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Criticism and centers on close analysis of the words that comprise each page of text William Meson was a pupil of Richards. He applies an assiduously strict, almost mathematical formula to textual analysis, the drawback of which is that the flexibility of language is largely discounted. F. R. Leaves, along with Q. D. Roth (whom he eventually marries), takes the process of close reading to the next level by examining its application to written forms ranging from Journalism to popular fiction.
Unfortunately, he tends to identity key textual passages without fully explaining their significance. -+ New Criticism 19th Century -+ critics begin looking at something other than poetry Ten Major Claims of Liberal Humanism: 1 . “Good” literature has transcendent value, applies universally to human experience, and will remain “good” literature “not for an age, but for all time. ” 2. It follows, then, that literature contains a meaning and value entirely its own, which can be ascertained without taking historical, social, political, autobiographical, or intra- literary contexts into consideration 3.
A literary work stands on its own and should be examined in isolation 4. In order for the value of literature to be universal, human nature must remain static. That is, people experience the same fundamental emotions, thoughts, and concerns across time. 5. We, as individuals, contain an immutable “essence” that is impervious to change at the hands of external conditions that nonetheless influence our development from the moment we are born.
This putatively explains why transformation episodes in literature have an unsettling effect upon the reader. 6. Since human nature and the individual do not change, iterate that purports to sway our opinions or cause us to reassess our value systems must harbor a political agenda, and as such cannot be considered great. 7. In great literature, an organic correspondence exists between form and content. One complements and accentuates the other. This is particularly evident in great works of poetry. 8.
Great literature is innately sincere. That is not to say that the author’s intention can be seen as more or less sincere, but that the means of expression contained within the text (the choice of words and their arrangement) effectively closes the distance between language and what it represents. . As a corollary to 8, great literature shows more than it tells. Great literature does not overtly explain what it means, rather it creates the idea of a world within the text whose ultimate value is only implicitly accessible. 10.
Criticism cannot do more than serve as an intermediary between the text and the reader, should only assist in the interpretation of the text, and should avoid ‘theorizing’ on the nature of the reading process, the possibility of political ramifications, or center on a single idea as a point of departure for reading the work in question. By Tamari-Duisenberg Practical Criticism ??+ close reading explaining their significance. ??+ New Criticism 19th Century ??+ critics begin looking at assuming the intent or purpose of the artist who created it.
Affective Fallacy ??+ refer to the supposed error of Judging or evaluating a text on the basis of its emotional effects on a reader. Liberal humanism is the predecessor to new criticism, but the two are very close Mimesis ??+ Repeating of events; infers what it means; telling Digests ??+ We’re told what’s going on; showing 9/8/2014 2 French theorists credited with the inception of structuralism Claude Levi-Strauss: Anthropologist who applies Creature’s idea of langue and areole to analysis of cultural mythology.
Using Oedipus as his model, he demonstrates that a complete understanding of the Oedipus myth (the parole, in this case)) can only be gleaned through a more comprehensive understanding of the entire cycle of Thebes myths (the langue) of which it is a part. This, by extension, requires us to investigate Thebes culture as the langue that births Oedipus as its mythic parole. Roland Breather: Theorist and cultural anthropologist who applies structuralism principles to an examination of any number of cultural artifacts including wrestling etches, automotive design, image construction of Hollywood luminaries, etc.
Like Levi-Strauss, Breather insists that we can best understand texts and other cultural artifacts via examination of the systems of signification that give rise to them. Alexia ??+ Portions of discrete texts that can be identified with the various codes 1 . Appropriate Code: Provides indications of actions; concerned with plot and sequence of events 2. Hermeneutic Code: Alexia that drive suspense or create intrigue by pointing out missing facts.
These alexia raise questions. 3. Cultural Code: Allusions. When alexia assumes a common body of knowledge beyond the text. . Seismic Code: Connotations. Uses the nuances of language. (I. E. He “scored” with a girl). 5. Symbolic Code: Identifies oppositions (antitheses) and paradoxes. 9/10/2014 Structuralism: ask what language does to generate meaning Post-structuralism: ask what can language do to generate meaning Sign: any symbol (collection of letters, photograph, etc. Signifier: linguistic unit (sounds we make when enunciating or the colors/textures of a painting) Signified: the referent that the signifier points toward Fixing Patriarchy: male mid-Victorian writers and gender it is situated, relational, contingent, and provisional. Meaning is always plural, but not completely open-ended. Transcendental Signified ??+ the idea of a transcendent meaning Tautology ??+ Circular reasoning Peoria ??+ places where language seems to break down, collapse on itself, and make meaning impossible; an infinite regression. /1 5/2014 Nihilism ??+ belief in nothing 9/22/2014 Lagan + subject/object duality 3 stages: Imaginary (association with mother) ??+ pre-linguistic Mirror stage (awareness of difference between self and other) Symbolic stage (entry into social order via language; language is associated with patriarchal authority) Experience = image + sign L ‘omniscient est. structure come UN language: this is the most quoted of Lagan’s many gnomic pronouncements, and still usefully encapsulates a major dimension of his theory.
The human infant, as s/he acquires speech, is inserting him/herself into a pre-existing symbolic order, and subjecting his/her passion to the controlling pressures of the verbal domain. Unconscious desire, for Lagan, is unstoppable and insatiable; its goals are perpetually in flight. The symbolic order of language through which this desire passes is one in which the human subject is endlessly divided, displaced, and reconstituted.
The principal aim of Lagan’s psychoanalysis is to allow he subject fully to inhabit the symbolic order, to heed the language of his/her desire, and to remain in process, uncompleted, unloosened, and direct deservingly towards a future. ” Freud viewed the unconscious as a repository of unwanted and unacknowledged material that the ego had either deferred or failed to process. The unconscious is likened to an attic or basement filled with anxieties, fears, unresolved conflicts, and unacceptable desires.
As such, the unconscious takes a ‘back seat’ to the ego, and affects the conscious side of our mental lives only in so much as this repressed psychic material surfaces through dreams, displacements, projections, transference, etc. In other words, the conscious mind always maintains primacy whereas the unconscious works in the background to disrupt conscious mind until repressed material is confronted, processed, and nullified. Life emerged.
Further, any access psychoanalysis may have to unconscious material is obtained through language, meaning the unconscious has a structure similar, or perhaps identical to, a language. Suffice it to say that this complicates matters, especially when we take into account the post-structuralism axiom that the signifier is ever identical with the signified. The logical extension of this reasoning places our very notion of self in Jeopardy by suggesting that our conscious minds are linguistically and socially ordered constructs that do no represent our ‘genuine’ selves.
This leads Lagan to say of the conscious self, “who is this other to whom I am more attached than to myself, since at the heart of my assent to my own identity it is still he who wags me? ” It seems Lagan would have us dismantle and decanter our very notion of selfless by comparing self to a language system that cannot offer direct access to reality. When we are born, we are like unmolested clay. Before any sense of self emerges, Lagan argues we exist in the realm of the Imaginary, and do not distinguish between ourselves and those things exterior to ourselves.
Instead, we identify with the mother. When we reach 6-18 months of age we enter the Mirror Stage and, upon seeing our reflection, begin to conceive ourselves as distinct, singular beings. We define ourselves in linguistic terms, now that we recognize our separateness from the rest of the universe. Remember, language Is a system of signification, and not synonymous with the items it refers to. Thus, through language, we come to acknowledge our separation from what we ultimately lack but continue, to varying degrees, to desire.
This, according to Lagan, marks the beginning of our entrance into a social order, complete with all its attendant rules and prohibitions, the authority behind which we associate with the gather. Logic, grammar, and virtually any codified structure aims at defining and regulating the world are contained within this Symbolic realm where we spend the majority of our conscious lives. As nihilistic abstruse as Lagan’s philosophy seems, it has its merits, especially as they apply to literary studies.
The aspects of Lagan’s philosophy that we may not wish to accept on a personal level may none the less facilitate 9/24/2014 Feminism, in its broadest definition, has been with us since the dawn of civilization, since the first moment we could recognize texts that reflected the reality of gender construction and, more importantly, the long standing trend of women’s subordination within social and cultural hierarchies that placed the male of the species at the top of the pecking order. He 19th and 20th centuries aimed at securing basic rights for a largely and unwarrantably disenfranchised female populace, including but not limited to suffrage movements, initiatives granting women governance over their own bodies (birth control, abortion, etc. ), equal pay legislation, and admission into military service. The word “feminism” might also tempt us to envision militant protests, the bra- burning episodes of the sass, or an aberrant species of women’s rights movement whose primary mission is to denigrate and blame men for any and all of its social woes.
These are erroneous conceptualizations of the true intellectually responsible brand of feminism that pervades modern academia. In its best incarnation, feminism seeks to explore and nurture a unique space in which women can attain equality with their male counterparts while simultaneously recognizing and celebrating the inherent contrasts and compatibilities between genders that enable concepts of “female” and “male” to define one another. Feminist – a political position Female – a matter of biology Feminine – a set of culturally defined characteristics 3 characteristics of contemporary feminism?? 1 .
Feminism incorporates other approaches to critical theory, including Marxism, structuralism, linguistics, postcolonial, etc. 2. Feminism does not make an attach n men as its primary goal. Rather, it examines the nature and value f a uniquely female worldview, attempting in the process to make sense of the absence, repression, or the distortion of genuine female experiences. 3. Feminism emphasizes the need, not to emulate, but to diverge from the conventionally accepted historical canon of literary works whose authors are primarily white men of European descent.
Feminine phase – women writers imitate the aesthetics of their male counterparts Feminist phase – overturns and rebels against compliance with masculine norms Female phase – identifies, isolates, and expresses uniquely female experience Critter feminine – the idea of an entirely female langue that exists outside philanthropic, or male-dictated and authoritarian forms of rhetoric. This can be problematic because critter feminine alleges to exist in a realm beyond logic, outside of theoretical constraint, and above the purview of philosophy.
This of course begs the question, what is it, and what examples do we have of it? It is defined more by what is not than by what it is, and as such as associated with an upheaval Waves of Feminism 1. Identifies and resists patriarchy 2. Feminism without philanthropic language. Lesbian as consummate feminism 3. Race concerns enter . Raunchy Heterogeneity ??+ Assumes an order in which heterosexuality is privileged (seen as “the norm”) Homological ??+ men’s clubs, gathering of same sex, etc.
Lesbian and gay criticism traces its roots to feminist ideologies, and would be properly subsumed in contemporary contexts under the broader umbrella of gender studies. A body of common concerns animates lesbian feminism, gay male theory, and queer theory; each attempts to expose “the centrality of gender as a fundamental category of historical analysis and understanding” and has its chief aim a reconsideration of heterogeneity gender constructions that otherwise reorganize or summarily disavow the presence of homosexual orientation in its broadest sense.
That is, lesbian and gay critics investigate both homosexual and homological patterns in literature as a means of calling into question our preconceived notions of same- sex interaction on multiple levels. At the same time, these critics interrogate heterosexuality as the privileged term in the heterosexual/homosexual binary, noting dominant culture’s insistence on heterosexual as the main culprit in the promotion of homophobia. Despite the commonalities, gay, lesbian, and queer theory models delineate separate emphases marked by different assumptions about the relationship between gender and sexuality.
Gay theory examines sexual difference as it is applicable to the female gender; queer theory attempts to examine sexual difference separate from gender altogether, or with radical developing of the status of gender in traditional discourses. To better understand how each revises the others, it is helpful to remember a few general truths. Not all gay criticism is written by gay authors Gay critics do not toil exclusively in medium of gay criticism; they espouse other radical theories as well Gay criticism is not intended exclusively for gay audiences (what would be the point? Gay criticism, contrary to widespread popular belief, does not suggest that everyone, in some latent sense, is gay. Rather, gay critics ask us to view homosexuality and heterosexuality as points along a continuum, not as a purely oppositional binary. Gay criticism owes some allegiance to its predecessor, feminism, but departs from feminism in its assertion that gender difference and sexual difference are related but are not the same. The construction of masculinity and indemnity informs sexual orientation, but by no means defines it.
Lesbian Feminism Feminism’s ascension to the forefront of academic study in the sass, some critics claim, was predicated largely on the idea that whatever constituted “female experience” was defined in terms of a white, middle-class, and above all heterosexual paradigm. This tendency came under fire for replacing the discriminatory structure it allegedly militated against with a new hierarchy that failed to accommodate women or varying class, race, and sexual orientation. Arguably, mainstream feminism had that bowed to conventional patriarchy,
If feminism was so immanently concerned with female experience, why did it avoid discussion of lesbianism, the substance of which springs from “antihistamine” love? “The woman identified woman” putatively emerged to remedy this imbalance by positing the lesbian experience as the ultimate form of feminism because it operated in a feminine vacuum devoid of any male influence whatsoever (including the heterosexual that subordinated women to their male counterparts in the first place).
Because the theoretical impulse behind lecturers feminine is to articulate a system of meaning absolutely incontinent on masculine parameters, the lesbian again revises a productive theoretical trope for authentic feminism. Of course, this ideology invokes another brand of exclusionary practice, namely one in which female heterosexuality is discounted as an inferior or counterfeit expression of genuine womanhood. The idea of the lesbian continuum 10/6/2014 Gay Male Theory Up to now gay criticism has been portrayed as an offshoot of feminism.
A clear deficit becomes apparent as lesbian theory quite obviously leaves out the considerations of male homosexuality in its discourse on gender. This is somewhat paradoxical, especially when one considers the extent to which our social conditioning has lead us o associate the words “homosexual” and “gay’ with images of male same-sex relationships. To this end, gay male theory looks at ways in which texts provide evidence of male-to- male affinities that resist and overturn authoritative structures (linguistic, social, political, or otherwise) that would deny the very possibility of male homosexual engagement.
Gay male theory also notes, with arguable validity, the extent to which male homosexuality undergoes stronger persecution as it poses a greater threat to patriarchal heterosexual than its lesbian feminist peers. That is, the gay male radium upends patriarchal dominance by shirking its “duty’ to maintain its privilege in the traditional male/female binary. Lesbianism arguably poses a similar threat, but to a lesser degree because its dissent emanates from a position that is, a priori, inferior. That the dominant male should abdicate his position in the heterosexual binary is significantly more problematic.
Finally, lesbian feminism stems from an already secure theoretical stance established via the ubiquity of feminism itself. The gay male has no such theoretical champion, and as such must originate textual readings that, in a sense, invent his relevant to iterate study “from scratch. ” Queer Theory What should be apparent from these unavoidably reductive summaries that is theory continues to develop and will likely remain in flux as it, much like the post- structuralism from which it flows, insists that gender and sexual orientation are social constructs with no transcendent signifier to act as its center.