Reading%20Literary%20Theories

1
Reading Literary Theories

• Why and How
• Before and After New Criticism
• Kate Liu, Fall 2002

2
Outline

• Why?
• How?
• Suggested attitudes
• The focus of our course
• Contextualizing our focus before and after New
  Criticism

3
Why Theory?

• Con
• -- no longer literary study, ignoring the
  beauty or essence of literature
• -- a mere word play or mind game abstract and
  obscure separate from reality or politics
• -- fetishization of theories

• Pro
• -- It provides us new frameworks and
  perspectives helps us ask new questions of the
  texts we study and about our lives.
• -- democratization of English Studies.

4
How?

1. Read with an active mind. (Do not feel
   oppressed by the difficult languages.)
2. Always read to get the main points (to find the
   questions the theory asks) and to ask questions.
3. Always try to relate and to map. (Its
   impossible to separate all the theoretical
   discourses into mutually exclusive theoretical
   schools.)

5
Theory as an Activity vs. Theory as a body of
knowledge

• In the former, theory is taught as a means of
  understanding the world in the latter,
  theorizing is encouraged as a pedagogical
  practice in which students become actual
  participants in the use of theory. (Henry
  Girouxs ideas explained by Storey)
• Its better to know how to theorize than to
  memorize all the theoretical jargons.

6
General Questions to ask

• What are the theorists main concerns? What
  questions does s/he ask and how does s/he answer
  them? Do you have any questions?
• What are the theorists key terms? How are they
  defined?
• What is the theorists method? Is a methodology
  explicitly laid out or is it implied?
• (modified from Doxography versus Inquiry by
  Donald G. Marshall. Sadoff 84)

7
Articulation vs. Application

• Application one-to-one correspondence between a
  theory and a text
• Articulation (??) of theories and texts, of
  different theories connecting, negotiating,
  translating.
• wrestling with the angels The only theory
  worth having is that which you have to fight off,
  not that which you speak with profound fluency.
  (Stuart Hall textbook 1901)

8
The focus of our course

1. Start with structuralism vs. poststructuralism to
   trace a general movement in contemporary critical
   theories.
2. Choose two theoretical schools to see how they
   deal with the issues of language, subjectivity,
   desire, body and socio-economic determination
3. Use examples from Cultural Studies to show these
   theories are negotiated, combined and/or
   re-interpreted.

9
before and after New Criticism

• Structuralism Basic ideas of Ferdinand de
  Saussure?
• 1. The synchronic vs. the diachronic langue vs.
  parole// competence vs. performance
• 2. Language is a system of difference. Meaning
  occurs in binary opposition between two signs.
  (e.g. toy, boy)
• 3. sign signifier and signified the connection
  between them is arbitrary.

10
Influences of Structuralism some examples

• Sign signifier signified? referent
• Language is not mimetic (a mirror, or a
  transparent container of reality) it constructs
  reality it speaks us.
• Binary thinking.

11
Examples of binarism in traditional literary
theories

• Politics/Truth vs.
• Plato the realm of appearance vs. the realm of
  Form ? poetry twice removed

• Poetics
• Aristotle Three unity, etc.

Sir Philip Sidney to teach and delight
The Mirror and the Lamp
12
Examples of binarism in traditional literary
theories (2)

• Reason
• Plato poetry tells lies and excites emotions.
• Pope -- golden rules restraint, good taste,
  Dryden "wit" propriety of thoughts and words

• Emotion/Energy
• Romantic poets imagination
• New Criticism Setting up Literature as a
  discipline (autonomy, organicism, etc.)
• ? An objective approach, just as Structuralism
  is scientific

13
Binaries in contemporary theories

• Politics vs. Poetics
• Art vs. popular culture
• Culture vs. Economic Relations
• Father vs. Mother Lack vs. imaginary plenitude
• fixity of meaning vs. fluidity of language,
  identity and culture, etc.
• The lines are no longer clear-cut. Autonomy and
  Absolute truth are out.

14
References

• Storey, John, ed. .   What is Cultural Studies A
  Reader.  London Arnold, 1996.
• Sadoff, Dianne F and William E. Cain, eds.
  Teaching Contemporary Theory to Undergraduates.
  NY MLA 1994.