Critical Theories

Question 1

What is the ‘Canon’?

Answer 1

The body of literary texts considered most worthy of study because of their importance, quality, and value.

Question 2

What types of authors have a firm place in the Canon?

Answer 2

• William Shakespeare
• William Wordsworth
• Jane Austen

Question 3

How concrete is the Canon?

Answer 3

It fluctuates depending on what society considers valuable.

Question 4

How diverse is the contemporary Canon?

Answer 4

It is accused of representing only the work of dead, white, middle class men- not because that work is more valuable but because the ppl who have decided what works are valuable tend to be people of privilege.

Question 5

What texts fill the Canon?

Answer 5

‘High art’- literature considered to be sublime, timeless, and sort of intrinsically valuable.

Question 6

Why isn’t popular writing and mass media production considered Canon?

Answer 6

Considered useful, commercial, and ephemeral, and are thus not considered worthy of a place in the Canon.

Question 7

What do feminist readings consider overall?

Answer 7

Feminist critics consider different gender representations within texts.

Question 8

What are some specific gender issues feminist critics consider?

Answer 8

• Understanding gender roles, both ♂+♀, is often part of feminist project.
• Gender roles harm ♂+♀+ stereotypical expectations of masculinity can harm ♀.
• Look for ways to sympathise w/oppression of women in texts or celebrate ♀ + ability to assert themselves.

Question 9

What is ecocriticism?

Answer 9

Looks at role of literature in protecting the natural world

Question 10

‘Anthropocentrism’

Answer 10

Assumption that human life is the central fact of the planet

Question 11

‘Anthropomorphism’

Answer 11

Attribution of human form or personality to nature

Question 12

‘Deep Ecology’

Answer 12

Radical form of ecology challenges anthropocentrism and insists that humans must subordinate their interests to those of the planet.

Question 13

‘Ecofeminism’

Answer 13

Movement that resists both domination of nature by humanity and domination of women by men, exploring connection between the two processes and seeking a new relationship between woman, man and nature.

Question 14

‘Environmentalism’

Answer 14

By contrast w/’deep ecology’, the belief that the natural world can be ‘managed’ for the benefit of humanity while causing as little damage to the biosphere as possible within the existing culture-nature relationship.

Question 15

‘Green Studies’

Answer 15

Emerging academic movement which seeks to ensure that nature is given as much attention w/in humanities as is currently given to gender, class and race.

Question 16

‘Industrialism’

Answer 16

Term used by Andrew Dobson in his Green Political Thought for the whole political system which is opposed by what he calls ‘ecologism’.

Question 17

‘Pastoral’

Answer 17

Literary convention which associates the country with innocence and the court or city with corruption; any literary work contrasting rural and urban life.

Question 18

What is postcolonialism?

Answer 18

Idea that the established literature of Europe and N. America has traditionally ignored or marginalised experiences of non-Western ppls and cultures, seeing them as “other”, “different” and invariably “lesser”.

Question 19

What issues are post-colonial critics interested in?

Answer 19

Like Marxist and feminist critics, they’re interested in issues of power, dominance and control and also in freedom and empowerment.

Question 20

What do post-colonial writers tend to do when writing?

Answer 20

• Write in English

- Focus on common themes eg struggle for independence, emigration, national identity, allegiance and childhood.

Question 21

When looking at a text, what do post-colonial critics reject?

Answer 21

Reject universalism claims made on behalf of canonical Western literature + seek to show limitations of outlook, + its general inability to empathise across boundaries of cultural and ethnic difference.

Question 22

What is ‘cultural polyvalency’?

Answer 22

Where individuals/groups belong simultaneously to more than one culture (eg that of coloniser, thru colonial school system, + that of colonised, thru local + oral traditions);

Question 23

What do postcolonial critics examine generally when looking at a text?

Answer 23

Examine representation of other cultures in literature as a way of achieving empathy across boundaries of cultural and ethnic difference.

Question 24

What do postcolonial critics seek to show about Western texts that don’t embrace postcolonialism?

Answer 24

Show how such literature is often evasively and crucially silent on matters concerned with colonisation and imperialism.

Question 25

What do postcolonial critics seek to do with questions of cultural diversity and difference?

Answer 25

Foreground questions of cultural difference + diversity + examine their treatment in relevant literary works;

Question 26

1. What do postcolonial critics celebrate when looking at a text?
2. What kind of perspective do postcolonial critics seek to develop when reading a text?

Answer 26

1. Celebrate hybridity + ‘cultural polyvalency’.
2. Develop perspective, not just applicable to post-colonial literatures, where states of marginality, plurality + perceived ‘Otherness’ are seen as sources of energy + potential change.

Question 27

Marxist Criticism

Answer 27

Reading from perspective which focuses on struggles between social classes + between those oppressors and oppressed + between those who have power and those
who don’t.

Question 28

What do Marxist critics believe about literature in terms of the writer’s views?

Answer 28

Tend to believe that literature is product of writer’s own class + cultural values and that literary texts are themselves products of a particular ideology.

Question 29

What issues do Marxist critics focus on?

Answer 29

• Power
• Work
• Oppression
• Money
• If text supports/undermines prevailing socioeconomic system

Question 30

What did Karl Marx believe about whether the mind is truly free?

Answer 30

‘It is not the consciousness of men that determines their

existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness’. Basically minds are not free.

Question 31

Methods used by Marxist critics: ‘Overt’ and ‘covert’

Answer 31

Divide ‘overt’ and ‘covert’ content, then relate covert subject matter to basic Marxist themes, eg class struggle, or progression of society thru various historical stages, eg transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism.

Question 32

Methods used by Marxist critics: Context and social class of the author

Answer 32

Relate context of work to social-class of author. In such cases assumption is made that the author is unaware of precisely what he/she is saying or revealing in the text.

Question 33

Methods used by Marxist critics: Literary Genre

Answer 33

Explain nature of a whole literary genre in terms of
social period which ‘produced’ it eg Ian Watt’s ‘The Rise of the Novel’ relates growth of the novel in 18th century to expansion of the middle classes during that period.

Question 34

Methods used by Marxist critics: Consumption

Answer 34

Relate work to social assumptions of time in which it’s ‘consumed’, strategy used particularly in later variant of
Marxist criticism known as cultural materialism.

Question 35

Methods used by Marxist critics: Politicisation

Answer 35

‘Politicisation of literary form’: claim that literary forms are themselves determined by political circumstance.