literary theory

Question 1

literature terry eagelton

Answer 1

1. Literature as ‘imaginative’ writing, i.e. as fiction
2. Formal peculiarities on the structural level of language: Literature as an ‘estranged’ way of writing
3. Literature as ‘non-pragmatic’ discourse: Literature are texts that have no concrete purpose, like e.g. a manual
4. Literature as ‘fine’ writing: Literature as ‘good’ or ‘beautiful’ text

Question 2

classical hermeneutics

Answer 2

historically: exegesis of the holy scriptures, seeks to extract the essence of the word of the gods from holy scriptures

Question 3

russian formalism

Answer 3

victor shklovsky, roman jakobson

formal aspects of a text, emerged in the 1910s

Question 4

new criticism

Answer 4

I.A. Richards, John C. Ransom

emerged in the 1930s, close reading, focus on the content of the text

Question 5

structuralism

Answer 5

Claude Levi-Strauss, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault

emerged in the 1950s, isolate the structural units that a text consists of

Question 6

post- structuralism

Answer 6

Jacque Derrida, Gilles Deleuze

focus on the text, emerged in the 1960s(postmodernism)

Question 7

reader response

Answer 7

Roland Barthes, Wolfgang Iser

focus on the reader, emerged in the 1960s, thinks all text are authorless

Question 8

psychoanalysis

Answer 8

Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, C.G. Jung

emerged ca. 1899, explains the creation of pleasure when reading texts, tries to understand the psyche of an author

Question 9

feminism

Answer 9

Elaine Showalter, Julia Kristeva, Helene Cixous
emerged in the 19th century, 2nd wave 1960s, 3rd wave 1980s, focuses on text and socio-political context, analyzes how women are represented, theorizes the construction of gender roles as a social phenomenon

Question 10

Queer Theory

Answer 10

Judith Butler
develops in the 1980s, focuses on text and socio-political background, analyzes the gender relations depicted in texts, key question: how are homosexuality and transsexuality represented in the text?,

Question 11

Marxism

Answer 11

Louis Althusser, Georg Lukacs
emerged in the 1920s, focuses on text and socio-economic context, seeks to illustrate how class and economic circumstances determine the lives of individuals

Question 12

New Historicism/Cultural Materialism

Answer 12

Stephen Greenblatt
emerged in the 1980s, based on Michel Foucault’s “discourse analysis”, conceives of history as a product of cultural discourses, all of history can be seen as a big text

Question 13

Postcolonialism

Answer 13

Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spival
emerged in the 1980s, focuses on the text and socio-political and historical contexts, sterotyping,power of structures and socio-economic situation of minorities, seeks to subvert the ontologically non-existent concept of “race”