LITERARY THEORIES AND CRITICISM IN READING A LITERARY TEXT

Question 1

are needed to support the reader in understanding the texts. Literary critics clustered these theories into five groups.

Answer 1

Literary Theories

Question 2

Literary Theories

Answer 2

1. Mimetic Theory
2. Authorial Theory
3. Reader Response Theory
4. Literary Tradition Theory
5. Textual Analysis Theory

Question 3

• based on the classical ARISTOTELIAN idea that literature IMITATES or reflects the real world or the world of ideal concepts or things from which the subject of literature is derived
• The work and the world that imitates is how others call this theory.

Answer 3

MIMETIC THEORY

Question 4

• holds that the AUTHOR ISNTHE SOLE SOURCE of meaning
• One studies literature with one eye set on literary text and another eye on the AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY.
• The work in relation to its author insists on very private expression of the writer’s feelings, imagination, inspiration, and intention.

Answer 4

AUTHORIAL THEORY

Question 5

• Some call this as the work and its readers.
• It permits varied and numerous INTERPRETATIONS of the literary texts FROM as many READERS.

Answer 5

READER RESPONSE THEORY

Question 6

Reader Response Theory is also known as effective or _______

Answer 6

PRAGMATIC THEORY

Question 7

• relates the work to its literacy history by IDENTIFYING THE TRADITION to which it belongs.

Answer 7

LITERARY TRADITION THEORY

Question 8

• also known as the WORK AS AN ENTITYVOF ITSELF.

Answer 8

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS THEORY

Question 9

lt refers to the individual’s way of reading a literary text.

Answer 9

LITERARY CRITICISM

Question 10

New Criticism or Formalist Criticism is considered new in the ______

Answer 10

1930s

Question 11

Seeks to make literary criticism a SCIENTIFIC STUDY.

Answer 11

NEW CRITICISIM / FORMALIST CRITICISM

Question 12

Insists that each literary work shows function as a HARMONIOUS possessing a UNIVERSAL MEANING, which suggests that there is only one “correct” way of reading.

Answer 12

NEW / FORMALIST CRITICISM

Question 13

Meaning is revealed by “DISSECTING” the literary text, by EXAMINING the literary ELEMENTS and by determining how it contributed to the essential unity of the literary piece

Answer 13

NEW / FORMALIST CRITICISM

Question 14

STRENGTH: calls for a CAREFUL and THOROUGH reading of a text.
WEAKNESS: IGNORES RELATIONSHIP of one story to another, the interconnection of literature, the influence of society to literature, and the importance of the author’s individualism.

Answer 14

NEW / FORMALIST CRITICISM

Question 15

This Denies the impact of the reader’s personal experience

Answer 15

NEW / FORMALIST CRITICISM

Question 16

Who influenced Archetypal Criticism

Answer 16

Carl Gustav Jung’

Question 17

• influenced by Carl Gustav Jung’s belief in the collective UNCONSCIOUSNESS of all the people of the world.

Answer 17

ARCHETYPAL CRITICISM

Question 18

• Identifies certain archetypes, which are SIMPLE REPEATED PATTERNS or images of human experience: the changing seasons, the cycle of birth, death, rebirth, and heroic quest.
• Depends heavily on SYMBOLS and PATTERNS operating on a universal scale.

Answer 18

ARCHETYPAL CRITICISM

Question 19

Archetypal Criticism Uses ________ assertion that literature consists of variation on a great MYTHIC THEME that contains the following elements.

Answer 19

Northrop Frye’s

Question 20

The creation and life are a paradise:

Answer 20

garden

Question 21

A displacement from a paradise:

Answer 21

alienation

Question 22

A time trial and tribulation, usually a wandering:

Answer 22

a journey

Question 23

A self-discovery as a result of the struggle:

Answer 23

an epiphany

Question 24

A return to paradise:

Answer 24

either the original or improved one

Question 25

examines the CULTURE and SOCIETY from which literature is produced, and how their influence affect literature.

Answer 25

HISTORICISM

Question 26

STRENGTH: enriches one’s understanding of literature because a KNOWLEDGE OF THE HISTORICAL TIMES in which a piece is written.
WEAKNESS: OVERLOOKS the literary elements and structure as well as the author’s individual contribution.

Answer 26

HISTORICISM

Question 27

has the longest history being a 20th century phenomenon

Answer 27

MARXIST CRITICISM

Question 28

• Argues that literature is a product of real, social and economic existence.
• Views literature to be ideologically determined, usually of dominant social class.

Answer 28

MARXIST CRITICISM

Question 29

Marxist Criticism uses _________’s ideas that literature must answer.

Answer 29

Moa Tse Tung

Question 30

Whom to serve:

Answer 30

The working people, the masses.

Question 31

How to serve:

Answer 31

Awaken and arouse the masses and impel them to unite and struggle to change their environment.

Question 32

STRENGTH: provides functional cultural and political agenda of literature.
WEAKNESS: Opens up the possibility of prioritizing content over form, ideological criterion over artistic.

Answer 32

MARXIST CRITICISM

Question 33

combines several critical methods while focusing on the questions on how GENDER affects a literary work, writer, or reader.

Answer 33

FEMINIST CRITICISM

Question 34

STRENGTH: enriches a reading by showing awareness of the complexity of human interaction.
WEAKNESS: ultimately culturally criticism.

Answer 34

FEMINIST CRITICISM

Question 35

based on linguistic theories of Ferdinand Saussure and cultural theories of Claude Levi-Strauss.

Answer 35

STRUCTURALISM

Question 36

Structuralism is based on linguistic theories of __________

Answer 36

Ferdinand Saussure

Question 37

Structuralism is cultural theories of ________.

Answer 37

Claude Levi-Strauss

Question 38

Language is a well contained system of signs.

Answer 38

Ferdinand Saussure

Question 39

Culture, like languages, could be viewed as system of signs and could be analyzed in terms of the structural relations among their elements.

Answer 39

Claude levi-Strauss

Question 40

• Views literary text as systems of interlocking signs which are ARBITRARY .
• Seeks to make explicit the “grammar” (the rules and codes or system of organization).
• Uses the concept of BINARY OPPOSITIONS (sign-signifier, parole-langue, performance-competence).
• Believes that A SIGN (something which stands to somebody for something) CAN NEVER HAVE DEFINITE MEANING, because the meaning must be continuously qualified.

Answer 40

STRUCTURALISM

Question 41

STRENGTH: allows intertextuality and links literary text to systems of signs that exist even before the work is written.
WEAKNESS: denies author’s individual contribution.

Answer 41

STRUCTURALISM

Question 42

• initiated by Jacques Derrida in the late 1960’s.

Answer 42

DECONSTRUCTION

Question 43

Deconstruction is initiated by ______ in the late 1960’s.

Answer 43

Jacques Derrida

Question 44

• Assumes that language refers only to itself rather than to an extra-textual reality.
• Asserts multiple CONFLICTING INTERPRETATIONS to a text.
• Bases interpretations on the philosophical, political or social implications of the use of language in a text rather than on the author’s intentions.

Answer 44

DECONSTRUCTION

Question 45

• Involves the questioning of the many hierarchical oppositions (binary oppositions) in order to expose the bias of privilege terms.
• Taken apart the LOGIC OF LANGUAGE in which author make their claims.
• Reveals how all texts undermine themselves in that every text includes unconscious “traces” of other positions exactly opposite to that which it sets out to uphold.

Answer 45

DECONSTRUCTION

Question 46

STRENGTH: DEBUNKS the idea of the arbitrariness of the verbal sign and loosens up language from concepts and referents.
WEAKNESS: views that the “meaning” of the text bears only ACCIDENTAL RELATIONSHIPS to the author’s conscious intentions.

Answer 46

DECONSTRUCTION

Question 47

TYPES OF LITERARY CRITICISM

Answer 47

1. New / Formalist Criticism
2. Marxist Criticism
3. Archetypal Criticism
4. Feminist Criticism
5. Structuralism
6. Deconstruction
7. Historicism