literary theory essay questions

Literary Theory

Why do we use literary theory to analyze literature.

In addition to the vocabulary of literary and figurative devices , literary theory provides readers with an additional conceptual vocabulary to analyze and interpret literary works. Literary theory facilitates the use of knowledge external to the text that provides a framework that helps to focus intellectual questions and analysis.

As noted by Lois Tyson in Critical Theory Today , critical literary theory provides tools for analysis that “not only can show us our world and ourselves through new and valuable lenses but also can strengthen our ability to think logically, creatively, and with a good deal of insight” (3).

Literary Theories Defined

For an overview of literary theories and their definitions, review the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Literary Theory page .

Literary Theorists and Contributions

• Mikhail Bakhtin: Russian formalism–chronotopes, dialogism, heteroglossia, polyphony
• Jacques Lacan: psychoanalytic criticism–post-Freudian, the mirror stage, the symbolic
• Louis Althusser: Marxist criticism–ideology and ideological state apparatuses, interpellation
• Cleanth Brooks: New criticism–irony, paradox
• Ferdinand de Saussure: Semiotics–sign=signifier and signified
• Roland Barthes: Structuralist criticism–readerly and writerly, sign systems
• Jacques Derrida: Deconstructive criticism–deconstruction, différance , the trace
• Michel Foucault: New historicist–discourse and power/knowledge
• Stephen Greenblatt: Cultural criticism–ethical/political orientation, freedom/lack of thought or moment, popular culture, oppressed groups, models of practice and social structures, social understandings,
• Elaine Showalter: Feminist criticism–gynocriticism
• Judith Butler: Lesbian, gay, and queer criticism–gender construction, gender performativity
• Edward Said: Post-Colonial criticism–orientialism, other/othering
• Julia Kristeva: Poststructuralist feminist criticism–abject, abjectification
• bell hooks: Black feminist criticism–intersectionality of racism and gender
• Gloria Anzaldúa: Chicana feminism/queer theory–borderlands identity, mestizaje

How Do We Apply Literary Theories

There are numerous theories that allow for analysis of literary works, and writers often apply more than one.

For example, a writer might:

• Use an African American / Critical Race Theoretical lens to analyze material determinism in the short story “The Lesson” also contextualizes it through the Marxist lens of historicism.
• Use Feminist lens to analyze gender roles in the short story “The Starfruit Tree” also contextualizes it through th e Marxist lens of an ideological agenda that limits the economic and social security of rural women in Bangladesh.

How We Use Specific Theories to Pose Questions and Apply Vocabulary

The vocabulary that we apply to analysis and the types of questions that we pose depends on our theoretical lens or lenses. For this course, the literary critical theories that are central to readings of texts in this course are feminist and post-colonial theory.

Feminist Criticism

According to Lois Tyson, “Broadly defined, feminist criticism examines the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforces or undermines the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women” (83).

Applying Feminist Criticism

Vocabulary for Analysis

• constructed gender roles
• dehumanization
• feminist / feminism
• objectification
• patriarchal ideology

Some Questions to Pose

• How are women portrayed in the literary work?
• How are women (economically, politically, socially, or psychologically) oppressed by patriarchal ideology in the literary work?
• How are constructed gender roles portrayed and potentially challenged in the literary work?
• How do cultural practices shape the portrayal of women and patriarchy in the literary work?
• How does the literary work challenge patriarchal ideology and the othering of women?

Post-Colonial Criticism

Lois Tyson asserts that “postcolonial criticism seeks to understand the operations—politically, socially, culturally, and psychologically—of colonialist and anticolonialist ideologies” (418).

Applying Post-Colonial Criticism

• colonialist discourse and ideology
• cultural imperialism
• dehumanize / dehumanization
• disruption of cultural identity and practices
• double consciousness
• Eurocentrism
• Orientalism
• race and racism
• How do the colonizers other and dehumanize the indigenous characters in the literary text?
• How does the imposition of colonialist discourse and ideology disrupt the cultural identity and cultural practices of the indigenous characters in the literary text?
• How do the hegemony and the cultural imperialism of the colonizers contribute to the double consciousness of the indigenous characters?
• How does the othering of the indigenous characters reinforce or challenge the dichotomy of colonialist discourse and ideology?

New Historicist and Cultural Criticism

Lois Tyson distinguishes the concerns new historical and cultural criticism share about literary texts as cultural artifacts: “For new historicist critics . . . the literary text and the historical situation from which it emerged are equally important because the text (the literary work) and context (the historical conditions that produced it) are mutually constitutive: they create each other,” whereas, “[f]or cultural critics, a literary text, or any other kind of cultural production, performs cultural work to the extent to which it shapes the cultural experience of those who encounter it, that is to the extent to which it shapes our experiences of members of a cultural group” (291-2, 297).

Applying New Historicist and Cultural Criticism

• Culture, cultural artifacts and cultural work
• Historical milieu
• Ideology and ideological assumptions
• Institutions
• Legal and political policies and social customs
• Material goods
• Marginalized, misrepresented, underrepresented
• Self-positioning
• Socioeconomic systems
• Social meaning and social structures
• Subjectivity
• How does the literary work operate in relation to other historical and cultural texts of its time?
• How does the literary work enforce or subvert traditional or contemporary social behaviors or understandings?
• How does the work represent social groups as powerful or constrained within larger social structures?
• How was the literary work received by readers and critics at the time it was produced?
• How was the literary work’s discourse shaped by or influencing the culture in which it was produced?

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide . New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.

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Literary Theory Reference Works

Throughout your studies of literature, you will encounter a wide range of literary theories and critical frameworks. These are often employed by scholars to assist with the interpretation of a text or an analysis of the text’s significance.

Some essay questions will require you to adopt a particular framework, while others will allow you to choose your own. When it comes to deciding which literary theories or critical frameworks to draw on, it is usually best to respond to what you see as the text’s key themes or most interesting  aspects. Whichever approach you choose, you should ensure that your analysis is supported by the text itself.

Below you’ll find a few of the more common critical frameworks used in literary studies today. Feel free to explore these and do further reading on those of interest.

Structuralism and semiotics

Narratology and rhetoric , reception theory and reader-response criticism , post-structuralism , deconstruction , marxism and critical theory , psychoanalysis , postcolonialism , feminism .

• Gender studies and queer history 

New historicism 

• Ecocriticism
• Aesthetics 

Developing out of Russian Formalism and New Criticism in the 1960s, structuralism tends to strive toward objective and scientific approaches to texts and their interpretation. It sees the meanings of texts as rooted in their form and structure, or how the different elements of the text relate to one another.

Semiotics, the study of signs and how they create meaning, often went hand-in-hand with structuralism, as it focused on the structures of language.

An example of structuralism and semiotics can be found in the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, whose studies of mythical stories emphasised their common structures (key plot points, narrative developments, and so on).

Further reading:

• Claude Lévi-Strauss,  "The Structural Study of Myth"  (1955)
• Northrop Frye,  Anatomy of Criticism  (1957)
• Roland Barthes,  Mythologies   (1957) and   Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives   (1966)
• Umberto Eco,  The Role of the Reader  (1979)

Narratology grew out of structuralism and can be seen as the application of the principles and objectivity of structuralism, to narratives.

Thus, narratological studies tend to focus on the form, structure and composition of narratives, identifying how texts deploy different narrative techniques, styles and devices. For example,

Today, narratology generally attempts to avoid structuralism’s more reductive tendencies, incorporating insights from reception theory and post-structuralist theory.

• Wayne C. Booth’s  The Rhetoric of Fiction  (1961)
• Gérard Genette’s  Narrative Discourse  (1972)
• James Phelan’s   Narrative as Rhetoric  (1996)

Reader-response criticism focuses on how readers experience or encounter literary texts, being much less interested in the circumstances of a text’s authorship than its impact on readers. Reception theory, similarly, focuses on the unique responses of individual readers to literary texts.

Proponents of reception theory tend to see readers, not authors, as the creators of meaning. When examining texts, they might choose to consider how readers have responded to, or interpreted, the text in the past, or study how the text itself attempts to elicit a particular response from the reader.

• Wolfgang Iser's  The Act of Reading   (1978)
• Stanley Fish’s   Is There a Text in This Class?   (1980)
• Hans Robert Jauss’s  Toward an Aesthetic of Reception   (1982)
• Elizabeth Freund’s  The Return of the Reader   (1987)

In the mid-1960s, post-structuralism emerged as a critique of structuralism and semiotics. These existing frameworks were seen to be overly restrictive, while not accurately reflecting the complexity of language and meaning.

Post-structuralists tend to emphasise the instability of language and see meaning as highly subjective (in no way fixed or objective). Early post-structuralists focused on critiquing traditional notions of authorship and, in turn, looking at the many possibilities for interpretation and meaning available to readers.

• Roland Barthes’s  "The Death of the Author"  (1967) and  S/Z  (1970)
• Julia Kristeva’s  The Kristeva Reader   (ed. Toril Moi) (1986)
• Gilles Deleuze’s  Difference and Repetition  (1968)
• Michel Foucault’s  “What Is an Author?”  (1969)

Deconstruction, a key component of the post-structuralist movement, focuses on dismantling commonly accepted social, cultural and political concepts.

A common deconstructionist approach involves critiquing accepted binary oppositions (such as male/female, black/white) and highlighting their underlying ideologies, thereby undermining them as concepts.

A deconstructionist approach to a novel, for example, might consider how the text attempts to maintain a binary opposition between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, while reflecting on how this distinction is ideologically motivated and ultimately undermined in the novel itself.

• Jacques Derrida’s  “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences"  (1966),  Of Grammatology  (1967) and  Acts of Literature  (1992)
• Martin McQuillan (ed.),   Deconstruction: A Reader   (2000)
• Judith Butler,  Bodies that Matter   (1993)
• Simon Critchley,  The Ethics of Deconstruction  (3rd ed., 2014)
• Derek Attridge,  Reading and Responsibility: Deconstruction's Traces  (2010)

Critical theory focuses on the cultural, historical and ideological aspects of texts. It typically involves Marxist or post-Marxist critiques of social, political and economic structures. In this sense, critical theory reflects a kind of  historical materialism , being fundamentally concerned with the material circumstances of individuals at different points in history.

When it comes to reading texts, a Marxist approach might analyse the representation of characters from different social classes, the power dynamics between these characters, or how characters experience economic inequality.

• Karl Marx,  Capital  (1867)
• Max Horkheimer,  “Traditional and Critical Theory”  (1937)
• Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Bertolt Brecht, and Georg Lukács,  Aesthetics and Politics  (2011)
• Terry Eagleton,  Marxism and Literary Criticism  (1976)
• Fredric Jameson,  Marxism and Form   (1971)
• Andrew Milner and Jeff Browitt,  Contemporary Cultural Theory  (3rd ed., 2002)
• Fred Rush (ed.),  Cambridge Companion to Critical Theory   (2004)

Pioneered by Sigmund Freud in the late nineteenth century, psychoanalysis focuses on uncovering and analysing people’s ‘unconscious’ thoughts. It works off the premise that it’s human nature to repress certain parts of ourselves, and thus all literary texts can be read in terms of the manifestations of these ‘unconscious’ parts.

In particular, the psychoanalysis of literature looks at either the author of work, the text’s contents and formal construction, the reader of the text, or a combination of these (ref: Eagleton).

With Freudian analysis, these meanings often relate to unconscious desire or anxiety over pleasure and gratification. Studies often explore concepts such as the Oedipus complex, and the id, ego and superego.

• Sigmund Freud,  The Interpretation of Dreams , (1899)
• Carl Jung,  Psychology of the Unconscious  (1912)
• Jacques Lacan,  The Four Fundamental Concepts  (1973)
• Harold Bloom,  Anxiety of Influence  (1973)
• Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar "The Anxiety of Authorship" in  The Madwoman in the Attic   (1979)
• Matthew Sharpe,  Understanding Psychoanalysis  (2008)
• Laura Marcus and Ankhi Mukherjee,  A concise companion to psychoanalysis, literature, and culture   (2014)
• Maud Ellmann,  Psychoanalytic literary criticism   (1994)

Postcolonial criticism explores authors or texts representing the legacy of colonisation, which includes the exploitation and repression of colonised cultures by imperial powers.  Postcolonial literary theory focuses on exposing and critiquing existing power structures in colonised cultures, with an emphasis on cultural literatures.

Key concepts include the politics of knowledge concerning cultural and national identity, the Orient (East) and the Occident (West), and the Other, or subaltern.

• Edward Said,  Orientalism  (1978)
• Gayatri Spivak,  In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics  (1987)
• Homi Bhabha,  The Location of Culture  ( 1994)
• Frantz Fanon,  The Wretched of the Earth  (1961)
• Neil Lazarus,  The Cambridge companion to postcolonial literary studies  (2004)
• Pramod K. Nayar,   Postcolonialism: A Guide for the Perplexed   (2010)

Feminist theory is primarily concerned with exposing and examining the prevailing patriarchal structures in society, and advocating political, economic and social equality for women.

There are lots of branches of feminism, and as approaches have changed over time some scholars find it helpful to separate out theories into first wave (late 1700s to early 1900s), second wave (early 1960s to late 1970s) and third wave (early 1990s to present) feminism. The feminist movement remains very diverse and encompases a wide range of perspectives on how to improve equality for women.

Feminist literary theory examines many aspects of literature, including the exclusion of women from the traditional literary canon, problems of female authorship, the performativity of gender in texts, and the female experience in and of literature.

• Judith Butler,  Gender Trouble  (1990)
• Simone de Beauvoir,  The Second Sex  (1972)
• Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar,  The Madwoman in the Attic  (1979)
• bell hooks,  Feminist Theory, from Margin to Center   (1984), and  Feminism is for Everybody   (2000)
• Jessica Bomarito & Jeffrey W Hunter (eds.),  Feminism in Literature : a Gale critical companion  (Jeffrey W. Hunter ; Jessica Bomarito)
• Ellen Rooney (ed.),  The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary Theory  (2006)

Gender studies and queer theory 

Growing out of post-structuralist feminist theories in the 1970s, gender studies and queer theory often reject binary classifications such as female and male, and use the language of deconstruction to explore new implications and meanings of texts.

In literary studies, this approach often includes examinations of the politics and poetics of gender and queer representations in texts, and how these reflect (or challenge) social attitudes around gender and sexuality.

• Hélène Cixous,  "The Laugh of the Medusa"  (1976)
• Michel Foucault,  The History of Sexuality , (1980)
• Judith Butler,  "Imitation and Gender Insubordination"  (1991)
• Lee Edelman,  "Homographesis"  (1989)

Developed in the 1980s, new historicism views texts as products of specific cultural and political periods. Thus, new historicism focuses on analysing texts, authors and critics in their historical contexts, which often includes examining power structures and ideologies.

New historicism is a transdisciplinary critique, combining post-structuralist concepts and the study of history. Such studies often consider the circumstances of texts’ production and subjective interpretations of history.

• Michel Foucault,  Discipline and Punish   (1975), and  The History of Sexuality  (1976)
• Stephen Greenblatt,  Renaissance Self-Fashioning  (1980)   and   Towards a Poetics of Culture  (1987)
• Aram H. Veeser,   The New Historicism   (1989)
• Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt,  Practicing New Historicism   (2000)

Ecocriticism 

Ecocriticism focusses on the role of nature in literature, often involving an interrogation of ecological values in texts. Ecocriticism is a transdisciplinary approach that is often informed by related scientific fields, such as ecology and the environmental sciences.

Ecocriticism often examines the notion of “place” in literature, while challenging ideas of anthropocentrism (human-centeredness). Ecocritical studies of literature may also focus on representations of climate change, natural disaster, and animal life.

• Raymond Williams,   The Country and The City  (1975)
• Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm (eds.)  The Ecocriticism Reader  (1996)
• Axel Goodbody and Kate Rigby (eds.)  Ecocritical Theory  (2011)
• Kate Rigby’s  Dancing with Disaster   (2015)

Broadly, aesthetics is a branch of philosophy concerned with art and the notion of the beautiful. Such studies date back to Plato and Aristotle, who reflected on the nature of art and its many forms, and were further developed by philosophers such as Immanuel Kant.

Aesthetic studies of literature tend to focus on philosophical questions of the nature of literary art and the enjoyment of literature, while asking what constitutes a “good” or “beautiful” text.

Traditional aesthetics often concerns itself with the notion of “art for art’s sake”, while recent works might connect the field with broader socio-political contexts. Such studies often seek

a framework through which to make judgements concerning the value of different kinds of literature for specific social or political ends.

• Theodor W. Adorno,  Aesthetic Theory   (1970)
• David Davies,  Aesthetics and Literature   (2007)
• Jeffrey R. Di Leo (ed.),  Criticism after Critique: Aesthetics, Literature, and the Political  (2014)
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Literary Theory: An Introduction

By terry eagleton, literary theory: an introduction analysis.

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Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory: An Introduction is a deep dive into literary theory in order to define literature. He holds nothing back in terms of the personal, but his personal perspective is inherently rooted in intellectualism. This is a recipe for a curious blend of high and low art. In Eagleton's analysis, the reader is the ultimate authority in the definition of literature, but he approaches this idea through a rigorous assessment of literary criticism according to popular theories throughout history.

To Eagleton, psychology and linguistics are the stepping stones for literature. A discussion of the definition of literature relies upon a thorough examination of the human mind's preference for expressing itself through language. This avenue takes Eagleton on a minor tangent, causing him to build a discussion from romanticism all the way to post-structuralism with inserts of popular demand. In a way, Eagleton appeals to fringe minority opinion in order to invent a more dramatic divide between his own educated (elite) assessment of literary theory and the average westerner's objection to intellectualism.

In the end, Eagleton gets hung up on subjectivity. He concludes that the definition of literature is impossible because the reader makes the call, making it a necessarily individual decision. By allowing the reader to treat their own interaction with a book as the final metamorphosis of language, the writer relinquishes a certain amount of control over their own communication. This is Eagleton's personal interpretation of literature, which remains one of a multiplicity of perspectives which have evolved alongside culture and science throughout history.

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Study Guide for Literary Theory: An Introduction

Literary Theory: An Introduction study guide contains a biography of Terry Eagleton, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Literary Theory: An Introduction
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Introduction to literary theory, assignments.

Written work should be typed or word-processed (double-spaced, 12pt Times New Roman or equivalent, with 1" margins).

Response Paper (PDF) A brief response to modes of reading covered in the first three weeks (about 3 pages).

Oral Presentations (PDF) 15–20 minute Presentation of Assigned Readings + shorter presentations / questions throughout term

Take-Home Midterm (PDF) Short Essays responding to questions handed out (8–10 pages).

Final Paper (PDF) Longer essay either theoretically-oriented or a careful reading of a text of your choice, drawing on what you have read over the term (6–8 pages).

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ENGL300: Introduction to Theory of Literature

• ENGL300: Introduction to Theory of Literature Part of the Open Yale Courses series, this survey course, taught by Professor Paul H. Fry, covers the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. There are 26 sessions. Visit the site to learn more about the course and access course materials. The video and audio elements of the course are available on YouTube and iTunes. Watch the introductory lecture on YouTube and access links to the balance of the sessions.

• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Literary Theory An essay on literary theory from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Introduction to Modern Literary Theory Dr. Kristi Siegel from Mount Mary College, Milwaukee, provides brief descriptions of different literary theories and suggests additional reading material and websites.
• Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab): Writing in Literature Contains resources for writing about literature across a variety of genres and contexts.
• Voice of the Shuttle: Literary Theory A comprehensive set of links from Alan Liu's Voice of the Shuttle website.

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Literary Theory: An Introduction Lesson Plans for Teachers

Teaching Literary Theory: An Introduction

The Literary Theory: An Introduction lesson plan contains a variety of teaching materials that cater to all learning styles. Inside you'll find 30 Daily Lessons, 20 Fun Activities, 180 Multiple Choice Questions, 60 Short Essay Questions, 20 Essay Questions, Quizzes/Homework Assignments, Tests, and more. The lessons and activities will help students gain an intimate understanding of the text, while the tests and quizzes will help you evaluate how well the students have grasped the material. View a free sample

Target Grade: 7th-12th (Middle School and High School)

Length of Lesson Plan: Approximately 141 pages. Page count is estimated at 300 words per page. Length will vary depending on format viewed.

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The Literary Theory: An Introduction lesson plan is downloadable in PDF and Word. The Word file is viewable with any PC or Mac and can be further adjusted if you want to mix questions around and/or add your own headers for things like "Name," "Period," and "Date." The Word file offers unlimited customizing options so that you can teach in the most efficient manner possible. Once you download the file, it is yours to keep and print for your classroom. View a FREE sample

Lesson Plan Calendars

The Lesson Plan Calendars provide daily suggestions about what to teach. They include detailed descriptions of when to assign reading, homework, in-class work, fun activities, quizzes, tests and more. Use the entire Literary Theory: An Introduction calendar, or supplement it with your own curriculum ideas. Calendars cover one, two, four, and eight week units. Determine how long your Literary Theory: An Introduction unit will be, then use one of the calendars provided to plan out your entire lesson.

Chapter Abstracts

Chapter abstracts are short descriptions of events that occur in each chapter of Literary Theory: An Introduction . They highlight major plot events and detail the important relationships and characteristics of important characters. The Chapter Abstracts can be used to review what the students have read, or to prepare the students for what they will read. Hand the abstracts out in class as a study guide, or use them as a "key" for a class discussion. They are relatively brief, but can serve to be an excellent refresher of Literary Theory: An Introduction for either a student or teacher.

Character and Object Descriptions

Character and Object Descriptions provide descriptions of the significant characters as well as objects and places in Literary Theory: An Introduction . These can be printed out and used as an individual study guide for students, a "key" for leading a class discussion, a summary review prior to exams, or a refresher for an educator. The character and object descriptions are also used in some of the quizzes and tests in this lesson plan. The longest descriptions run about 200 words. They become shorter as the importance of the character or object declines.

Daily Lessons

This section of the lesson plan contains 30 Daily Lessons. Daily Lessons each have a specific objective and offer at least three (often more) ways to teach that objective. Lessons include classroom discussions, group and partner activities, in-class handouts, individual writing assignments, at least one homework assignment, class participation exercises and other ways to teach students about Literary Theory: An Introduction in a classroom setting. You can combine daily lessons or use the ideas within them to create your own unique curriculum. They vary greatly from day to day and offer an array of creative ideas that provide many options for an educator.

Fun Classroom Activities

Fun Classroom Activities differ from Daily Lessons because they make "fun" a priority. The 20 enjoyable, interactive classroom activities that are included will help students understand Literary Theory: An Introduction in fun and entertaining ways. Fun Classroom Activities include group projects, games, critical thinking activities, brainstorming sessions, writing poems, drawing or sketching, and countless other creative exercises. Many of the activities encourage students to interact with each other, be creative and think "outside of the box," and ultimately grasp key concepts from the text by "doing" rather than simply studying. Fun activities are a great way to keep students interested and engaged while still providing a deeper understanding of Literary Theory: An Introduction and its themes.

Essay Questions/Writing Assignments

These 20 Essay Questions/Writing Assignments can be used as essay questions on a test, or as stand-alone essay topics for a take-home or in-class writing assignment on Literary Theory: An Introduction . Students should have a full understanding of the unit material in order to answer these questions. They often include multiple parts of the work and ask for a thorough analysis of the overall text. They nearly always require a substantial response. Essay responses are typically expected to be one (or more) page(s) and consist of multiple paragraphs, although it is possible to write answers more briefly. These essays are designed to challenge a student's understanding of the broad points in a work, interactions among the characters, and main points and themes of the text. But, they also cover many of the other issues specific to the work and to the world today.

Short Essay Questions

The 60 Short Essay Questions listed in this section require a one to two sentence answer. They ask students to demonstrate a deeper understanding of Literary Theory: An Introduction by describing what they've read, rather than just recalling it. The short essay questions evaluate not only whether students have read the material, but also how well they understand and can apply it. They require more thought than multiple choice questions, but are shorter than the essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

The 180 Multiple Choice Questions in this lesson plan will test a student's recall and understanding of Literary Theory: An Introduction . Use these questions for quizzes, homework assignments or tests. The questions are broken out into sections, so they focus on specific chapters within Literary Theory: An Introduction . This allows you to test and review the book as you proceed through the unit. Typically, there are 5-15 questions per chapter, act or section.

Evaluation Forms

Use the Oral Reading Evaluation Form when students are reading aloud in class. Pass the forms out before you assign reading, so students will know what to expect. You can use the forms to provide general feedback on audibility, pronunciation, articulation, expression and rate of speech. You can use this form to grade students, or simply comment on their progress.

Use the Writing Evaluation Form when you're grading student essays. This will help you establish uniform criteria for grading essays even though students may be writing about different aspects of the material. By following this form you will be able to evaluate the thesis, organization, supporting arguments, paragraph transitions, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. of each student's essay.

Quizzes/Homework Assignments

The Quizzes/Homework Assignments are worksheets that can be used in a variety of ways. They pull questions from the multiple choice and short essay sections, the character and object descriptions, and the chapter abstracts to create worksheets that can be used for pop quizzes, in-class assignments and homework. Periodic homework assignments and quizzes are a great way to encourage students to stay on top of their assigned reading. They can also help you determine which concepts and ideas your class grasps and which they need more guidance on. By pulling from the different sections of the lesson plan, quizzes and homework assignments offer a comprehensive review of Literary Theory: An Introduction in manageable increments that are less substantial than a full blown test.

Use the Test Summary page to determine which pre-made test is most relevant to your students' learning styles. This lesson plan provides both full unit tests and mid-unit tests. You can choose from several tests that include differing combinations of multiple choice questions, short answer questions, short essay questions, full essay questions, character and object matching, etc. Some of the tests are designed to be more difficult than others. Some have essay questions, while others are limited to short-response questions, like multiple choice, matching and short answer questions. If you don't find the combination of questions that best suits your class, you can also create your own test on Literary Theory: An Introduction .

Create Your Own Quiz or Test

You have the option to Create Your Own Quiz or Test. If you want to integrate questions you've developed for your curriculum with the questions in this lesson plan, or you simply want to create a unique test or quiz from the questions this lesson plan offers, it's easy to do. Cut and paste the information from the Create Your Own Quiz or Test page into a Word document to get started. Scroll through the sections of the lesson plan that most interest you and cut and paste the exact questions you want to use into your new, personalized Literary Theory: An Introduction lesson plan.

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What Is Literary Theory and Why Do We Need It?

Alice Lopez

Too Long; Didn’t Read (TL; DR)

Literary theory is a set of tools we use to analyze and find deeper meaning in the texts we read. Each different theory sheds light on a specific aspect of literature and written stories, which in turn provides us with a focus for interpretation of them. You also might have heard of this kind of theory referred to as critical theory. According to Jonathan Culler, a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University, what we refer to as theory “includes works of anthropology, art history, film studies, gender studies, linguistics, philosophy, political theory, psychoanalysis, science studies, social and intellectual history, and sociology” (3-4). These works have had an impact beyond the field of study they came from because their ideas are widely applicable, including to literature.

When we read literature, we tend to make sense of what we read through our own experiences. In the introduction to the book Literary Theory: An Introduction , Terry Eagleton explains that: “[…] we always interpret literary works to some extent in the light of our own concerns” (10). So in order to deepen our personal interpretation of a text and to explore different viewpoints on it, we rely on literary theory.

Literary theory is a critical approach that you can choose to focus your textual analysis. In this context, the word “critical” does not mean engaging in scathing commentary on a text. Rather, a critical approach is one where you evaluate what you read and think about it from different perspectives. The word theory, in this instance, is not as abstract as it may sound – a theory is just an idea that was explored in depth in order to explain and interpret complex social systems or phenomena. A theory is not something that is simple or obvious, as it must be researched and fleshed out, and it usually has not been created specifically for literature analysis. Instead, a theory is made of “[…] writings from outside the field of literary studies [that] have been taken up by people in literary studies because their analyses of language, or mind, or history, or culture, offer new and persuasive accounts of textual and cultural matters” (Culler 3-4). These writings from different fields help us use specialized knowledge. Depending on what you are most interested in exploring within a text, you will choose a theory that can provide the most insight into this specific area.

These different theories are sometimes described as critical lenses. I like to think of a critical lens as a set of colored glasses: when wearing them, some colors will be made less visible, while others will stand out and become easier to focus on. For example, imagine wearing glasses with pink lenses. Everything you see will have a pink tint to it, which will alter the way you see colors: some colors will be accentuated, while others (like blue light) will be less noticeable. Wearing the colored lenses might also change your depth perception, or how well you see the contours of your environment. In short, changing the color of the lens on your glasses will allow you to see a different view than you would with the naked eye. Theory does similar for a text, helping us see it with a different view than we could while reading it alone. Some of the most common and widely-used literary theories are psychoanalytic theory, feminist theory, structuralism/ post-structuralism, and Marxist theory.

In his introduction to literary theory, Jonathan Culler shares the following list of characteristics of theory:

• Theory is interdisciplinary – discourse with effects outside an original discipline
• Theory is analytical and speculative – an attempt to work out what is involved in what we call sex or language or writing or meaning or the subject
• Theory is a critique of common sense, of concepts taken as natural
• Theory is reflexive, or thinking about thinking; enquiry into the categories we use in making sense of things, in literature and in other discursive practices (14-15)

Note that using theory requires using ideas from different fields of study (interdisciplinarity) to explore ideas that we might take for granted: we must examine our views and thoughts about certain topics. It also asks that we read the text closely and engage in critical thinking to break down the story’s topics (analysis). Finally, working with theory means that we propose potential ideas to answer the questions we ask of the text (speculation).

Why would we need the help of theoretical texts to find new or deeper meaning in what we read? To put it simply, literary theory helps us understand what lies beneath the storyline and gives us the words to describe this. For example, by providing us with definitions, descriptions, and explanations of abstract ideas, literary theory becomes a means to explore the psychology of the narrative’s characters, delve into the historical and sociopolitical context of the story, or articulate the structure of the text, among other things. With literary theory, we can question the assumptions, values, and ideologies underlying the narrative.

Here is a quick example. Let’s pretend you are reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for a class. You know that this book is one of the first examples of science fiction and in the genre of Gothic horror. Interestingly, at a time when most books were written by well-to-do men, this ever-so-famous classic was authored by a young woman between the ages of 18 and 19. As you read, you cannot help but think that the main protagonist, Victor, has a bit of a strange relationship with Elizabeth and with his mother. You can describe what takes place in the book and express your opinion, but you begin asking questions that go beyond the plot of the text itself. Are the characters acting within the boundaries of expected gender roles? Is Victor’s view of women common for the time? Are author Mary Shelley’s own attitudes about gender showing through her characters?

In order to take your analysis further, you pick a theory to work with. In this case, you decide to use feminist theory to think about gender roles in the book. If instead you had an interest in the economic power structure depicted in this book, then you could choose to analyze the text using Marxist theory. This critical lens focuses on the struggle between different social classes. In this case, Victor Frankenstein and his monster could be viewed as belonging to two different classes (bourgeois and proletariat, respectively). When viewed in this way, the struggle between these two characters and its resolution take on a different meaning (Moretti).

If you would like to see some examples of how to analyze a text with the writings of a theorist, I recommend Jonathan Culler’s “Chapter 1: What is Theory” in Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction .

Over time, philosophers and theorists from different fields of study have explored and offered many ideas to think about and make sense of our world. As literature became a field of study in “the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,” there was an “emergence of literary studies in universities in Germany, France, England, America, and elsewhere, and that institutional development made necessary the development of methods of teaching that were associated with methods for conducting literary research” (Ryan 3). For example, in the mid- to late-20th century, a movement called Postmodernism (led, among others, by philosophers like Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes) discussed how society defines some people as “other,” creating categories such as deviant . What these authors wrote can help us understand some of the social mechanisms in place to categorize us, to make us conform, and to control us. Another example of theory is postcolonialism, a school of thought that considers the impact of colonialism and offers ways to resist and unsettle colonial power structures. One last example of a framework you could work with is disability studies, a branch of study analyzing and questioning definitions of disability and the role of society in controlling and erasing the existence of disabled bodies and minds.

In a Lumen Learning article titled “Introduction to Critical Theory,” William Stewart provides a chronological list of critical theories. Here is an abbreviated version of this list:

• Aestheticism – often associated with Romanticism, a philosophy defining aesthetic value as the primary goal in understanding literature. (This includes both literary critics who have tried to understand and/or identify aesthetic values, as well as those like Oscar Wilde who have stressed art for art’s sake.)
• Cultural studies – emphasizes the role of literature in everyday life
• Deconstruction – a strategy of “close” reading that elicits the ways that key terms and concepts may be paradoxical or self-undermining, rendering their meaning undecidable
• Gender studies (see also: feminist literary criticism) – emphasizes themes of gender relations
• Formalism – a school of literary criticism and literary theory having mainly to do with structural purposes of a particular text
• Marxism (see also: Marxist literary criticism) – emphasizes themes of class conflict
• New Criticism – looks at literary works on the basis of what is written, and not at the goals of the author or biographical issues
• New Historicism – examines works through their historical context(s) and seeks to understand cultural and intellectual history through literature
• Postcolonialism – focuses on the influences of colonialism in literature, especially regarding the historical conflict resulting from the exploitation of developing countries and indigenous peoples by Western nations
• Postmodernism – criticism of the conditions present in the twentieth century, often with concern for those viewed as social deviants or the Other
• Psychoanalysis (see also: psychoanalytic literary criticism) – explores the role of consciousnesses and the unconscious in literature including that of the author, reader, and characters in the text
• Queer theory – examines, questions, and criticizes the role of gender identity and sexuality in literature

When it comes to applying these theories to literature, we start with the idea that a text is the product of its time: a reflection of society at the time and/or an expression of the author’s beliefs and views. Literature opens a window through which we can view a moment in time. We then explore some aspects of the text that we read through the lens of a theory.

You might be reading this article to prepare for a specific assignment. It is common for literature courses to ask students to analyze, interpret, and discuss the texts they read. You will generally begin to think about how you should analyze a text when you are engaging in close reading: you will notice recurring themes, salient ideas, etc. Depending on what interests you, you can then determine which theory (or theories) you would like to use.

While reading your text, you want to take notes about thoughts you have. You can take these notes in any way that works best for you: paper notepad, voice recordings, digital notepad, etc. Make sure to note page numbers, save important quotes, and document other relevant information so that you are able to reference your findings later. As you do so, you will notice patterns, or parts of the story will stand out to you. Reflect on why you are interested in specific aspects of the story, as this will guide you in choosing which theoretical framework to use. Your professor will likely have introduced you to a few literary theories. Ask yourself which one seems the most relevant to what you would like to analyze.

If you are writing an essay that uses literary theory, it could have the following structure:

• Briefly introduce the text you will be analyzing:

It is important to provide your audience with some information about when the text was written, to share a few details about the author, and to summarize the main plot points of the story.

• Share and explain the theory you will be using:

Once you have situated the text, you will write a couple of paragraphs where you name the theory you will be using, cite its main authors, and explain its most important or relevant ideas.

• Make a broader argument about the text:

This is where the analysis starts in earnest. You will draw out ideas from the theory you chose and analyze specific portions of your text with them. You will quote the text to show your audience specific examples of your argument. It is in this section that you will provide depth to your argument. Coming back to the earlier example of Frankenstein , you might have decided to look at the text through the lens of feminist theory. You describe the gender roles portrayed in the story and provide examples from the book showing that women tend to be confined to the home while men work outside. You explore whether this was traditionally the case at the time the book was written and argue that the gender roles in the story reflect that of the era. Continuing to rely on feminist theory, you could then explore whether the gender roles described in the book empower or subjugate the female characters, and you make sure to provide examples from the text to support your argument.

• Provide a conclusion:

Reiterate the main points you have made in the body of your paper. A conclusion is also a great opportunity to open your findings to broader interpretations.

By now, you should feel clearer on what constitutes literary theory and how it is used in analysis. You should also have a sense of the different theories available and their respective emphases. Literary analysis is a fantastic way to be curious about what lies beneath a narrative and to unsettle assumptions in the text. It offers frameworks to think critically about larger social questions, many of which still affect us today. Such analyses even provide us with opportunities to reflect on our own perceptions and biases. As literary theory enhances our critical skills and allows us to engage in deeper inquiries, we develop an important skillset that we can rely on in situations beyond the classroom.

Works Cited

Culler, Jonathan D. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford University Press, 1997.

Eagleton, Terry . Literary Theory: An Introduction, University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

Moretti, Franco. Signs Taken For Wonders: Essays in the Sociology of Literary Forms. Verso, 1997.

Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan, editor . Literary Theory: An Anthology. 3rd ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2017.

Ryan, Michael, editor. Literary Theory: A Practical Introduction. 3rd ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2017.

Stewart, William. “Introduction to Critical Theory.” Lumen , https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-herkimer-english2/chapter/introduction-to-critical-theory/ . Accessed 31 March 2024.

About the author

name: Alice Lopez

institution: Salt Lake Community College

Alice Lopez is a professor in the D epartment of English, Linguistics & Writing Studies at SLCC. She r eceived her BA in Writing Studies and MA in Rhetoric & Composition from the University of Utah. She is currently a student in the Rhetoric & Composition PhD program at the U. She is interested in multimodal composition and disability studies. In her free time, Alice can be found taking photos, playing with fountain pens or typewriters, and taking care of her Sphynx cats .  

Literary Studies @ SLCC Copyright © 2023 by Alice Lopez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Eco Criticism › Ecocriticism: An Essay

Ecocriticism: An Essay

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on November 27, 2016 • ( 3 )

Ecocriticism is the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view where all sciences come together to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation. Ecocriticism was officially heralded by the publication of two seminal works, both published in the mid-1990s: The Ecocriticism Reader , edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm , and The Environmental Imagination, by Lawrence Buell.

Ecocriticism investigates the relation between humans and the natural world in literature. It deals with how environmental issues, cultural issues concerning the environment and attitudes towards nature are presented and analyzed. One of the main goals in ecocriticism is to study how individuals in society behave and react in relation to nature and ecological aspects. This form of criticism has gained a lot of attention during recent years due to higher social emphasis on environmental destruction and increased technology. It is hence a fresh way of analyzing and interpreting literary texts, which brings new dimensions to the field of literary and theoritical studies. Ecocriticism is an intentionally broad approach that is known by a number of other designations, including “green (cultural) studies”, “ecopoetics”, and “environmental literary criticism.”

Western thought has often held a more or less utilitarian attitude to nature —nature is for serving human needs. However, after the eighteenth century, there emerged many voices that demanded a revaluation of the relationship between man and environment, and man’s view of nature. Arne Naess , a Norwegian philosopher, developed the notion of “Deep Ecology” which emphasizes the basic interconnectedness of all life forms and natural features, and presents a symbiotic and holistic world-view rather than an anthropocentric one.

Earlier theories in literary and cultural studies focussed on issue of class, race, gender, region are criteria and “subjects”of critical analysis. The late twentieth century has woken up to a new threat: ecological disaster. The most important environmental problems that humankind faces as a whole are: nuclear war, depletion of valuable natural resources, population explosion, proliferation of exploitative technologies, conquest of space preliminary to using it as a garbage dump, pollution, extinction of species (though not a human problem) among others. In such a context, literary and cultural theory has begun to address the issue as a part of academic discourse. Numerous green movements have sprung up all over the world, and some have even gained representations in the governments.

Large scale debates over “dumping,” North versus South environmentalism (the necessary differences between the en-vironmentalism of the developed and technologically advanced richer nations—the North, and the poorer, subsistence environmentalism of the developing or “Third World”—the South). Donald Worster ‘s Nature’s Economy (1977) became a textbook for the study of ecological thought down the ages. The historian Arnold Toynbee recorded the effect of human civilisation upon the land and nature in his monumental, Mankind and Mother Earth (1976). Environmental issues and landscape use were also the concern of the Annales School of historians , especially Braudel and Febvre. The work of environmental historians has been pathbreaking too. Rich-ard Grove et al’s massive Nature and the Orient (1998), David Arnold and Ramachandra Guha’s Nature, Culture, Imperialism (1995) have been significant work in the environmental history of India and Southeast Asia. Ramachandra Guha is of course the most important environmental historian writing from India today.

Various versions of environmentalism developed.Deep ecology and ecofeminism were two important developments. These new ideas questioned the notion of “development” and “modernity,” and argued that all Western notions in science, philosophy, politics were “anthropocentric” (human-centred) and “androcentric”(Man/male-centred). Technology, medical science with its animal testing, the cosmetic and fashion industry all came in for scrutiny from environmentalists. Deep ecology, for instance, stressed on a “biocentric” view (as seen in the name of the environmentalist group, “ Earth First! !”).

Ecocriticism is the result of this new consciousness: that very soon, there will be nothing beautiful (or safe) in nature to discourse about, unless we are very careful.

Ecocritics ask questions such as: (1) How is nature represented in the novel/poem/play ? (2) What role does the physical-geographical setting play in the structure of the novel? (3) How do our metaphors of the land influence the way we treat it? That is, what is the link between pedagogic or creative practice and actual political, sociocultural and ethical behaviour towards the land and other non-human life forms? (4) How is science —in the form of genetic engineering, technologies of reproduction, sexualities—open to critical scrutiny terms of the effects of science upon the land?

The essential assumptions, ideas and methods of ecocritics may be summed up as follows. (1) Ecocritics believe that human culture is related to the physical world. (2) Ecocriticism assumes that all life forms are interlinked. Ecocriticism expands the notion of “the world” to include the entire ecosphere. (3) Moreover, there is a definite link between nature and culture, where the literary treatment, representation and “thematisation” of land and nature influence actions on the land. (4) Joseph Meeker in an early work, The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology (1972) used the term “literary ecology” to refer to “the study of biological themes and relationships which appear in literary works. It is simultaneously an attempt to discover what roles have been played by literature in the ecology of the human species.” (5) William Rueckert is believed to have coined the term “ecocriticism” in 1978, which he defines as “the application of ecology and ecological concepts to the study of literature.”

Source: Literary Theory Today,Pramod K Nair

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Categories: Eco Criticism

Tags: Annales School , Arne Naess , Arnold Toynbee , Cheryll Glotfelty , Deep Ecology , Earth First! , Ecocriticism , green studies , Harold Fromm , Literary Theory , Mankind and Mother Earth , Nature and the Orient , Nature's Economy , The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology , The Ecocriticism Reader , The Environmental Imagination

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52 Literary Criticism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best literary criticism topic ideas & essay examples, 🎓 good research topics about literary criticism, 🥇 interesting topics to write about literary criticism.

• Literary Criticism on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn In the essay, Wallace examines the racism in the novel in a bid to protect the African Americans from “mental cruelty and harassment depicted in the novel.
• Formalist Strategies in Literary Criticism If we analyze the approach of a formalist critic we would see that this form of criticism is more dependent on imageries presented in the text rather than the basics of the literature.
• Feminist Approach in Literary Criticism The reason for this is simple this particular plot’s development suggests that, just as it happened to be the case with the functioning of a male psyche, the working of a female psyche implies that […]
• Theories of Literary Criticism: Social and Literary Philosophy This essay engages in an in-depth, meaningful, and critical discussion of the most significant theories of public criticism.
• Literary and Theatrical Criticism on Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People” It was an essential part of Ibsen’s dramatic talent that he embodied the problems and conflicts of his own personality in the characters of his plays.
• The Literary Criticism of Agnosticism Agnostics have been unable to take a stand in the issue due to their inability to make a decision and it is advisable that agnostics emulate theists and atheists.
• Literary Criticism of The Yellow Wallpaper by Gilman When she is isolated in the room, she notices a shadow emerging from the wallpaper and creeping over the walls and floor.
• Literary Criticism: The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes This paper examines the poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes and delineates the meaning by focusing on the various elements in the poem like setting, the background of the author, and the […]
• “Contemporary Literary Criticism” by Lowell His collection of poems “The Mills of the Kavanaughs” was written under the influence of Robert Frost and Robert Browning. The poem is mixed with images of death and a young boy’s love for his […]
• The Concept of Literary Criticism Feminist literary criticism is focused on the analysis of texts from the feminist perspective. Feminist literary criticism is based on the feminist theory and broad politics of feminism.
• New Criticism in the English and American Literature Consequently, any effort to state the meaning of the poem appears to be heretical, as it is an affront to the honesty of the complex arrangement of sense within the literary creation.
• Applying Marxist Literary Criticism to “Of Mice and Men”
• Biblical Literary Criticism: Higher Criticism
• Charles Dickens Novels Literary Criticism
• Classical and Literary Traditions in Literary Criticism
• Fahrenheit 451: Literary Criticism and Critical Analysis
• Feminist Literary Criticism: Feminist Critical Theory
• The Link Between Formalism and the School of Literary Criticism
• Peculiarities of Applying Literary Criticism to Graphic Novels
• Jane Tompkins’ Revolutionary Approach to Literary Criticism
• Analysis of Ecocriticism as a Literary Criticism
• Linking Literary Criticism and Linguistics
• The Parallels Between Literary Criticism and Marxist Criticism
• Margit Stange’s Literary Criticism of Chopin’s “The Awakening”
• Magical Realism Literature Literary Criticism
• Marxist Literary Criticism Applied to Middlemarch
• Post Structuralist Literary Criticism of English Literature
• The Relationships Between Literary Theories and Literary Criticism
• Correlations Between Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism
• Romantic Literary Criticism Criticism: Background and Overviews
• Satire and Hypocrisy: Literary Criticism of Lewis’ “The Monk”
• The Link Between American Narrative and Literary Criticism
• Romantic Literary Criticism Criticism: The German Romantics
• The Feminist Literary Criticism: Women’s Struggle
• The Contemporary Literary Criticism of Frank McCourt’s Poetry
• The Relations Between Structuralism and Literary Criticism
• The Four Basic Approaches to Literary Criticism
• “The Great Gatsby” Through a Marxist Literary Criticism Lens
• The Important Things Regarding Professional Literary Criticism
• The Purpose and Usage of Literary Criticism
• Discussion on the African American Literary Criticism
• Pros and Cons of Literary Criticism
• Literary Criticism of “Well in a Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle
• Different Perspectives of Literary Criticism on the Works of Literature
• Journey Through Digital Literature: Hidden Literature and Literary Criticism in Video Games
• Feminist Literary Criticism of Rip Van Winkle
• Overview of Methods of Feminist Literary Criticism
• Literary Criticism of “A White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett
• Feminist Literary Criticism of the Yellow Wallpaper
• Literary Criticism as a Study With Its Functions
• Overview of New Historicism in Literary Criticism
• Canterbury Tales Research Ideas
• A Good Man Is Hard to Find Essay Ideas
• Pride and Prejudice Essay Ideas
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Research Topics
• The Great Gatsby Ideas
• The Glass Castle Paper Topics
• The Metamorphosis Research Topics
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin Essay Topics
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Bibliography

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Literary Criticism And Theory Multiple Choice Quiz

Ready to delve into the world of analyzing literature? Take our Literary Criticism Quiz and test your understanding of different approaches to interpreting literary texts. From formalism to feminist theory, this quiz covers a wide range of critical perspectives. Literary criticism is a fascinating field that involves the analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of literary works. This Literary Criticism Quiz is designed to test your knowledge and understanding of various critical approaches used to analyze literature. By taking this quiz, you can deepen your appreciation for literature by learning how to dissect and interpret texts from different perspectives. It's not just about Read more understanding the plot or characters; it's about uncovering the underlying themes, symbols, and social implications embedded within the text.

Literary Criticism Questions and Answers

What is literary criticism.

The reasoned consideration of literary works and issues

The study of historical events in literature

The analysis of scientific theories

The critique of artistic expressions

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Who is often taken as the earliest important example of literary criticism?

Who countered plato’s indictment by stressing what is normal and useful about literary art, what happened to criticism in the christian middle ages.

It flourished with the rise of Christianity.

It suffered from the loss of nearly all the ancient critical texts.

It was replaced by religious texts.

It was banned by the Church.

Who renewed the Platonic argument against poetry in the Christian Middle Ages?

Tertullian, Augustine, and Jerome

Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato

Dante, Chaucer, and Shakespeare

Homer, Virgil, and Ovid

What did Renaissance criticism grow directly from?

The recovery of classic texts

The invention of the printing press

The exploration of new lands

The rise of humanism

Who was once again the most imposing presence behind literary theory from the Renaissance until the later part of the 18th century?

What did critics look to for insight into the permanent laws of art during the renaissance.

Ancient poems and plays

Modern novels and short stories

Religious texts and sermons

Scientific treatises and discoveries

What did Plato argue in The Republic?

The social value of literature

The risky consequences of poetic inspiration

The study of historical events

Who were banished from the hypothetical republic according to Plato?

Philosophers

Politicians

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English: Introduction to Literary and Cultural Criticism

How to use this guide, literary & cultural criticism: background & context, literary & cultural critics / book reviews & bibliographies.

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• Books on Literary History, Theory, Criticism & More
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• English Literature: Resources for Graduate Research by Micah Saxton Last Updated Aug 15, 2024 1935 views this year

Welcome to the Introduction to Literary and Cultural Criticism Guide. Use the table of contents to find definitions, topic overviews, books, articles, and more that will help you with your research. 

If you don't find what you are looking for or need help navigating this guide or any of the resources it contains, don't hesitate to contact the author of this guide or Ask a Librarian .

Want to learn more about the background and context of literary scholarship? Below is a selection of resources that can help you to develop a better understanding of literary research, including the discourses of critical theory.

Always remember that research is not a linear process--it takes a lot of moving back and forth between sources and ideas to understand a topic and how it has developed over time.

• A Dictionary of Critical Theory This is the most wide-ranging and up-to-date dictionary of critical theory available, covering the whole range of critical theory, including the Frankfurt school, cultural materialism, gender studies, literary theory, hermeneutics, historical materialism, and sociopolitical critical theory. Entries clearly explain even the most complex of theoretical discourses, such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, structuralism, deconstruction, and postmodernism.
• Critical Terms for Literary Study Each essay in this collection provides a concise history of a literary term, critically explores the issues and questions the term raises, and then puts theory into practice by showing the reading strategies the term permits.
• Key Terms in Literary Theory This book provides precise definitions of terms and concepts in literary theory, along with explanations of the major movements and figures in literary and cultural theory and an extensive bibliography.
• Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics is a comprehensive reference work dealing with all aspects of its subject: history, types, movements, prosody, and critical terminology.
• A History of Femnist Literary Criticism This book offers a comprehensive guide to the history and development of feminist literary criticism and a lively reassessment of the main issues and authors in the field.
• The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism presents a comprehensive historical survey of the field's most important figures, schools, and movements. It includes alphabetically arranged entries and subentries on critics and theorists, critical schools and movements, and the critical and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods. In print in the library's reference collection (PN81.Z99 J64 1994)
• Oxford English Dictionary (OED) A complete text of the Oxford English dictionary with quarterly updates, including revisions not available in any other form.

The resources in this section provide information such as brief intellectual biographies of literary and cultural critics as well as annotations and reviews of the current scholarship on a topic.

I. Literary and Cultural Critics  Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online Tip: what you are likely to find here This type of sources offer overviews and summaries; use them to gather, possibly, the following information: 1. A literary/cultural critics/theorist's contribution in the field of literature . * his/her "new" approach/method/theory * his/her "impact" on the scholarship of a particular type of literature 2. Seminal publications by and about a critic/theorist (as mentioned in the essays and listed in the bibliographies) * note authors/scholars who are experts on the critic or the theory * note major journals in the fields, where you are likely to find current scholarship on your topics. * Are there scholars/journals from other fields as well? 3. People, events, ... related to an art historian * how a critic/theorist is shaped by his/her education; * who or what influenced their theory; * what was the field of study like prior. II. Recent Bibliographies & Reviews of Books    Literary and Critical Theory (an annotated bibliography) The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory Dissertations and Theses ( Check out the bibliographies of recent dissertations on a topic. ) Dissertation Reviews ( yet to be published, which " offer a glimpse of each discipline's immediate present ") H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences (1994 - ) New York Review of Books (1963 - ) Tip: Questions to ask about reviews of books 1.   You might consider such questions as: Does the reviewer agree or disagree with the book’s theses and approaches? Does the  reviewer provide new evidence not included in the book? What does  the reviewer see as the relevance of the book? What  questions not included in the book does the reviewer identify? Based on  this book review, what do you think are a few of the major questions or methodologies being used in your chosen field?  2. What's the next larger context? When there Aren't any (or many) books published on your topic, try place your idea in the knowledge hierarchy. For examples: connect Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling with 16th-century Italian art, focusing on patronage in Rome during the Renaissance and Baroque periods; or, dealing with influential Italian artists through history, etc.?

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• Last Updated: Jun 5, 2024 1:26 PM
• URL: https://researchguides.library.tufts.edu/c.php?g=711992

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