Literary Theory in Practice

In a letter to one of his friends about Charlie Chaplin: Dear Doctor: It is such a fascinating experience to have to justify my theories towards Mme. Yvette and Uncle Max. I only wish it were possible otherwise than in writing, in spite of my bad speech and my declining hearing. And I really have not the intention at all to give in to you beyond the confession that we know so little. You know for instance, in the last few days Charlie Chaplin has been in Vienna. Almost I, too, would have seen him, but it was too cold for him here and he left again quickly. He is undoubtedly, a great artist; certainly he always portrays one and the same figure; only the weakly, poor, helpless, clumsy youngster for whom, however, things turn out well in the end. Now do you think that for this role he has to forget his own ego? On the contrary, he always plays only himself as he was in his early dismal youth. He cannot get away from those impressions and to this day he obtains for himself t...

(From Post-colonial Studies Reader by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin) In many different societies, women, like colonised subjects, have been relegated to the position of ‘ Other ’ , ‘ colonised ’ by various forms of patriarchal domination. They thus share with colonised races and cultures an intimate experience of the politics of oppression and repression. It is not surprising therefore that the history and concerns of feminist theory have paralleled developments in post-colonial theory. Feminist and post-colonial discourses both seek to reinstate the marginalised in the face of the dominant, and early feminist theory, like early nationalist post-colonial criticism, was concerned with inverting the structures of domination, substituting, for instance, a female tradition or traditions for a male-dominated canon. But like postcolonial criticism, feminist theory has rejected such simple inversions in favour of a more general questioning of forms and modes, a...

Freudian Criticism:  Broadly speaking, so called Freudian criticism or classical psychoanalytic criticism - which is often speculative - is concerned with the quest for and discovery of (and the subsequent analysis of) connections between the artists (creators, artificers) themselves and what they actually create (novels, poems, paintings, sculpture, buildings, music, etc.). As far as literature is concerned it analyses characters 'invented by authors', the language they use and what is known as 'Freudian imagery'. Thus in the Freudian method a literary character is treated as if a living human being; whereas, for example, in the method of Jacques Lacan literature is seen as the symptom of the writer. (from Penguin's Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory) Psychoanalytic criticism adopts the methods of "reading" employed by Freud and later theorists to interpret texts. It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unco...

New Criticism: Russian Formalism:  Defamiliarization is about a delay in meaning that highlights the meaning at the moment of unveiling it. Consider how the meaning is delayed in this poem by Mahmud Darwish. Make a parallel between the poem above and the theoretical reflection about defamiliarization below:  In his well-read essay “Art as Technique” (which is also known as “Art as Device”), Shklovsky argues that literariness is simply the product of a particular use of language – it is our language of the everyday  defamiliarized . That is to say, literariness is the result of working language so that it “makes strange” or interrupts our habituated or automatic perception of the word. By interrupting our automatic perception of the word in this way, the reader is forced to make extra effort in determining the meaning of the text and in so doing, Shklovsky argues, our wonder of the world is re-enlivened. He puts it like this: “Habitualization devours w...

(from Penguin's Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory)  Russian Formalism: The Russian Formalists were primarily interested in the way that literary texts achieve their effects and in establishing a scientific basis for the study of literature. In their early work, human content in literature ( e.g. emotions, ideas, actions, 'reality' in general ) did not possess, for them, any significance in defining what was specifically 'literary' about a text. Indeed, the formalists collapse the distinction between form and content . And they regard the writer as a kind of cipher merely r eworking available literary devices and conventions . The writer is of negligible importance. All the emphasis is on the 'literariness' of the formal devices of a text. OPOJAZ went so far as to suggest that there are no poets or literary figures: there is just poetry and literature. Viktor Shklovsky summarizes the attitude in his definition of literature as 'th...

In more concrete terms approaching a literary text or an artistic work through using marxism a theoretical tool leads to reflect about the "text(content) / context" relationship. The context proves to be a key element in understanding the content in its ideological expression. it is important to consider Ai Weiwei's oeuvre in general and understand his artistic ideologies before tackling his artistic installation  Sunflower Seeds: It becomes clear through his oeuvre and through his interviews that Ai Weiwei is a socialist realist artist. He is committed. He does not see art in terms of beauty but in terms of consciousness. He is committed be the voice of the voiceless those whose voice has been taken away from by fear and terror. Humanitarianism and cultural conservatism seem to be two recurring ideologies in his art. His commitment is not at the service of dominant discourses but rather anti-propagandist. He reacts against totalitarianism in all its forms. ...

(from Penguin's Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory)  Marxism :  Karl Marx and Frederich Engels were concerned about explaining the capitalist theory and mode of production. Their approach was purely economic, political and philosophical. Marxist Literary Criticism : Marxism has been adapted in terms of its principles and attitudes and modes of thought and inquiry to  create a Marxist theory of literature. Marxist literary criticism is primarily interested in content . It approches the content from Marx's philosophical standpoint about history in which the class struggle is fundamental and it views the text in terms of its socio-historical factors . Content is the product of  context.  At its onset, Marxist criticism was devoted to a reconstruction of the past on the basis of historical evidence in order to find out to what extent a text is a truthful and accurate representation of social reality at any given time. According to...

Approaching literary texts is not an easy business and it cannot be a random activity nor can it be based on simplistic immature thought nor reduced to personal opinions.  It requires deep careful organized thoughts that should be based on precise established modes of thinking each based on a set of coherent principles not subject to contradictions. In that respect, literary theory constitutes the non exhaustive blueprint or database encompassing all the possibilities about the nature of literature that helps us approach texts in a more organized and purposeful way. Depending on the theoretical angle through which we approach a given text, theory helps bringing into light a precise aspect about that text. The theoretical machinery helps us discover meanings, techniques, processes as well as artistic, intellectual and philosophical implications about the text that we couldn't have discovered otherwise. Theory is important in that it provides us with a deeper understanding of t...