power
tussle, murder, bribery, corruption and other moral decadence that have eaten deep into the fabrics of
some seen contemporary Nigerians prevail. This is seen in his careful creation of characters who act
out different symbolic ideas in specific situations. This paper observes that the ideas Humphrey
raised many years ago are still perturbing issues with increased branches today. It therefore joins the
author to warn that if these ills are not corrected, Nigeria may continue to experience fear and
underdevelopment. But with persistent positive efforts, Nigeria shall attain reformation agenda.
However, Dibia’s success derives in his use of language of indirection to present a real life situation.
The thrust of this paper is therefore to examine the use of symbolism as a form of linguistic
manipulation that Dibia Humphrey employs through special construction of words to communicate
meanings which readers deduce by making certain assumptions.
5. DECONSTRUCTION
NASRULLAH MAMBROL on MARCH 22, 2016
https://literariness.org/2016/03/22/deconstruction/#:~:text=Deconstruction%20involves%20the
%20close%20reading,being%20a%20unified%2C%20logical%20whole.&text=Although%20its
%20ultimate%20aim%20may,response%20to%20structuralism%20and%20formalism.
Deconstruction involves the close reading of texts in order to demonstrate that any given text has
irreconcilably contradictory meanings, rather than being a unified, logical whole. As J. Hillis Miller, the
preeminent American deconstructionist, has explained in an essay entitled Stevens’ Rock and
Criticism as Cure (1976), “Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a
demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently solid ground is no rock but thin air.”
Deconstruction was both created and has been profoundly influenced by the French philosopher
Jacques Derrida. Derrida, who coined the term deconstruction, argues that in Western culture, people
tend to think and express their thoughts in terms of binary oppositions (white / black, masculine /
feminine, cause /effect, conscious /unconscious, presence / absence, speech writing). Derrida
suggests these oppositions are hierarchies in miniature, containing one term that Western culture
views as positive or superior and another considered negative or inferior, even if only slightly so.
Through deconstruction, Derrida aims to erase the boundary between binary oppositions—and to do
so in such a way that the hierarchy implied by the oppositions is thrown into question.
Formalist critics, such as the New Critics, assume that a work of literature is a freestanding, self-
contained object whose meaning can be found in the complex network of relations between its parts
(allusions, images, rhythms, sounds, etc.). Deconstructionists, by contrast, see works in terms of their
undecidability. They reject the formalist view that a work of literature is demonstrably unified from
beginning to end, in one certain way, or that it is organized around a single centre that ultimately can
be identified. As a result, deconstructionists see texts as more radically heterogeneous than do
formalists. Formalists ultimately make sense of the ambiguities they find in a given text, arguing that
every ambiguity serves a definite, meaningful, and demonstrable literary function. Undecidability, by
contrast, is never reduced, let alone mastered in deconsctruction. Though a deconstructive reading
can reveal the incompatible possibilities generated by the text, it is impossible for the reader to settle
on any permanent meanings.
https://sites.wp.odu.edu/tatum-fisherengl333/theory-1/
Deconstructive criticism follows the belief that objects have meaning because that it was it has been
defined as through language. Deconstruction uses the concept of binaries in which one object has
been given a sort of privilege, the better appeal i.e. good/bad, love/hate, white/black, and
male/female. In texts these binaries form the motif, or theme of a story. However the theory of
deconstruction focuses on how the language of the text may appeal to one binary, but has signs that
it favors the opposite, but not necessarily the privileged binary. Using this concept theorists judge
such texts to have “dismantled” themselves.
Notable Theorist/s:
The most famous Deconstructionists is Jacques Derrida who described language as never being
stable because any signifier (the object) can mean a range of signified (the idea or symbolism of the
object) at any given moment therefore making language as ideological; we give it meaning.
Rajarshi Bagchi 22nd Oct, 2011

Deconstruction is actually a way of reading any text and thereby exposing the instability of meaning
which the text tries to cover up. At the basic level this instability results from the endless chain of
meanings which a word is capable of generating all throughout the existence of that word: its archaic
meanings, its modern connotations and denotations, and ever changing implications in changing
(con)texts. Apart from semantics, it also takes one into other aspects of meaning-construction, like
phonetics, syntax, grammar,etc. In short, it reveals how the text is always already internally conflicted,
and is far from the serenity of any definite meaning.
In a novel, one could try and show how perspectives and ideologies clash; how the authorial voice is
unable to contain the paradoxical and contradictory flow of meanings generated by the events,
circumscribed as it is by its own ideological suppositions; etc.
6. POST-STRUCTURALISM
NASRULLAH MAMBROL on MARCH 21, 2016
https://literariness.org/2016/03/21/poststructuralism/
Poststructuralism emphasised the indeterminate and polysemic nature of semiotic codes and the
arbitrary and constructed nature of the foundations of knowledge. Having originated in a politically
volatile climate, the theory laid greater stress on the operations of ideology and power on
human subjectivity. In deconstructionist thought, the connection between thought / reality, subject
/object, self /other are viewed as primarily linguistic terms, and not as pre-existent to language. With
the famous statement “there is nothing outside the text”, Derrida established the provisionality and
constructedness of reality, identity and human subjectivity. Undermining “logocentricism” as the
“metaphysics of presence” that has ever pervaded Western philosophy and cultural thought, Derrida
proposed the concept of “ecriture”, which is beyond logos, and characterised by absence and
difference, where there is free play of signifiers, without ever arriving at the “transcendental signified”,
where meanings are locked in aporias and can be located only in traces.
Post-Structuralism
Andrea Hurst
LAST MODIFIED: 26 JULY 2017

0008.xml
Post-structuralism denotes a way of theorizing that emerged around the 1950s, predominantly in
France, among otherwise extremely diverse intellectuals (although many question this label). Most
thinkers termed post-structuralist, as well as the legitimating struggles and heated debates, were
prominent until about the 1980s. Beyond this date, the debates died down and many once radical
post-structuralist ideas were subsequently absorbed into mainstream disciplines. As the name
suggests, a post-structuralist way of thinking is rooted in structuralism, but it also represents a
retrospective critique of certain structuralist commitments. Like structuralism, post-structuralism
identifies a way of theorizing that belongs equally to literary theory (the systematic study of literary
texts), philosophy (especially the study of how thought works, insofar as thinking is carried out in
language), and critical theory (emancipatory social science via discourse analysis and ideology
critique).
Related Studies on Post-Structuralism:
LYPHEN EVERYWORD JUN 9, 2011
https://owlcation.com/humanities/how-to-analyze-literature-using-the-post-structuralism-school-of-
criticism
Let’s use Oscar Wilde’s novel,The Picture of Dorian Grayas an example. A major theme in this novel
is the effect of time. The novel’s title character has found a way to escape death, so his friends age
while his body remains perfectly untouched. “Time” is one of these key words to which we can apply
erasure. Time is a theoretical concept that no longer applies to Dorian Gray, for his portrait has made
him ageless. For other characters “time” derives meaning from “age,” but to Dorain, the word seems
to lack a trace. To him, seconds, hours and minutes are inconsequential. Years are but a daydream.
A decade is only a word to Dorian Gray…a word without an opposite and therefore a word without
meaning.
7. PSYCHOANALYSIS
Michael Delahoyde
https://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/psycho.crit.html#:~:text=Psychoanalytic%20criticism
%20adopts%20the%20methods,of%20the%20author's%20own%20neuroses.
Psychoanalytic criticism adopts the methods of "reading" employed by Freud and later theorists to
interpret texts. It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and
anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. One may
psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such
characters are projections of the author's psyche.
One interesting facet of this approach is that it validates the importance of literature, as it is built on a
literary key for the decoding. Freud himself wrote, "The dream-thoughts which we first come across
as we proceed with our analysis often strike us by the unusual form in which they are expressed; they
are not clothed in the prosaic language usually employed by our thoughts, but are on the contrary
represented symbolically by means of similes and metaphors, in images resembling those of poetic
speech" (26).
Like psychoanalysis itself, this critical endeavor seeks evidence of unresolved emotions,
psychological conflicts, guilts, ambivalences, and so forth within what may well be a disunified literary
work. The author's own childhood traumas, family life, sexual conflicts, fixations, and such will be
traceable within the behavior of the characters in the literary work. But psychological material will be
expressed indirectly, disguised, or encoded (as in dreams) through principles such as "symbolism"
(the repressed object represented in disguise), "condensation" (several thoughts or persons
represented in a single image), and "displacement" (anxiety located onto another image by means of
association).
Despite the importance of the author here, psychoanalytic criticism is similar to New Criticism in not
concerning itself with "what the author intended." But what the author never intended (that is,
repressed) is sought. The unconscious material has been distorted by the censoring conscious mind.
Psychoanalytic critics will ask such questions as, "What is Hamlet's problem?" or "Why can't Brontë
seem to portray any positive mother figures?"
Related Studies on Psychoanalysis:
https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/creating-literary-analysis/s07-02-psychoanalytic-literary-
critic.html#:~:text=An%20example%20showing%20a%20psychoanalytic,of%20California%20Press
%2C%201989).
Psychoanalytical literary criticism, on one level, concerns itself with dreams, for dreams are a
reflection of the unconscious psychological states of dreamers. Freud, for example, contends that
dreams are “the guardians of sleep” where they become “disguised fulfillments of repressed
wishes.”Sigmund Freud. The Interpretation of Dreams in The Freud Reader, ed. Peter Gay, (New
York: Norton, 1989). To Freud, dreams are the “royal road” to the personal unconscious of the
dreamer and have a direct relation to literature, which often has the structure of a dream. Jacques
Lacan, a disciple of Freud, was influenced by Freud’s psychoanalytical theories and contended that
dreams mirrored our unconscious and reflected the way we use language; dreams, therefore, operate
like language, having their own rhetorical qualities. Another Freud disciple, Carl Jung, eventually
rejected Freud’s theory that dreams are manifestations of the personal unconsciousness, claiming,
instead, that they reflect archetypes that tap into the “collective unconsciousness” of all
humanity.Sigmund Freud. The Interpretation of Dreams in The Freud Reader, ed. Peter Gay, (New
York: Norton, 1989).
In this chapter, we explore three popular psychoanalytical approaches for interpreting literature—
Freudian, Lacanian, and Jungian. In general, there are four ways to focus a psychoanalytical
interpretation:
You can analyze the author’s life.
You can analyze the thematic content of the work, especially the motivations of characters and the
narrator(s).
You can analyze the artistic construction of a text.
You can analyze yourself or the reader of the literary work using reader-response theory, which we
examine in detail in Chapter 6 "Writing about Readers: Applying Reader-Response Theory".
Here is a quick overview of some psychoanalytical interpretations that demonstrate these

approaches.
Analyze the Author’s Life
In The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe (1933), Marie Bonaparte psychoanalyzes Poe, concluding
that his fiction and poetry are driven by his desire to be reunited with his dead mother (she died when
he was three).Marie Bonaparte, The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe (London: Image Publishing,
1949). This desire leaves him symbolically castrated, unable to have normal relationships with others
(primarily women). Bonaparte analyzes Poe’s stories from this perspective, reading them as dreams
reflecting Poe’s repressed desires for his mother. While such an interpretation is fascinating—and
can be quite useful—you probably won’t attempt to get into the mind of the author for a short paper.
But you will find, however, that examining the life of an author can be a fruitful enterprise, for there
may be details from an author’s life that might become useful evidence in your paper.
You can find out about Poe at the Poe Museum’s website (http://www.poemuseum.org/index.php).
Analyze the Thematic Content: The Motivations of Characters and the Narrator(s)
An example showing a psychoanalytic focus on literary characters is Frederick Crews’s reading

in The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne’s Psychological Themes (1966).Frederick Crews, The Sins of
the Fathers: Hawthorne’s Psychological Themes (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1989). Crews first provides a psychoanalytical reading of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s life: he sees
reflected in Hawthorne’s characters a thwarted Oedipus complex (no worries, we’ll define that a bit
later), which creates repression. Furthermore, Hawthorne’s ties to the Puritan past engenders his
work with a profound sense of guilt, further repressing characters. Crews reads “The Birthmark,” for
example, as a tale of sexual repression. Crews’s study is a model for psychoanalyzing characters in
fiction and remains a powerful and persuasive interpretation.
You can read “The Birthmark,”Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Birthmark,” in The Complete Novels and
Selected Tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Modern Library ed., ed. Norman Holmes Pearson (New York:
Random House, 1937; University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center,
1996), http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/HawBirt.html. which will become the story of
choice for the three student sample papers in this chapter,
at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/HawBirt.html.
Analyze the Artistic Construction
Jacques Lacan shows us how a psychoanalytical reading can focus on the formal, artistic
construction of a literary text. In other words, Lacan believes that our unconscious is “structured like a
language” and that a literary text mirrors this sense of the unconscious. In “Seminar on ‘The Purloined
Letter’” (you can access the essay at http://www.lacan.com/purloined.htm), Lacan argues that Edgar
Allan Poe’s tale is not necessarily about the meaning of the message in the stolen letter; rather, the
tale is about who controls the letter, who has power over the language contained in the letter.Jacques
Lacan, “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter,’” Lacan.com, http://www.lacan.com/purloined.htm. You can
read “The Purloined Letter”Edgar Allan Poe, “The Purloined Letter,” in Tales of Mystery and
Imagination (London: J. M. Dent, 1912; University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center,
1994), http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/PoePurl.html. at http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng
/public/PoePurl.html.
Analyze the Reader
Finally, a psychoanalytical reading can examine the reader and how a literary work is interpreted
according to the psychological needs of the reader. We examine this approach in detail in Chapter 6
"Writing about Readers: Applying Reader-Response Theory" on reader-response criticism.
8. MARXISM
NASRULLAH MAMBROL on APRIL 12, 2016
https://literariness.org/2016/04/12/marxism-and-literary-theory/
Marxism is a materialist philosophy which tried to interpret the world based on the concrete, natural
world around us and the society we live in. It is opposed to idealist philosophy which conceptualizes a
spiritual world elsewhere that influences and controls the material world. In one sense it tried to put
people’s thought into reverse gear as it was a total deviation from the philosophies that came before
it. Karl Marx himself has commented on this revolutionary nature of Marxism, “The philosophers have
only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” It is true that while other
philosophies tried to understand the world, Marxism tried to change it.
Related Studies on Marxism:
https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/engl_258/Lecture%20Notes/marxism_in_modern_literature.htm
Marxism In Modern Literature

Like Freudian theory, Marxist theory's influence on Modern art and literature can be first broken down
by its influence of writers, and the works they produced, and on readers, and the way critics use
Marxist theory to interpret the works.
Influence On Writers
Under the influence of Marxist theory, an author is probably interested in examining:
a) History As Historical Materialism: The author hopes to show how all human relations are at root a
class struggle between oppressor and oppressed, and/or a struggle for control of the means of
production. These include "human relations" writ both large and small: both on a global and political
level (like war, the fall of Rome, the spread of Christianity etc) or on a personal level (how two
characters or a family relates to one another). Examples: Heart Of Darkness, Things Fall Apart, A
Doll's House.
b) Writing As A Means of Controlling Ideology: Marxist theory suggests that if hegemony is

maintained through ideology, the oppressed must gain control of their own ideology. This is explicitly
the argument presented by Virginia Woolf in A Room Of One's Own; women will break the cycle of
oppression by writing their own stories and defining themselves as human, intelligent, equal etc. This
theory also inspired writers of color both in the US and throughout the world, to tell their own stories
and redefine the cultural image of the Black man, the Latino, the African etc.
Influence On Readers And Critics

Under the influence of Marxist theory, a reader or critic is probably interested in examining:
a) The Work As Ideology: Simply put, Marxism argues that any work of art functions either
consciously or unconsciously as ideology; it does not define some eternal representation of "Truth" so
much as it represents the ideologies that serve to oppress or an attempt to rebel against that
oppression (see b, above). When combined with a dose of Nietzsche, this way of thinking about art
will have a profound effect on so called "Post Modern" critical theories.
For example, under this model, a Marxist reading of Wordsworth's Romanticism as an means through
which the urban, middle to upper class English elite attempted to maintain hegemony over the rural,
agricultural peasant class; that is, "pastoralism" really masks nothing more than the modern
aristocracy or emerging urban middle class keeping control over the peasant class, as it had always
done.
The documentary Hip-hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes takes this approach, as well, but in this case
examining how minority cultures are encouraged to proliferate images or representations of
themselves that will inevitably empower those who hope to oppress them.
b) As A Record Of Historical Relations: A Marxist influenced reading of, say a Jane Austen novel
would be interested in the role of women as the oppressed and the negotiation of romantic relations
and marriage as deeply, if not entirely, influenced by a struggle for domination or freedom.
A Feminist Marxist reading of Austen would see the novel's women as the oppressed. However,
another approach might note that there are essentially no representations of the working class in
these or any other 18th century novels, so that, just as Woolf points out that histories omitted women
from history, Austen omitted maids, servants and peasants.
9. NEW HISTORICISM
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/New%20Historicism
a method of literary criticism that emphasizes the historicity of a text by relating it to the configurations
of power, society, or ideology in a given time.
"New Historicism Examples" eNotes Editorial, 21 Jan. 2011, https://www.enotes.com/homework-

help/am-need-examples-new-historicism-literature-397701. Accessed 20 Sep. 2020.
The approach of New Historicism argues that a work of literature does not exist devoid of its
conditions or circumstances. In this light, literary works are as much a product of the author's mindset
as well as the conditions that surround it. The historical and social context of the author is almost as
important as anything else in assessing the construction of the literary work. In this light, New
Historicism is based off of the contingent, stressing its role in the development of literature.
Related Studies on New Historicism:
This can be seen in many works. I think that Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children is a fine example
because only through understanding how the experience of Partition, homelands that exist in the
subjective, and the idea of displacement in Rushdie's own life can the full magnitude of the novel be
explored. The works of Nadine Gordimer are another example of how the New Historicist approach
can yield greater insight into the work. When seen in the context of South Africa's struggle with
Apartheid, writings such as the short story "Once Upon a Time" acquire even more meaning to them.
New Historicism applied on William Shakespeare’s"The Tempest"
SINA LOCKLEY (AUTHOR) Term Paper, 2014

This paper contains of my introduction which you have just read, followed by a section about New
Historicism in which I want to try to explain the theory and how it is applied. Within this part I will first
try to make clear where the theory originated and who was important for its development. Then I will
go on with how it is used. In the next part I will give a short summary of “the Tempest” to then apply
New Historicism on the text with specific examples. In the end I want to show in my conclusion why it
was a good choice to pick this theory and this text.
New Historicism is a literary theory that, in my opinion, everybody can understand and relate to.
A central idea is how every text shows signs of the time and the society it is produced in. A logical
consequence, since the author is never free of perceptions of his time and never subjective. On the
other hand a text, read by many people, can easily influence their opinions and believes. For example
the texts written about Queen Elisabeth contributed to her image of the Virgin Queen. These ideas,
bought up as literary theory in New Historicism, are important until today. While books and theater
plays might not be as important for many of us we are influenced, not only by television, but also by
newspapers and articles we read. Our “self” is still created through the society we live in.
I chose “The Tempest” by Shakespeare to apply New Historicism on, because thinking about the
main ideas of the theory I immediately found several aspects that fitted with the play.
Shakespeare wrote “The Tempest” in 1611. England was at this point the most powerful empire on
the planet and also the biggest one that ever existed until today. Founded on worldwide trade and an
enormous armada the empire reached from North America to Australia and included nearly five
million people. Several aspects and themes important at this time can be found in the play. In addition
the development of the Empire helped Shakespeare become such an influential writer, as I will
explain later on.
Another important point why I chose “The Tempest” is the fact that New Historicism deals with power
struggles within a social system, how it affects people and also how they rebel against it. “The
Tempest” is a play full of such struggles, for example between Caliban and Prospero.
10. PHENOMENOLOGY AND HERMENEUTICS
Johns Hopkins Guide for Literary Theory and Criticism entry (2nd Edition 2005)
Paul B. Armstrong http://litguide.press.jhu.edu/
Phenomenology is a philosophy of experience. For phenomenology the ultimate source of all

meaning and value is the lived experience of human beings. All philosophical systems, scientific
theories, or aesthetic judgments have the status of abstractions from the ebb and flow of the lived
world. The task of the philosopher, according to phenomenology, is to describe the structures of
experience, in particular consciousness, the imagination, relations with other persons, and the
situatedness of the human subject in society and history. Phenomenological theories of literature
regard works of art as mediators between the consciousnesses of the author and the reader or as
attempts to disclose aspects of the being of humans and their worlds. The modern founder of
phenomenology is the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), who sought to make
philosophy "a rigorous science" by returning its attention "to the things themselves" (zu den Sachen
selbst). He does not mean by this that philosophy should become empirical, as if "facts" could be
determined objectively and absolutely. Rather, searching for foundations on which philosophers could
ground their knowledge with certainty, Husserl proposes that reflection put out of play all unprovable
assumptions (about the existence of objects, for example, or about ideal or metaphysical entities) and
describe what is given in experience.
https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literary-schools-of-theory/hermeneutics
Hermeneutics is a general theory of how people interpret stuff—and that stuff can be across multiple
genres and all manner of speaking and writing. Hermeneutics is less concerned with understanding
specific works of poetry or theology or case law or whatever than it is with understanding what it
means to understand in general.
NASRULLAH MAMBROL on NOVEMBER 23, 2016
https://literariness.org/2016/11/23/hermeneutics-a-brief-note/
The term “hermeneutics”, a Latinized version of the Greek “hermeneutice” has been part of
common Ianguage from the beginning of the 17th Century. Nevertheless, its history stretches back to
ancient philosophy. Addressing the understanding of religious intuitions, Plato used this term in a
number of dialogues, contrasting hermeneuic knowledge to that of “sophia” Religious knowledge is a
knowledge of what has been revealed or said; it is a contrast to “sophia” (knowledge of the truth-value
of the utterances).
In religious studies and social philosophy, hermeneutics suggests the study of interpretation theory,
and can either be the art of interpretation, or the theory and practice of interpretation. Traditional
hermeneutics (including Biblical hermeneutics) refers to the story of the interpretation of written texts,
especially texts in the areas of literature, religion and law. Contemporary or modern hermeneutics
encompasses not only issues involving the written text, but everything in the interpretative process.
This includes verbal and nonverbal forms of communication as well as prior aspects that affect
communication, such as presuppositions, preunderstandings, the meaning and.philosophy of
language, and Semiotics.
Related Studies on Phenomenology and Hermeneutics:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermeneutics/
First published Wed Jun 22, 2016
Johann Conrad Dannhauer was the first to present a systematic textbook on general hermeneutics
(Jaeger 1974), the Idea boni interpretis et malitiosi calumniatoris (1630) introducing the Latin
neologism hermeneutica as the title of a general modus sciendi. The intention of this work was to
supplement the Aristotelian Organon and its subject matter to distinguish between the true and false
meaning of any text (verum sensum a falso discernere). It is explicitly general in scope, relevant for
all scientific domains (una generalis omnibus scientiis communis) and applicable to the oral discourse
and texts of all authors (in omnibus auctorum scriptis et orationibus). A series of authors followed the
lead of Dannhauer who established the systematic locus of hermeneutics within logic (Schönert and
Vollhardt 2005). Most remarkable is the work of Johann Clauberg (1654), who introduced
sophisticated distinctions between the rules of interpretation with respect to their generality and
clarified the capturing of the intention of the author as a valuable aim of interpretative praxis. Thus, a
general hermeneutics had existed at least two centuries before Schleiermacher offered his own
conception at the beginning of the 19th century—so his claim that such a discipline did not already
exist before him is simply false (Schönert and Vollhardt 2005: 9; Detel 2011: 119ff., Scholz 2016:
68ff.)
The Erotic Bird: Phenomenology in Literature.
By Maurice Natanson.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998.
This work is particularly valuable for its clarification of concepts and terms that frequently emerge in
the phenomenology of literature. Natanson, a prominent champion of phenomenology, draws upon
this method's unique power to show how fiction can highlight aspects of experience that are normally
left unexamined. Drawing upon his philosophical predecessors Edmund Husserl, Alfred Schutz, and
Jean-Paul Sartre, Natanson paves his own way with stories and examples that themselves bear
witness to how phenomenology occurs in literature.
11. FEMINIST THEORY AND CRITICISM

Linda Napikoski February 06, 2020
Feminist literary criticism (also known as feminist criticism) is the literary analysis that arises from the
viewpoint of feminism, feminist theory, and/or feminist politics.
A feminist literary critic resists traditional assumptions while reading a text. In addition to challenging
assumptions which were thought to be universal, feminist literary criticism actively supports including
women's knowledge in literature and valuing women's experiences. The basic methods of feminist
literary criticism include:
Identifying with female characters: By examining the way female characters are defined, critics
challenge the male-centered outlook of authors. Feminist literary criticism suggests that women in
literature have been historically presented as objects seen from a male perspective.
Reevaluating literature and the world in which literature is read: By revisiting the classic literature, the
critic can question whether society has predominantly valued male authors and their literary works
because it has valued males more than females.
Feminist literary criticism recognizes that literature both reflects and shapes stereotypes and other
cultural assumptions. Thus, feminist literary criticism examines how works of literature embody
patriarchal attitudes or undercut them, sometimes both happening within the same work.
of_criticism/feminist_criticism.html
Feminist criticism has, in many ways, followed what some theorists call the three waves of feminism:
First Wave Feminism - late 1700s-early 1900's: writers like Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the
Rights of Women, 1792) highlight the inequalities between the sexes. Activists like Susan B. Anthony
and Victoria Woodhull contribute to the women's suffrage movement, which leads to National
Universal Suffrage in 1920 with the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Second Wave Feminism - early 1960s-late 1970s: building on more equal working conditions
necessary in America during World War II, movements such as the National Organization for Women
(NOW), formed in 1966, cohere feminist political activism. Writers like Simone de Beauvoir (Le
Deuxième Sexe, 1949) and Elaine Showalter established the groundwork for the dissemination of
feminist theories dove-tailed with the American Civil Rights movement.
Third Wave Feminism - early 1990s-present: resisting the perceived essentialist (over generalized,
over simplified) ideologies and a white, heterosexual, middle class focus of second wave feminism,
third wave feminism borrows from post-structural and contemporary gender and race theories (see
below) to expand on marginalized populations' experiences. Writers like Alice Walker work to
"...reconcile it [feminism] with the concerns of the black community...[and] the survival and wholeness
of her people, men and women both, and for the promotion of dialog and community as well as for the
valorization of women and of all the varieties of work women perform" (Tyson 107).
Related Studies on Feminism Criticism:
Feminist theory and various forms of feminist critique began long before the formal naming of the
school of literary criticism. In so-called first-wave feminism, the "Woman's Bible," written in the late
19th century by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, is an example of a work of criticism firmly in this school,
looking beyond the more obvious male-centered outlook and interpretation.
During the period of second-wave feminism, academic circles increasingly challenged the male
literary canon. Feminist literary criticism has since intertwined with postmodernism and increasingly
complex questions of gender and societal roles.
Little, Judith. "Liberated Alice: Dodgson's female hero as domestic rebel." Women's Studies 3.2
(1976): 195. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 16 Feb. 2011.
Feminist critics incorporate many other literary schools (historical, psychoanalytic, etc) to “increase
our understanding of women’s experience, both in the past and present, and promote our
appreciation of women’s value in the world” (119). They are extremely wide-ranging in scope,
interest, topics, and conclusions. The practice of feminist criticism usually entails examining how the
gender roles of a work of literature reflect or subvert “traditional” gender roles.
of_criticism/feminist_criticism.html
Mary Wollstonecraft - A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792
Simone de Beauvoir - Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex), 1949
Julia Kristeva - About Chinese Women, 1977
Elaine Showalter - A Literature of Their Own, 1977; "Toward a Feminist Poetics," 1979
Deborah E. McDowell - "New Directions for Black Feminist Criticism," 1980
Alice Walker - In Search of Our Mother's Gardens, 1983
Lillian S. Robinson - "Treason out Text: Feminist Challenges to the Literary Canon," 1983
Camille Paglia - Sexual Personae: The Androgyne in Literature and Art, 1990
12. GAY AND LESBIAN CRITICISM AND QUEER THEORY
of_criticism/gender_studies_and_queer_theory.html
Gender studies and queer theory explore issues of sexuality, power, and marginalized populations
(woman as other) in literature and culture. Much of the work in gender studies and queer theory, while
influenced by feminist criticism, emerges from post-structural interest in fragmented, de-centered
knowledge building (Nietzsche, Derrida, Foucault), language (the breakdown of sign-signifier), and
psychoanalysis (Lacan).
A primary concern in gender studies and queer theory is the manner in which gender and sexuality is
discussed: "Effective as this work [feminism] was in changing what teachers taught and what the
students read, there was a sense on the part of some feminist critics that...it was still the old game
that was being played, when what it needed was a new game entirely. The argument posed was that
in order to counter patriarchy, it was necessary not merely to think about new texts, but to think about
them in radically new ways" (Richter 1432).
Therefore, a critic working in gender studies and queer theory might even be uncomfortable with the
binary established by many feminist scholars between masculine and feminine: "Cixous (following
Derrida in Of Grammatology) sets up a series of binary oppositions (active/passive,
sun/moon...father/mother, logos/pathos). Each pair can be analyzed as a hierarchy in which the
former term represents the positive and masculine and the latter the negative and feminine principle"
(Richter 1433-1434).
Luce Irigaray - Speculum of the Other Woman, 1974
Hélène Cixous - "The Laugh of the Medusa," 1976
Laura Mulvey - "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," 1975; "Afterthoughts on Visual Pleasure and
Narrative Cinema," 1981
Michel Foucault - The History of Sexuality, Volume I, 1980
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick - Epistemology of the Closet, 1994
Lee Edelman - "Homographesis," 1989
Michael Warner
Judith Butler - "Imitation and Gender Insubordination," 1991
13. POST-COLONIAL THEORY AND CRITICISM
of_criticism/post_colonial_criticism.html
Post-colonial criticism is similar to cultural studies, but it assumes a unique perspective on literature
and politics that warrants a separate discussion. Specifically, post-colonial critics are concerned with
literature produced by colonial powers and works produced by those who were/are colonized. Post-
colonial theory looks at issues of power, economics, politics, religion, and culture and how these
elements work in relation to colonial hegemony (Western colonizers controlling the colonized).
Therefore, a post-colonial critic might be interested in works such as Daniel Defoe's Robinson

Crusoe where colonial "...ideology [is] manifest in Crusoe's colonialist attitude toward the land upon
which he's shipwrecked and toward the black man he 'colonizes' and names Friday" (Tyson 377). In
addition, post-colonial theory might point out that "...despite Heart of Darkness's (Joseph Conrad)
obvious anti-colonist agenda, the novel points to the colonized population as the standard of
savagery to which Europeans are contrasted" (Tyson 375). Post-colonial criticism also takes the form
of literature composed by authors that critique Euro-centric hegemony.
Seminal post-colonial writers such as Nigerian author Chinua Achebe and Kenyan author Ngugi wa
Thiong'o have written a number of stories recounting the suffering of colonized people. For example,
in Things Fall Apart, Achebe details the strife and devastation that occurred when British colonists
began moving inland from the Nigerian coast.
Rather than glorifying the exploratory nature of European colonists as they expanded their sphere of
influence, Achebe narrates the destructive events that led to the death and enslavement of thousands
of Nigerians when the British imposed their Imperial government. In turn, Achebe points out the
negative effects (and shifting ideas of identity and culture) caused by the imposition of Western
religion and economics on Nigerians during colonial rule.
Criticism
 Edward Said - Orientalism, 1978; Culture and Imperialism, 1994

 Kamau Brathwaite - The History of the Voice, 1979
 Gayatri Spivak - In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics, 1987
 Dominick LaCapra - The Bounds of Race: Perspectives on Hegemony and Resistance, 1991
 Homi Bhabha - The Location of Culture, 1994
Literature and non-fiction
 Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart, 1958

 Ngugi wa Thiong'o - The River Between, 1965
 Sembene Ousmane - God's Bits of Wood, 1962
 Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - Heat and Dust, 1975
 Buchi Emecheta - The Joys of Motherhood, 1979
 Keri Hulme - The Bone People, 1983
 Robertson Davies - What's Bred in the Bone, 1985
 Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day, 1988
 Bharati Mukherjee - Jasmine, 1989
 Jill Ker Conway - The Road from Coorain, 1989
 Helena Norberg-Hodge - Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, 1991
 Michael Ondaatje - The English Patient, 1992
 Gita Mehta - A River Sutra, 1993
 Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things, 1997
 Patrick Chamoiseau - Texaco, 1997
14. CULTURAL AND ETHNICITY STUDIES
Introduction to Literature
Michael Delahoyde
https://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/cultural.html
Cultural criticism, or cultural studies, is related to New Historicism but with a particular and cross-
disciplinary emphasis on taking seriously those works traditionally marginalized by the aesthetic
ideology of white European males. It examines social, economic, and political conditions that effect
institutions and products such as literature and questions traditional value hierarchies. Thus it
scrutinizes the habitual privileging of race, class, and gender, and also subverts the standard
distinctions between "high art" and low. Instead of more attention to the canon, cultural studies
examines works by minority ethnic groups and postcolonial writers, the products of folk, urban, and
mass culture. Popular literature, soap opera, rock and rap music, cartoons, professional wrestling,
food, etc. -- all fall within the domain of cultural criticism.
https://iep.utm.edu/literary/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CEthnic%20Studies%E2%80%9D%20concerns
%20itself%20generally,in%20the%20period%20post%2Dcolonization.
Vince Brewton
“Ethnic Studies,” sometimes referred to as “Minority Studies,” has an obvious historical relationship
with “Postcolonial Criticism” in that Euro-American imperialism and colonization in the last four
centuries, whether external (empire) or internal (slavery) has been directed at recognizable ethnic
groups: African and African-American, Chinese, the subaltern peoples of India, Irish, Latino, Native
American, and Philipino, among others. “Ethnic Studies” concerns itself generally with art and
literature produced by identifiable ethnic groups either marginalized or in a subordinate position to a
dominant culture. “Postcolonial Criticism” investigates the relationships between colonizers and
colonized in the period post-colonization. Though the two fields are increasingly finding points of
intersection—the work of bell hooks, for example—and are both activist intellectual enterprises,
“Ethnic Studies and “Postcolonial Criticism” have significant differences in their history and ideas.
Related Studies:
Postcolonial and Ethnic Studies Criticism:
Think, for instance, of the frequent debates that have arisen over Mark Twain’s novel Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (you can read Huck FinnMark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1912;
University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center,
1995), http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Twa2Huc.html. in its entirety
at http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Twa2Huc.html). For years, literary critics, scholars,
students, and parents have debated whether the novel, written by a white American man, should be
considered racist (and, if so, whether it should be taught in schools). These debates center on three
major issues: (1) the novel’s depiction of Jim, the runaway slave who is simultaneously the novel’s
moral center and a frequent object of ridicule; (2) the novel’s frequent use of the pejorative term
“nigger” to describe its African American characters; and (3) the heavy dialect through which the
speech of black Americans is presented in the book. Schools have frequently debated banning
Twain’s novel, often in response to the concerns of parents or students.See Gregory Roberts, “‘Huck
Finn’ a Masterpiece—Or an Insult,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 25,
2003, http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Huck-Finn-a-masterpiece-or-an-insult-1130707.php.
There is no easy solution to these debates. As literary critic Stephen Railton put it nearly thirty years
ago: “Is Huck Finn racist? Yes and no; no and yes.”Stephen Railton, “Jim and Mark Twain: What Do
Dey Stan’ For?” The Virginia Quarterly Review. http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1987/summerrailton-
jim-mark/. However you feel about this novel, however, these debates illustrate the importance of
literary critics considering issues of race, ethnicity, and culture as they read and interpret literature.
Though it has happened more slowly than many cultural critics would like, the literary canon has
shifted in the past decades to reflect a wider sense of who writes literature and what we should learn
from it. The fact that we study American literature at all reflects an earlier shift away from a strict
focus on English writing. Moreover, students in American literature classrooms today study more
writers of color than did students even twenty years ago. Some African American writers are now
studied so frequently they could be called canonical, including Olaudah Equiano, Phillis Wheatley,
Frederick Douglass, Charles Chesnutt, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin,
Ralph Ellison, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison. American literature classes often cover writing by
Native American writers, such as Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdich, and Sherman Alexie, and by
Hispanic, Chicano/a, or Latino/a American writers such as George Santayana, Isabel Allende, and
Gary Soto. Moreover, British literature classrooms now routinely include works by authors from
former British colonies, such as Chinua Achebe (Nigeria), Jean Rhys (Dominica), Salman Rushdie
(India), and Anita Desai (India). Finally, courses in world literature regularly teach minority and/or
postcolonial writers who compose in languages other than English.
We recognize that these are incomplete lists. Indeed, even separating authors into these distinct
categories can be problematic, as many writers span geographic regions, ethnic identities, or racial
backgrounds. Nevertheless, these names can help get us started thinking about the diverse voices
that literature classrooms now include. Of course, scholars working in these fields would point out that
there is much work yet to be done to build a truly representative curriculum. Though minority and non-
Western writers are now studied regularly, they still occupy relatively small places in most literature
classrooms and curricula.
Looking at literature through the lens of social and cultural identity often requires that critics read
beyond the surface meanings of texts and think about the ethnic, cultural, and social implications of
the words on the page. For instance, let’s consider Phillis Wheatley’s “On being brought from Africa to
America,” which was published in her 1773 collection, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and
Moral:
On Being Brought from Africa to America.
’TWAS mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

“Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,”
in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (Denver: W. H. Lawrence, 1887), 17.
Wheatley was a slave, brought to Boston on the slave ship Phillis in 1761 and owned by John and
Susanna Wheatley, who gave her an education, which was uncommon for slaves at the time. On the
surface, Wheatley’s poem seems to praise the system of slavery that brought her to America, noting
that it was “mercy” that “brought [her] from [her] Pagan land.” With that latter phrase she seems to
disown her heritage as simply pagan, a “benighted” contrast to the Christian education she has
received in the United States. We might even accuse Wheatley of mimicry, or attempting to imitate
the language and (as you can see in the following engraving) dress of the ruling class.
15. STYLISTICS
Lesley Jeffries 26 JULY 2017
0048.xml
Stylistics is the study of textual meaning. Historically, it arose from the late-19th- and early-20th-
century Russian formalist approach to literary meaning, which endeavored to identify the textual
triggers of certain literary effects from their structures. As a result, for much of its history, stylistics has
been concerned with the style, and consequent meaning, of literary works.
Related Studies on Stylistics:
Crystal, David, and Derek Davy. Investigating English Style. London: Longman, 1966.
E-mail Citation »
An early, and at the time unique, application of linguistics to the study of stylistic differences between
nonliterary texts. Crystal and Davy’s aim was a practical and systematic method for identifying textual
style, based on regularity of occurrence of certain linguistic features in texts, linked to (situational and
other) external features.
Ehrlich, Victor. Russian Formalism: History, Doctrine. 2d ed. The Hague: Mouton, 1965.
E-mail Citation »
A critical but balanced study of the formalist origins of stylistics, this book traces the impetus for a
new discipline with objectivity and rigor resulting from the impatience of literary scholars with
“impressionistic criticism” and introduces the Russian formalists through the work of its most
distinguished pioneer, Roman Jakobson. First published 1955.
Enkvist, Nils Erik. Linguistic Stylistics. The Hague: Mouton, 1973.
DOI: 10.1515/9783111348926E-mail Citation »
Enkvist showcases the methods and techniques of stylistics that drew most strongly on new insights
from linguistics. His emphasis was on systematicity and transparency.
16. NARRATOLOGY
Monika Fludernik Caroline Pirlet
English and American Studies
Fludernik M., Pirlet C. (2012) Narratology. In: Middeke M., Müller T., Wald C., Zapf H. (eds)
English and American Studies. J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-00406-
2_13
Narratology refers to the study of narrative qua narrative. Narratology attempts to analyse what is
typical of narrative as a (macro)genre or text type in contrast to description, instruction,
argumentation, etc., or in contrast to drama or the lyric (in literary studies). Narratology is typically
concerned with the question of what is narrative, with answers ranging from essentialist proposals
(e.g. minimal definitions in Prince’s Dictionary of Narratology, see box) to fuzzy concept solutions
(Ryan) and constructivist frameworks (Fludernik, Towards). Besides the what of narratives,
narratologists have additionally been interested in the how: in the delineation and functions of
narrative elements or aspects, and in their systematic analysis. Several typologies of narrative texts
have been devised (see box). These typologies distinguish between different kinds of narrative, for
instance according to the identity of the narrator persona, the point of view from which the story is
told, or the temporal relationship between telling and told; in some cases they propose prototypical
combinations of these features as in Stanzel’s narrative situations. Narratologists moreover study the
‘making’ of narratives by considering the effects of the devices and elements in their functional
interrelation.
17. ECOCRITICISM
of_criticism/ecocriticism.html#:~:text=Ecocriticism%20is%20an%20umbrella%20term,a%20difficult
%20term%20to%20define.&text=But%2C%20%E2%80%9Csimply%20put%2C
%20ecocriticism,environment%E2%80%9D%20(Glotfelty%20xviii).
Ecocriticism is an umbrella term under which a variety of approaches fall; this can make it a difficult
term to define. As ecocritic Lawrence Buell says, ecocriticism is an “increasingly heterogeneous
movement” (1). But, “simply put, ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and
the physical environment” (Glotfelty xviii).
First and Second Waves
Several scholars have divided Ecocriticism into two waves (Buell)(Glotfelty), recognizing the first as
taking place throughout the eighties and nineties. The first wave is characterized by its emphasis on
nature writing as an object of study and as a meaningful practice (Buell). Central to this wave and to
the majority of ecocritics still today is the environmental crisis of our age, seeing it as the duty of both
the humanities and the natural sciences to raise awareness and invent solutions for a problem that is
both cultural and physical. As such, a primary concern in first-wave ecocriticism was to “speak for”
nature (Buell 11). This is, perhaps, where ecocriticism gained its reputation as an “avowedly political
mode of analysis” (Garrard 3). This wave, unlike its successor, kept the cultural distinction between
human and nature, promoting the value of nature.
The second wave is particularly modern in its breaking down of some of the long-standing distinctions
between the human and the non-human, questioning these very concepts (Garrard 5). The
boundaries between the human and the non-human, nature and non-nature are discussed as
constructions, and ecocritics challenge these constructions, asking (among other things) how they
frame the environmental crisis and its solution. This wave brought with it a redefinition of the term
“environment,” expanding its meaning to include both “nature” and the urban (Buell 11). Out of this
expansion has grown the ecojustice movement, one of the more political of ecocriticism branches that
is “raising an awareness of class, race, and gender through ecocritical reading of text” (Bressler 236),
often examining the plight of the poorest of a population who are the victims of pollution are seen as
having less access to “nature” in the traditional sense.
These waves are not exactly distinct, and there is debate over what exactly constitutes the two. For
instance, some ecocritics will claim activism has been a defining feature of ecocriticism from the
beginning, while others see activism as a defining feature of primarily the first wave. While the exact
features attributed to each wave may be disputed, it is clear that Ecocriticism continues to evolve and
has undergone several shifts in attitude and direction since its conception.
Theory and Criticism
 Lawrence Buell - “The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation
of American Culture” (1995) and “Toxic Discourse,” 1998
 Charles Bressler - Literary criticism: an introduction to theory and practice, 1999
 Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm – The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology,
(1996)
 GregGarrard– Ecocriticism, 2004
 Donna Haraway - "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the
Late Twentieth Century," (1991)
 ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (Journal)
 Joseph Makus - The Comedy of Survival: literary ecology and a play ethic, (1972)
 Leo Marx – The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America, (1964)
 Raymond Williams - The Country and The City, (1975)
Literature & Literary Figures

Edward Abbey
 Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (1968)

 Appalachian Wilderness (1970)
 The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975)
Mary Hunter Austin
 The Land of Little Rain (1903)
Rachel Carson
 Silent Spring (1962)
Aldo Leopold
 A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There (1949)
John Muir
 A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf (1916)

 Studies in the Sierra (1950)
Henry David Thoreau
 Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854)
Williams Wordsworth
 Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798)

 Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems (1800)
18. COMPLEXITY THEORY
John T. Murphy 28 FEBRUARY 2017

0169.xml
Complexity theory is a collection of theories and approaches that began to grow to prominence in the
1990s, that attempt to address the behavior of systems not readily understood using traditional
approaches, and that do so in a way that finds common ground across a wide array of such systems,
regardless of domain. Complexity theory addresses highly nonlinear systems and systems that
exhibit emergent, self-organized, and adaptive behavior. Domains include virtually every field of
study, from economics, to cosmology, to genetic evolution, to cognition and artificial intelligence. Its
appeal is that it proposes that common principles guide the dynamics and evolution of systems
across all of these domains, and that these principles reflect a deeper order that profoundly structures
the physical and social world in which we live. The theory includes rich mathematical approaches and
a heavy emphasis on models and modeling, and it is closely associated with advances in
computational techniques and computing power. Complexity theory remains a field on its own, in part
due to the existence of several prominent centers that take complexity as their central organizing
principle and bring researchers from multiple disciplines to work together within a complexity
framework; the most notable of these is the independent Santa Fe Institute, but many others exist.
Because of its wide range, complexity theory can be approached in a number of ways, but the
position taken here is that it should be discussed in part as a body of theory, and in part as a
collection of applications in various fields. The main line of complexity theory can be abstracted away
from any specific domain, but doing this would hide some of the richness that is found in the specific
domain applications.
Related Studies:
A number of general overviews of complexity theory are available. Nicolis and Prigogine

1989 provides one of the earliest, grounded in the scientific vocabulary of physics and
chemistry. Waldrop 1993, Gell-Mann 1994, and Mitchell 2009 provide overviews for a popular
audience. Cowan, et al. 1999 provides a kind of overview in the form of a recapitulation of one of the
early workshops among the leaders in developing complexity theory. Other general resources include
the journal Complexity and the collection of working papers generated by the Santa Fe Institute
Working Papers.
19. EAGLETON'S AFTER THEORY
After Theory
by
Terry Eagleton
(A review of the book)
For anyone forced to wrestle with the likes of Derrida and Foucault during their college days, Terry
Eagleton needs no introduction. His clear and accessible primer on literary theory was (and is) an
indispensable guide to the post-modern era in the humanities. Now Eagleton argues that the golden
age of cultural theory has ended, and with characteristic wit and verve, he traces its rise and fall from
structuralism to post-colonial studies and beyond. In a new era of globalization and terrorism,
Eagleton warns, the bundle of ideas known as post-modernism is essentially toothless. In this
eloquent synthesis of a lifetime of learning, Eagleton challenges contemporary intellectuals to engage
with a range of vital topics-love, evil, death, morality, religion, and revolution-that they've ignored over
the past thirty years. Lively and provocative, Eagleton's latest will engage readers inside and outside
the academy who are eager for a more holistic and humane way of "reading" the world. "A rare
opportunity to enjoy the art of cultural and social diagnosis at its purest! Eagleton offers a unique
combination of theoretical stringency and acerbic common-sense witticism, of critical historical
reflection and the ability to ask the 'big' metaphysical questions." -- Slavoj Zizek
Lament or Expectation: After Theory Revisited
Li Tang 28 Jun 2017
This essay makes a comment on Terry Eagleton’s After Theory, discusses the major issues of this
book including the relationship between theory and politics, postmodernism, cultural theory, anti-
theory and the like, and verifies Eagleton’s “political criticism” position. This essay intents to indicate
that After Theory is not a lament for “the death of theory” but an expectation to a new paradigm of
theory.
After Theory (2003) has been widely considered to be Eagleton’s manifesto on “the end of theory”
ever since it was published. On its prefatory note, Eagleton points out that this book argues against
the so-called current orthodoxy. He asserts that this orthodoxy cannot meet the demands of the
contemporary political situation, and the purpose of this book is to explain the reason, furthermore
find out the remedy (see prefatory note). Therefore, “lament on theory” is not the major purpose of
this book. To some extent, After Theory is an epigrammatic argumentation toward theory, conveying
a dissatisfaction about the deficiency of nowadays theory. Eagleton’s real purpose is to appeal
emphasis on the political–critical function of theory, namely, the innovation of theory. His “after
theory” is not a declaration of “the end of theory,” but a dissatisfaction of the current theory and an
expectation of a new theoretical paradigm.
Eagleton points out, “if theory means a reasonable systematic reflection on our guiding assumptions,
it remains as indispensable as ever” (Eagleton 2004, p. 2). In the afterword of Literary Theory: An
Introduction (Second edition, 1996), Eagleton asserts, “theory indicates that our classical ways of
carving up knowledge are now, for hard historical reasons, in deep trouble. But it is as much a
revealing symptom of this breakdown as a positive reconfiguration of the field.”(Eagleton 1996, p.
207) He regards literary theory as one part of institutionalization, as the reflection of political ideology.
“(…) the history of modern literary theory is part of the political and ideological history of our epoch”
(Eagleton 1996, p. 169). According to him, surely there is some certain political tendency carved in
every literary theory. The importance of theory lies in revealing, criticizing, and challenging the
mainstream value. Therefore, “literary theories are not to be upbraided for being political, but for
being on the whole covertly or unconsciously so” (Eagleton 1996, p. 170). He emphasizes the
importance of political dimension of theory
(…) literary theory has been indissociably bound up with political beliefs and ideological values.
Indeed, literary theory is less an object of intellectual enquiry in its own right than a particular
perspective in which to view the history of our times. (Eagleton 1996, p. 170)
He apparently denies the death of theory: the “universal values” which lead to the death of theory do
not exist: “if they were ever to do so, the theorist could relievedly lay down his or her theorizing, which
would have been made redundant precisely by being politically realized, and do something more
interesting for a change” (Eagleton 1996, p. 208).
After Theory, indeed, is a reflection upon literary theory also its function and status in contemporary
consumption society. The title of the first chapter of After Theory – “The Politics of
Amnesia” – indicates Eagleton’s appeal of reemphasizing political dimension and critical nature in
literary theory, also its guiding function in practice. To him, Marxism is perhaps the firmest position he
has hold during his such a long academic career. “Literary production,” “capital,” and “consumption”
are the key words for Marxist study. In After Theory, Eagleton reflects upon these significant topics. It
seems that he equals the popularity of consumption, entertainment, body, sex, and alike in culture to
the loss of faith. He asserts, “a more canny, consumerist kind of capitalism, however, persuades us to
indulge our senses and gratify ourselves as shamelessly as possible” (Eagleton 2004, p. 5–6). The
consumption capitalism “amuses ourselves to death,” makes the public lose morality and ration. This
not only leads to the further expansion of consumption society but also identifies the self-fulfillment of
individual with the survival of the system. Since conservatism gained the upper hand from 1970s,
people indulged themselves into the pursuit of material desire and the meaningless recreations, thus
led to the continuous decrease of historical sense and responsible sense. In a society which is full of
consumptions and recreations, the absence of memories of collective and effective political action is
inevitable. Following by this, lots of contemporary cultural ideas have been out of shape. To this,
Eagleton sighs: “There is a historical vortex at the centre of our thought which drags in out of true”
(Eagleton 2004, p. 7). He thinks it is urgent to solve this problem. “The future would simply be the
present infinitely repeated” (Eagleton 2004, p. 7), which suits the intention of the person in power if
we cannot find an alternative method. Therefore, the paradigm shift of theory is pressing. To him, the
ideal paradigm of literary theory is to insist on the relevance between critical activity and political
behavior.
Eagleton defines culture like this: “Pleasure, desire, art, language, the media, the body, gender,
ethnicity: a single word to sum all these up would be culture” (Eagleton 2004, p. 39). Meantime,
“cultural ideas change with the world they reflect upon” (Eagleton 2004, p. 23). Various new cultural
ideas emerge from capitalism, however, “the concept of culture grew up as a critique of middle-class
society, not as ally of it” (Eagleton 2004, p. 25). This causes the complicated relationship between
culture and capitalism. Since 1970s, the crisis of capitalism worldwide kept increasing continuously,
“Third Worldism” gave way to “postcolonialism.” To some extent, Eagleton does not approve the
popularity of postcolonialism so much. He claims:
much post-colonial theory shifted the focus from class and nation to ethnicity. This meant among
other things that the distinctive problems of post-colonial culture were often falsely assimilated to the
very different question of Western ‘identity politics’. Since ethnicity is largely a cultural affair, this shift
of focus was also one from politics to culture. (Eagleton 2004, p. 12)
In other words, the focus of theory has shifted from politics to culture, from poststructuralism to
postmodernism and postcolonialism, which seems to be easier to be understood and realistic.
“Poststructuralism was a current of ideas, but postmodernism and post-colonialism were real-life
formations” (Eagleton 2004, p. 53).
Eagleton asserts that what probably will end is postmodernism, replaced by a new global narrative of
capitalism. Postmodernism, to Eagleton, is contrary to “totalities, universal values, grand historical
narratives, solid foundations to human existence and the possibility of objective knowledge”
(Eagleton 2004, p. 13). It attacks ultimate truth, objectivity, eternal moral value, scientific research,
the faith of historical progress, and alike. Meantime it questions cultural elitism and social
normalization, tends to cultural relativism, diversity, discontinuity, and heterogeneity. Postmodernism
advocates those who are out of “discipline,” namely, the marginal, perverse, and aberrant, and
regards them as the subversive power of social normativity. Nevertheless, Eagleton does not totally
agree with this anti-normative and anti-disciplinary behavior. He asserts the postmodernist bias
toward normative, integrity and consensus is a severely political disaster. “We have shifted from a
national culture with a single set of rules to a motley assortment of sub-cultures, each one at an angle
to the others” (Eagleton 2004, p. 17). In postmodernist condition, the distinctions between the real
and the fictional, history and lie, culture and economy, high art and popular art, left wing and right
wing, and alike, get blurred. Consumption and entertainment occupy the major trend of the society. In
such a society, mass culture and various sub-cultures are regarded as important social power; social
hierarchies and traditions are under satiric assault. Social spirit shifts from self-disciplined and
submissive to hedonistic and insubordinate.
One major purpose of After Theory is to recover the power relations between literary theories and
political ideology. Eagleton is unsatisfied with the deficiency of “cultural politics” and cultural theory.
“As leftist political hopes faded, cultural studies came to the fore. Dreams of ambitious social change
were denounced as illicit ‘grand narratives’, more likely to lead to totalitarianism than to liberty”
(Eagleton 2004, p. 45). Under this circumstance, “cultural politics” comes into being, which
emphasizes that the effectiveness of politics depends on its cultural factor. With the increasing
dominance of culture industry in nowadays society, “culture, economic production, political
dominance and ideological propaganda seemed to have merged into a single featureless whole”
(Eagleton 2004, p. 49). On the surface, cultural theory blends politics and culture, and this blend
keeps the vigor of politics. Yet gradually culture replaces politics. The heyday of cultural theory
indicates the recession of politics in theory. As leftism retreats to neo-pragmatism, the political right
becomes increasingly ambitious and begins to dismantle cultural theory from inside. Cultural theory,
which advocates focusing on social activities and realistic experiences, is rather a conservative
retreat of politics than the practice of theory.
To some extent, cultural theory has not abandon politics; it also reflects upon political ideas. Indeed,
cultural theory “became the continuation of politics by other means” (Eagleton 2004, p. 29). The
characteristics of consumption society – discourse, desire, and other new theories alike –
were not simply alternatives to a political leftism that had failed. They were also ways of deepening
and enriching it … Cultural theory was there to remind the traditional left of what it has flouted: art,
pleasure, gender, power, sexuality, language, madness, desire, spirituality, the family, the body, the
ecosystem, the unconscious, ethnicity, life-style, hegemony. (Eagleton 2004, p. 30).
The reason why Marxism shifted to culture is partly out of political impotence and disenchantment. All
in all, in Eagleton’s view, culture theory is not an effective theoretical paradigm under nowadays
situation. Since the moment it was thrust into prominence, it has been in perpetual crisis. “For it has
been called upon to take over these functions in a post-religious age; and it is hardly surprising that
for the most part it has lamentably failed to do so” (Eagleton 2004, p. 99). The inevitable result of
cultural theory is that, it must start self-reflecting ambitiously, so that “it can seek to make sense of the
grand narratives in which it is now embroiled” (Eagleton 2004, p. 73). Culture theory once promised to
solve some problems, yet it failed.
Eagleton discusses about the anti-theory trend since 1980s. He claims that although anti-theory is
somewhat an interesting doubt, “anti-theory, however, means more than wanting nothing to do with
theory” (Eagleton 2004, p. 54). He refutes the ideas of anti-theorist just as Richard Rorty and Stanley
Fish from the following aspects: first, theory is one part of life which cannot set itself apart. Theory is
life, culture is convention; therefore, it is difficult for us to verify it because we are in our social lives
and conventions. Second, anti-theorists assert that only via standing outside culture and theory that
can we criticize them. However, “reflecting critically on our situation is part of our situation”
(Eagleton 2004, p. 60). Self-reflection roots in human mind is a kind of critical spirit. Thus, we can and
we must stand inside our culture and theory to launch our self-reflective campaign. In Eagleton’s
view, “most of the objections to theory are either false or fairly trifling” (Eagleton 2004, p. 101). To
some extent, anti-theory is our nature; meantime theory is necessary for us to uncover the fact. The
purpose of anti-theory is, somehow, a catalyst to the paradigm shift of theory.
Eagleton laments that “the golden age of cultural theory is long past” (Eagleton 2004, p. 1). He
asserts that although the time of high theory past away, we are still under its influence. To him,
neither high theory nor the following cultural theory is the ideal paradigm. What he looks forward is a
new one, which insists on the connection between critical activities and political activities. At the
beginning of the twenty-first century, a new and ominous phase of global politics has opened. In
contemporary situation, theory faces both challenge and hope:
(Theory) presents cultural theory with a fresh challenge. If it is to engage with an ambitious global
history, it must have answerable resource of its own, equal in depth and scope to the situation it
confronts. It cannot afford simply to keep recounting the same narratives of class, race and gender,
indispensable as these topics are. (Eagleton 2004, p. 221)
Theory must find a new method, a new paradigm, to solve questions in new dimensions.
After Theory is not a lament to theory; even if so, it is merely a lament to high theory and cultural
theory, because both of them cannot suit nowadays society. After Theory is, actually, an expectation
of building new paradigm of theory on a more grand and responsible level. This new paradigm yearns
for solving those questions which are evasive by postmodernism: truth, virtue, faith, objectivity,
morality, religion, revolution, nature, death, evil, non-being, willpower, non-utilitarianism, and alike.
Eagleton’s conception on new paradigm not only conceives a more expanded Marxism, but also the
reassessment on Western liberalism. To those who insist on “foundationalism,” it is high time for them
to reflect upon the foundation of Western culture. The non-utilitarianism he advocates is a refutation
against the capitalist selfishness; meantime, “objectivity” in his view is an affirmation on the
independent existence of “the other.” His ideas on new paradigm are neither merely a simple defense
for traditional Western thoughts nor the radical politics of left intellectuals, but a critical reflection upon
material culture and Western value since enlightenment (see Selden, 2005, p. 276). His later works
insist on his Marxist position and his conception of this new paradigm, focusing on the questions he
wants to solve: Materialism (2017), Culture (2016), Culture and the Death of God (2015), Hope
without Optimism (2015), Why Marx Was Right (2012), Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on
the God Debate (2010), to name a few. Meantime, he adds new dimensions to his criticism, for
instance, the zeal toward literariness and literary text itself: How to Read Literature (2014), The Event
of Literature (2013), and alike.
To sum up, After Theory is not a lament, but an expectation. “Theory was a kind of homoeopathy,
using reflection in order to get us beyond it” (Eagleton 2004, p. 72). Only through reflection upon old
paradigms of theory can we find a new, promising paradigm. Anyhow, as Eagleton says, “We can
never be ‘after theory, in the sense that there can be no reflective human life without it”
(Eagleton 2004, p. 221). This book indicates not an end of theory, but a new beginning: “It needs to
chance its arm, break out of a rather stifling orthodoxy and explore new topics, not least those of
which it has so far been unreasonably shy. This book has been an opening move in that inquiry”
(Eagleton 2004, p. 221).
References:
1. Matterson S. (1990) The Formalist Approach. In: The Great Gatsby. The Critics Debate.
Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20768-8_2
2. https://www.basic-concept.com/c/definition-of-formalism-including-properties
3. Formalism. (2018, January 9). Retrieved January 9, 2018, from

http://blogs.bcu.ac.uk/virtualtheorist/formalism/
4. Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). The Metamorphosis. Retrieved January 9,
2018, from https://www.shmoop.com/metamorphosis/
5. Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). Formalism Texts – Translations from the
Natural World by Les Murray (1992). Retrieved January 9, 2018, from
https://www.shmoop.com/formalism/translations-from-the-natural-world-text.html
6. https://www.academia.edu/38337490/Formalist_Approach_to_Shakespeares_Lyrical_Cycle_d
ocx
7. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/reader-response-theory
8. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282414735_Applying_the_Reader-
Response_Theory_to_Literary_Texts_in_EFL-Pre-Service_Teachers'_Initial_Education
9. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334605167_Reader-
Response_Theory_and_Literature_Discussions_a_Springboard_for_Exploring_Literary_Te
xts
10. https://eric.ed.gov/?q=+Reader+Response+Theory+literaries&id=EJ644821
11. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/structuralism#:~:text=In%20literary
%20theory%2C%20structuralism%20challenged,and%20situated%20among%20other
%20texts.&text=Structuralism%20regarded%20language%20as%20a,had%20given%20way
%20to%20poststructuralism.
12. https://literariness.org/2016/03/20/structuralism/
13. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780190221911/obo-
9780190221911-0024.xml
14. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325668354_Semiotics_and_Symbolism_in_Literary_
Communication
15. https://sites.wp.odu.edu/tatum-fisherengl333/theory-1/
16. Bagchi, Rajarshi. (2011). Re: What is deconstruction? how to apply it on novel?. Retrieved
from:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_deconstruction_how_to_apply_it_on_novel/4ea26
92a7ef068c454000000/citation/download.
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9780190221911-0008.xml
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https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/am-need-examples-new-historicism-literature-397701.
Accessed 20 Sep. 2020.
19.

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1.

The formal properties of a literary work include:

Words (meaning of the words)

Shape/structure of the text

Harmony of the words

The rhythm of the sentences

Rhyming of the words

Meaning of the text as a whole

The formal properties of a literary work do NOT include:

Time of the work

Background of the work

Representation of the work

The symbolism of the words

Author’s moral, religious, or political values

Author’s personal life

Related Studies on Formalism:

Formalist Approach to Shakespeare's Lyrical Cycle.docx

University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Philosophy

 John Crowe Ransom - The New Criticism, 1938

Neo-Aristotelianism (Chicago School of Criticism)

 R.S. Crane - Critics and Criticism: Ancient and Modern, 1952

2. Reader Response Theory

Related Studies on Reader-Response Theory:

Eliana Garzón Duarte Harold Castaneda-Pena July 2015

Cagri Tugrul Mart July 2019

 Peter Rabinowitz - Before Reading, 1987

Structuralism in Literary Theory

theory of modes, or historical criticism (tragic, comic, and thematic);

theory of symbols, or ethical criticism (literal/descriptive, formal, mythical, and anagogic);

theory of myths, or archetypal criticism (comedy, romance, tragedy, irony/satire);

Peirce and Saussure

Related Studies on Structuralism:

The French social anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss applied the structuralist outlook to cultural

Stéphanie Walsh Matthews 26 JULY 2017

The Theory of Signification: Semiotic Criticism and Literature

Murat Kalelioglu December 2017

Related Studies on Semiotics:

Rajarshi Bagchi 22nd Oct, 2011

LAST MODIFIED: 26 JULY 2017

Related Studies on Post-Structuralism:

LYPHEN EVERYWORD JUN 9, 2011

Related Studies on Psychoanalysis:

You can analyze the author’s life.

You can analyze the artistic construction of a text.

Here is a quick overview of some psychoanalytical interpretations that demonstrate these

Analyze the Author’s Life

An example showing a psychoanalytic focus on literary characters is Frederick Crews’s reading

Analyze the Artistic Construction

Analyze the Reader

Related Studies on Marxism:

Marxism In Modern Literature

b) Writing As A Means of Controlling Ideology: Marxist theory suggests that if hegemony is

Influence On Readers And Critics

"New Historicism Examples" eNotes Editorial, 21 Jan. 2011, https://www.enotes.com/homework-

Related Studies on New Historicism:

New Historicism applied on William Shakespeare’s"The Tempest"

SINA LOCKLEY (AUTHOR) Term Paper, 2014

10. PHENOMENOLOGY AND HERMENEUTICS

Phenomenology is a philosophy of experience. For phenomenology the ultimate source of all

NASRULLAH MAMBROL on NOVEMBER 23, 2016

Related Studies on Phenomenology and Hermeneutics:

First published Wed Jun 22, 2016

The Erotic Bird: Phenomenology in Literature.