Focus on the canon, literary theories Flashcards
What does literary communication/institutions of literary mediation consist of?
- Author
- Medium & Code
- Reader
- Reference to societal/historical Context
- literary context
What are the approaches to Literary Criticism?
- Author-centred approaches
- Text-centred approaches
- Reader-centred approach
- Context-centred approaches: Discursive & Historical
- Approaches centering on the literary context
What are types of author-centred approaches in Literary Criticism?
- Biographical approach
- Psychoanalytical approach
What are types of text-centred approaches in Literary Criticism?
- New Criticism/Close Reading/Narratology
- Formalism/Structuralism
- Poststructuralism/Deconstruction
What are types of reader-centred approaches in Literary Criticism?
- Reader-Response Criticism
- Cognitive Poetics
- Empirical Reception Studies
- History of Reception and Effect of Works
What are types of approaches centering on the literary context in Literary Criticism?
- Studies on literary sources and influences
- Literary sociology
- Studies on intertextuality & intermediality
- History of the book
What are types of context-centred approaches (focus on discursive power) in Literary Criticism?
- Feminist literary criticism
- Marxist literary criticism
- Post-colonial theory
- Cultural Studies
What are types of context-centred approaches (focus on contemporary historical context) in Literary Criticism?
- Mentalitätsgeschichte
- History of ideas
Why did they start printing texts?
durable storage of memory/info
-> lead to mass production & mass dissemination (accessibility), democratisation, standardisation of language & literature
reading & debating public -> civil society
How is a Theme defined?
- semantic focal point
- content-related ‘red thread’ in text
- abstract concept repeatedly dealt within a text
What describes the term ‘story’?
- WHAT is narrated
- Who does what, in which order, where, when and why?
- all elements are discussed as if they are real -> stays only on the story level
What describes the term ‘Discourse’?
- How it is narrated
- How does the text look like? What devices are used in the text?
- acknowledges the inventiveness and the choices the author made -> level of presentation
How to analyse the discourse level?
- analyse each textual level in isolation
- level to consider: typography, phonetic level, communicative situation
How to describe the story level?
- only chronology & causality (like eyewitness)
- restrict yourself to naming actions, characters, temporal and local setting
What is the central analytical distinction between story & discourse?
- Non-professional readers concentrate on story-level, they tend to treat characters and events of novels/plays/films as if they were real
- Professional readers distinguish between story and discourse, they appreciate the madeness of the artefact, acknowledge the aesthetic choices the author made
What is a theory?
explicit, detailed, organised systems of categories which investigate, describe and explain a subject-matter of a respected field
also: approach, direction, frames of analysis
What is a method?
‘the way towards something’
-> well-defined, planned verifiable procedures for dealing with something
also: procedures
What is a model?
formal or graphic representations of a theory to reduce its complexitivity
What do didactic functions do?
they facilitate learning and teaching procedures and enable the transferall of analytical procedures
What do typological functions do?
they enable a systematic classification of texts and their respective characteristics
What are the two types of reading?
- intentional reading: what is the author trying to tell us through the text?
- symptomatic reading: what does the text tell us about the author (and society)?
What are the two main components of Literary Criticism?
- Analysis (how does the text work, what are its features?)
- Interpretation (what is the meaning of the text, what is its effect?)
What is meaning?
- function or effect of text in relation to its context
- distinguishable between meaning of textual element vs. meaning of the entire text
- dynamic meaning (cognitive change while reading) vs. static meaning (retroactive look at what happened)
What is a motif?
idea that is repeated in a text
so a theme
What concepts is a text about?
- red thread in a text: repetition
- broader than message
What are the five analytical levels for all genres?
- Story
- Discourse
- Themes (motifs)
- Norms: ideology, world-view, value system, ..
- functions: questions about functions/effects apply to all levels
