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Literary Theory
David Carter
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Literary Theory
David Carter
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A pocket guide to the key concepts of literary theory, explaining them in clear, accessible language. Cutting through the often confusing welter of peripheral writing on what can be an enormously unwieldy subject, David Carter covers the key thinkers, writers and theories in current lit-crit use, including Derrida; Baudrillard; Habermas; Postmodernism; Deconstruction; Formalism; Hermeneutics; and Reception Theory. An invaluable resource for students and readers.
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Thema
LiteratureIntroduction
Attitudes to the study of literature have undergone nothing
short of a revolution in the last half-century or so. Changes were afoot in the
previous half-century but they moved at nothing like the pace and in nothing
like the variety of ways that have been evident since the Second World War. It
is true that writers and critics had been reflecting on the nature of
literature at least since Aristotle but, in the course of the twentieth
century, the whole concept of a âliterary textâ became questionable.
As a student of European literature in
the 1960s I heard little mention by my professors of âliterary theory.â Genre
(tragedy, the novel, the sonnet etc) was certainly mentioned and so were the
writer and the critic, but any allusion to the reader was rare indeed. Everyone
talked freely of the writerâs âintentionâ and the âmeaningâ of the text. When
it was deemed necessary, one brought in consideration of the writerâs
âbackgroundâ, the âhistorical contextâ, and the âphilosophical climateâ. There
was also such a thing as âpractical criticismâ, which literature departments
made their students do, although no-one explained to us why we had to do it, or
how it would be useful to us in our studies. It was assumed that its usefulness
was obvious.You took a sample of an unfamiliar text, translated it, if
necessary, pointed out a few significant figures of speech that you recognised,
such as a metaphor or a simile, discussed its meanings and implications,
brought in a bit of background knowledge, if you had any, and that was about
it. If you did this well under exam conditions, you passed the exam, proving to
all who cared to know that you could analyse literature.There were the great
writers and the not so great writers and, by heeding oneâs professors, one
gradually learned to distinguish them. Occasionally, one heard of a
âpsychoanalytic interpretationâ or a âMarxist approachâ, but, more often than
not, they were mentioned in a tone that suggested that these were slightly
disreputable activities. If you were lucky, you might be blessed with one
lecturer who was open to new ideas and challenges.Then, suddenly, when I was a
postgraduate in the late 1960s, all these keen young lecturers appeared telling
us that our very notion of a âliterary textâ was questionable.Whole edifices of
carefully constructed bodies of knowledge started to shake at the foundations.
Nothing was sure or sacred anymore. It was becoming difficult to utter a word
of comment on anything, especially literary works, without justifying yourself
theoretically. Naturally the question arose, âWhy do we need theory?â Hadnât we
been managing quite well without it, thank you very much, for some considerable
time?
Why Theory?
What professors, teachers and lesser mortals did not realise, or
were reluctant to admit, was that, in fact, they had been using theory all
their adult life, without knowing it (rather as Monsieur Jourdain in MoliĂšreâs
play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme does not realise, until it is pointed out
to him, that he has been speaking prose all his life). How could this be? Quite
simply because there is âlive theoryâ (theory we consciously consider when
making judgements) and âdead theoryâ (the theory which lies behind the
assumptions we hold when making judgements but which has become so integrated
into our common practice that we are no longer aware of it). Many had been
discussing literature using âdead theoryâ, without having bothered to analyse
their own presuppositions. So the answer to the question âWhy theory?â is quite
simple: because it is better and more honest to be aware of the reasons why you
do something than to be ignorant of them. If this maxim holds good for all
human endeavours, then there is no reason why the study of literature should be
exempt from it.
The problem is that defining what counts
as âtheoryâ and what one means by âliteraryâ is no easy task. Most critics and
theorists have grappled bravely with the problem but have finally given up,
declaring that it does not matter anyway. Some theorists lead one to the conclusion
that literary theory does not really exist as an independent discipline. There
is, many claim, just âTheoryâ, theory about everything from literature to
lesbianism, from hooliganism to horror films. Since many books are to be found
with the phrases âLiterary Theoryâ or âTheory of Literatureâ in their titles,
however, it is clear that there is a body of thought to which the terms can be
applied. There is a kind of theory with literature as its focus.This
is an important fact to establish,
because there are other kinds of theory, such as âCritical Theoryâ and
âCultural Theoryâ, which rely on the same theorists and schools of thought as
âLiterary Theoryâ. The difference between them all is clearly one of focus and
attention. The theorists and schools of thought considered in this book have
in common the fact that they challenge âcommon senseâ notions of what
literature is. They often question our assumptions about âgreat literatureâ and
propose different ways to analyse and evaluate it. However, any vague statement
about literature (such as âAll literature is escapistâ) does not constitute a
theory. It must meet more stringent requirements to be considered both valuable
and valid.
What Counts as Theory?
Clearly, in the first instance, a theory
must attempt to explain something. Its proponents may believe that it does this
successfully but others may not. Jonathan Culler, an eminent populariser of
literary theory, has made a useful distinction: ââŠto count as a theory, not
only must an explanation not be obvious; it should involve a certain
complexityâ (Culler, 1997). Unfortunately, many theorists have not only
recognised this basic truth but have taken it too passionately to heart,
cloaking their insights in obscure language. Yet it is clearly true that new
understanding often comes only after developing a model of some complexity in
the mind. Literature, in all its forms, treats of human life, its nature and
problems, its mode of existence, its ways of coexistence and thought, and its
belief systems. Any theory about these phenomena can, therefore, be considered
relevant to the study of literature. However, the actual application of such
theories is a complex procedure, fraught with pitfalls, to which the revered
academic, as much as the novice scholar, is disturbingly liable to succumb.
Misinterpretation, false analogy, unfounded generalisation, reductive argument
â all these hazards lie in wait for the unsuspecting critic. It is also,
therefore, in the nature of theory that not only does it have some complexity
but that it is also often difficult to prove or disprove.A theory may sound
very convincing but can it be proved to have validity? If it cannot be proved,
does it thereby lose its usefulness? And what would constitute proof, or
disproof, of any given theory? Does it finally matter whether it can be proved
or not? These are questions which it is difficult enough to answer in the fields
of the so-called natural sciences and in sociology, psychology and other
disciplines. What of literary theory? It would seem wise to consider first
exactly what the object of study is.
What is Literature?
Because many theorists have been primarily concerned with phenomena
other than literature (psychoanalysts with the human mind, Marxists with human
existence in a capitalist society etc), it has often been of only secondary
importance to them whether a text they are considering can be deemed to be
literary or not. Often the same methodology is applied in analysing texts,
which may resemble each other in many ways, but which must be identified
differently. One can imagine, for example, one text which is a short story told
in the first person, taking the form of a confession to a murder, and another
text which is an actual signed confession by a real murderer. They might be
almost identical in language, structure and content. The important difference
is, of course, that the reader knows that one is a story and the other a real
confession, and judges them accordingly. In the case of the story, the reader
might consider whether or not it was realistic or whether or not the character
was telling the truth, but would not need to question whether or not it was an
authentic document, written by the person named. In the case of the real
confession, it would be possible, in principle, to check its truth content
against known facts. This would not be possible, nor would it be relevant in
the case of the story. The reader thinks this way because he or she knows that
the story is a literary text. But how is it obvious that the text has a quality
which we call âliterarinessâ?
It would seem that a definition of
âliterarinessâ should be of urgent concern.Yet the authors of books on literary
theory provide no such adequate definition. This is likely to be due to the
nature of language as much as to the incompetence of theorists.The lack of a definition,
which could be applied to all works regarded as literature, is not necessarily
a bad thing. Many of the most useful words, in all languages, are useful
precisely because they do not designate something very specific, but identify a
range of meanings and related phenomena. Where would we be without such words
as âLoveâ, âHateâ, âWorkâ, âBusinessâ, and, more pertinently, âMusicâ, âDramaâ,
âArtâ, etc? All the things which we might group together and to which we might
apply one of these words bear family resemblances to each other, but they are
also all highly individual. If we had to have words for every single
experience, we would not be able to communicate with each other about those
experiences. We need words, such as âliteratureâ and âliteraryâ, indicating
such family resemblances, to enable us to communicate information about
individual differences to each other. All attempts at defining literature
therefore have proved to be only partial and thus of little practical use: the
best that has been thought and said; language taken out of context; language
organised in a special way which distinguishes it from its other uses; language
used to create a fictional world. None of these definitions is close to being
adequate or useful, because none of them refers exclusively to literary
language (a mentally ill person, for example, can also create a fictional
world).
The words âliteratureâ and âliteraryâ
have also changed their meaning over time. Before about 1800 literature meant
all kinds of writing, including history and philosophy, and it is possible to
trace the gradual shifts in meaning all the way up to the present.This all
leads to an inevitable conclusion: that literature is what a given society at a
given time considers it to be. This may not be a very useful conclusion, but it
is certainly true, and it is also true of âMusicâ,âDramaâ and âArtâ. Once you
try to apply a specific definition, you find that there are examples of
non-literary phenomena to which it applies and literary phenomena to which it
does not. Most literature is, of course, fiction but most people would also
agree that not all fiction (eg comic books, nursery rhymes, and pornography) is
literary. On the other hand travel journals (presumably non-fiction) are
considered by many to be literature.
To read literature is therefore to
become involved in a conspiracy. A publisher conspires with a writer to publish
something the latter has written.The writer swears that he has written the book
himself and not stolen the material from another writer (or indeed from police
records, if it is our imagined short story). The publisher publishes the work
in a series of books identified in a catalogue as literature. Then a critic
reads the book and joins the conspiracy by accepting that it is indeed
literature. He or she writes a review of it, identifying it as âgoodâ or âbadâ
literature, according to personal experience and values. If he is a good
critic, he or she considers qualities of style, structure, use of language,
psychological insight, reflection of social issues, plotting and the like. A
reader of this review is then prompted to buy the book and finds it shelved
under âLiteratureâ or âFictionâ in a local bookshop. The blurb confirms the
fact that it is a novel. The reader then reads the work, bringing to bear on it
ways of thinking learned through education to be appropriate to the reading of
a novel. If the work is found to be âgoodâ, it is recommended to a friend. Thus
all parties have conspired to confirm the existence of a work of literature.
It was the realisation that what counted
as âliteratureâ and âgood literatureâ in any given society at any given time
was a matter of convention that enabled theorists to consider further how such
conventions were established and the possibilities of alternative conventions.
It made it possible to consider literature in close comparison with other
cultural phenomena and in the light of theories developed to explain them.
Hazard Warnings
With literary interpretation, if anything goes, then nothing
comes of it.The more it seems like madness, the more need there is to have method
in it.The philosopher Karl Popper coined the very useful concept of âfalsifiabilityâ
to refer to a characteristic any theory must have if it is to be considered
truly scientific.This concept enables one to identify many fields of study, in
addition to those of the natural sciences, as incorporating rigorous criteria
for the truth value of their findings. Basically, to be truly scientific, a
theory must be âfalsifiable.âThat is to say that it must be so formulated that
it must be possible to predict under what circumstances it could be proven
false. Of course, the flip-side of this is that it must also be possible to
present evidence to demonstrate that it is true. A clear example of a
pseudo-science, in other words a pseudo-theory, is astrology. It is obviously
not possible to prove or disprove the influence of heavenly bodies on the fates
of human beings. The fact that astrology is not falsifiable, of course, only
encourages many to believe in it! What many do not realise, or will not admit,
is that the concept of âfalsifiabilityâ can also be applied to interpretations
of literature and theories about literature.
Analysing a work of literature from
whatever theoretical perspective also requires rigorous attention to evidence.
If, leaving aside the vexed question of whether it is literature or not, one
considers possible interpretations of the nursery rhyme about Miss Muffet who
memorably sat on a tuffet eating her curds and whey, and who was promptly
frightened away by a big spider, then it is possible, in principle, to prove or
disprove, by rigorous historical research, the theory that the rhyme reflects
the eating habits of poor country people. But it would be considerably more difficult
to prove, or disprove, the validity of an interpretation which suggested that
the spider symbolised a fear, common among country-girls at some time in the
English Middle Ages, of being raped by dark strangers.
In my accounts of each of the theories
explained in this book, I shall endeavour to indicate any problems in their
application to literature. The sequence is not strictly chronological, although
it is partly so.Theories dependent conceptually and logically on earlier ones
do appear later in the book (post-structuralism after structuralism, feminism
after psychoanalysis etc). As a final warning I would like to remind the reader
that the interpretation of literature according to a specific theory can
itself be reinterpreted according to another theory ad infinitum. In the words
of Professor Morris Zapp in David Lodgeâs novel Small World, which
satirises literary scholars, âEvery decoding is another encoding.â
A note on conventions in the text
When a quotation is identified by the authorâs name followed by
a date and both are enclosed in brackets, this refers to the edition of the
authorâs work included in the bibliography. Where the names of theorists and
critics have been used as headings, their dates have been given when possible.
When it has not proved possible to trace dates with certainty, they have been
omitted.
The Literary Canon and New Criticism
Most books on the development of literary theory in England start with Matthew Arnold, because he ushered in an era in which literature was to be considered by influential critics as the central repository of English culture and values. These critics were to have lasting effects on the ways in which many generations of students perceived the significance of literature. F R Leavis and the poet T S Eliot, above all, established the notion of the existence of a literary canon of undeniably great works of literature. I A Richards, with his focus on close textual analysis, inspired the development of the so-called New Criticism in America.
Matthew Arnold (1822â1888)
Arnold, an educator, poet and professor of poetry at Oxford University, was of the opinion that literature, apart from its pleasing aesthetic qualities, had an educational role in peopleâs lives. He believed that the persistence...