Critical Theories & Essays

 Socrates (470-399 BC): “the unexamined life is not worth living; Socratic Method; Theory of
knowledge; essential nature of ideas: knowledge, courage.
 Plato (428-347 BC): “Dialogues” Ideal city; world of forms & material; condemns poetry (mother of
lies, corrupts morally & thrice away from reality); division of soul (wisdom, spirit, appetite); four
virtues (wisdom, courage, temperance & justice); myth of cave
 Aristotle (384-322 BC): pupil of Plato; favors poetry; The Poetics
1. To discuss poetry, its kinds, plot, nature & elements of poetry; Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy,
Dithyrambic & lyrical music differ in medium, object & manner; the medium of music is rhyme &
harmony, of dance is rhythmic; using language in meter are (mistakenly) called poets be it literature
or medicine; Making plot is poetry.
2. Object is man, either better, real, or worse than common people; in epic, Homer’s better, Cleophon’s
as they are & Hegemon’s, (the inventor of parodies) worse; Tragedy: better; comedy: worse than
common
3. Manner: narration or dramatization; Sophocles & Homer differ only in medium; drama: action
poetry
4. Poetry has 2 natural causes; 1st is love for imitation; the pleasure imitation gives; 2nd is love for
rhythm & harmony; Poems imitating noble actions (hymns to gods) & imitating meaner actions
(satire); satire goes back to Homer (Margites) who used meter so there were heroic (led to tagedy) &
lampooning verses (led to comedy); Tragedy (result of Dithyramb) was pioneered by Aeschylus
(second actor) & Sophocles (3rd actor & scene painting) & iambic; Comedy (result of phallic songs
komos) from Satyrs
5. Comedy: lower than common but not destructive; no known history; plot came from Sicily;
Athenian writers Crates developed it; Tragedy differs from epic in manner, meter (1 in epic, more in
tragedy) & length (tragedy limited to 244 hours); all elements of epic are found in tragedy but not
vice versa.
6. Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of certain magnitude; in
language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate
parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper
purgation of these emotions. 6 constituting elements: 1st is plot: action is important than character,
therefore, incidents and the plot are the end of a tragedy; Peripeteia or Reversal of the Situation, and
Anagnorisis or Recognition scenes; second is character, representing moral purpose; 3rd is thought,
something proved to be or not to be. maxims; 4th is diction: verse or prose; 5th is song: for
embellishment; 6th is spectacle, least artistic, related to the stage not to the poet
7. Plot: whole means beginning middle & end; beauty depends on magnitude and order, so magnitude
should follow law of probability or necessity
8. Unity of action does not mean unity of the hero; main action is singular & related episodes are taken
9. Poet relates what may happen as per law of probability & necessity; poetry differs from history;
what is possible is credible; comedy first outlines plot; tragedy takes real names so difficulty is there;
poet is not verse maker but plot maker; episodic plots are the worst, lack connectivity; pity & fear
are produced by showing cause & effect relationship & natural progress
10. Simple plot: no reversal & recognition; complex plot: has reversal & recognition
11. Reversal of situation: result opposite to desire; Messenger wants to cheer Oedipus but makes him
more worry; Recognition means knowing truth by someone or something; best recognition
coincides with reversal; the two are about suspense, followed by 3rd:“scene of suffering” is tragedy or
suffering on stage
12. Quantitative parts of a tragedy: Prologue- episode – Exode; Chorus: Parode- Stasimon & Commos
13. A plot should be: singular; change from good to bad of a noble due to fault, not vice; causes tragic
pleasure; 2nd in rank is one: more plots; good end for good, bad for bad; audience oriented; comedy
like
14. Fear & pity can be produced by spectacles but the best is by plot; suffering by a person near & dear;
4 ways: knows the relation but does not harm (worst), knows & acts; does not know & act; does not
know & but know on the 11th hour, so does not act
15. Character; 4 important things: good (purpose good); propriety (valor in man); true to life;
consistency; moreover, The 'Deus ex Machina' should be avoided or placed outside the play
16. Kinds of recognition: by signs (least artistic); will by the poet (not artistic, Orestes says, ‘I is Orestes’);
by memory on seeing something; by reasoning; by natural means of plot (the best): starts with token,
followed by reasoning
17. Diction: in accord with action on stage; gestures; first outline, then add episodes & finally add details
18. Early tragedy: 2 parts Complication (start to climax) & Unraveling OR Dénouement (after climax to
end); 4 kinds: 1st Complex: depending upon reversal & recognition; 2nd Pathetic (passion orinted);
3rd Ethical; 4th simple (lacking reversal & recognition); should not be epic like; chorus is important
19. Thought is the effect that speech & spectacles produce in audience; diction is art of language science
not poetry; includes modes of delivery (speech acts)
20. Parts of language: letter: a sound in a group of sounds (vowel, semi vowel & mute); Syllable: mute &
vowel (non-significant sound); connecting word: at middle or end (non-significant sound); Noun:
composite significant sound, not marking time; Verb: composite significant sound, marking time;
Inflexion: belongs both to noun & verb; Sentence or phrase: composite significant sound, complete
21. Words: simple or double; current, strange, metaphorical, ornamental, newly-coined, lengthened,
contracted, altered etc. nouns are masculine, feminine or neuter
22. Diction should be good; neither too foreign nor too metaphoric; should include appropriate word
found in common prose like current or proper, metaphorical, ornamental.
23. Tragedy does take single action and supplies different episode in this regard; unlike that epic does
24. Epic takes same elements of tragedy except song & spectacle; differs in length of epic: being
narrative & meant to be read can add more than one actions/plot in lengthy form; Homer does not
appear in person; absurdity goes unnoticed in epic; improbable probabilities & probable
improbabilities
25. A poet should discuss things: as they were or are (Euripides), things as they are said or thought to
be, or things as they ought to be (Sophocles); 2 faults by poets: touch its essence, and those which
are accidental; if end is good faults can be justified; critics should consider all possibilities of using
an apparent mistake; 5 sources for critics are: things are censured either as impossible, or irrational,
or morally hurtful, or contradictory, or contrary to artistic correctness
26. Epic is for refined audience & tragedy for inferior so epic is superior to tragedy; But in construction
& effect tragedy is superior; having all elements of epic, unity of action, songs & spectacle, variety of
meters, tragedy is superior to epic.
 Horace (65-8 BC): from Rome; Art of Poetry; traditions should be followed; or consistent innovation
 Longinus: On the Sublime; sublimity lift towards God
 Dante: known or his Divine Comedy; advocated sublime language not dialect for literature
 Boccaccio: Life of Dante; bible is a work of literature; said that poetry is criticized by carnal men,
so-called theologian & philistines
 Philip Sidney: The Defence of Poesie or An Apology for Poetry; first work of criticism in English; in
response to Stephen Gosson The Schoole of Abuse; Instructs & entertains; Mother of all knowledge;
poets as maker; superior to philosophy & history; moves to goodness
 Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan (1651)
 John Locke: Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690)
 Dryden: An Essay of Dramatic Poesy; “I admire Jonson, but I love Shakespeare”; used heroic rhyme
 Pope: Essay on Criticism; asked to follow the rules & tradition; good taste in imp for a critic
 Samuel Johnson: Lives of the Poets; Preface to his Shakespeare
 Wordsworth & Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads (1798); Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800); spontaneous
overflow of emotion recollected in tranquility; Expressive theory; rustic themes & language
 Coleridge: Biographia Literaria; fancy, primary & secondary imagination
 Matthew Arnold: The Study of Poetry; The Function of Criticism; Preface to poems 1853
 T. S. Eliot: The Metaphysical Poets; Tradition and the Individual Talent; Milton I & II
 Philip Sydney (1554-1586) & An Apology for Poetry/ Defense of Poesy (1579-80)
 Reply t Stephen Gosson’s The School of Abuse; dedicated to Sidney; objection on poetry:
wastage of time, mother of all lies, corrupts morally & Plato kicked out the poets; in
rhetorical style (story of horsemanship)
 Poetry was at the start of knowledge, each nation, each language; all knowledge was in
poetic form; Roman called poets Vates: prophets & Greek called them “poiein” makers; 3
kinds: Religious, Philosophical and True poets (create new ideas); preferred over History
gives examples of the past events & Philosophy that provides just ideas; poetry furnishes the
both: new idea + example; Poetry is art of imitation, counterfeiting for delight and
instruction; a Speaking Picture; “Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers
poets have done”; poets give opinion: cannot be called lies; end of all knowledge is goodness,
only literature moves towards it; Plato banned poets for misuse, not poetry; Sidney’s
criticism on modern poetry: no valuable poetry save some lyrical poetry; condemns tragi-
comedy and flouting unities; praises Gorboduc; problem is with authors not with genre &
language; should follow traditions
 William Wordsworth (1770-1850) & Preface to Lyrical Ballads
Lyrical Ballads:

 “Published as an experiment… real language of men in a state of vivid sensation”

 A new kind; published 1798; Wordsworth (19 poems) & Coleridge (4 poems) collaborated
 Opened with Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner & closed with Wordsworth’s Tintern
Abbey
 2nd edition with preface in 1800; 3rd with appendix “Poetic Diction” in1802; 4th in 1805

Preface:

 Knew the reaction; extreme acceptance or rejection

 Restrained: Didn’t want to give reason to poems; preface is insufficient to explain the matter
 Written preface: to clarify things to readers; explain fluting of the norms/ style of the age
means expectations; combating the accusations

Principal objectives:

 1. Choosing incidents from common life 2. using language of common man; throw over
them color of imagination (uncommon the common); presenting them natural

Subject Matter:

 Humble & rustic life: reasons 1, pure passions of heart can be expressed in plain language 2.
Simple feelings can easily be contemplated & forcibly communicated; 3. manner of rural
life are more comprehensive & durable; passions are incorporated with beautiful forms of
nature

Poetic Diction/ Language:

 Purified rustics language: reasons: 1. hourly communicate with best objects 2. Less under
social vanity & narrow circle of interaction, expressions are simple 3. More philosophical
than so-called elevated “poetic diction’

Lyrical Ballads vs popular poetry

 Simple but not mean: Objected meanness & triviality of contemporary poets; differentiation:
Wordsworth’s poems carry worthy purposed (not formerly conceived): poem is spontaneous
 overflow of powerful feelings- possessed by a man of organic sensibility- after deep
thinking.
 In L. Ballads the feelings give importance to actions & situation; in popular poetry the case is
otherwise. Human mind can get excited without gross stimulants; this is an excellent service
by a poet; but popular poetry, owing to urban life & uniformity of occupations, has craving
to extraordinary incidents;
 The invaluable works ...of Shakespeare and Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic novels,
sickly and stupid German Tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse

Style of Lyrical Ballads

 Personification is avoided: this is not a part of language of common man that is used; seldom
usage of it.
 Little of use “Poetic diction”
 Poems with little falsehood of description; unlike other poets, avoided long phrases and
figures of speech

Language:

 Contrary to the views of critics, poetic language differs from prose one only in use of meter.
no ‘essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition’
 Poetry & painting are called “Sisters”; same blood circulates in poetry & prose

Poet:

 ‘What is a poet?’ ‘He is a man speaking to men’; ‘more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm
and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive
soul’
 ‘More affected by absent things; can conjure up feelings; readiness in expressing the
feelings.
 Uses purified rustic language to avoid disgust. Words of reality are preferred over that of
imagination.

Content:

 Agrees with Aristotle: Poetry is the most philosophic; based on universal & operative truths
with internal testimony.
 “Poetry is the image of man and nature”. No obstacle save one restriction: writing to give
immediate pleasure to humans, with information that is expected from a poet as a man.
 Pleasure giving is an acknowledgment of beauty of truth; a homage to native dignity of
man.
 Knowledge is pleasure: knowing pain & pleasure and sympathizing is pleasure.
 “Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge”: knowledge of a scientist is personal;
knowledge of a poet is natural inheritance of all.
 “Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge”. Knowledge of science will become universal by
poetry.

Poet & Language:

 What about language in dramatic parts; not rustic. Parts for other poets, not for common
man.
 Answer: Poet is different from common men in degree not in kind. Prompt to think & ready
to express the moral & animal sensation and causes that excite them. Can be permissible if
the unknown gives pleasure.

Poetry:

 Process: Overflow of powerful feelings 2. Emotions recollected in tranquility 3.

Contemplation on emotions: observation- Recollection- Filtration- Composition
 Emotions accompany pleasure; same is transferred to the reader
 Pathetic and impassioned poetry creates complex feeling of delight; lighter compositions
produce gratifications in readers. With either way, poetic composition will be reads
hundred times more than that of prose.
 All art has its limits; People can judge the pleasure a piece of poetry gives; new ways of
usage of language are there to please people.
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) & Biographia Literaria
 Opium addict but religious approach; “Conversation Poetry”; B. L. a work of philosophy

Coleridge’s Criticism of Wordsworth’s Critical Ideas

 Objected that the common men spoke a truer, more poetic language; argued that to be a
poet you need to be educated: spirit of independence, solid religious education, &
acquaintance with the Bible/ hymnbooks.
 Wordsworth replaced one poetic diction with another: Stock words like “wild, dark, lonely,
light, dream” appear over and over in his poetry and poetic clichés become even more
prevalent in later Romantic poets.

Major ideas:

1, Fancy: Inferior to imagination; combine things but doesn’t fuse them; like a mixture; memory

2. Primary Imagination: Perceptions making; fuses; universal; Divine like creation; a compound;
Poetic genius

3. Secondary Imagination: Conscious; echo of P. Imagination; exclusive to poets; struggles for

the ideals

4. Willing Suspension of Disbelief: If human interest and a semblance of truth are infused into a
fantastic tale, the reader will willing suspend his critical thinking in examining plausibility of
implausibility of the narrative,

John Keats (1795-1821) & Negative Capability (A letter in1817)

A writer's ability (“which Shakespeare possessed so enormously”) to accept “uncertainties,
mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) & Critical Essays

 A poet, a school inspector & a social & religious & literary critic; attacked the manners of
aristocrats (Barbarians), philistines (middle class) & populace. A moralist, though had
liberal views. A sage writer
 Literary family: Thomas Arnold (father); Tom Arnold (Brother, Prof.); W. D Arnold (Brother,
novelist)
 Imp. Works: Culture and Anarchy; On translating Homer; Essays in Criticism
 Poems: “Cromwell” (Newdigate Prize); Empedocles on Etna and other poems; Merope
(Tragedy); “Sohrab and Rustam”; Dover Beach; :”The Scholar Gipsy” & “Thyrsis”
 “The critics’ critic”; Know the best & express the best”; “ Poetry is criticism of life”; Objective
approach

Preface to Poems 1853:

 Architectonic quality: “power of execution, which creates, forms, and constitutes'; connects
parts to make an organic unity; “Scattered images and happy turns of phrase” distort unity.
 Goethe called Shakespeare’s quality of “expression matched to the action” as architectonic
quality.
 Hallam said, “Shakespeare's style was complex”. Young poets don’t afford this lack of
required simplicity.
 Shakespeare's excellences: 1. harmony b/w action & expression. 2. Reliance on the ancients
for his themes. 3. Accurate construction of action. 4. His strong conception of action and
accurate portrayal of his subject matter. 5. His intense feeling for the subjects he
dramatizes.
 Shakespeare’s accessories: 1. Fondness for quibble, fancy, conceit 2. His excessive use of
imagery 3. Circumlocution 4) Lack of simplicity 5) His allusiveness
 Keats imitated Shakespeare in “Isabella or the Pot of Basil”; couldn’t manage organic unity.
 Must follow ancient writer & universal characters (Agamemnon, etc.); cultures differ not
the “inward man”.

The Function of Criticism at Present Time (1964):

 Criticism: “disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and
thought in the world”
 Work is important not the context; Critic must not be confined to literature of his country.
Objective for all.
 Disinterestedness: A critic must be an impartial and just reader; free from historical and
personal prejudice
 A classical work is outcome of “Power of man” and “Power of moment”. Byron-man vs
Goethe- climate
 Shakespeare was not a bookish man but had great climate for the production of classical
works.
 Defended criticism; Creativity is primary faculty- criticism is secondary but necessity;
turned down objections by writers like Wordsworth; a kind of creativity; guide for creative
writers (power of climate)

The study of Poetry (1880/ 1888):

 “Mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us,
to sustain us”
 Talks about ‘objective estimate’ of literature & classical work (universal) as an outcome of
superior character of truth and seriousness of style.
 Better than science & religion; Criticism of life: No charlatanism; only poetic truth & poetic
beauty.
 Real estimate: based on true value; Historical estimate: Based on historical value (favors
classical writers) & Personal estimate: based on personal liking disliking (favors
contemporary writers)
 On this bases; he objected veneration for French court tragedy & epic poetry (no
comparison to Homer’s)
 Touchstone method (Shift in approach) (Given by Addison): comparison of a work with a
classical work to know its value. A single line or a passage form a classical work can do the
job: Helen's words about her wounded brother, Zeus addressing the horses of Peleus,
suppliant Achilles' words to Priam, and from Dante; Ugolino's brave words, and Beatrice's
loving words to Virgil.
 Classical works: Homer; Dante; Shakespeare; Milton; Gray (only classic of 18th century)
 Non-Classical works: French poetry (Copy); Chaucer (Excellent style; lacks seriousness); Dryden &
Pope (Prose Classics); Burns (poetic truth; lack seriousness; Chaucer’s world is richer)
 Classical literature is universal, alive beyond time and space, and enjoys poetic truth & poetic
beauty.

T. S. Eliot (1822-1888) & Critical Essays

Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919):
 "No poet, no artist of any sort, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his
appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists."
 Questions the habit of praising a poet of on the basis of individual parts in his/ her poetry.
 The best part is an echo of the ancestors.
 Tradition can be obtained only by those who have a historical sense: recognition of the
continuity of literature: A writer with the sense of tradition is fully conscious of his own
generation, of his place in the present but he is also acutely conscious of his relationship
with the writers of the past.
 Rejects ‘Blind or Timid Adherence’; ‘novelty is better than repetition’;
 A poet is concerned not only with the ‘pastness’ of the past but with its presence. Both
reciprocate.
 Sense of tradition means: 1. Recognition of the continuity of literature. 2. Critical judgment
of writers of the past who continue to be significant in the present 3. Knowledge of these
writers through painstaking effort
 "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression
of personality, but an escape from personality."
 Poet’s mind is like a catalyst; rejects romantic subjectivity. ‘Poetry is organization rather than
inspiration.’
 ‘In the process of poetic composition there is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor,
tranquility.’

The Metaphysical Poets (1921):

 A review of an anthology, Herbert J. C. Grierson’s Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the
Seventeenth Century
 A movement & school of 17th century poetry is compared with 19th century French
Symbolist poetry
 Coined by Dryden; First used by S. Johnson. Eliot starts with Johnson’s definition: ‘the most
heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together’.
 Eliot said this is done by all. Gives example from Johnson’s “The Vanity of Human Wishes”
 George Herbert fused reason & emotions: common to all metaphysical poets
 Metaphysical poetry & Elizabethan drama (esp. Soliloquy) were influenced by Montaigne’
prose writing. It means “direct sensuous apprehension of thought”; reason & feeling are
linked, and thought is a sensory.
 Dissociation of Sensibility: thought and feeling became separated; prevalent after
metaphysical poets
 Association of Sensibility: fusing thoughts and feelings; reason the emotion/ feel the reason:
Metaphysics

Objective Co-relative: ('Hamlet and His Problems') Refers to an image, action, or situation –
usually a pattern of images, actions, or situations – that somehow evokes a particular emotion
from the reader without stating what that emotion should be. Hamlet is an “artistic failure”
because occurrences in the play do not justify Hamlet's depth of feeling and thus fail to provide
convincing motivation.

Cleanth Brooks (1906-1994) & The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of
Poetry (1947)
 “Language of paradox”: Poetic language is a language of paradox.
 The Heresy of Paraphrase”: Content and form are inseparable; paraphrasing distorts the
meanings.

M.H. Abrams (1912-2015) & The Mirror and the Lamp

(1953)
1. Mimic 2. Expressive 3. Objective 4. Pragmatic

Modern Critical Theories

New Criticism
 Started in late 1920s and 1930s; in reaction to traditional criticism that focuses biography
or history to understand the text
 New Criticism: literary art should be regarded as autonomous; should not be judged beyond
itself; Meanings lie within a text and are singular; Close Reading: deep analysis of a text for
criticism.
 Major figures: I. A. Richards (Practical Criticism), T. S. Eliot, Cleanth Brooks, David Daiches,
William Empson (Seven Types of Ambiguity), John Crowe Ransom (coined the term), F. R.
Leavis (The Great Tradition), Robert P. Warren, W. K. Wimsatt (Intentional Fallacy), Rene
Wellek
 Key Term: Intentional Fallacy: equating meanings with author's intentions; Affective Fallacy:
meaning linked with reader feelings; Heresy of Paraphrase; Close reading"a close and
detailed analysis of the text itself to arrive at an interpretation without referring to historical,
authorial, or cultural concerns"

Russian Formalism/Prague Linguistic Circle/Linguistic Criticism/Dialogic Theory

 Began in the 1920s; the Prague Linguistic Circle: literature is special class of language,
opposition between literary & ordinary language, includes Roman Jakobson, & René Wellek,
etc.
 Formalist views literary language as self-focused: analyzed by a special type of linguistics;
work of literature is to de-familiarize language by a process of "making strange";
 Dialogism: initiated by Mikhail Bakhtin arguing that in a dialogic work of literature such as
in the writings of Dostoevsky there is a "polyphonic interplay of various characters' voices.
 Key Terms: Heteroglossia: utterance is embedded in social circumstances, & meaning is
shaped and context; Monologism: representing one single ideological stance; Polyphony:
Bakhtin: incorporates a rich plurality and multiplicity of voices,
Archetypal/Myth Criticism
 Based on the ideas of C. G. Jung & Joseph Campbell; Archetypes, according to Jung, are
"primordial images"; the "psychic residue" of repeated experiences inherited in the "collective
unconscious"; expressed in myths, religion, dreams, and literature; examples: water, sun,
moon, colors, circles, the Great Mother
 Genres and plot patterns of literature are recurrences of certain archetypes and essential
mythic formulae
 Northrop Frye in Anatomy of Criticism (1957) introduced “Myth Criticism”; literature drew
upon genres such as romance (summer), tragedy (autumn), irony/satire (winter) and
comedy (spring);
 Key Figures: Robert Graves, Francis Fergusson, Northrop Frye, Maud Bodkin, and G. Wilson
Knight.
 Key Terms: Anima: a man's image of a woman; Animus: a woman's image of a man;
Collective Unconscious: "a set of primal memories common to the human race, existing
below each person's conscious mind"; Persona: the image we present to the world; Shadow:
darker hidden elements of a person's psyche
Psychoanalytic Criticism
 Application of psychological concepts to study literature; focus on writer's psyche, study of
creative process, study of psychological types & principles present within works, or effects
of literature upon its readers.
 Key figures: Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Jane Gallop, Norman Holland, George Klein,
Elizabeth Wright
 Key Terms: Freud model: Unconscious: irrational part; Sub-conscious: Middle part;
Conscious: Rational part; Id: innate desires, libido, etc., pleasure principle; Ego: referee
between id & superego; Superego: " internal censor about moral judgments, reality
principle; defense mechanism: Denial, Replacement, Substitution; Lacan model: Imaginary: a
preverbal, a sense of separateness; Symbolic: child's entrance into language; Real: an
unattainable stage, "perennial lack"
Marxism
 Works of literature are can be analyzed by looking at the material conditions in which they
were formed; a world view is articulations of dominant class; focuses on clash between
dominant & repressed classes Contemporary Marxism views art as simultaneously
reflective and autonomous to the age;
 Major figures: Karl Marx & Terry Eagleton (The Communist Manifesto), Raymond Williams,
Louis Althusser, Walter Benjamin, Antonio Gramsci, Georg Lukacs, & Friedrich Engels
 Key Terms: Commodification: "the attitude of valuing things not for their utility but for their
power to impress others or for their resale possibilities"; Dialectical materialism: history is as
struggle between classes; Superstructure: "The social, political, and ideological systems”
generated by base: economics; Ideological State Apparatus: for consent, media, education;
Repressive state apparatus: coercion, forces, laws, etc.
Post-colonialism:
 Refers to the period following the decline of colonialism; as a critical approach, refers to "a
collection of theoretical and critical strategies used to examine the culture of former
colonies & relation to the world:’ postcolonial writers are the attempt both to resurrect their
culture and to combat preconceptions
 Major figures: Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, Gayatri Spivak, Chinua Achebe,
Wole Soyinka
 Key Terms: Alterity: "lack of identification with one's personality or one's community,
otherness"; Diaspora: "people or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their
traditional ethnic homelands, dispersed; Eurocentrism: emphasis on European culture and
values; Hybridity: mingling of cultural signs and practices; Imperialism: " control or
authority over foreign entities for exploitation

Existentialism
 Promoted by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus; each person is isolated being, is cast into
an alien universe, & no inherent human truth, values; from nothingness toward
nothingness; all choices are possible; "Man is condemned to be free." Søren Kierkegaard
theorized that belief in God required a conscious choice or "leap of faith."
 Major figures: Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre,
Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir
 Key Terms: Absurd: world without inherent meaning or truth; Authenticity: make individual
choices; "Leap of faith": Kierkegaard acknowledged that religion was inherently
unknowable and filled with risks, faith required an act of commitment; commitment to
Christianity would lessen despair of absurd world
Feminism
 3 kinds in theory: an essentialist focus (including psychoanalytic and French feminism);
establishing a feminist literary canon (including gynocriticism, liberal feminism); focusing
on sexual difference and sexual politics (including gender studies, lesbian studies, cultural
feminism, radical feminism, and socialist/materialist feminism)
 Simone de Beauvoir's study, The Second Sex, first book of feminism; questioned the
"othering" of women; Betty Friedan's The Feminist Mystique (1963), Kate Millet's Sexual
Politics; Elaine Showalter's A Literature of Their Own; Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s
Own
 Key Terms: Androgyny: where sex-roles are not rigidly defined; Backlash: movement away
from or against feminism; Essentialism: uniquely feminine essence; Gynocentrics: coined by
Elaine Showalter: female framework for analysis of women's literature; Patriarchy: male-
dominated structures; Phallologocentrism: masculine language; 2nd wave feminism: 1960s &
concerned with political action; 3rd wave feminism: began in the early 1990s, to challenge
and expand common definitions of gender and sexuality;
Reception and Reader-Response Theory:
 Meanings are constructed by the reader; meanings are plural
 I. A. Richards and Louise Rosenblatt: idea of a "correct" reading was always the goal of the
"educated" reader; Stanley Fish the reader's understanding is subject to "interpretive
community”; Wolfgang Iser: reading process is always subjective; Hans-Robert Jauss: a
reader's aesthetic experience is always bound by time and historical determinants
 Key Terms: Horizons of expectations (Hans Robert Jauss): a reader's frame of reference is
based on the reader's past experience; Interpretive communities: (Stanley Fish) shared
reading strategies; Transactional analysis (Louise Rosenblatt) meaning is produced in a
transaction of a reader with a text
Structuralism and Semiotics
 Structuralism: nature of every element in any given situation has no significance by itself,
and in fact is determined by all the other elements involved in that situation. Structuralists
believe that all human activity is constructed, not natural.
 Major figures include Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Ferdinand de Saussure, Roman
Jakobson
 Semiotics: the science of signs; proposes human action and productions like our bodily
postures and gestures, social rituals, the clothes, the meals, etc. all convey "shared" meanings
for a particular culture; Linguistics- branch of semiotics- gives basic methods and terms
used in study of other social sign systems Major figures: Charles Peirce, Ferdinand de
Saussure, Michel Foucault, Gérard Genette & Roland Barthes
 Key Terms: Binary Opposition: pairs of mutually-exclusive signifiers alive/not-alive;
Mythemes: mythemes are the smallest component parts of a myth; Sign vs. Symbol: "words
are not symbols but rather are 'signs' made up of 'signifier' & 'signified'; Structuralist
narratology: form of structuralism: how a story's meaning develops from its overall
structure.
Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction
 Post-Structuralism: a reaction to structuralism & seeing language as a stable system; critic's
task to see plural meaning in literature; Jacques Derrida argued against the notion of a
knowable center; in negative terms, deconstruction means "anything goes"
 Key figures: Jacques Derrida, M. Foucault, Roland Barthes, J. Baudrillard, & Jacques Lacan
 Key Terms: Aporia: a moment of undecidability; Différance: a combination of the meanings:
1) différer or to differ, 2) différance which means to delay or postpone 3) the idea of
difference itself; Logocentrism: refers to the nature of western thought, language and
culture; Transcendental Signifier: searching for a transcendental signified to provide
ultimate meaning.