Literary Theories – Comprehensive Bullet Notes

Formalist Criticism (New Criticism)

• Core Idea: Treats the literary text as a self-contained, independent object; meaning arises from the interplay of its formal elements (diction, imagery, rhyme, meter, symbolism, structure, irony, paradox, ambiguity).
• Method: “Close reading” – line-by-line, word-by-word scrutiny of textual devices; ignores authorial intent, historical milieu, reader feelings.
• Focus Terms: tension, unity, intentional fallacy, affective fallacy, organic form.
• Sample Works:
– Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (analyze meter, repetition, paradox of rest vs. duty).
– Edith Tiempo, “Bonsai” (Filipino poem; study metaphor, compression, emotional restraint).
• Insights/Significance:
– Shows how form produces meaning without outside data.
– Equips readers with precise analytical vocabulary.
• Difficulties / Open Questions:
– Can meaning ever be totally divorced from context?
– Risk of elitism: privileging technical features over social impact.

Reader-Response Theory

• Core Idea: Text’s meaning is co-created by readers; interpretation depends on personal experience, cultural background, “horizon of expectations.”
• Models: transactional (Rosenblatt), affective stylistics (Fish), implied reader (Iser).
• Sample Works:
– J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter series (different age groups, cultures develop divergent readings: coming-of-age, political allegory, queer subtext).
– Budjette Tan & Kajo Baldisimo, “Trese” (Filipino komik; urban-fantasy lens vs. social commentary lens).
• Insights:
– Validates multiplicity of meanings, democratizes criticism.
– Highlights reading communities & fan cultures.
• Difficulties:
– Where do we draw the line between plausible and idiosyncratic readings?
– Assessment challenge for teachers: whose interpretation counts?

Biographical Criticism

• Core Idea: Author’s life experiences, psychology, and historical moment illuminate the text.
• Cautions: Beware of reducing art to diary; balance with textual evidence.
• Sample Works:
– Nick Joaquin, “May Day Eve” (author’s fascination with Manila’s colonial past, Catholic background).
– Jose Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” (autobiographical echoes of exile, reformist stance).
• Insights:
– Connects art to flesh-and-blood creators; useful for historically rooted works.
– Aids appreciation of symbolism anchored in personal biography.
• Difficulties:
– Limited or contested biographical data; posthumous myths.
– Ethical line between scholarship and gossip.

Moral / Philosophical Criticism

• Core Idea: Evaluates literature by the moral lessons, ethical questions, or philosophical truths it conveys.
• Philosophical Roots: Plato (didactic function), Aristotle (catharsis), Humanism.
• Sample Works:
– Harper Lee, “To Kill a Mockingbird” (justice, racial ethics).
– Lualhati Bautista, “Dekada ’70” (moral resistance to dictatorship).
• Insights:
– Literature as ethical laboratory; shapes civic virtues.
– Useful in values education.
• Difficulties:
– Subjectivity of morality across cultures/time.
– Risk of didactic reductionism.

Psychological Criticism

• Branches: Freudian (Oedipal dynamics, unconscious desires), Jungian (archetypes, collective unconscious), Lacanian (language, desire), cognitive.
• Core Idea: Texts mirror mental processes; characters, plots reveal psyche.
• Sample Works:
– Shakespeare, “Hamlet” (Oedipus complex, repression).
– F.H. Batacan, “Smaller and Smaller Circles” (profiling serial killer, trauma).
• Insights:
– Deepens character motivations, symbolism (dreams, slips).
– Bridges lit studies with psychoanalysis.
• Difficulties:
– Over-interpretation; applying outdated Freudian concepts.
– Western bias vs. indigenous psychologies.

Archetypal (Mythological) Criticism

• Core Idea: Universal patterns (archetypes) recur across cultures: hero’s journey, trickster, earth mother, death-rebirth.
• Theorists: Carl Jung, Northrop Frye.
• Sample Works:
– J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Lord of the Rings” (quest archetype).
– Bicol epic “Ibalon” (heroes Bantong, Baltog face monsters; pattern of chaos → order).
• Insights:
– Connects disparate literatures, reveals shared human psyche.
– Useful for comparative studies, curriculum indigenization.
• Difficulties:
– Over-generalization; ignores cultural specificity.
– Whose archetypes dominate (Eurocentric vs. local myths)?

Sociological Criticism

• Core Idea: Literature reflects, reinforces, or resists social structures (class, race, gender, institutions).
• Sub-approaches: structural functionalism, cultural studies, new historicism.
• Sample Works:
– George Orwell, “1984” (totalitarian surveillance society).
– Carlos Bulosan, “America Is in the Heart” (immigrant labor exploitation).
• Insights:
– Text as social document and agent of change.
– Highlights power relations, ideology.
• Difficulties:
– Risk of ignoring aesthetic value.
– Determining causality vs. correlation between lit & society.

Historical Criticism

• Core Idea: Places literary work in original time/place; examines influence of events, prevailing ideologies, language conventions.
• Techniques: archival research, philology, intertextual mapping.
• Sample Works:
– Jose Garcia Villa’s “Comma Poems” (American colonial education, modernist import).
– “Florante at Laura” by Francisco Balagtas (Spanish colonial censored allegory).
• Insights:
– Prevents anachronistic judgments; recovers lost meanings.
• Difficulties:
– Incomplete or biased historical records.
– Balancing historicity with timeless themes.

Post-Colonial Criticism

• Core Idea: Analyzes literature from formerly colonized regions; focuses on hybridity, mimicry, resistance, subaltern voices.
• Foundational Thinkers: Edward Said (Orientalism), Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak.
• Sample Works:
– Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “Things Around Your Neck.”
– Jessica Hagedorn, “Dogeaters” (Philippines under U.S. neocolonialism).
• Insights:
– Exposes lingering colonial power in language, canon formation.
– Encourages use of indigenous languages, forms.
• Difficulties:
– Risk of homogenizing “post-colonial” experiences.
– How to critique within globalized publishing dominated by former colonizers.

Post-Modern Criticism

• Traits: fragmentation, metafiction, pastiche, irony, simulacra (Baudrillard), “death of the author” (Barthes).
• Core Question: What is “truth” in an age of hyper-reality and collapsing grand narratives?
• Sample Works:
– Italo Calvino, “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.”
– Khavn De La Cruz’s film “Ruined Heart” (Philippine post-modern noir).
• Insights:
– Challenges authority, embraces plurality.
– New media convergence (hypertext fiction, VR storytelling).
• Difficulties:
– Perceived nihilism; students find lack of closure frustrating.
– Dense theoretical jargon (deconstruction, différance).

Marxist Criticism

• Core Idea: Literature as product of economic base; analyzes class struggle, ideology, commodification.
• Key Terms: bourgeoisie, proletariat, reification, alienation, hegemony (Gramsci).
• Sample Works:
– Bertolt Brecht, “The Good Person of Szechwan.”
– Lino Brocka’s film “Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag.”
• Insights:
– Illuminates exploitation hidden in cultural texts.
– Encourages praxis: art as weapon for social change.
• Difficulties:
– Binary class lens may oversimplify intersectional issues.
– Reading luxury genres (fantasy, romance) through Marx only?

Ecocriticism

• Core Idea: Studies relationship between literature and the physical environment; promotes ecological awareness, critiques anthropocentrism.
• Variants: Deep ecology, ecofeminism, post-humanism.
• Sample Works:
– Peter Solis Nery, “The Fireflies” (short story on Guimaras oil spill).
– Richard Powers, “The Overstory.”
• Insights:
– Reveals how language shapes nature perception.
– Literature can inspire conservation action.
• Difficulties:
– Balancing eco-analysis with other social factors.
– Limited critical mass in Philippine lit scholarship.

Feminist Criticism

• Waves: liberal, radical, socialist, post-structural, intersectional.
• Core Idea: Exposes patriarchal biases, recovers women writers, analyzes gender representations.
• Sample Works:
– Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own.”
– “Gapô” by Lualhati Bautista (Filipina subjectivity under U.S. bases).
• Insights:
– Promotes inclusive canon, gender-sensitive pedagogy.
– Intersects with LGBTQ+, class, race.
• Difficulties:
– Essentialism vs. diversity of women’s experiences.
– Backlash labeling critique as “man-hating.”

Gender Studies & Queer Criticism

• Core Idea: Challenges heteronormativity; studies performativity of gender (Butler), spectrum of sexual identities, queer temporality.
• Sample Works:
– J. Neil Garcia’s poetry (“Closet Quivers”).
– Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (film; queer adolescence in Philippine urban poor).
• Insights:
– Expands empathy for LGBTQIA+ narratives.
– Questions binary frameworks, compulsory heterosexuality.
• Difficulties:
– Institutional resistance; limited Filipino queer archives.
– Rapid evolution of terminology; risk of jargon.

Literary theory provides various frameworks or "lenses" through which to analyze and interpret literary texts. Each theory offers a distinct set of questions, assumptions, and methodologies for uncovering meaning and exploring the relationship between a text and its context, author, or reader. For instance:

  • Formalist Criticism focuses solely on the internal elements of a text, such as its structure, language, and rhetorical devices, asserting that meaning resides entirely within the work itself.

  • Reader-Response Theory shifts the focus to the audience, arguing that meaning is co-created by the reader's interaction with the text, influenced by their personal experiences and cultural background.

  • Biographical Criticism connects the text to the author's life, experiences, and historical moment, using these details to illuminate the work's themes and complexities.

  • Moral/Philosophical Criticism evaluates literature based on the ethical questions it raises or the philosophical truths it conveys, viewing texts as a means to explore human values.

  • Psychological Criticism delves into the unconscious motivations of characters or authors, often drawing on psychoanalytic concepts to interpret symbolism and behavior within the narrative.

  • Archetypal Criticism identifies universal patterns, myths, and symbols recurring across different cultures, suggesting a shared human psyche.

  • Sociological Criticism examines how literature reflects or comments on social structures, class relations, and power dynamics within a given society.

  • Historical Criticism situates a literary work within its original historical period, considering the events, ideologies, and cultural norms that shaped its creation and initial reception.

  • Post-Colonial Criticism analyzes texts through the lens of colonialism and its aftermath, focusing on themes of identity, power, and resistance in formerly colonized regions.

  • Post-Modern Criticism questions grand narratives and traditional notions of truth, often highlighting fragmentation, irony, and the constructed nature of reality in texts.

  • Marxist Criticism interprets literature as a product of economic and class struggles, revealing how texts can perpetuate or challenge dominant ideologies.

  • Ecocriticism explores the relationship between literature and the natural environment, promoting ecological awareness and critiquing anthropocentric viewpoints.

  • Feminist Criticism exposes patriarchal biases, re-evaluates women writers, and analyzes gender representations to understand how texts construct or deconstruct gender roles.

  • Gender Studies & Queer Criticism challenges heteronormativity and binary thinking, examining the performativity of gender and the spectrum of sexual identities within literature.

In essence, literary theory helps us dig deeper into texts, understanding not only what they say but also how they say it, why they say it, and what implications they have for the world and its readers.