Literary Theory
Key Terms
Structuralism- a method of interpretation and analysis of aspects of human cognition, behavior, culture, and experience that focuses on relationships of contrast between elements in a conceptual system that reflect patterns underlying a superficial diversity.
Poststructuralism - a term for philosophical, theoretical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it.
Key People
Walter Benn Michaels
Pierre Bourdieu
Jacques Derrida
Michel Foucault
Clifford Geertz
Stephen Greenblatt
Hayden White
Key Works
The Order of Things by
With vast erudition, Foucault cuts across disciplines and reaches back into seventeenth century to show how classical systems of knowledge, which linked all of nature within a great chain of being and analogies between the stars in the heavens and the features in a human face, gave way to the modern sciences of biology, philology, and political economy. The result is nothing less than an archaeology of the sciences that unearths old patterns of meaning and reveals the shocking arbitrariness of our received truths. In the work that established him as the most important French thinker since Sartre, Michel Foucault offers startling evidence that "man"--man as a subject of scientific knowledge--is at best a recent invention, the result of a fundamental mutation in our culture.
ISBN: 0679753354Publication Date: 1994-03-29
The Interpretation of Cultures by
One of the twentieth century's most influential books, this classic work of anthropology offers a groundbreaking exploration of what culture is With The Interpretation of Cultures, the distinguished anthropologist Clifford Geertz developed the concept of thick description, and in so doing, he virtually rewrote the rules of his field. Culture, Geertz argues, does not drive human behavior. Rather, it is a web of symbols that can help us better understand what that behavior means. A thick description explains not only the behavior, but the context in which it occurs, and to describe something thickly, Geertz argues, is the fundamental role of the anthropologist. Named one of the 100 most important books published since World War II by the Times Literary Supplement, The Interpretation of Cultures transformed how we think about others' cultures and our own. This definitive edition, with a foreword by Robert Darnton, remains an essential book for anthropologists, historians, and anyone else seeking to better understand human cultures.
ISBN: 0465097197Publication Date: 1977-05-19
Renaissance Self-Fashioning by
Renaissance Self-Fashioning is a study of sixteenth-century life and literature that spawned a new era of scholarly inquiry. Stephen Greenblatt examines the structure of selfhood as evidenced in major literary figures of the English Renaissance--More, Tyndale, Wyatt, Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare--and finds that in the early modern period new questions surrounding the nature of identity heavily influenced the literature of the era. Now a classic text in literary studies, Renaissance Self-Fashioning continues to be of interest to students of the Renaissance, English literature, and the new historicist tradition, and this new edition includes a preface by the author on the book's creation and influence. "No one who has read [Greenblatt's] accounts of More, Tyndale, Wyatt, and others can fail to be moved, as well as enlightened, by an interpretive mode which is as humane and sympathetic as it is analytical. These portraits are poignantly, subtly, and minutely rendered in a beautifully lucid prose alive in every sentence to the ambivalences and complexities of its subjects."--Harry Berger Jr., University of California, Santa Cruz
ISBN: 0226306593Publication Date: 2005-10-01
The New Historicism by
Following Clifford Geertz and other cultural anthropologists, the New Historicist critics have evolved a method for describing culture in action. Their "thick descriptions" seize upon an event or anecdote--colonist John Rolfe's conversation with Pocohontas's father, a note found among Nietzsche's papers to the effect that "I have lost my umbrella"--and re-read it to reveal through the analysis of tiny particulars the motive forces controlling a whole society. Contributors: Stephen J. Greenblatt, Louis A. Montrose, Catherine Gallagher, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Gerald Graff, Jean Franco, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Frank Lentricchia, Vincent Pecora, Jane Marcus, Jon Klancher, Jonathan Arac, Hayden White, Stanley Fish, Judith Newton, Joel Fineman, John Schaffer, Richard Terdiman, Donald Pease, Brooks Thomas.
ISBN: 0415900700Publication Date: 1989-04-28
New Historicist
Overview
New Historicism, emerging from structuralist and poststructuralist theory, privileges the importance of history in understanding a text. New Historicism seeks to examine texts with an emphasis on the social-cultural, political, or cultural context within which they have been constructed, with an underlying assumption that a text is the product of its time. Moreover, it may include an analysis of how a text has been interpreted through history, again recognising that historical context is an important element to consider in understanding how and why these interpretations have been developed. Furthermore, New Historicism seeks to relate the text to its past but resists the notion that the past can be seen as a series of causes and effects. Rather, New Historicism recognises the past as something that must be interpreted, and these interpretations are again a product of context. Finally, New Historicism may take an interest in representations of marginal/marginalised groups and non-normative behaviours, such as witchcraft or peasant revolts.
What New Historicist Critiques do
Cultural Studies explores the process by which power relations organise cultural artefacts and how these artifacts reinforce these power relations.
Cultural critics critique the traditional canon.
Cultural critics avoid privileging one cultural product over another and often examine texts that are largely seen as marginal and unimportant in traditional criticism, such as those connected to various forms of pop culture.
Cultural Studies’ approaches:
1) transcend the confines of a particular discipline such as literary criticism or history
2) are politically engaged
3) reject the distinction between “high” and “low” art or “elite” and “popular” culture
4) analyse not only the cultural works but also the means of production.
What Questions to New Historicist Critiques ask
What language/characters/events present in the work reflect the current events of the author’s day?
Are there words in the text that have changed their meaning from the time of the writing?
How are events interpreted and presented?
How are events' interpretation and presentation a product of the culture of the author?
Does the work's presentation support or condemn certain event?
How does this portrayal criticise the leading political figures or movements of the day?
What kinds of behaviour, what models of practice, does this work seem to reinforce?
How does the literary text function as part of a continuum with other historical/cultural texts from the same period?
Why might readers at a particular time and place find this work compelling?
How does the work consider traditionally marginalised populations?
General Web Links
- Literary Theory and Criticism It is clear that the emergence of New Historicism has reminded scholars that they will not be able to understand texts unless they study the links between writing and other social practices, and this contribution alone is an honorable legacy.
- What is New Historicism As described, the new historicism theory evaluates literature through a comprehensive analysis of the social and cultural events that surround the event being described and so much more how these socio-cultural events help to build the event. In essence, new historicism aims at understanding intellectual history through literature and literature through the cultural context surrounding the historical event.