Critical Approaches to Literature

• Formalist

•Biographical

•New Historicist

•Psychological (Freudian)

•Psychoanalytical/Archetypical

•Feminist/Gender

•Marxist

•Reader Response

Literary Theory

AP Literature & Composition

Literary

Theoryprovides various

ways to interpret what

we read.

ISSUES TO CONSIDER

• Benefits of each theory

• Difficulties of each theory

• How application of a theory alters interpretation of

the work

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS•How do interpretive approaches affect our perception of literature?

•Are certain literary theories “better” to use than others?

Formalist Theory

Formalist criticism emphasizes the FORM of a literary work (its literary devices and/or its structure) and how that form influences its meaning. By using this theory, you focus on literary elements and how they work together to create the work’s meaning.

The approach most often used in AP Lit analytical essays.

Sample AP Literature prose prompt: Analyze how the language of the passage characterizes the diarist and his society and how the characterization serves the author’s satiric purpose.

Sample AP Literature poetry prompt: Analyze how the poet uses such literary elements as diction, imagery, metaphor, rhyme, and structure to convey both a literal experience of picking berries and a deeper understanding of that experience.

Biographical Theory

Sometimes knowing something about the author’s life could give the reader insight into some otherwise obscure, ambiguous, or seemingly insignificant aspect of a work.

This approach requires the reader to know about the author’s life in order to fully understand the work’s meaning.

“Siegfried Sassoon was perhaps the most innocent of the war poets. John Hildebidle has called Sassoon the "accidental hero." Born into a wealthy Jewish family in 1886, Sassoon lived the pastoral life of a young squire: fox-hunting, playing cricket, golfing and writing romantic verses.”

“Being an innocent, Sassoon's reaction to the realities of the war were all the more bitter and violent. Sassoon also showed his innocence by going public with his protest against the war (as he grew to see that insensitive political leadership was the greater enemy than the Germans).” http://www.poemhunter.com/siegfried-sassoon/

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?Do you remember the rats; and the stenchOf corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again? --from “Aftermath”

Historical Theory

This theory is not so much concerned about how the author’s work affects current readers, but focuses attention on how the readers of the author’s time would understand the work. This theory reveals cultural values, mores, and biases during the author’s time.

This approach points to the contemporary social, political, and intellectual context of the author as keys to understanding the meaning of the work.

In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;petals on a wet, black bough.

Understanding the intellectual and artistic zeitgeist of Pound’s time helps a modern reader understand this concise, enigmatic poem. Knowing the historical context of poem enlightens the reader to the author’s radical purpose.

Psychological (Freudian) Theory

This approach rises from the groundbreaking psychological research of Sigmund Freud. Freud claimed that much of his early work in psychology grew from his study of classic literature, especially the Greeks. Freud believed that great literature reflected human life truthfully.

Although the Psychological (Freudian) theory diverges into many possible avenues, for our purposes we will focus on two of the more accessible approaches.1.How the literature reveals the psychological workings of the author. In this approach, the literary work metaphorically opens up the author’s mind for psychological analysis. What might Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five reveal about his mental state?2.How the literature reveals the psychological workings of a fictional character. In this approach, the actions, words, and thoughts of the character(s) reveal an underlying psychological foundation of unconscious motives, fears, dreams, and possible psychosis. Can Hamlet’s psyche be understood if we analyze his words and actions?

Psychoanalytical/Archetypal TheoryOften labeled as Jungian Theory, this approach emphasizes

man’s connection to what Carl Jung called “the collective unconscious.” Jung, an early disciple of Freud, spent much time studying myths and religion. Critics of this theory espouse an interconnectedness among all peoples of all cultures and all eras. A central notion of the Jungian theory hinges upon recurrent, universal patterns called archetypes: symbols, characters, situations, or images that evoke a deep, often unconscious, responses.If the Psychological Theory focuses its analysis on the artist or the character, the Psychoanalytical Theory emphasizes the humanity’s common connections and the long, deep associations among and between individual humans from different times and places. Characters, symbols, setting, and experiences in works of fiction resemble mythological or religious ones, thus the artist’s work transcends his or her immediate social, cultural, and historical milieu.

For example, Shakespeare’s avenging Danish prince, Hamlet, resembles other mythological sons bent on retribution, like the Greek tale of Orestes or the Norse legend of Sigmund.

Feminist/Gender TheoryFeminist/Gender theory emphasizes the roles, expectations, biases, and social positions of gender in literature, especially those of women. Feminist critics see the patriarchal foundation of most societies and how literature produced in those societies often leads to male-dominated attitudes and assumptions. Feminist critics often focus on the misperceptions and incorrect representations of women by male writers. More recently, Feminist Theory has been relabeled Gender Theory and has focused its attention toward sexual orientation.The Soul selects her own society by Emily Dickinson

The Soul selects her own society, Then shuts the door;On her divine majorityObtrude no more.

A Feminist/Gender critic might analyze Dickinson’s poetry for its particularly feminine perspective on a woman’s role or position of power in society during the poet’s era.

Marxist Theory

An offshoot of the kind of sociological criticism that produced the Feminist/Gender theory, Marxist theory examines the economic and social conditions represented in a work of literature. This school of criticism arises from the political theories of Karl Marx, primarily, and Friedrich Engels. Believing that all art is, in its essence, political, Marxist critics believe that every literary work is either protesting or endorsing, explicitly or implicitly, the political/social/economic status quo.The Marxist theoretical approach:• examines the way in which dominant groups in literature exploit subordinate groups. Groups could be classified by economic standards, political power, social standing, religious affiliation, and the like. A Marxist theorist would analyze how the lower class in America was exploited during the time of the Great Depression by analyzing John Steinbeck’s portrayal of the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath.• examines how literature reveals the isolation/alienation of individuals and/or groups through the negative influence of money, power, and politics. A Marxist could even take the modern-day coming of age novel, The Catcher in the Rye, and argue that Holden Caulfield’s desperate feeling of alienation is founded in the economic and social inequalities in American society.

Reader Response TheoryA somewhat controversial and radical approach, Reader Response theory does not find meaning in the work of literature itself. This criticism assumes that meaning does not emanate from the text, but meaning results from the reader’s personal understanding of the text. Thus, there will inevitably be various and possibly contradictory interpretations of a work based on individual perceptions. Instead of agonizing over the differences, Reader Response critics welcome this plurality.Things to consider with the Reader Response Theory:• Readers are expected to be mature and capable readers. Seeing The Cat in the Hat as a call to a new era of the Catholic Inquisition could not legitimately be defended just because a reader claimed he uncovered this message in that child’s book.• A text is seen as an experience, rather than an object. Thus, the text is akin to a living thing that grows and develops in the reader’s imagination and understanding; a reader’s interpretation of a text might change over time, as the reader gains more life experience and a higher level of education.• Different readers in different time periods interpret texts differently.

Critical Approaches to Literature

• In AP Lit, we will never analyze or interpret a text from the point of view of only one literary theory.

•Nor will we attempt to use ALL of the available theories in our analyses.

•Don’t be afraid to use any theory in your analysis, and don’t be discouraged if others don’t see the text your way. Spread your wings and fly!

THINGS TO REMEMBER

AP Literature & Composition