Introduction Part 2

What are the fundamentals of contemporary literary interpretation?

As a preface to the discussion of some of the fundamentals includes a discussion of the impossibility to define critical theory which is so closely linked to contemporary literary interpretation as to mean nearly the same thing.  As theorist Paul De Man, deconstructionist and writer of “The Resistance to Theory” says, “the main theoretical interest of literary theory consists the impossibility of its definition” (3).  There is silver bullet for all literary interpretation.  No one theory gives all the answers.  

Each of the schools of thought have stances on the importance some very basic principles of literary interpretation.  Each places different amounts of value on the roles of language, the importance of the author, reader, and audience, and how a piece of literature relates to other texts and contexts.  Let's break these down and see what the theories have to say.

Language

Russian Formalism and New Criticism:  Russian Formalists and New Critics view language of a poem to be very important because it is only in the poem itself and its language that we can find meaning.  They look at language in regards to word choice, alliteration, rhyme, diction, metaphors, etc.  They look at individual words and find out their meaning as they meant in the time frame they were written.  Language is thus very important.

Liberal Humanism:  this group sees language in its aesthetic sense as having value.  They do not scritinize the language in particular, but the truths and beauty expressed is what is important.

Reader-oriented Criticism: The RoC look at language in combination with the reader.  One is not complete without the other in determining meaning (Reader + Text = Meaning).

Structuralism:  They look at language as the key ingredient to everything.  They believe it is language that creates our world.  Language is the means of creation, and so it is in a poem.  It is through language that we find the truth and unity.  Language is the most important factor of any work of literature when it comes to a structuralist point of view.  

Post-structuralism:  This group looks at language even farther than the structuralists.  They do not limit themselves to a single meaning of a word.  They look at the liquidity of language.  They believe language is broken, and that no words point to one truth because words change in meaning over time.  They find contradictions in the words used exposing the decentralization of language.  They believe that language has no center, that it is always changing and evolving, and that language has no concrete foundation or destination.

Deconstruction:  Deconstructionists not only look at the language there, but also what that language says about what is not there.  They prove the language to be at war with itself.  By using one word, the author is not using another.  They expose the conflict from the apparent harmony.

Feminism:  They do not look at language in and of itself to find meaning.  They expose language in the ways it suppresses women.

Marxism:  They look at language as it exposes personal and social ideologies and class struggle.  They are not limited to the language used to uncover meaning as they look at it as only part of a greater social context.

New Historicism:  New Historicists look at language of a text on equal grounds with language of texts of the same time period.  They, too, see the text only as a part of some bigger context, namely historical.

Post-colonialism:  They look for how the language represents suppression of colonized peoples.

Minority:  See language as it exposes suppression of minorities.

Queer:  See language exposing suppression of homosexuals

Ecocriticism:  See language as it pertains to the environment.

Author, Reader, and Audience


Russian Formalism and New Criticism:  Any external application of one of these is irrelevant.  They totally disregard anything that is not already explicitly in the text.  New Critics believe that if the author's intentions were to be taken into account, they would be present in the text.
Liberal Humanism:  They look at all these factors as they look for the "enhancement" of human life and thought.  They look at the effects of the text on the reader as it makes them a better person by reading.
Reader-oriented Criticism:  They place heavy weight on the reader and whether they fall into the authorial/intended audience or the actual audience.  The distance between these audiences exposes the success of the author's work at the time it was written.  The closer they are, the more successful will be the work; the farther distant, the less so.
Structuralism:  Language is the most important thing, so these other factors only add into the equation as they pertain to the language (i.e. what language the author chose to put in, how the reader is affected by the language, etc.)
Post-structuralism:  The post-structuralists do not make the author, reader, or audience a major point either.  They show the decentralization of language and what that means, and that is their main point of discourse.  They believe meaning is affected and created by an individual's experiences.
Deconstruction:  Deconstructionists don't really put a lot of weight on the people involved in the process, just how they analyze and deconstruct the text.
Feminism:  Feminists look to see how the author mostly and how he or she portrays women in the text. They don't really look at the reader's reaction.  They look to see, also, if women were part of the intended or actual audiences of the time it was written and how that may be changing now.
Marxism: Marxists look at the audience, etc. much more than say the structuralists.  They look to see how the author portrayed the social structure, the superstructure, of their time period.  They analyze how class struggle is expressed.  Society, which includes the author, reader, and audience, is the focus of the Marxist reader.
New Historicism:  New Historicists look value the author and reader as they pertain to the time period in which the work was written.  They look to see what was going on that made the writer write in this or that particular way, and then they would analyze how the reader reacted to the work because of the certain historical context of the time.

Relation to Other Literature/Contexts

I like thinking about literature as ‘doing’ something, rather than just ‘being’ something, it helps me understand literature as part of a larger world, rather than as a self-contained unit removed from real life.  Literary texts, like all other kinds of texts, produce the world we live in, and ‘Literary Theory’ is a tool—or better, a set of tools which enables us to examine how that happens. (Krages 7)

Russian Formalism and New Criticism:  Negligible.  If it is not in the work, don't worry about it.

Liberal Humanism:  They look at how the text transcends itself, and is self-reflexive.  They look at the timeless truths shown in the text.  They see how the text is more than just the text, and that by reading it, we as readers, can become enlightened and inspired and in the process become better people.

Reader-oriented Criticism:  They do not look to other contexts unless that is what comes to the reader as they read.  They do not actively pursue how the text itself relates to other texts.

Structuralism:  Structuralists are strong believers in context because they saw societal context as a structure, similar to the structure they see in language.  They take the language of a text and apply it to its larger context.  They place works into genres in order to seek unity.

Post-structuralism:  Post-structuralists take context even farther than structuralists.  They expose the subconscious of a text through other contexts and the decentralization of language.  

Deconstruction:  Deconstructionists take points in the literature and apply it to other text and contexts to show that whatever that work was pointing out is not necessarily the case.  

Feminism:  They look into the social contexts of the time, how women were treated and what roles they played in the community and the home.  They then look for these characteristics in the literature they study.

Marxism:  Marxists believe it is all about context.  They apply literature to other genres and how those genres portray the class struggle.  They look into the social context in particular, but also look heavily into the political and economic contexts of the time.  They swear by the superstructure, which is the framework of society made of all these factors.  

New Historicism:  New Historicists look at other literary works of the same time period and the historical atmosphere of the time.  They give these other texts and contexts the same weight as the work they are studying.  They don't privilege the piece of literature any more than another of the same period.

The Rise of Cultural Studies


With the presence of these schools of thought surrounding the critical discussion of literature many people have joined in the discussion of cultural studies in association with literary studies.
"The task of cultural criticism is to analyze and assess the social roots, institutional relays, and ideological ramifications of communal events, institutions, and texts. Against the weakening but still regnant scholarly focus on aesthetic masterpieces of canonized high literature, cultural criticism advances the claims of "low," working class, marginal, popular, minority, and mass cultural discourses" (Leitch).  This has added yet another layer to how we approach, analyze, and apply literature.


Cultural studies has definitely added a new element to the study of literature in that it brings issues of the present day and imposes them on literary works written in a different time.  Cultural studies has taken literary principles and applied them to studying culture, but the concern is that the inverse (taking popular culture to study literature) may be killing the critical approach to literature held dear by traditionalists.  Critics worry that trying to see the literature through so many narrow lenses may kill the study of literature.


Despite skepticism, however, cultural studies is gaining power and prestige in literary criticism.  Whether cultural studies is detrimental or beneficial to the study of literature is still to be determined.