HISTORY OF LITERARY CRITICISM

Today, the common practice has become the application of a Hermenuetic of Suspicion to all literary theories and practices. As always, it remains an attempt to gain a sense of power and superiority.

There are three main ideologies of literary criticism which have governed how we make meaning when reading a text.

1. AUTHOR CENTRED CRITICISM

• a focus on the life / biographical details of an author so as to gain full insight into a text’s meaning. Usually associated with HISTORICAL CRITICISM where Literature is seen as a product of the author’s mind how the people of the time would have understood it. There is a great deal of CERTAINTY in this approach. The author is seen as reliable.

1. TEXT-CENTRED CRITICISM

• a focus on the words on the page the meaning of which the reader receives ‘perfectly’.
• PRACTICAL CRITICISM is associated with this approach. The focus is on developing a set of reading skills which show your mastery over the words on a page. Works were ‘great’ if they made sense to the mind of a ‘trained’ reader in the present.
• No cross-generic studies – focus on the elements of one genre at a time.
• Reader is a detective who searches for theme or symbols
• Fragmented analysis – sentence analysis etc.

1. READER-CENTRED CRITICISM

• The experience of the reader is still important but it is no longer a matter of disregarding the experiences of others who read the text – past or present.
• There are many approaches which have developed as a result of AN EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE OF HOW READERS MAKE MEANING AND THE INFLUENCES THAT IMPACT ON THEIR READING BEHAVIOURS.

1. One could say that NEW CRITICISM was the first change in this direction, where the work is an isolated experience of the reader without regard for the author or knowledge of the time period. Developed after the experiences of this century – World War – where old and previously stable structures toppled and people found certainty NOT in external sources of authority but INTERNAL sources of authority – namely the ‘self’.
2. STRUCTURALISM developed in the 1960’s in France. Literature is now seen as a language or system which presents categories for understanding the world. The reader must try to identify the various categories and relationships between the ideologies – the key idea beneath the surface of the book. The question arising is "What ideology is present in this work of literature?" "How does language modify what we are reading?" Whilst the text is important, there is no longer ONE received meaning since there is more than one system or structure to analyse in the language. This represented A SHIFT IN EMPHASIS from History and words, to ideology and interpretation, from truth to language. The reader could now determine the STRUCTURE of a work and control it, define and interpret it.
3. DECONSTRUCTION – in vogue from 1966 in the US but mainly in France in response to the development of Structuralism which was seen as not fully objective. Barthes is a key figure. He felt that any system or structure of language would be too limiting to fully explain our experience of life or of literature. His intention was to de-structure or subvert the structures present. Deconstruction resists authority. You are applying this approach when you look at the structures and seek to determine the validity of the ideology which informs them beasue you question whether the structure is telling the truth about the world. As this occurs, everything comes into question. Any institution which has authority coems into question. AUTHORITY itself comes into question. It becomes a negative practice when this leads to the idea that there can be no truth at all and that it is not possible to develop valid beliefs about the nature of the world. FOCUS IS ON HOW MEANING IS MADE, rather than WHAT MEANING IS MADE.

What are the fruits of DECONSTRUCTIONISM?

• One system or structure which deconstructionists scrutinise is that of BINARY OPPOSITION. For example, rich – poor, black-white, male-female and so on.
• The questions applied are, Why do these exist in texts, who benefits, are they valid?
• Whilst there isn’t ABSLOUTE TRUTH, there are ‘truths’ which can be judged to be appropriate. Nothing is seen as ‘naturally right’.
• This has led some to despair of ultimate meaning as seen in Albert Camus’ Outsider
• However, it has also led some others to become more critical of texts that are not normally questioned such as advertising material and other sources of information in the media.
• It has ‘demystified’ binary oppositions. These binary oppositions are not ‘truth’ but ‘myth’, which speaks it’s own truth which must be discovered. For those who DO NOT SEE LITERARY CRITICISM AS A GAME, this demystification leads to a separation from the social group that accepts the myth. (Outsider)

1. NEW HISTORICISM

• searching for a fuller meaning in works of literature
• a closer look at all aspects of the period in which texts were written – gender, race and so on.
• The past is imagined differently and all minority and dominant groups are studied rather than just dominant groups, in order to help one understand the text. So too is the agenda of minority groups studied.
• Cross-generic studies are encouraged to get a better look at the society of the time.
• The CONTEXT-TEXT-READER/WRITER relationship is crucial.