Literary Theory: The Complete Guide

284 Pages·2017·2.512 MB·English

by  Mary Klages

Literary
Theory
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Literary
Theory
The Complete Guide
Mary Klages
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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First published 2017
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Introduction:
Humanist Literary Theory
Even though I am an English professor, I recently read an article in the
prestigious journal S cience. It was about research being done in cognitive
neuroscience, mapping which areas of the brain process what kinds of
information. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI),
researchers examined which neural pathways fi red as volunteers read
a variety of texts. When engaged with literary fi ction (i.e., not popular
romance or nonfi ction), readers ’ brains showed greatest activity in the areas
that are correlated to aff ect — to empathy, the ability to understand other
people ’ s emotions. Literature “ lights up ” the same parts of the brain that
positive humans social interactions do.
Th ese researchers have proven something that literary scholars have
known forever: that reading literature helps you learn to identify with other
people and that literature can be a fundamental mechanism for modeling
forms of human interaction.
Why is reading literature important? You might want to think back to all
the reasons you ’ ve been told that reading good literature is important. It
opens doors to other worlds; it gives us access to places, events, and people
we could never meet in person; it expands our minds with new ideas and
new perspectives. Great literature withstands the test of time, so that
something written centuries ago still speaks to us as fresh and relevant; great
literature allows us to converse with the greatest minds of Western civilization.
Th at is the essence of literary theory: to examine and explain why the
category “ literature ” has enduring cultural importance, and to interrogate
the forces that manipulate how we describe that importance.
Literary theory, in the broadest sense, is an explanation or idea about
what “l iterature ” is, how “ literature ” is diff erent from other kinds of writing,
and how “ literature ” functions within a cultural context. We all know that a
“ literary ” text is diff erent from just words on a piece of paper— l iterary
theories are conjectures, hypotheses, about what those diff erences are.
Experiments like the one in Science are a kind of “ literary theory, ” since the
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2 Literary Theory: The Complete Guide
researchers hypothesized that reading “ literary fi ction ” would produce
stronger responses (more light ups) than other kinds of reading.
Literary theories have existed as long as literature has. Let ’ s start with a
quick overview of the past 2000 years of lit theory.
We ’ ll start at the foundations of Western culture: the Greeks. Both Plato
and Aristotle thought that literature (lyric and dramatic poetry) should be
mimetic — a poem is a copy, representation, or imitation of something that
exists in nature. By this logic, a good poem would be a poem that is accurate
in copying nature.
For Plato, this was a problem. Plato argued that the natural world was itself
only a copy of an ideal world of forms that existed in the abstract — and that
the natural world was therefore fl awed and imperfect, since only the ideal/
eternal forms could be perfect. A poem then was a copy of a copy, so doubly
fl awed. So Plato banned poets from his Republic, because they told lies.
Aristotle wasn ’ t quite so stern, perhaps because Aristotle ’s works try to
think about the natural world (rather than the forms) in order to describe
and classify all the phenomena in that natural world. So Aristotle didn ’ t
worry about mimesis so much. He believed that poetry and art could imitate
the natural world, but that they added something in doing so — they made
real-world happenings have meaning for audiences. Aristotle ’ s idea is that art
serves as supplement to the real world, a way of representing the real world
that helped audiences understand that real world better.
Th e emphasis on mimesis raised problems, as you might see. Can a poet
write about things not found in nature? What about imagination? Is nature “ o ut
there ” for us to copy, or do we create “ nature ” in the act of writing about it?
Plato and Aristotle were the main voices in lit theory until the early
modern age (Renaissance and aft er). John Locke asserted that the mind is a
tabula rasa , a blank slate, until sensory perception puts experiences into our
brains, which we then sort and collect and make sense of; nothing exists in
our minds except what comes through that sensory perception (and the
secondary processes of ordering and drawing conclusions from sensory
perception which form consciousness). For literature, this meant that writers
should focus on descriptions of the external world, trying to use words to
replace sensory perceptions to fi ll up a mind perceived as passive, like a
sponge. Good literature was that which put good thoughts into your head.
Th e function of literature, from this perspective, was didactic — literature
told you how to think correctly about people and things and the world in
general. Literature that was “ good ” told you good things; bad literature told
you bad, wrong, immoral things.
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Introduction: Humanist Literary Theory 3
In the eighteenth century, philosophers began to refi gure their concepts
of the human mind, moving away from Locke ’ s tabula rasa to the idea that
the mind actively shapes and interprets sense data; rather, they posited a
“ constitutive imagination, ” the mind ’ s ability to create ideas whose whole
was greater than the sum of their parts. A poem then didn ’ t have to be a copy
of nature nor of sense impressions —p oets could make things up, imagine
them, and then write down what they imagined.
As you might guess, this was a great development for literature and art!
Th e purpose of art as imitating nature gave way to the idea of art as c reation —
and thus of the artist as a kind of God.
Th is gave rise, by the end of the eighteenth century — the Romantic era —
to the idea that literature was an expression of an inner truth (a “ deeper
meaning ” ). Th e function of literature was to be expressive of the complexity
of the artist ’ s inner feelings and thoughts, which could not be expressed any
other way.
Good literature, though, was not just expressive — the author spilling his
guts on the page. It also had to be a ff ective — it had to move the reader, get the
reader to feel powerful emotions aroused by the author ’ s words. Aristotle
also articulated this function of literature in his discussion of catharsis in
tragedy.
Th e expressive and aff ective aspects of literature formed the basis for
most literary studies from the Romantic era until the last decades of the
twentieth century. Th is is what we call humanist literary theory.
Expressive and aff ective literary theories put new emphasis on the Author
as creator — it ’ s m y inner experience I have to express; it also put new
emphasis on the Reader as the recipient of the author ’ s creative genius and
tortured emotions. Th is too contributed to the attention paid to “ what
literature does. ”
From the humanist perspective, literature was important because it
created meaning and because it did something to its reader, it changed the
reader in some way. Humanist literary theory explored what literature did
and how it did it. Along the way, humanist literary studies argued that
literature could be:
– a source of moral improvement. Literary critics should tell readers
which works would make them better people, and which works might
be damaging to them. Th is approach, as you might see, relies on the
idea that a literary critic knows what works are safe and what are
dangerous, and encourages forms of censorship.
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4 Literary Theory: The Complete Guide
– a source of knowledge about history and fact. Literature should
accurately refl ect the real world, describing important historical events
in a more palatable manner than straight history or journalism. Th is
idea helped justify novel reading as a legitimate form of education,
especially for those excluded from public education; reading a novel
could be morally improving and culturally informative.
– a source of psychological insight. Literature articulates “ the human
condition, ” and probes the hidden motivations and inner processes of
human emotions and actions. Great literature tells us universal truths
about love, fear, hatred, jealousy, and transcendence.
– a source of spiritual insight. Great literature can take us outside of our
own experiences, and perhaps allow us to approach the sublime — to
understand the inexpressible, the unsayable. And of course literature
could describe spiritual experiences, and perhaps bring readers closer
to God, in the Judeo-Christian tradition of humanism.
– a source of pleasure. Yes, reading literature is f un ! Engaging,
informative, sublime, literature provides pleasure on a number of
levels, including the escapism of fantasy, the aesthetic appreciation of
beauty, the admiration of the well-turned phrase, and the sheer delight
of interacting with another ’ s imagination.
Th ere was one other method that developed in the early twentieth century
in Anglo-American literary thought: f ormalism , or what was then called
New Criticism . Formalism rejected any analysis of the author or the
reader, of the expressive or aff ective notions of the function of literature.
For formalists, a literary work was words on a page, and nothing else — the
job of the literature student or literary critic was to understand how the
words on the page created meaning without reference to anything outside
the text. Formalism considered itself the only objective way of viewing a
literary text — and because of that, formalism became the main thing English
departments taught, since academic pursuits, modeled on the sciences,
should be objective, measurable, and fully explicable. Literary studies are
always in danger of being called “ s ubjective ” — what prevents a critic from
saying “ this poem is good because I like it ” ?
To sum up — the humanist model presupposes that great literature is
– a unique creation coming from the most profound inner experiences
of an author
– a creation that can move readers emotionally and intellectually, to get
them to understand themselves better
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Introduction: Humanist Literary Theory 5
– a mode for raising consciousness, for getting readers to think about
themselves and the world diff erently
– great literature “ withstands the test of time ” — speaks to all times and
all cultures because it addresses ideas and events common to all
humans at all times in all cultures.
– Great literature contains “ universal human truth ” unaff ected by
history, ethnicity, geography, or anything else external to the text. Th e
assumption is that human nature is unchanging, that people are pretty
much the same everywhere, in all ages and all cultures, and that “ we ”
all share something by virtue of our common humanity.
Th e humanist ideal of “ great ” literature also supports an idea of an individual
“ self ” to which great literature speaks — the inner truths we each have that
makes us who we are, our essential self. Because even though all humans are
essentially the same in our common humanity, each one of us (in Western
culture, anyway) is a unique individual, like no one else who has ever existed.
Now forget all of that. Th e literary theories we’ r e going to read are talking
about something else entirely.
Oh, one more thing before we get started. Th is book is a c omplete guide to
literary theory, as I teach it at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Th is
volume contains essays explaining various types of theory, cross-referenced
with the glossary of terms and the biographical sketches of the theorists
discussed; having both the explanations and the defi nitions in one volume
makes this book easy to use as a reference guide or as a full college-level
theory course.
Within each chapter are “ Teacher ’ s Notes, ” marked by an asterisk. Th at ’ s
where I talk about how you might apply the theories you are learning to an
actual literary text. I picked Hamlet , a text which I think everyone will agree,
stands as an example of a g reat work of literature. Th e Teacher ’ s Notes will
off er ideas and questions for students to pursue further; they are meant to
replicate the kind of inquiries and assignments I use in my college course.
I hope you fi nd them, and the C omplete Guide , useful and enjoyable.
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