February 20, 2023 - English Studies

Poststructuralism

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Etymology and Meanings of Poststructuralism Literary Theory

Etymologically, poststructuralism comprises two different terms post- as its prefix as it occurs in the beginning of the word, structuralism. Therefore, it means the time after structuralism. Dehyphenation of this word shows that now it is a complete word having its own semantic shades.

Grammatically, it is a noun and shows a type of philosophy, or system of thoughts, or ideas having its own principles.

Definition of “Poststructuralism” Literary Theory

In literary theory, poststructuralism, however, is still used with a hyphen that does not make any difference either. This literary theory is based on the ideas comprising rejection points of structuralism almost of the same theorists who form the group behind structuralism, or that they were late structuralists. It means they reject the self-sufficiency of the structuralist point of view, do not accept binary opposition, do not accept preassumed notions of the socially constructed reality, propagate texts having independent existence and readers having the independence of meaning-making.

Difference Between Structuralism and Poststructuralism Literary Theories

Structuralism uses underlying structures in literary texts including linguistics or anthropology to interpret cultural nuances. It also takes into account binary oppositions, while poststructuralism rejects these notions, taking into account the system of knowledge, text, or objects, excluding the creators and including the existing culture.

Origin of “Poststructuralism” Literary Theory

Although it seems that poststructuralism immediately emerged after structuralism, it actually emerged during the decade of the 50s and ruled the theoretical academic setting until the 80s. Although it stepped out of its philosophical realm, it touched critical theory in social sciences and entered the literary discipline, considering systematic studies of literary pieces as an important step forward. Almost all structuralists worked to launch the post-structural movement except a few figures, while the “gang of four” in structuralism (Claude Levi-Strauss, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, and Roland Barthes) also joined post-structuralists except Levi-Strauss. Some others like Derrida, Kristeva, and Deleuze also joined them to cause some stir in the philosophical movement.

Principles of Poststructuralism Literary Theory

Poststructuralists contend that an individual is a hotchpotch of conflicts and confusion due to classification based on several factors such as class, gender, and culture. Hence, every individual has a unique self that is based on a unique cultural background. It means that every reader is different, having different discursive or other impacts on the self.
The author holds secondary importance in the mean-making process.

The reader gets top priority after a text comes into being. Every reader has his own meaning, depending on their level of understanding, culture, social situation, and upbringing.
A text could have multiple purposes and objectives to achieve. It is not important o reach that objective.
What is important is that a text could have various interpretations after it undergoes a critiquing process.

Meanings are not fixed and permanent. They rather fluctuate from reader to reader and are not stable. There are also other sources of meanings such as culture, norms, mores, conventions, and even signs and symbols.
Binary opposition is a myth. There are other important considerations to take care of.
It has given rise to metalanguage or the discussion of the main elements of language and how it works.

Criticism Against Poststructuralism Literary Theory

Examples of Poststructuralism

Example # 1

From “Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes

In his story Sarrasine, Balzac, speaking of a castrato disguised as a woman, writes this sentence: “It was Woman, with her sudden fears, her irrational whims, her instinctive fears, her unprovoked bravado, her daring and her delicious delicacy of feeling” Who is speaking in this way? Is it the story’s hero, concerned to ignore the castrato con-cealed beneath the woman? Is it the man Balzac, endowed by his personal experience with a philosophy of Woman? Is it the author Balzac, professing certain “literary” ideas of femininity? Is it universal wisdom? or romantic psychology? It will always be impossible to know, for the good reason that all writing is itself this special voice, consisting of several indiscernible voices, and that literature is precisely the invention of this voice, to which we cannot assign a specific origin: literature is that neuter, that composite, that oblique into which every subject escapes, the trap where all identity is lost, beginning with the very identity of the body that writes.

This essay by Barthes demonstrates the application of poststructuralism and its different aspects. The questions given after the main introduction show how Barthes thinks that the story by Balzac should show its meaning. It is not just the story; rather, it is Balzac himself, his philosophy, and different facets of his personality that peep through it. Therefore, poststructuralism breaks away from structuralism in this aspect.

Example # 2

From “The Sing, Structure and the Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” by Jacques Derrida

Perhaps something has occurred in the history of the concept of structure that could be called an “event,” if this loaded word did not entail a meaning which it is precisely the function of structural—or structurality—thought to reduce or to suspect. But let me use the term “event” anyway, employing it with caution and as if in quotation marks. In this sense, this event will have the exterior form of a rupture and a redoubling. It would be easy enough to show that the concept of structure and even the word “structure” itself are as old as the epistémé—that is to say, as old as western science and western philosophy—and that their roots thrust deep into the soil of ordinary language, into whose deepest recesses the epistémé plunges to gather them together once more, making them part of itself in a metaphorical displacement.

This passage from Derrida shows the application of signs, structure, and language. Specifically, his last comment about metaphorical language as part of episteme shows his understanding of structuralism and the limits of this philosophical concept when it comes to textbooks.

Example # 3

From “The Order of Discourse” by Michel Foucault

Here is the hypothesis which I would like to put forward tonight in order to fix the terrain – or perhaps the very provisional theatre – of the work I am doing; that in every society the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organized and redistributed by a certain number of procedures whose role is to ward off its powers and dangers, to gain mastery over its chance events, to evade ponderous, formidable materiality. In a society like ours, the procedures of exclusion are well known. The most obvious and familiar is the prohibition. We know quite well that we do not have the right to say everything, that we cannot speak of just anything in any circumstances whatever, and that not everyone has the right to speak anything whatever.

This passage from Michel Foucault beautifully sums up his views about discourse or written words or narratives which is also considered literature. If this counts too much which means the control over literature, several tenets of structuralism lose their values such as; signs, their meanings, the author’s purpose, and cultural embeddedness. Therefore, this shows the arrival of post-structuralism. Several poems show this application as they are intended to have meanings packed in them for a specific purpose after which the real authors do not have control over their impacts.

Example # 4

From “The Laugh of the Medusa” by Helene Cixous, Translation by Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen

Women must put herself into the text – as into the world and into history – by her own movement. The future must no longer be determined by the past. I do not deny that the effects of the past are still with us. But I refuse to strengthen them by repeating them, to confer upon them an irremovability the equivalent of destiny, to confuse the biological and the cultural. Anticipation is imperative. Since these relfections are taking shape in an area juset on the point of being discovered, they necessarily bear the mark of our time – a time during which the new breaks away from the old, and, more precisdely, the (feminine) new from the old (la nouvelle de l’ancien). Thus, as there are no grounds for establishing a dicourse, but rather an arid millennial ground to break, what I say has at least two sides and two aims: to break up, to destroy and to foresee the unforseeable, to project.

This passage occurs in the popular essay of Helen Cixious “The Laugh of Medusa.” Although it discusses femininity from a new perspective or femininity from the feminine perspective, it shows clearly the suggestion of Cixous about two sides and two aims that are to leave the past and see the future. This is what poststructuralism shows by keeping the past away from the future.

Keywords in Poststructuralism Literary Theory

Signified, transcendental signified, logocentrism, phonocentrism, arche-writing, supplement, differance, presence-absence, defer-differance, aporia/impasses, trace, code, denotation/connotation, encoding/decoding, salience, semiosis, semiosophere, umwelt

Suggested Readings

Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things. Routledge, 2005.

Cixous, Hélène. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Feminisms Redux: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism (1975): 416-431.

Agger, Ben. “Critical Theory, Poststructuralism, Postmodernism: Their Sociological Relevance.” Annual Review of Sociology 17.1 (1991): 105-131. Derrida, Jacques. 1970. Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences. In The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man: The Structuralist Controversy, pp. 247-272, edited by Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato, John Hopkins University, London. 1970.

Structuralism

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Etymology and Meanings of “Structuralism” Literary Theory

Etymologically, the term structuralism comprises two terms structure and -ism. Structure means shape or form, while -ism refers to a type of philosophy, point of view, or theory on which it is based. Therefore, structuralism means a branch of philosophy based on the structure of things, ideas, and texts. Structuralism relates to psychology, linguistics, sociology, history, philosophy, archaeology, culture as well as anthropology.

Definition of “Structuralism” Literary Theory

In literature, structuralism literary theory shows a type of analysis that deals with recurring patterns of thinking and consequential behavior. It is mostly related to culture. In other words, as human thinking is based on structures, a literary piece could be analyzed from a structural point of view.

Origin of “Structuralism” Literary Theory

Structuralism is stated to have originated from the thoughts of Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss semiotician, and linguist. He also presented his views on the pattern of the Moscow and Prague schools of thought. They argue that there is a distinction between langue and parole (application of language in actual life) and that a sign refers to a signifier, or visual image as perceived. Signifiers are arbitrary due to differences in languages which means there are only positive terms. These structures determine human freedom and will.

Levi-Strauss and Roman Jakobson further added to this work by writing about elements of structures and their kinship. Jacques Lacan and Jean Piaget also commented on it from the psychological point of view as they term these structures as constructions or abstractions. It also touches the boundaries of Marxism due to Louis Althusser’s interpretation and enters the literary realm from these avenues.

Structuralism as a Literary Theory

As a literary theory, structuralism intends to identify and analyze structures in the texts. This could be about the genre, intertextuality, narrative structures, and motifs. In this connection, it enters the semiotic field in which readers have to interpret signs, symbols, and minor structures that occur in the text. Therefore, it is also called “grammar of literature” having different structures and parts to play their roles in the texts. In other words, it means to see basic elements such as myths, stories, and anecdotes, dotting the text and analyzing them for the specific roles they play.

Principles of Structuralism Literary Theory

Every language has a different work for different objects and ideas which creates a difference in mind.
There are two relationships: metaphorical and metonymic.

Every idea, thing, or concept has a binary opposition such as leaving/arriving, coming/going, etc.
Signs are made of a signified and a signifier.
Every language has a different code that varies from culture to culture and from context to context.

Signs have a multiplicity of meanings based on cultural contexts.
The subject is contradictory to the individual which helps understand the conscious and unconscious.
Every work is a social construction.

As language is a social construction, every object, idea, and concept is a social construction.

Criticism Against Structuralism Literary Theory

Structuralism ignores history during critique.

It is not fluid and does not allow ideas to transform.
It stresses more on introspection.
It stresses too much on self-reflection or self-analysis.

It considers language only comprises signs and literature a system of signs, and meanings only in a context.

Examples of Structuralist Criticism

Example # 1

From “Past, Present, Future” by Emily Bronte

Tell me, tell me, smiling child,
What the past is like to thee?
‘An Autumn evening soft and mild
With a wind that sighs mournfully.’
Tell me, what is the present hour?

Its structuralist critique first takes the issue of binary opposition and the use of referents. If the child is smiling, it means he must be weeping earlier. The same goes for the autumn that must have been spring and if the wind is mournful, earlier it must have been happy. In this context, it seems that the child is still smiling though he should have been weeping. This connects it with the idea of the past and present which leads to the future.

Example # 2

From Sonnet CXXVII by William Shakespeare

In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;
But now is black beauty’s successive heir,
And beauty slander’d with a bastard shame:

In a structuralist critique of these verses from Sonnet CXXVII, the binary opposition shows that old age to young, black to white, and fair to ugly. Further binary opposition points out that this is a love sonnet that has been written in the praise of beauty which should have been ugly in binary opposition. The metaphorical presentation of beauty shows this thematic strand of praise.

Example # 3

From One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

Everybody on the ward can feel that it’s started. At eleven o’clock the doctor comes to the day-room door and calls over to McMurphy that he’d like to have him come down to his office for an interview. “I interview all new admissions on the second day.” McMurphy lays down his cards and stands up and walks over to the doctor. The doctor asks him how his night was, but McMurphy just mumbles an answer.

This passage from Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, could be critiqued from a structuralist point of view. Using semiotics, this text could be placed in the African American cultural setting to deduce the meanings of McMurphy and how he behaves. The terms worth considering in semiotics are “mumbles”, “night” and “doctor” which shows that he is suffering from some mental illness. The night could reflect his cultural background.

Example # 4

From “Postcard from god” by Imtiaz Dharker

Yes, I do feel like a visitor,
a tourist in this world
that I once made.
I rarely talk,
except to ask the way,
distrusting my interpreters,
tired out by the babble
of what they do not say.
I walk around through battered streets,
distinctly lost,
looking for landmarks
from another, promised past.

These verses are from the poem “Postcard from god.” Using binary opposition such as visitor/native, rarely/often, talk/silent, ask/tell, and lost/found, a structuralist critique of these lines could show how the poet feels after visiting different places as a tourist and what he wants to convey to his readers.

Example # 5

From “The Flying Cat” by Naomi Shihab Nye

Never, in all your career of worrying, did you imagine

What worries could occur concerning the flying cat.

You are traveling to a distant city.

The cat must travel in a small box with holes.

Using references of the structuralist approach, these verses could be interpreted from several points of view, specifically, the use of a second person, the flying cat and myths involved with it, the distant city and its stories, and finally why the cat is mentioned traveling in a small box. When the dots are connected, it seems that this involves not only myths but also social traditions.

Keywords in Structuralism Literary Theory

Structuralist approach, structuralists, proairetic, semiotic, hermeneutic, symbolic, symbols, referents, referring, reference, sign, signified, signifier

Suggested Readings

Abrams, Meyer Howard, and Geoffrey Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Cengage Learning, 2014.

Hawkes, Terence. Structuralism and Semiotics. Routledge, 2003. Giddens, Anthony. “Structuralism, post-structuralism.” Social Theory Today (1987): 195.

Psychoanalytic

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Etymology and Meanings of “Psychoanalytic” Literary Theory

The term psychoanalytic comprises two words. Greek word psyche means soul or spirit and German analyse means analysis. Sigmund Freud, a great German psychiatrist used the term psychische analyse in 1894. Since then, it has become psychoanalysis. Now it is used for a theoretical perspective as psychanalytic theory or psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic literary theory in literature. Therefore, in literary theory psychoanalytic literary theory means a theory that involves elements of psychoanalysis present in the discourse or literary texts.

Definition of “Psychoanalytic” Literary Theory

Psychoanalytic literary theory could be defined as a type of critique or criticism involving the application of methods, concepts, or forms of psychoanalytic used by the practitioners of this concept and Sigmund Freud to interpret a text. Or in other words, it uses the psychoanalytic approach to show this side of the perspective in literary texts.

Origin of “Psychoanalytic” Literary Theory

Psychoanalytical, or psychoanalytic literary theory mainly occurs in the interpretations of Sigmund Freud. He has written about different concepts of psychoanalytic in his book, The Interpretation of Dreams. He argues that the motives of human beings have different drivers such as fears, desires, requirements, and conflicts. Therefore, such events occurring in one‘s childhood stay in their unconscious. Moreover, different such motives occur during human beings’ relationships with their near and dear ones, or the people living around them. Therefore, the concepts of ego, superego, and id occur recurrently in this type of critique as they relate to the human soul, unconscious, and consciousness.

Principles of Psychoanalytic Literary Theory

As literary texts demonstrate human behavior governed by different motives, the main source of these motives is unconscious. It explains not only human thoughts but also behavior.
The idea of unconsciousness is very problematic as it bears imprints of philosophy, society, theology, and all other such conceptual frameworks in which a human being lives. This entails self-knowledge, belief system, moral framework, and intentionality.

Literary texts show an understanding of self as well as others in one’s self that is shaped by moral and political decisions.
Human thoughts and actions are determined by these motives which are different in every case.
A literary text exhibits the conscious, unconscious, id, ego, and superego of the author as well as his characters.

The artistic construction, and insertion of different thematic strands and motifs occur in the literary works due to the author’s psychological situation.
Literary works represent human mimetic or cathartic situations through metaphorical language.
Literary works show juxtaposition as well as a symbolic representation of different ideas that the authors want to present.

Some literary works also present dreamlike, obsessive situations of characters.
Some prominent thematic strands include the Oedipus Complex, Electra Complex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), general anxiety, repression, suicidal thoughts or fancies, or any other such ideas or notions related to the psychology of the characters or the authors.

Criticism Against Psychoanalytic Literary Theory

A human being is not just a psychological being comprising only ego, superego, or id. There are various other social drivers of motives.
There is too much stress upon the human soul and unconscious as well as childhood.
A literary text has several thematic strands other than these psychological issues.

There are various other differences such as cultural, social, financial, and spiritual besides psychological and these differences get mixed up in the discourse, making a text. Therefore, a text does not show just psychological issues.

Examples of Psychoanalytic Literary Theory

Example # 1

From Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, translated by David Grene

Give me a sword, I say,
to find this wife no wife, this mother’s womb,
this field of double sowing whence I sprang
and where I sowed my children! As he raved
some god showed him the way—none of us there.
Bellowing terribly and led by some
invisible guide he rushed on the two doors,—
wrenching the hollow bolts out of their sockets,
he charged inside. There, there, we saw his wife
hanging, the twisted rope around her neck.

These lines from Oedipus Rex spoken by Oedipus himself show his attitude toward his mother and wife or mother-wife, Jocasta. There are hints that could lead to psychoanalytic interpretation. Otherwise, there is no Oedipus Complex as such given in the same works in Oedipus Rex.

Example # 2

From Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth,
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on, and yet, within a month
Let me not think on ’t. Frailty, thy name is woman!

Hamlet speaks these lines in the play, Hamlet. He is generalizing the single action of his mother to state that all women are frail creatures. This attitude of Hamlet toward his mother has some hints that have led some critics to conclude that Hamlet has also an Oedipus Complex or has some elements of this psychoanalytic concept.

Example # 3

From The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

What do you have to eat?” the boy asked. “A pot of yellow rice with fish. Do you want some?” “No. I will eat at home. Do you want me to make the fire?” “No. I will make it later on. Or I may eat the rice cold.” “May I take the cast net?” “Of course.” There was no cast net and the boy remembered when they had sold it. But they went through this fiction every
day. There was no pot of yellow rice and fish and the boy knew this too.

In these lines, Santiago is conversing with Manolin, the young boy, his disciple, and who helps him during his hour of need. The conversation shows that the old man is seeing in Manolin his own reflection which has led the critics to interpret it from ego, superego, and id points of view.

Example # 4

From Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

‘Gregor,’ a voice called (it was his mother!) ‘it’s quarter to seven. Don’t you want to be on your way?’ The soft voice! Gregor was startled when he heard his voice answering. It was clearly and unmistakably his earlier voice, but in it was intermingled, as if from below, an irrepressibly painful squeaking which left the words positively distinct only in the first moment and distorted them in the reverberation, so that one didn’t know if one had heard correctly. Gregor wanted to answer in detail and explain everything, but in these circumstances he confined himself to saying, ‘Yes, yes, thank you mother. I’m getting up right away.’

These lines from Kafka’s novel, Metamorphosis, show elements of the psychoanalytic critical approach or theory. Gregor has just got up from his dream and has turned into a vermin which seems improbable. In fact, it could be a dream and the whole story could be a dream.

Example # 5

From Paradise Lost by John Milton

What time his Pride
Had cast him out from Heavín, with all his Host
Of Rebel Angels, by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in Glory above his Peers,
He trusted to have equalíd the most High.

This arrogance of Satan given in these lines shows how John Milton considers Satan. This is his own point of view which shows how much he has fought against Satan or his inner self to purify it. This has led critics to find more points of psychoanalytical theory in the speech of Satan.

Example # 6

September Twelfth, 2001” by X. J. Kennedy

Two caught on film who hurtle
from the eighty-second floor,
choosing between a fireball
and to jump holding hands,

aren’t us. I wake beside you,
stretch, scratch, taste the air,
the incredible joy of coffee
and the morning light.

This poem by Kennedy shows how he sees the fall of the couple from the TWC on 9/11. It has elements as he might have put himself in the shoes of that person or that he himself thinks that he could become a victim of such an incident. Therefore, the little time has had could be spent enjoying life.

Keywords in Psychoanalytic Literary Theory

Ego, Superego, Id, Unconscious, Sublimation, Repression, Oppression, Infantile Sexuality, Electra Complex, Oedipus Complex, Libido, Anal And Phallic, Freudian Slip, Dream Work, Displacement

Suggested Readings

Abrams, M.H. “Psychological and Psychoanalytic Criticism.” A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999. 247-253.

Biddle, Arthur W., and Toby Fulwiler. Reading, Writing, and the Study of Literature. NY: Random House, 1989. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. “On Dreams.” Excerpts. Art in Theory 1900-1990. Ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood. Cambridge: Blackwell Pub., Inc., 1993. 26-34. Lynn, Steven. Texts and Contexts: Writing About Literature with Critical Theory. 2nd ed. NY: Longman, 1998. Print.

Russian Formalism

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Meanings of “Russian Formalism” Literary Theory

The literary theory “Russian Formalism” is a literary theory that bases the criticism of a literary piece on its form and structure rather than external factors of the autobiography of the author, social, cultural, and economic factors. This theoretical concept stresses upon the analysis of literary terms used in the text, its syntax, structure, and form, leaving the ideological and connotative aspects. Yet, this concept does not ignore meanings; rather its aspects under analysis include rhyme, rhythm, intonation, and phonic elements and patterns with their impacts on meanings and interpretations.

Origin of “Russian Formalism” Literary Theory

The literary theory of “Russian Formalism” originated in Russia, the reason that it was called “Russian Formalism.” There are two schools of formalists. The first was the Moscow Linguistics Circle which was also abbreviated as MLK. It appeared in the literary world in 1915. Its chief architects were Roman Jakobson and Grigori Vinkour.

The second was the Petersburg Society of Poetic Language. It was established by its chief exponents Boris Eikenbaum, Viktor Shklovsky, and Boris Tomashevsky along with Osik Brik. It was established in 1916 shortly after MLK. Where the MLK founders were interested more in linguistic features of the texts, chiefly poetry, the formers were more interested in ethnology and philology.

Principles of “Russian Formalism”

Literary pieces have specific structures and are systematic, making the “science of literature.”
A literary text is a holistic piece of work having its own meanings and forms and it is a finished product.
The text creates holistic meanings, comprising its content and form.

Literary texts are not only coherent and timeless but also universal and constant and have fixed interpretations and meanings.
A literary text invites interpretations based on its words, meanings, forms, structures, literary terms and figurative languages, metrical pattern, and rhyme scheme as well as cadence and rhythm of sentences which constitute its holistic meanings (message).
A text has its own “literariness” that distinguishes it from ordinary pieces and ordinary language used in every writing.

A literary text should have “defamiliarization” impacts on the readers to cause them to see the difference contrary to the “automation.” It, then, results in “deautomatized” vision of the readers.
A narrative text has two major aspects; fabula and syuzhet (plot).

What Does “Russian Formalism” Not Include?

Texts do not have meanings outside of their shapes, structures, and language.

Texts do not occur in any time without having any background and cultural or societal impacts on them.
The words do not stand as symbols subject to different interpretations.
The author exists outside texts and that his/her moral upbringing, ideological affiliations, and political associations are not significant in the interpretations of the works.

Examples of “Russian Formalism” in Literary Pieces

Example # 1

From “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

By formalism critique of these verses, the readers come to know that poem comprises a fabula, having a plot in which the poet is himself involved in using metaphorical language and rhythmic tone through ABCDEE rhyming pattern. The poet has also personified the daffodils to make them sync with the mood of the poet, demonstrating not only a jolly tone but also a pleasant mood.

Example # 2

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Animal Farm is a type of fabula, presenting different types of characters and different types of plots, making readers feel defamiliarization. This type of fable has deep impacts on the readers as they feel themselves absorbed in reading an imaginary tale until they feel by the end that it is a serious lesson about politics and tyranny. This use of the technique of defamiliarization is what makes this story come up to the yardstick of formalism.

Example # 3

White Fang by Jack London

This novel by Jack London also shows the use of fabula and plot. Narrated by a third-person omniscient narrator, the story shows the life of wolf-dogs through their perspective. The readers feel defamiliarized not only due to the narrator but also due to the seemingly objective fact about the life of wolf-dogs and the specifications of their lives.

Criticism of “Russian Formalism”

As formalism only sees a piece of literature from a formal perspective, using prosody, literary terms, and literariness of the work, it often ignores the historical aspects of the literary piece. Besides history, it also leaves the historical side of the story, its morality, reading public and cultural production, its psychological and gender aspects. Furthermore, it does not mean this critique is applied to all works in a holistic fashion; it just critiques certain parts, or only a few parts are used to critique a work. Interestingly, several such critiques mostly use metaphors, similes, and metonymy and arrive on the same conclusion. Positively, however, it has a very good way of teaching and learning critiquing works and making students able to learn criticism. It is often applied as a theory after the selection of the work, identifying its main features, articulating thematic strands through those features, and using those features to highlight its message.

Keywords in Formalism Literary Theory

Grammatical Aspects in Formalism
Figurative Features in Formalism

Discursive Features in Formalism
Linguistic Features in Formalism
Rhetorical and Stylistic Features in Formalism

Suggestion Readings

Berry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Culture Today. Manchester University Press, 2002.
Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory: The Basics. Routledge, 2007

Kellner, Douglas, and Tyson Lewis. “Russian Formalism and the European Critical Tradition.” The SAGE handbook of Social Science Methodology (2007): 405-422.

Postcolonialism

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Etymology and Meanings of “Postcolonialism” Literary Theory

Etymologically, the term, postcolonialism, comprises two words; post- which is a prefix and colonialism which means the philosophy of making and occupying colonies. Colonialism also comprises two words; colonial which means related to a colony and -ism which is a suffix. It means a type of philosophy. Therefore, colonialism means a period of political control over colonies subjugated by certain western countries. If post- is added to this, it means the time when colonialism has ended. The literature related to this period, when critiqued from this perspective, is called postcolonial literature, and studies conducted through this perspective are called postcolonial studies.

However, there is a little controversy over the use of hyphens such as post-colonialism and postcolonialism. Some theorists argue that both are the same, some state that post-colonialism is related to general studies, while others argue that dehyphenated term, postcolonialism, means solely a literary theory. Here, the word will be used only with reference to literature.

Literally, postcolonialism means the cultural study of the impacts and effects of imperialism and colonialism after it has ended, focusing on the consequences of the political control on the persons, individuals, subjects, subjectivities, agencies, organizations, identities, and above all culture. This study analyses not only history but also cultural documents and discourse through a postcolonial lens.

Definition of “Postcolonialism” Literary Theory

Postcolonialism could be defined as a literary theory that critique a piece of literature from the perspective of tracing the impacts, effects, and aftershocks of colonialism on the people, culture, identity, nationalism, and so on.

Origin of “Postcolonialism” Literary Theory

Although impacts of colonialism have emerged shortly after the end of physical colonialism, disregard of its other shapes, postcolonialism term emerged around or during the decade of the 80s in the western academies. It appeared as a humanistic inquiry specifically in relation to the rise of political feminism and critical race theory with benign intentions of the academics toward the formal colonial subjects after they have studied in the western academies and written stories of the political oppression of the former colonial masters. Although it has impacted almost all the humanities related epistemological fields, it has had wide-ranging impacts on literature emerging in the English language in any part of the world having undergone colonialism. Therefore, postcolonial literary theory has impacted how readers read a literary text, understand its national strands and transnational impacts, feel the political impacts of colonialism, and how it has impacted the reception as well as inquiry in the field of epistemic production.

Principles of “Postcolonialism” Literary Theory

Postcolonial texts appropriate colonial languages for literary writings. Most of the postcolonial writers have written in English, French, or the language of their masters.
Most of the literary texts tell stories of the colonizers or involve them in the stories.
Stories, poetic recitations, or poems are related to colonialism and its political impacts.

Literary texts retell, rephrase, or rewrite colonial history and refute or present the colonial discourse.
Postcolonial texts refute, reject, or rewind the colonial discourse and concentrate on decolonization and the struggles waged to implement it.
Postcolonial literature mostly stresses upon nation, nationalism, indigeneity, valorization, and cultural identity.

Postcolonial literary thoeory also stresses upon identity, power, agency, alterity, hybridity, subjectivity, subjection, subjugation, and other such cultural aspects.

Criticism Against “Postcolonialism” Literary Theory

Postcolonialism has emerged quite late in the age of nationalism and hypernationalism. Yet, it addresses the issues related mostly to colonialism and not what is assumed as post-colonialism.

It has not touched indigenous, racial, and native issues.
It is addressing the postcolonial issues in the colonial language that is English or any other such language of colonialism.
It is not postcolonialism but a new form of colonialism that is viewing the former colonies from a new perspective.

Examples of “Postcolonialism” Literary Theory

Example # 1

From Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

But apart from the church, the white men had also brought a government. They had built a court where the District Commissioner judged cases in ignorance. He had court messengers who brought men to him for trial. Many of these messengers came from Umuru on the bank of the Great River, where the white men first came many years before and where they had built the centre of their religion and trade and government. These court messengers were greatly hated in Umuofia because they were foreigners and also arrogant and high-handed. They were called kotma, and because of their ash-coloured shorts they earned the additional name of Ashy Buttocks. They guarded the prison, which was full of men who had offended against the white man’s law. Some of these prisoners had thrown away their twins and some had molested the Christians. They were beaten in the prison by the kotma and made to work every morning clearing the government compound and fetching wood for the white Commissioner and the court messengers.

This passage occurs in the popular novel of China Achebe, an icon of postcolonialism. The passage has several references to colonial landmarks such as the church, the white man, the District Commissioner, and the indigenous references such as Umuru, the Great River, and Umuofia. The relationships between both are based on power and power dissemination as the use of government shows. This shows that colonialism has impacted indigeneity severely and has left its landmarks proving hard to remove from the indigenous face.

Example # 2

From A Passage to India by E. M. Forster

Aziz was offended. The remark suggested that he, an obscure Indian, had no right to have heard of Post Impressionism a privilege reserved for the Ruling Race, that. He said stiffly, “I do not consider Mrs. Moore my friend, I only met her accidentally in my mosque,” and was adding “a single meeting is too short to make a friend,” but before he could finish the sentence the stiffness vanished from it, because he felt Fielding’s fundamental good will. His own went out to it and grappled beneath the shifting tides of emotion which can alone bear the voyager to an anchorage but may also carry him across it on to the rocks.

This passage occurs in the novel of E. M. Forster, A Passage to India. It shows the protagonist, Aziz, a native Indian, showing signs of a native undergoing colonialism and his impressions that some other race or tribe, or government is ruling them. When he states that Mr. Moor is not his friend, he is clearly referring to the power relationship that exists between them as the ruler and the ruled. This shows the impacts of colonialism and signs of postcolonialism.

Example # 3

From Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea—something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. . . .”

This is the most popular passage in the novel, Heart of Darkness. Conrad has obliquely referred to colonialism that goes on in the name of one or the other differences where the locals are othered and thereupon prejudiced. He clearly states that it is “not a pretty thing when you look into it too much” though outwardly the mission is always benign and beneficial at least in the words that it is “white man’s burden” to civilize the rest of the brute races that live anywhere in the world he occupies.

Example # 4

From “Plants” by Oliver Senior

The world is full of shoots bent on conquest,
invasive seedlings seeking wide open spaces,
material gathered for explosive dispersal
in capsules and seed cases.

This poem is by Oliver Senior, a Jamaican female poet. She has beautifully summed up the impacts of colonialism in this stanza taken from her poem “Plants” to show its impacts on the locals like the seeds that the trees spread to germinate. In postcolonialism, it also becomes hard to kill all the seeds left by colonialism in the shape of language, education, and religion.

Example # 5

From “Don’t Talk to Me about Matisse” by Lakdasa Wikkramasinha

Talk to me instead of the culture generally—
how the murders were sustained
by the beauty robbed of savages: to our remote
villages the painters came, and our white-washed
mud-huts were splattered with gunfire.

The references to culture, murder, savages, villages and fun fire show that Lakdasa Wikkramasinha shows his understanding of the conflict they have undergone during colonialism. These are the impacts of the postcolonialism theoretical perspective that he demonstrates in his poetic output. He is clearly saying that they were murdered and killed in the name of culture. Therefore, he does not want to talk about it.

Keywords in “Postcolonialism” Literary Theory

Colonialism, postcolonialism, ambivalence, alterity, essentialism, strategic essentialism, ethnic, ethnicity, hegemony, exotic, exoticism, hybrid, hybridity, identity, indigenousness, identity, ideology, sovereignty, nativity, mimicry, orientalism, subaltern, subalternity

Suggested Readings

Young, Robert JC. Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. John Wiley & Sons, 2016. Print.

Gandhi, Leela. Postcolonial Theory. Columbia University Press, 2019. Print. Goulimari, Pelagia. Literary Criticism and Theory: From Plato to Postcolonialism. Routledge, 2014. Print.

New Historicism

New historicism means the historicity of the texts, relating them to different ideas of the topicality in which they have been written and appeared.

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Etymology and Meanings of “New Historicism” Literary Theory

The literary theory, new historicism, comprises two words “new” and “historicism.” As new means something that is just coming, historicism is a theoretical concept that takes history into account when analyzing a social or cultural phenomenon. In other words, new historicism means that when critiquing narratives or poetry, or any literary text, the idea is to attribute the importance of that space and time when the text was written. It also means the historicity of the texts, relating them to different ideas of the topicality in which they have been written and appeared. It could also be stated that a book looked upon from the point of new historicism or new historicism criticism means taking into account the ideas, ideology, and cultural mores of that time.

Definition of “New Historicism” Literary Theory

New historicism could be defined as a conceptual framework or an approach in which a literary text is critiqued, interpreted, and analyzed within its given contextual history, cultural environment, and situation.

Origin of “New Historicism” Literary Theory

As a literary theory, New Historicism has appeared during the decade of the 50s. In its initial phase, it was also called cultural poetics. During the 80s, it became further popular through the points raised by Stephen Greenblat who is stated as the inventor of the term, historicism.

Principles of “New Historicism” Literary Theory

As texts comprise acts performed by characters, they have material dynamics that become motives for the actions or acts.
The uncovering of these dynamics or acts means to either conform to them or condemn them. This means that every act whether it is a performance act, or an act of uncovering has also a motive behind it.
Literature does not exist without culturally ideological impacts. Therefore, no literary texts exist in isolation.

Social boundaries do not exist neither social acts provide access to universal truths or permanent features of human nature.
Literary texts show the culture thriving under capitalism and that language is apt to discuss the current economic phenomenon.
A literary text has a context, history, and historical consciousness, providing context and learning to readers.

Criticism Against “New Historicism” Literary Theory

Some arguments put forward against New Historicism literary theory include;

All fields of knowledge or epistemological categories are contaminated.
A text is not just limited to age, environment, or social structure. It often crosses boundaries and locates itself in some other historical period, achieving universality.

The meanings of texts are not fixed; they are always fluid and dependent on several factors other than history.
It is just a desire to make history more democratic and normatively inclusive that is not possible.

Examples of “New Historicism” Literary Theory

Example # 1

From Animal Farm by George Orwell

“But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades, a thousand times no! The soil of England is fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording food in abundance
to an enormously greater number of animals than now inhabit it. This single farm of ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep-and all of them living in a comfort and a dignity that are now almost beyond our imagining. Why then do we continue in this miserable condition?

Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings. There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word-Man. Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever.

If this text from Animal Farm by George Orwell is looked at from a New Historicistic perspective, its interpretation would be the same as has been done by other critics. This is an allegorical one in that Old Major is Karal Marx and he is discussing the social conditions where economics play an important part as man represents the bourgeois class and the rest are the proletariat. Although this relates to Marxism, it is the existing interpretations based on allegorical understanding.

Example # 2

From The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Now Antanas Rudkus was the meekest man that God ever put on earth; and so Jurgis found it a striking confirmation of what the men all said, that his father had been at work only two days before he came home as bitter as any of them, and cursing Durham’s with all the power of his soul. For they had set him to cleaning out the traps; and the family sat round and listened in wonder while he told them what that meant.

Although this story is set in the simple perspective of migration, it also shows how the US idea of a melting pot has melted the immigrants. At that time, it was a much publicized idea but the text also shows the capitalistic exploitations that the immigrants have had to undergo in the tight-knit and rule-based society of the United States.

Example # 3

From A Raisin in The Sun by Hansberry Lorraine

MAMA: I ain’t meddling—(Underbreath; busy-bodyish) I just noticed all last week he had cold cereal, and when it starts getting this chilly in the fall a child ought to have some hot grits or something when he goes out in the cold—
RUTH: (Furious) I gave him hot oats—is that all right!

This conversation occurs in the play of Hansberry. Mama and Ruth are talking to each to each other. The topicality of the issue is that African Americans are now getting some share of the prosperity and thinking on civilized and cultured lines of saving the next generation from the current discriminatory hell.

Example # 4

From “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift

It is a melancholyobject to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in stroling to beg sustenancefor their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.

This is an extract from “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift. If seen from a New Historicist perspective, this text is related to that age when children did not have much significance in the eyes of the government functionaries. Therefore, this sarcasm is directed at the government of those times. It has nothing to do with this age.

Example # 5

From Night by Elie Wiesel

My father was a cultured man, rather unsentimental. He rarely displayed his feelings, not even within his family, and was more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin. The Jewish community of Sighet held him in highest esteem; his advice on public and even private matters was frequently sought. There were four of us children. Hilda, the
eldest; then Bea; I was the third and the only son; Tzipora was the youngest. My parents ran a store. Hilda and Bea helped with the work. As for me, my place was in the house of study, or so they said.

These words of Elie Wiesel show the text and its relation to the Holocaust as well as the Nazi oppression. Although it could be linked to any other such event in the world, it is only related to the Holocaust and has nothing to do with the current complications of realities.

Keywords in New Historicism Literary Theory

Historicism, materialism, cultural materialism, circulation, containment, context, contextual study, body politic, appropriation, expropriation, hegemony, ideology, epistemology, liminal, power, textuality, subversion

Suggested Readings

Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory: The Basics. Routledge, 2012. Print.

Gallagher, Catherine, and Stephen Greenblatt. Practicing New Historicism. University of Chicago Press, 2000. Print.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Duke University Press, 2007. Print. Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-fashioning: from More to Shakespeare. University of Chicago Press, 2012. Print.

Suggested read: Russian Formalism as a Literary Theory

New Criticism

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Introduction to New Criticism Literary Theory

When formalism was witnessing its heydays in the Soviet Socialist Republic pf Russia, New Criticism emerged in the United States as an alternative literary theory. The main emphasis of this theoretical concept was on the closed reading, specifically, of the poetic texts. The point was that a literary piece was self-referential having its own interpretations and meanings. As it was different from general criticism, it was named as “New Criticism.”

Meanings of “New Criticism” Literary Theory

New criticism means a new way to critique literary texts. This movement emerged during the half of the 20^th century when formalism or Russian Formalism was also seeing its good days. The main point of this new criticism was to look at the poetic texts from a new angle by analyzing the language, literary terms, and linguistic features of the language. It means that it has stressed the idea of seeing relationships between form and text.

Origin of “New Criticism” Literary Theory

This literary theory borrowed its name from John Crowe Ransom’s book about criticism titled New Criticism which appeared in 1941. Later, T. S. Eliot also joined this movement of new criticism by writing about the tradition and talent of individual literary figures in his essay “Tradition and Individual Talent” and writing a critique of Hamlet, the popular Shakespearean play. His concept of “objective correlative” and critique of metaphysical poetry further fueled this movement. It was actually a reaction to philological and literary history schools which were dominant at that time in the United States.

Principles of New Criticism

A text is an independent and autonomous entity, having its own existence after it is written.
A text derives its meanings from its form and structure which are intimately connected with each other.

Readers need to be adept in close reading to draw meanings from the text.
The focus of the attention should be literary terms or devices such as irony, metaphors, conflicts, and tensions including paradoxes used in the text.
This literary theory involves “intentional fallacy (author’s assumption), affective fallacy (error of judgment), the heresy of paraphrase and ambiguity.

Criticism Against New Criticism

It only focuses on the text and excludes all other external factors impacting the production of the text.
It does not seem suitable for all types of writing.

It supposes or assumes that one reading is enough and correct to draw certain meanings.
It ignores the readers and their cultural understanding and background.

Examples of New Criticism

Example # 1

From “Ars Poetica” by Archibald MacLeish

A poem should be palpable and mute

As a globed fruit,

Dumb

As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds.

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases

Twig by twig the night-entangled trees

Archibald MacLeish has beautifully summed up how New Criticism literary theory is applied in letter and spirit to a point in this part of his poem “Ars Poetica.” The very first line defines what a poem should be, what it should say, and what it should look like. In fact, he is stating how a reader should perceive a poem, though, it seems that he is advising the poets on how to see their poems.

Example # 1

From Practical Criticism by I. A. Richards

“Since so many readers did not succeed in applying their intelligence, a paraphrase kindly supplied by one writer may be inserted here. It will help moreover to bring out an interesting double-reading that the seventh line of the poem lends itself to.

It is difficult to understand this poem first. After thinking about it a good deal I have come to the conclusion that this is the meaning of it – an elderly man, experienced in such matters, has found a girl grieving at the falling of leaves in autumn.”

These lines occur in Practical Criticism, a book of I. A. Richards. Although the poem he is referring to is not given here, a reader can easily perceive that he is referring to “heresy of paraphrase” that a reader can depend on the paraphrase of the main idea done by some other reader. This is the main point of New Criticism literary theory.

Example # 2

From “The Language of Paradox” by Cleanth Brooks

“Few of us are prepared to accept the statement that the language of poetry is the language of paradox. Paradox is the language of sophistry, hard, bright, witty; it is hardly the language of the soul. We are willing to allow that paradox is a permissible weapon which a Chesterton may on occasion exploit. We may permit it in epigram, a special subvariety of poetry; and in satire, which though useful, we are hardly willing to allow to be poetry at all. Our prejudices force us to regard paradox as intellectual rather than emotional, clever rather than profound, rational rather than divinely irrational.”

This passage occurs in The Language of Paradox, an essay by Cleanth Brooks in which he has discussed some points of New Criticism literary theory. Using paradox is one of them. He clearly discusses here the benefits of using paradoxes and how a paradox and its understanding help the readers to comprehend a poem. He also points out that it is our prejudice as a reader that does not understand a paradox which is a point of intellectualism rather than simple emotions.

Example # 3

From Metaphysical Poetry by T. S. Eliot

His fate was destined to a barren strand,
A petty fortress, and a dubious hand;
He left a name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.

“Where the effect is due to a contrast of ideas, different in degree but the same in principle, as that which Johnson mildly reprehended. And in one of the finest poems of the age (a poem which could not have been written in any other age), the Exequy of Bishop King, the extended comparison is used with perfect success: the idea and the simile become one, in the passage in which the Bishop illustrates his impatience to see his dead wife, under the figure of a journey.”

This stanza and its explanation occur in Metaphysical Poetry, an essay by T. S. Eliot. He points out the contrast of ideas, and their impact, referring to comparison and use of similes to point out how these structural features of verses help the readers to understand them easily.

Example # 4

From Seven Types of Ambiguity by William Empson

“One feels the conceit must have arisen, in a mood of moral causitry, from a sense of the oddity in that reliance on convention which gives us different reactions to killing at different times; murder as well as soldiering, therefore, were in mind of the speaker, and are suggested to the audience.”

These lines written by William Empson in his book, Seven Types of Ambiguity, show how the lines from Macbeth are to be interpreted from their structural features. These lines are ‘findes thee in stought Norweyan Rankee, / Nohting affeard of what thyselfe didst make, / Strange images of death.”

Keywords in New Criticism Literary Theory

New Criticism, affective fallacy, intentional fallacy, close reading, heresy of paraphrase, ambiguity, structural features, metaphorical language, metaphorical features

Suggested Readings

Abrams, M.H. “New Criticism.” A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999. 180-182.

Grafe, Gerald. “What Was New Criticism? Literary Interpretation And Scientific Objectivity.” Salmagundi, no. 27, 1974, pp. 72–93. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40546822. Accessed 22 June 2021.

Lynn, Steven. Texts and Contexts: Writing About Literature with Critical Theory. 2nd ed. NY: Longman, 1998. Murfin, Ross, and Supriya M. Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997.