Theoretical Approaches to Literature Summary

Exam Information

• First exam: May 21
• Second exam: June 4
• Third exam: June 25
• Format: 60 minutes, multiple-choice (56 questions), and 2 open questions.
• Open questions relate to primary and secondary readings.
• Preparation: Review slides, apply analytical categories, re-read texts, and consult resources.

Text-Oriented Approaches: Distant Reading

• Examination of large corpora.
• Example: Moretti's analysis of British novel titles from 1740 to 1850.

Deconstructive Criticism

• Questions:
  • What does the text obviously say?
  • How can the text be turned against itself?
  • How can something marginal be brought to the center?
• Undecidability: Opens the text to multiple readings and destabilizes reader certainty.

Reader-Oriented Approaches

• Types:
  • Reception Theory
  • Reader-response Criticism
  • Reception History

Reception Theory

• Key idea: Text only exists when read.
• Central concept: Implied reader (ideal reader).
• Question: How is a text meaningful to a reader under certain circumstances?

Reader-Response Criticism

• Focus: Actual readers and their impact on authors.
• Important concept: "Interpretive communities" (Stanley Fish).

Reception History

• Includes sales figures and reviews.
• Analyzed synchronically or diachronically.

Context-Oriented Approaches

• Types:
  • Literary History
  • Marxist Literary Theory
  • New Historicism
  • Cultural Studies
  • Postcolonial Studies
  • Feminist Literary Criticism
  • Gender and Queer Theory
  • Ecocriticism

Literary History

• Divides literature into periods.
• Groups texts by historical backgrounds.

Periodisation:

• British Isles:
  • 1500-1660: Elizabethan / Seventeenth Century
  • 1660-1785: The Restoration / Eighteenth Century
  • 1785-1830: The Romantic Period
  • 1830-1901: The Victorian Age
  • 1901-: The Twentieth Century

Marxist Literary Theory

• Texts as expressions of economic, social, and political factors.
• Key factors: conditions of production, mechanisms of class.

Cultural Studies

• Literature as one manifestation of cultural mechanisms.
• Analyzes various forms like visual arts, TV, film, and popular culture.

New Historicism (Cultural Poetics)

• Reads literary texts with historical or scientific documents.
• Interpretation of cultural texts improves understanding of history.

Postcolonial Studies

• Considers cultural identity as constructed by discursive forces.
• Representation equals power.

Feminist Literary Theory

• Focuses on representation of women and feminist literary history.

Gender Theory

• Focuses on interaction between genders.
• Questions stable gender identities.

Queer Studies

• Questions rigid gender binaries and heteronormativity.

Ecocriticism

• Studies relationship between literature and the natural environment.
• Earth-centered perspective with an activist dimension.

General Application of Theoretical Approaches

• Identify the approach in secondary literature.
• Analyze questions and insights.
• Critically assess arguments and clarity.
• Be aware of assumptions when interpreting texts.
• Combine approaches thoughtfully.