• Schools of Literary Criticism
     
    The following is a general listing of the different approaches through which one can critique a piece of writing.  We will make reference to these throughout the course of the year.  Become familiar with them!
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    DECONSTRUCTION:
    • A work does not yield one fixed meaning.
    • Language can never say exactly what we intend it to mean—focus on the ambiguous nature of language
    • Focus is on language and how a variety of possible readings are generated by the elements of the text.

    BIOGRAPHICAL:

    • Knowledge of author’s life can aid in the understanding of the text
    • Knowledge of the author can enrich the meaning of the text
    • FORMALISTS disparage biographical info—can sometimes complicate a text by leading a reader to see things that might not really be there.

    PSYCHOLOGICAL / PSYCHOANALYTICAL:

    • Existence of the human unconscious mind
    • Focus on impulses, desires, and feelings which a person is unaware but which influence emotions and behaviors
    • Motivations of a character
    • Symbolism found in the text

    LITERARY HISTORY:

    • Use of history as a tool to interpret literature
    • Move beyond the text in order to look at social, political, philosophical, intellectual currents which the author composed the text

    MARXIST:

    • Focus on the ideological content of the text
    • Values of the culture, race, class, power
    • Argument that literature and literary criticism are political because they support or challenge  economic oppression
    • Focus more on content and theme rather than structure and form

    NEW HISTORIAN:

    • Interaction between historic context and a modern reader’s understanding
    • Describe a culture or a period by reading outside texts and focusing specifically on culture (political, economic, social, aesthetic, etc)
    • Not just a reflection of culture but also as a product of that culture playing active roles in social and political conflicts

    CULTURAL:

    • Focuses on social, political, economic, and historical contexts of a text
    • Pop culture is elevated to the level of “high culture”
      • The Simpsons can be elevated to the level of Hamlet
    • Use of all forms of criticism schools to evaluate texts
    • The word “texts” now incorporates all thingsàtext, radio talk shows, comic books / comic strips, art, commercials, baseball cards, TV shows, music, etc

    GENDER:

    • Ideas of men and women, masculine and feminine
    • Expands categories of what is masculine and feminine and tends to regard sexuality as more complex than merely masculine and feminine or hetero and homo sexual.
    • Looks at language and stigmas applied to what are considered masculine and feminine words (linguistics)

    GAY / LESBIAN:

    ·        Approach to literature that focuses on how homosexuals are represented in literature, how homosexuals read literature, and whether sexuality is culturally constructed on innate

    ·        Looks closely at symbols and what they represent

    ·        Usually this criticism is a stretch unless specially used with homosexual literature

    ·        Homosexuality is normally hidden in older texts due to the fact homosexuality was illegal and punishable by jail time

     

    FEMINIST:

    • Approach that seeks to correct or supplement what may be regarded as a predominantly male-dominated critical perspective
    • Places literature in to a social context
    • Use of history, sociology, psychology, and linguistics to provide perspective sensitive to feminist issues
    • Look at literature form a woman’s point of view
    • Explain woman’s literature and writing within social connotations

    READER RESPONSE:

    • Focus on reader rather than author or the work itself
    • What goes on in a reader’s mind during the reading of a text
    • Not after the “correct” meaning of a text but rather focus on the reader’s individual experience with the text
    • NOT a rationale for bizarre readings but rather an explanation of the possibilities for a plurality of readings
    • Explores what the text reveals about ourselves

    MYTHOLOGICAL / ARCHETYPICAL:

    • Seeks to identify what in a work creates deep universal responses in readers
    • Pays attention to hopes, fears, expectations of an entire culture
    • Look for underlying, recurrent patterns in literature that reveal universal meanings and basic human truths / experiences
    • Emphasis on the assumptions and values of a culture
    • Looks at literary archetypes and why they exist throughout different cultures