Literary Theory, Literary Criticism and their Interface

Before we begin our discussion and study of the different literary theories and their practical
application, and before looking at the interface between literary theory and literary criticism,
it is important that we understand their meanings. What does literary theory and literary
criticism mean?

Literary Theory

Literary theory refers to a particular form of literary criticism in which particular academic,
scientific, or philosophical approaches are followed in a systematic fashion while analyzing
literary texts. For example, a psychoanalytic theorist might examine and interpret a literary
text strictly through the theoretical lens of psychoanalysis and psychology and, in turn, offer
an interpretation or reading of a text that focuses entirely on the psychological dimensions of
it. Traditional literary criticism tends not to focus on a particular aspect of (or approach to) a
literary text in quite the same manner that literary theory usually does. Literary theory
proposes particular, systematic approaches to literary texts that impose a particular line of
intellectual reasoning to it.

A very basic way of thinking about literary theory is that these ideas act as different lenses
critics use to view and talk about art, literature, and even culture. These different lenses allow
critics to consider works of art based on certain assumptions within that school of theory. The
different lenses also allow critics to focus on particular aspects of a work they consider
important. For example, if a critic is working with certain Marxist theories, s/he might focus
on how the characters in a story interact based on their economic situation. If a critic is
working with post-colonial theories, s/he might consider the same story but look at how
characters from colonial powers (Britain, France, and even America) treat characters from,
say, Africa or the Caribbean.

By literary theory, therefore, it refers not to the meaning of a work of literature but to the
theories that reveal what literature can mean. It is a description of the underlying principles
(tools), by which readers attempt to understand literature. In other words literary theory refers
to the set of general principles or perspectives that characterize a certain body of fact or art.
In other words, literary theory is the lens or framework through which a critic views a literary
work in a certain angle. More generally, literary theory which is also called critical theory, is

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the criteria upon which our interpretation or analysis of literary works rests. Hence, literary
theories are mainly developed as a means to understand the various ways in which people
read texts, literary texts. Hence, New criticism, Formalism, Structuralism, Reader Response,
Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Post-Colonialism, New Historicism, and Deconstruction are
literary theories.

Therefore, literary theorists often adapt systems of knowledge developed largely outside the
realm of literary studies and impose them upon literary texts for the purpose of discovering or
developing new and unique understandings of those texts that a traditional literary critic
might not be intellectually equipped to recognize.

Literary Criticism

What comes into your mind when you think of criticism, or specifically criticizing
something? Most of the time people consider criticism as finding fault with, for example,
literary works. However, criticism (literary criticism), by and large, tries to explain the
literary work to us (readers), for example, its production, its meaning, its design or structure,
and its beauty. Literary criticism is, therefore, the study, for example, interpretation,
explanation, of literature. It is the practical application of literary theories. Simply, criticism
is the art of analyzing a certain literary work, be it a poem, short story, novel or drama based
on a specific literary theory.

Strictly defined, literary criticism refers to the act of interpreting and studying literature. A
literary critic is not someone who merely evaluates the worth or quality of a piece of
literature but, rather, is someone who argues on behalf of an interpretation or understanding
of the particular meaning(s) of literary texts. The task of a literary critic is to explain and
attempt to reach a critical understanding of what literary texts mean in terms of their
aesthetic, as well as social, political, and cultural statements and suggestions. A literary critic
does more than simply discuss or evaluate the importance of a literary text; rather, a literary
critic seeks to reach a logical and reasonable understanding of not only what a text’s author
intends for it to mean but, also, what different cultures and ideologies render it capable of
meaning.

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Literary criticism should not be confusing with book review. One important difference is that
book reviews are written around the time the work was originally published; whereas literary
criticism appears, most of the time, in later years and are most often found in scholarly
publications. In addition, the main goal of book reviewers, after evaluating the work, is
simply telling readers whether or not to read the books they reviewed. A literary critic’s goal
is, however, more than telling readers whether the work is good or bad. A literary critic
spends much of her/his explaining or analyzing the work than evaluating.

The Interface between Literary Theory and Literary Criticism

Some literary critics and theorists deny that there is a distinct difference between literary
criticism and literary theory and argue that literary theory is simply a more advanced form of
literary criticism. Other critics argue that literary theory itself is far more systematic,
developed and scholarly than literary criticism, and hence of a far greater intellectual and
critical value.

Generally, although the terms literary theory and literary criticism cannot be used to
substitute one another or interchangeably, they are always closely related terms. When there
is criticism, there is literary theory because it is based on some tools (theories) that we do our
interpretation (criticism).There are people who consider that literary theory and literary
criticism, interpretation of literary works, are two different and almost unrelated things.
However, for those who involved in literary studies, and of course for many of us, literary
theory and literary criticism cannot be separated at all. It can be said that they are two sides of
the same coin. This is mainly because of that when we interpret a literary text we always do
so from some theoretical assumption or perspective, whether we are aware of it or not. In
other words, interpretation of literary texts (poems, short stories, novels, dramas, and etc)
cannot be performed without literary theories, and literary theories are meaningless if we do
not use them to explain, evaluate or interpret given literary works.

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2. Archaic Criticism

The term archaic generally refers to the ancient period in history or to an old culture
preceding the classical period in Greek. There is a consensus that the archaic period in Greek
dates from 800 BC – 500 B.C. Archaic criticism, therefore, refers to the oldest criticism (of
all criticisms) which existed before the classical criticism. It is, hence, the root or base for the
development of the later criticisms- classical, traditional and modern criticisms. This period,
archaic period, is the era of the epic poets Homer and Hesiod, and of the lyric poets
Archilochus, Ibycus, Alcaeus and Sappho.

In discussing about archaic criticism, we are talking about the beginning (history) of
criticism. Criticism, according to scholars such as George Kennedy (Cambridge History of
Literary Criticism) and Kenneth Dover (Frogs), as an instinctive reaction to the performance
of poetry is as old as song. The scholars indicate that in the pre-literate cultures (oral
tradition) the composition of songs is a process in which discussion and criticism play an
important part because aesthetic reaction (criticism) implies preference and preference
implies criticism. As the Greeks were surely singing long before the first literary texts appear
in the eighth century B.C.E., this means we cannot hope to trace criticism to its beginnings.
But such broad perspectives should not lead us to neglect the fact that what Kennedy calls the
instinct for criticism is always exercised in a social context--that the aesthetic reaction of
which Dover speaks begins to acquire a history the moment it is uttered before a particular
group on a particular occasion. Therefore, Criticism in the archaic period is not similar to the
classical, traditional or modern criticisms. Criticism in the archaic period is any public act of
praise or blame upon a performance of song because there were no rules upon which the
criticism depends.

Although it is difficult to trace literary criticism exactly to its beginning, it is believed that it
existed as long as the oral literature. The period preceding the eighth (8 th) century B.C, which
marked the introduction of Phoenician alphabets, is generally known as a period of oral
literature. However, the period between the mid fifth and the mid fourth century B.C
becomes a turning point in Greece from predominantly oral literature to predominantly
written basis of intellectual life. Until the eighth (8 th) century B.C, Greece literature was
chiefly known through performance- performance of epic poetry from rhapsode; performance
of lyric poetry from chorus (group of performers).

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Therefore, archaic criticism by and large, refers to the criticism of oral literature in the form
of performance of, for example, poetry (epic and lyric), play and any other form of literature
on the stage.

In a modern culture our most frequent direct contact with the literature comes either through
private and reflexive reading or in the context of the classroom, and is supplemented in the
case of drama by visits to the theatre, to see actual performance. However, in the archaic and
classical cultures (pre and classical era), live performance was the norm. Songs and poetry
were traditionally performed in a context of competition or contests, for example, in the form
of dramatic festivals. In other words, in the ancient Greece, the archaic period, there was an
art of presenting literature where a rhapsode or professional singer or chorus performs a
certain literary work on a stage to the audience, orally. Then judges (archaic critics), would
be assigned to look at the literary appropriateness of the work. Therefore, in the archaic
criticism, unlike in the classical criticism, the aesthetic reaction (judgement) takes place
immediately the moment the work of literature was presented in front of a particular audience
at a particular occasion.

Archaic Genres

Differentiating the genres or kinds of singing that were developed during the archaic or pre-
classical period is helpful for better understanding of the archaic criticism. In addition, the
most basic difference between the archaic musical culture and classical literary criticism is
centred on the notions of genres developed in each of the periods.

It is always a misguided idea to look for a specific literary criticism during the archaic period.
This is mainly because of that there was no unitary notion or governing rule of poetry or
literature during the period. The many forms of songs that were sung on various occasions
were not referred to as instances of a single art or activity called poetry or even song. Instead
there were many different names for songs, most of them derived from the social contexts in
which they were performed. What archaic criticism lacked, and what was not developed until
the fourth (4th) century B.C, was a literary system, a conceptual unification of songs as
distinctive forms of speech to be understood in their formal relation to each other. Of course,
long before Homer, Greek audiences had developed expectations about what kind of song
was appropriate at what kind of occasion, and Greek singers created new songs in the
knowledge that they would be praised or blamed accordingly. From this collaboration,

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distinct genres of song can be said to have been defined, as Dover remarks that in the archaic
period, different genres amount to different occasions of performance. Archaic songs were,
therefore, made, received, and assessed in relation to its context rather than its conformity to
some formal paradigm.

Accordingly, the oldest Greek song names usually express an aspect of the occasion: some
are simply terms for social actions, such as the lament (threnos) for funerals or the iambos for
occasions of ritualized abuse. Others are derived metonymically from the context, such as the
paean (expression of joy or praise) and dithyramb (impassionate Greek Chorus), which
evolved from ritual refrains into names for kinds of song. The generic meaning of paean as a
song of praise or joy derives from earlier, more context-based senses—a song for Apollo in
his aspect as saving god, and behind this, it appears, a song invoking Paiawon, a pre-Greek
healing divinity. Similarly, the songs called dithyrambs were properly connected with the cult
of Dionysus (the God of wine in ancient Greek) an ancient epithet of the god that became as
opaque to the Greeks. This way of naming kinds of song persisted through the archaic period,
yielding at its end such new names as tragedy (tragoidia) goat-song, probably to be
associated with a processional song leading a goat to sacrifice, and comedy (komoidia) taking
its name from komos, a kind of village revel-song.

When we find statements in archaic Greek poetry about what is good or bad in singing, the
predominant concern is whether the song is appropriate to its context and occasion. There is
no literary criticism in the archaic period because the appropriate and its congeners always
involved social and religious values. This is not to say that formal and aesthetic qualities were
ignored: the gods were said to take pleasure in festival singing and dancing, and so the
ritually or socially right way to perform a song had to look and sound right, too.
Appropriateness to the occasion included qualities we could call aesthetic, but always as
elements within a larger conception of the function of song: one of our oldest preserved
choral songs, composed for a festival of Artemis in seventh-century Sparta, draws the
audience’s attention to the beauty of the dancers, their fine voices and nimble feet; but this
comes after they have recounted a myth showing that gods avenge acts of hubris (pride or
arrogance).

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