The Worlds of Critical Theory:

1. The Worlds of Critical Theory: Shine a Light on Literature, Music, Film, & More

5. Basic Background Since there’s been literature, there’s been theory of it (think Aristotle’s Poetics), But it became esp. prevalent during the Age of Enlightenment (Edgar Allan Poe was a critic) During the 1900s it was an established scholarly practice Why the need for theory? The way we see and understand the world (our paradigms) are all perceptions & interpretation (even history is not all fact – “history is written by the victors”) Thus, critical theory challenges our paradigms and allows us to interpret what we read, hear, and see in a myriad of ways But you have to learn how to do this in order to be able to see what is not so apparent Why Critical Theory?

6. The Modes(well, the major ones… the ones you should know) • Formalist • Historical • Biographical • Structuralism • Post-structuralism /Deconstructionist • Psychological • Mythological • Sociological: Marxist, Feminist, Postcolonial • Postmodern

7. Myriad Approaches • Important: No single theory is necessarily correct or true above any other • Critical approaches usually derive from personal discretion or applicability • Some approaches naturally lend themselves to particular works

8. Any work by Edgar Allan Poe would naturally lend itself to a biographical approach It would be tough to talk about Animal Farmwithout understanding the historical context For example…

9. Formalist Criticism “Pure Theory”

10. Regards literature as a unique form of human knowledge to be regarded in its own terms Apart from or above biographical, social, historical, or cultural influences Literature is understood through its intrinsic literary features TEXT-CENTERED: focus on words (think TIQATIQA) Formalist Criticism: (aka New Criticism)

11. Formalist cont’d… • “Close Reading” • Focus on intense relationships in a work • Form and content cannot be meaningfully separated • Interdependence of form and content make a text literary

12. Biographical Criticism The author’s life impacts their work

13. Biographical Criticism • Considers that literature is written by actual people • Understanding of author’s life helps comprehend the work • Author’s experience SHAPES the creation of the work • Practical advantage: illuminates text • Be judicious--base interpretation on what is in the text itself

14. Historical Criticism The author’s time period affects their work

15. Historical Criticism • Investigation of social, cultural, and intellectual contexts that produced the work • Necessarily includes author’s biography and milieu • Impact and meaning on original audience (as opposed to today’s) • How a text’s meaning has changed over time • Connotations of words, images (1940, America)

16. Structuralism: Moving beyond meaning The author’s language system affects their work

17. Began with the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss Through studying myth, culture, and language, he concluded that language is a binary system Binary because it could be divided into two competing categories: Nature vs. culture Raw vs. cooked From this, he deduced that in language there are no identities, only differences “Differences makes identity possible” Then, Michel Foucault took this understanding and explained how meaning of language changes over time creating a new picture of the world Structuralism

18. Structuralism • Key Terms & Ideas: • Semiotics = study of signs & symbols • Binary System = a contrasting duality that struggle for prevalence • Sign = sound / word • Signifier = sound image • Signified = mental concept (object) • Other = a word has meaning through what it is not, not any kind of natural relation to the object • Why is a cat called cat?

19. Structuralism in Literature • Texts were analyzed and reduced to a binary system of themes, such as: • Man vs. woman • Love vs. hate • Destiny vs. freewill (ring a bell?)

20. Deconstruction / Post-structuralist Criticism: Moving beyond the beyond The author’s language system is unstable and thus their work has no meaning or many meanings?

21. Mostly credited to the word of Jacques Derrida who elaborated upon the idea that if language is made up of differences, then so is the word Thus, if language is continuously changing and has no identity, neither does the world nor how we understand the world This took the binary system a step further and stated that language is inaccurate Language fundamentally unstable Literary texts, therefore, have no fixed meaning Post-structuralism / Deconstructionist Criticism

22. KeyTerms • Deconstruction = to break down/reverse • Differance = presence/arises out of differences • Paradox= seemingly contradictory but true statement: Language has no identity but makes identity possible? • Micro-narratives = understanding of the world is broken up into smaller stories from varying perspectives

23. Deconstructionist cont’d.. • Attention shifts from what is being said to how language is being used in a text • Paradox: Deconstructionist criticism often resembles formalist • Both involve close reading • BUT: decon. critics break text down into mutually irreconcilable positions

24. Deconstructionistcont’d.. • REJECTION of myth that authors control language • Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault call for the “death of the author” • No author, no matter how brilliant, can fully control the meaning of a text • No truths; only rival interpretations • In textual studies, this theory is used to reverse the binary systems and investigate the myriad stories within the larger story.

25. Pscyhoanalytical Criticism The author’s mommy/daddy issues affect their work

26. Psychological Criticism • Owes much to the work of Sigmund Freud • Analysis of Oedipus--considered Sophocles’ insight into human mind influential • Painful memories (esp. from childhood) repressed, stored in subconscious • Freud and followers (including Carl Jung) believed that great literature truthfully reflects life

27. Key Terms • Repressed = desires, feelings, memories that are controlled and remained locked in subconscious • Oedipus Complex = the innate (but repressed) desire to marry your mother and kill your father • Id = pleasure principle (seeks immediate gratification of desires) • Ego = reality principle (understands there are certain social behaviors that need to be followed) • Superego = conscience

28. Visualization of Id, Ego, Superego

29. Freud’s Main Principles • Oedipus Complex (this is how he famously analyzed Hamlet) • Id/Ego/Superego = heroes or villains can be analyzed through their repressed desires and how they either control them or revel in them • Dreams = they reveal repressed desires and novels can be interpreted as dreams • These can be used to analyze the author, the characters, or the art itself

30. Mythological Criticism The author’s work is a new version of the same story that’s been told since time began.

31. Mythological Criticism • Based on work of Karl Jung and Joseph Campbell • In Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he studied religious and literary stories (Jesus, Buddha, Gilgamesh, and other myths) and found commonalities • Seeks recurrent universal patterns • Combines insights of many disciplines: • Anthropology • Psychology • History • Comparative religion

32. Key Terms • Archetype: A symbol, character, situation, or image that evokes a deep universal response • Collective Unconscious: Set of primal memories common to the human race (existing below conscious mind)

33. Mythological cont’d… • Explores artist’s common humanity (as opposed to individual emphasis in pysch. crit.) • Important to link text to other texts with similar or related archetypal situations • Looks for archetypes across mythology, as well as in characters whose collective unconscious is triggered by common symbols: the sun, moon, starts, earth, etc.

34. Archetypical Themes • Death – rebirth • The Journey Underground • The Heavenly Ascent • The Search for the father • The false father • Heaven/hell • Rebel-hero • The Scapegoat • The Earth Goddess • The femme fatale

35. Campbell’s Hero Cycle

36. Sociological Criticism: Marxist, Feminist, Postcolonial The author’s social structure affect their work

37. Sociological Criticism • Examines literature in the cultural, economic, and political context in which it is written or received • Art not created in a vacuum • Relationship between author and society • Social status of author • Social content of a work (values presented) • Role of audience in shaping literature

38. Different Fields • Marxist • Feminist • Post-colonial

39. Marxist:Basic Principles • Bourgeoisie = rich capitalists oppressed workers • Proletariat = working class • History was subject to change because of economic changes • Every piece of art reflects its economic and class struggles of the historical time period • Ex = “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

40. Marxist cont’d… • Economic and political elements of art • Explores ideological content of literature • Content determines form; therefore all art is political • DANGER: imposing critic’s politics on work in question can sway evaluation based on how closely (or not) the work endorses ideology • VALUE: illuminates political and economic dimensions of literature that other approaches may overlook

41. Feminist Theory • Examines how sexual identity influences the creation and reception of literary works • Began with feminist movement, but largely influenced by Structuralism and Deconstructionism (work on Julia Kristeva, pupil of Derrida) • Feminist critics see a world saturated with “male-produced” assumptions • Seek to correct imbalance by battling patriarchal attitudes

42. Key Terms • Patriarchy = system where men are in charge (can be in terms of hereditary of simply political/economical • Phallo-centric = centered around man • Emasculate = to take away a man’s power • Objectification = women are viewed/presented as objects of desire by the “male gaze” • Conform = meet demands of patriarchy

43. Feminist cont’d… • Feminist criticism analyzes how an author’s gender influences ideas • Also, how sexual identity influences reader • Reader sees text through eyes of his or her sex • Examination of social forces responsible for gender inequality

44. Feminist Theory • Originally showcased patriarchal and unequal systems within novel that were primarily concerned with men • In more modern context, still show inequalities, but focus more on how women subvert, reject, and triumph over these inequalities • Think of structuralism and then deconstruction • The binary was first man vs. woman but its been deconstructed to show how women can triumph or to show there is no difference between • Instead of conforming, more modern scholars look at how women reject the patriarchy or subvert it (undermine it from the inside)

45. Postcolonialism • With the expansion of readership beyond European & American authors, came a theory that examined the more-established literature and world literature through the lens of colonialism – how the authors and characters were affected by their country’s imperialist past • Greatly impacted by the work of Edward W. Said Orientalism: Western Representations of the Orient

46. Postcolonial Criticism: Key Terms • Imperialism – the European colonization of parts of the world, which came to an end, starting in the 1800s all the way through the 1950s • Alterity: "lack of identification with some part of one's personality or one's community, differentness, otherness" • Diaspora: to refer to any people or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their traditional ethnic homelands, being dispersed throughout other parts of the world • Eurocentrism – emphasis revolves around European (i.e. white) culture and understanding of the world. • Hybridity – a blend of cultures, refusing to choose to one or the other

47. Postcolonial Main Cornerstones • Like feminism, it owes a lot to structuralism and deconstruction • The “Native” characters are often considered as others and the European characters define themselves by how they are different from the natives • These “third world” countries (again to separate them from first world countries) are still feeling the impacts of a past of foreign rule and so their characters lack a sense of identity: are they the colonizer or are they the colonized? • More modern texts, resolve this with hybridity – I am not the colonizer or the colonized: I can be both. • In the US, this is especially central to the work of immigrant Americans or Americans of minority status • Also, important in analyzing African American Literature and the lingering impacts of slavery and segregation

49. Postmodern Criticism The author’s work is influenced by everything but the kitchen sink: on second thought, throw the sink in as well (a broken one, though).

50. Postmodern Criticism • Just like deconstrutionism followed structuralism, postmodern criticism developed as a an extension and rejection of modern (esp. formalism) scholarly work • Greatly influenced by the work of Jean Baudrillard Simulacra and Simulation • It argues for a broken view of meaning and an exaggerated reality because of the influence of media • Politically, this can be like anarchy, but when it comes to criticism of the arts, its more about having a loose approach (it can even be fun like pop art)