Six Explications

1. Eagleton, Terry. "The Rise of English." Falling into Theory: Conflicting Views on Reading
Literature. Ed. David H. Richter. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 48-59. Print.

 “If the masses are not thrown a few novels, they may react by throwing up a few barricades” (50).

            This quotation, taken from Terry Eagleton’s “The Rise of English,” shows Eagleton’s sharp wit and sarcasm when discussing literature as a “humanizing” element.  In this essay, he talks about how literature “is an ideology.”  Being a Marxist critic, Eagleton focuses heavily on how society affects what, why, and how we read, and through various ideologies.  Moreover, he focuses on how these ideologies affect, control, and create societies.  

He begins addressing this point by pointing out that literature, during the rise of the Industrial Revolution, replaced religion as the culminating power that dominated and kept society under control.  These forces were powerful and efficient because they created a system of common ideologies that a society grabbed hold of and adopted as their own.  Therefore, instead of the governmental powers having to repress the masses time and again, the populous would "choose" to behave in a way that complied with the system of the people in authority.   That is what this quote is illustrating:  the powerful “pacifying” influence and “humanizing” element of literature.  This also addresses the idea of “escapism” in reading.  Being able to live vicariously though others in novels pacifies the masses.  They do not have to leave their jobs, where they are benefiting and building a productive society, to go on an adventure to the Middle East if they could just read about having an adventure in the Middle East in Arabian Nights.  Literature therefore pacifies the masses into a state of compliance, taking the place that was once held by religion.

2.  Smith, Barbara Herrnstein. "Contingencies of Value". Falling into Theory: Conflicting Views on
Reading Literature. Ed. David H. Richter. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000.
147-52. Print.

“[W]hat may be spoken of as the 'properties' of the work…are not fixed, given, or inherent in the work “itself” but are at every point the variable products of some subject’s interaction with it” (148).

            Barbara Herrnstein-Smith in her work “Contingencies of Value” addresses the issue of where value in a literary work stems.  She firmly argues the position of the liberal humanists who say that literature has “inherent” value, that it portrays “timeless truths,” and that certain properties of a work classify it as either “high brow” literature or just common trash.   None of these properties are inherent in the work, says she.  All value, or what is taken to be valuable, is subjective to people reading the work and what ideologies they hold which contradicts the Marxist belief that value comes from ideologies.  What determines “good literature” are collective values of a society and whether or not the work meets those needs and addresses the values imposed upon it by social ideologies. 

Herrnstein-Smith explains that rather than inherent, these works of literature are given this value based upon their ability to function in the society.  If they are successful, they may be placed into the literary canon.  One of the forces at work here is the subject she addresses in the quote above.  The “subject” is society, or even more in particular, the individuals who determine the works that, for example, get put into the literary canon:  mainly educated, upper or upper-middle class, white male professors.  What they say is important is then taken as such by the general populous.  Those in that power will stay in power because they will set as valuable the view that will keep them there. 

Other “survival advantages” Herrnstein-Smith addresses are three fold.  Once a work gets into the canon, it stays there, not because of any inherent values or properties, but because it is protected from physical deterioration; they are more widely exhibited (say Shakespeare at the Globe Theater), and they are more often read/studied/recited.  These factors are what give the work of literature its inherent value. 

3.  Dasenbrock, Reed Way. "Do We Write the Text We Read?". Falling into Theory: Conflicting Views on Reading Literature. Ed. David H. Richter. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 
278-289. Print.  


“This for me is the most important reason to read and to study literature, to break out of our own circle of beliefs and assumptions and to encounter another point of view” (288).

This quote by Dasenbrock, in his article “Do We Write the Text We Read?,”  has an almost liberal humanist feel to it.  This is important to literary criticism and theory because it addresses the “why” of reading.  Reading literature and analyzing it exposes the break down of consensus that Richter addresses in his “Introduction” to Falling into Theory.   With so many interpretations and different ways of looking at literature, it is only natural that contentions arise.  It is through these arguments that theory stems, that break down the barriers of personal opinion and opens the reader up to other interpretations and modes of thought.   Studying literature in critical ways opens up the reader’s mind to other view points that they then can analyze and come up with their own opinions and ways to analyze literature.  It is so important to at least expose oneself to points of view outside one’s own “circle of beliefs”, our personal ideologies, because those view points add so much depth and breadth to the study of literature that would otherwise be closed off to the reader. 

That is where we get so many different schools of thought in the first place.  The Marxists, Feminists, structuralists, New Critics, Ecocritics, etc.  all contribute something different to the experience and critical approaches to analyze literature.    They provide different spheres of consideration that open up the study of literature to apply to so many more groups of people, situations, and personal ideologies.  That is why it is so important to study literature and break out of our own worlds.

4.  Culler, Jonathan. "Narrative." Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. 83-94. Print.

“Stories, the argument goes, are the main way we make sense of things, whether in thinking of our lives as a progression leading somewhere or in telling ourselves what is happening in the world” (83).

This discussion from Jonathan Culler, called “Narrative”, addresses the main points of what makes up a narrative, or in other words, a story.  Culler says that the core curriculum of schools when studying of literature within the school system has changed.  It has shifted from an emphasis in poetry, to an emphasis in the study of narrative.  This shift happened because it is more natural for us as human beings to relate to stories.  Stories are easier to follow and comprehend because stories are the way in which we see he world and describe what happens.  So it is only natural that we study them rather than the abstract poetry in the classroom.  As Culler suggests, stories give people purpose and a sense of fulfillment in life because of this sense of progression, and it is how we make sense of the news we get from the world around us. 

            Culler also addresses the “horizon of expectations” held by a viewer (of a movie, play, etc.) or a reader.  There are certain things we expect from a story, such as a beginning, middle, end, main characters, setting, conclusion, etc.  We have certain assumptions we take into a work before we ever read/view it.  If we anticipate a mystery, we expect certain characteristics that are different than if we anticipate a romance or an action film.  Failure to meet this horizon of expectations can be detrimental, even fatal, to the success of a given work.

            This is important to theory because it gives some of the basic definitions of terms that are so often discussed and argued in theory.  It gives that original framework to build from so the reader can then engage in the critical discussion.

5.  Culler, Jonathan. "Literature and Cultural Studies." Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. 43-55. Print.


"Cultural studies dwells in the tension between the analyst's desire to analyse culture as a set of codes and practices that alienates people from their interests and creates the desires that they come to have and, on the other hand, the analyst's wish to find in popular culture an authentic expression of value" (46).

            The trends that Jonathon Culler’s analysis of the role cultural studies plays in literature brings out are increasingly important to the study of literary theory and criticism.  Cultural studies have become an appendage to the study of literature.  With the ever-increasing awareness of other peoples and cultures and the anxiety to be politically correct, cultural studies has become another lens through which literature is analyzed.  Culler points out an important paradox in the realm of cultural studies.  The analysts themselves are trying to find a balance between alienating values and desires of a culture by defining them and trying to find universal or characteristics expressions of value through literature.   This conflict has become very important to the study of contemporary criticism.

Questions that arise in cultural studies would include the following.  What is an “authentic expression of value” that Culler mentions?  Is value universal?  Is it characteristic of a particular culture?  Are there such things as universal truths?  Has literature alienated certain cultures and races?  How does literature in those cultures compare with Western canonical literature?  Should we try to incorporate the values of one society into the values of another?  These are the questions the analysts of cultural studies are trying to confront.  In addition, is the growing fascination with cultural studies shadowing and overtaking the traditional study of literature?  Do we impose issues on literature that were never meant to be issues in the work?  These are the questions that traditional literary analysts as well as cultural analysts are battling.  Cultural studies have added a whole other layer to the study of literature.  It is difficult to separate the two in today’s contemporary literary and theoretical study.  

6.  Barry, Peter. "Structuralist." Beginning Theory: An introduction to literary and cultural theory. By Peter Barry. 3rd ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press, n.d. 39-58. Print.

“The thesis of the structuralist is that narrative structures are found upon such underlying paired opposites, or dyads, so that contrasts such as these are the skeletal structure on which all narratives are fleshed out” (54).

            To elaborate on the thesis Barry spells out in this quote in his essay called “Structuralist”, the main line underlying the structuralist point of view is that the world is structured through linguistics.  Language constructs the world we live in; it dictates reality, as human beings know it, because it is through language that we describe the world around us, and it is only through language that we can make sense of it.  We express our thoughts and interact with other people through language.  In order to find meaning, we have to look at words in their relation to other words.  Thus, they can only make sense of a work by considering the context.  One way to consider these principles is to think of taking the ideas presented in the work and then broadening them; they elongate the brush strokes, if you will.

Furthermore, they believe in the power of utterance, and that language illustrates the evolution of thought.  Their view makes the study of literature and language scientific and orderly.  As the quote suggests, they look for pairs of opposites such as day and night, man and female, good and bad.  Another main point the structuralists consider is context.  They look at the language of the work in a context, it being social, political, historical, etc.  They believe that a reader cannot read and understand a work in isolation.  One has to look at the work as a part of something larger in order to find the meaning. 

A reactionary school of thought known as post-structuralism, which takes the structuralist ideas and expands them even further, will later follow this school of thought.