literary lenses

reader response theory

The Primary lens, meaning is created through reader’s own experience

How is the reader situated to the text?

Biographical lens

Views literature as the reflection of an author’s life

What was happening personally/historically?

New historicism

how the writer’s time affected the work and how the work reflects the writer’s time

social norms in the text?

Psychoanalytic Theory

looks at either the psychological motivations of the characters or of the authors themselves

Archetypal theory

argues that archetypes determine the form and function of literary works. A text’s meaning is shaped by cultural and psychological myths.

-universal patterns of characters and storylines

Gender Theory

examines the ways in which literature reinforces or undermines the economic, political, social, and psychological recognition of the genders

marxist theory

explores how literature reflects, or critiques, the socio-economic conditions of its time. Also explores the struggle between classes-between the oppressed and the oppressing

who has power? who lacks power?

post colonial theory

relationships between the colonizers and colonized; determine in what ways, explicitly or allegorically privilege the colonizers or colonized