Literary Approaches
Literary Approach - Freudian Criticism
July/27/2018 08:53 AM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Freudian Criticism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“Based on the work of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Many of its practitioners assert that the meaning of a literary work does not lie on its surface but in the psyche of the author. The value of the work, then, lies in how powerfully and convincingly it expresses the author's unconscious and how universal the psychological elements are.”
A literary work's psychological meaning—conscious or unconscious—depends on the author's objective. Words composed for commercial value cannot be scrutinized for universal truths when monetary considerations and publishing guidelines obscure the mind of the writer. Marketing tactics snuff out genuine components, passion and spirit smothered beneath industry expectations that conflict with original intent.
Literary Approach - Lacanian Criticism
July/26/2018 09:05 AM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Lacanian Criticism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“Based on the work of Jacques Lacan. Accepting the Oedipal paradigm and the unconscious as the realm of repressed desire, Lacanian psychology conflates these concepts with the deconstructionist emphasis on language as expressing absence—you use a word to represent an absent object but you cannot make it present. The word, then, like the unconscious desire, is something that cannot be fulfilled. Language, reaching out with one word after the other, striving for but never reaching its object, is the arena of desire.”
Famous for a controversial method of psychoanalysis, Lacan can be interpreted like any work of literature. His theories are a manifestation of Western culture and Roman Catholic indoctrination. Repression may spur creative impulses, yet the assumption that words seek a pathway to undefined fulfillment defies credibility.
Literary Approach - Deconstruction
May/08/2018 03:25 PM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Deconstruction
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“Deconstruction takes the observations of structuralism to their logical conclusion, arguing that the elaborate web of semiotic differentiations created by the principle of difference in language means that no text can ultimately have any stable, definite, or discoverable meaning. Its most famous proponent is the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Many deconstructionists have strong radical political commitments, but the retreat from meaning and denial of clear signification that characterize deconstruction also have affinities with formalism and structuralism. Unlike structuralism it denies that the verbal world adds up to anything coherent, consistent, or meaningful in itself.”
A deconstructionist evaluates a conglomeration of words with a cynical attitude that renders the text meaningless. Interesting to contemplate and difficult to analyze, language cannot be trusted, so nothing ever written is credible to this critic. Any narrative may describe, insinuate, or express, yet no one can fathom the infinite details, connotations, or emotions that remain subject to interpretation. Deconstruction dismantles the notion that a solid foundation exists in linguistics.
Literary Approach - Phenomenological Criticism
March/23/2018 11:35 AM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Phenomenological Criticism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“Another kind of subjectivist criticism. These critics consider all the writings of an author as the expression of his or her mind-set or way of looking at reality. Such a critic looks for repeated or obsessive use of certain key words, incidents, patterns, and angles of vision, and, using these, maps out thereby the inner world of the writer.”
A revealing examination of an author's worldview, this approach is reliable within an artistic medium but not a commercial market. Monetary considerations may influence the act of creation, skewing an accurate analysis. The phenomenological critic appeals to academics. Immersion in this method can be obsessive in itself, for repetition in a writer's work is often due to poor editing rather than a deep-seated vision.
Literary Approach - Pluralism
February/13/2018 02:47 PM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Pluralism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“Many approaches overlap. Pluralists contend that they make use of promising insights or methods wherever they find them and argue that putting together the values of different approaches leads to a fairer and more balanced view of texts and their uses.”
Like any scientific or artistic inquiry, the method used is at an individual's discretion. Rather than asserting that one approach has value over another, a pluralist scrutinizes a text from various angles, even opposing viewpoints, to create a broader perspective than a limited school of thought can accomplish. The result may be enlightening or contradictory, an impression created at the critic's volition.
Literary Approach - Psychological Criticism
November/28/2017 04:04 PM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Psychological Criticism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“The assumption is that literature is the expression of the author's psyche, often his or her unconscious, and, like dreams, needs to be interpreted.”
Monetary goals override sincere literary expression, especially in commercial fiction. Book publishers and magazine editors slant material toward predetermined readers, rendering interpretation worthless. Unless an author has maintained creative control and not intentionally written for a specific market, any work is a product guided by economic motivation.
Literary Approach - Subjectivism
October/23/2017 04:58 PM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Subjectivism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“This loose term can be used to embrace many forms of psychological and self-, subject-, or reader-centered criticism.”
The subjectivist critic evaluates a text through an exclusive lens. Built on a specific belief and guided interpretation, these predetermined elements form the foundation for analysis. Cemented in religion, psychology, or philosophy, the review may be biased, political, self-serving, or enlightening. This method defies what an objectivist strives to accomplish.
Literary Approach - Objectivism
September/19/2017 11:46 AM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Objectivism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“Objectivist critics believe that a text is an independent object, free from the subjectivity of author and reader.”
An author's ability to write without the influence of emotion and experience requires discipline. A reader's tendency to project philosophical beliefs and to analyze must be restrained. If accomplished, then objectivism is possible, taking interpretive power away from the reviewer. This type of criticism holds value, but remains difficult to implement even among journalists. A writer's words may carry a passionate charge, yet the text is removed from the creator's private world.
Literary Approach - Dialogism
August/15/2017 04:36 PM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Dialogism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“Based on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975). The dialogic critic bases the study of language and literature on the individual utterance, taking into account the specific time, the place, the speaker, and the listener or reader. Because the dialogic sees utterances, including literary utterances or works, as specific to a time and place, one of its dimensions, unlike formalist, structuralist, or psychological criticism, is historical. Nineteenth-century historical criticism took the obvious fact that a work is created in a specific historical and cultural context and that the author is a part of that context in order to treat literature as a product of culture.”
Dialogism analyzes literature while considering the historical period and the place in which it was written. This critic delves into peripherals of an author's world, rather than focusing on text as an independent entity in a structured or pre-ordered manner. The writer is a contributor within a particular culture.
Literary Approach - Post-Structuralism
July/21/2017 03:02 PM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Post-Structuralism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
”The broad term used to designate the several directions of literary criticism that, while depending crucially on the insights of science-based theory, attack the very idea that any kind of certitude can exist about the meaning, understandability, or shareability of texts. Post-structuralists, disturbed at the optimism of positivist philosophy in suggesting that the world is knowable and explainable, ultimately doubt the possibility of certainties of any kind, and they see language as especially elusive and unfaithful."
Post-structuralists examine the way an author uses language, while simultaneously doubting the viability of literary analysis. These skeptics question the process of defining literature, and to a certain extent, render the critique itself worthless. An odd approach, especially to a decisive scholar firmly embedded in a particular school of thought, yet post-structuralism appeals to intellectuals who accept the ambiguity of our contemporary world.
Literary Approach - Structuralism
July/17/2017 04:29 PM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Structuralism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“For many formalists, literature is not referential. The words in a story, poem, or play no longer point outward to things, people, or the world they are supposed to denote, but point inward to each other and to the formal system they create. Structuralism focuses on the text as an independent aesthetic object and also tends to detach literature from history and social and political implications, but structuralism emphasizes systematic analysis, aspiring to make literary criticism a branch of scientific inquiry. It sees every literary work as a separate system. Structuralism has its roots in modern linguistic theory; it looks especially to the work of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), who founded structural linguistics in the early twentieth century. Flourished internationally in the early 1960s. Like formalism, it shows little interest in the creative process as such and has virtually no interest in authors, their intentions, or the circumstances or contents of criticism.”
Structuralism puts an author's words under a literary microscope. It is the language itself and the way it is used that a critic examines rather than exposing the work to interpretive analysis. Personal ideals and historical concepts no longer bask under a spotlight. A story or poem stands on its own without the backdrop of contrived evaluation. This formal method utilizes organized inquiry opposed to subjective scrutiny.
Literary Approach - New Historicism
June/28/2017 03:12 PM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: New Historicism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“New historicism has less obvious ideological commitments than Marxism or feminism, but it shares their interest in the investigation of how power is distributed and used in different cultures. New historicism wishes to isolate the fundamental values in texts and cultures, and it regards texts both as evidence of basic cultural patterns and as forces in cultural and social change. 'Popular literature' often gets major attention.”
Analysis of mass-market fiction and poetry may evaluate cultural progress. Thought-provoking, yet dubious, this method of criticism casts a spotlight on injustice by examining an author's words. A creative endeavor reveals more than underlying class warfare. New historicism reduces a literary work to a social barometer.
Literary Approach - Marxist Criticism
June/09/2017 03:09 PM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Marxist Criticism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“Based on the work of Karl Marx (1818-1883). Marxist criticism treated literature as a passive product of the culture, specifically of the economic aspect, and, therefore, of class warfare. Economics, the underlying cause of history, was thus the base, and culture, including literature and other arts, the superstructure. Viewed from the Marxist perspective, the literary works of a period would, then, reveal the state of the struggle between classes in the historical place and moment.”
A vestige from the communist era, Marxist criticism explores the economic dynamics behind every social and artistic institution. Marxists believed pursuit of money and class structure governed daily interactions in all walks of life. Literature, thought of as a reflection of strife, yielded information useful in gauging a presumed power struggle, often political in tone.
Literary Approach - Jungian Criticism
May/19/2017 01:02 PM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Jungian Criticism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“Based on the work of Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). The Jungian critic assumes that we all share a universal or collective unconscious (as well as having a racial and individual conscious). According to Jung and his followers, in the collective and in our individual unconscious are universal images, patterns, and forms of human experiences, or archetypes. These archetypes surface in art in an imperfect, shadowy way, taking the form of archetypal images.”
Jung asserts that artistic endeavors lead to creation of stereotypes—images or characters manifested in universally familiar forms. Appealing to the innovative and analytical, his work emphasizes shared human experience. His concept of a collective unconscious may be disputed, yet the presence of archetypes in literature and poetry cannot be denied. From virtuous paragons to evil embodiments, similarities exist across the centuries, evident in all civilizations.
Literary Approach - Feminist Criticism
May/02/2017 09:17 AM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Feminist Criticism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“Feminist criticism derives from firm political and ideological commitments and insists that literature both reflects and influences human behavior in the larger world. Feminist thought endeavors both to extend contemporary attention to distinctively female concerns, ideas, and accomplishments and to recover the largely unrecorded and unknown history of women in earlier times.”
A feminist perspective is unique, but the detachment of a woman's interests from the mainstream can be limiting. The implication that female concerns belong in a distinct academic sphere restrains the long-term progression toward equality. Steeped in centuries of cultural and religious indoctrination, feminist studies reinforce the belief that a woman's world remains separated from a man's domain.
Literary Approach - Formalism
April/18/2017 01:03 PM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Formalism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“One common formalist conception is that a work is autotelic, that is, complete in itself, written for its own sake, and unified by its form—that which makes it a work of art. Content is less important than form. Literature involves a special kind of language that sets it apart from merely utilitarian writing; the formal strategies that organize and animate that language elevate literature and give it a special, almost religious character.”
Words placed strategically focus on mode of expression rather than message or content. Understatement and overstatement emphasize style, each technique a literary contrivance. A formalist may not care whether a paragraph makes sense. The artistic merit of a writer's work remains paramount. Ornate prose flaunts; sparse discourse conceals—both display an artificial use of language.
Literary Approach - Reader-Response Criticism
April/10/2017 01:52 PM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Reader-Response Criticism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“The conventional notion of reading is that a writer or speaker has an ‘idea,’ encodes it—that is, turns it into words—and the reader or listener decodes it, deriving, when successful, the writer/speaker’s ‘idea.’ The critic follows the text sequentially (such as in a novel), observing what expectations are being aroused, how they are being satisfied or modified, how the reader recapitulates ‘evidence’ from the portion of the text he has read to project forward a configuration, a tentative assumption of what the work as a whole will be and mean once it is done. The expectations are in part built by the text and in part by the repertoire of the reader—that is, the reader’s reading experience plus his or her social and cultural knowledge.”
Interpretation of words unveils reader perception. Subjected to belief and assumption, critique of a literary work can promote a philosophical view far removed from the writer’s intent—a world foreign to the author, familiar to the critic. Academic communities foster objective scrutiny of fiction and poetry. Complete detachment may be impossible.
Literary Approach - Sociological Criticism
March/28/2017 10:05 PM
Editor: J. Paul Hunter, University of Chicago
(Norton & Company, 1999)
The Norton Introduction to Poetry: Sociological Criticism
University of Chicago professor emeritus J. Paul Hunter defines critical approaches to evaluating poetry and prose in this excellent text published by Norton & Company. The book is now in its ninth edition with contributing editors Alison Booth, University of Virginia, and Kelly J. Mays, University of Nevada.
“Literature is seen as one aspect of the larger processes of history, especially those processes involving people acting in social groups or as members of social institutions or movements. Sociological criticism assumes that the most significant aspects of human beings are social and that the most important functions of literature thus involve the way that literature both portrays and influences human interactions. Much sociological criticism centers its attention on contemporary life and texts, seeking to affect both societal directions and literary ones in the present, but some sociological criticism is historical, concerned with differences in different times and places, and anxious to interpret directions of literature in terms of historical emphases and patterns.”
Sociology is the study of people with differing cultural, philosophical, and religious beliefs. The application of this technique to literature spotlights contradictory concepts in past and present society, seeking to explain human behavior in groups. Interpretation exposes the scrutinized words and may reveal a biased motive in the poem or story.