INTRODUCTION

- Literary theory and literary studies

- Rapid change and fragmentation
- Pathways into the discipline
- Acknowledgments

ARCHETYPAL CRITICISM, MYTH CRITICISM

Unconscious
Collective unconscious
Literary theory (Freud – Jung)
Archetypal criticism
Rooted in folk culture

AUTHOR (Lat. Auctor < augere = increase, promote, originate)

- Biographically oriented forms of criticism

Much criticism has an outspoken biographical orientation
Respectable literary genre
Psychological and psychoanalytical studies of literature
Legal notions (copyright, plagiarism)
Non-technical sphere of common-sense understanding
- Limitations of the concept
Source-effect relationship
Psychologically speaking (text are rarely the direct expression of personality)
Historically speaking (author’s authority)
18th c (Romantic), Middle Ages, today (publishing houses, production, copy-editing, co-authorship)
- Exorcising the author from literary studies
New Criticism (Internal fallacy)
Narratology
Poststructuralism

BAKHTIN CIRCLE

- Dialogue
Principle
Saussurean structuralism
Monolinguism
- The polyphonic novel and carnival
- Impact

CATHARSIS
Plato (mimesis)
Aristotle (catharsis)
Modern psychotherapeutic methods

COGNITIVE POETICS

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
 - Method and scope of application
Genetic relationship
Typological relationship
- Comparative literature today

CRITICISM
Term (broadest – narrower sense)
Selection process
- Common characteristics of the three of criticism
Entire process of literary communication
Same function
A priori norm-governed conception
- In which way are the three types different (and complementary)?
Different positions on the timeline of literary evolution and canonisation processes
The scope of the literary repertory that the various critics are meant to cover
Several related differences
- Historical evolutions

CULTURAL STUDIES
Encompass the study of literature
In terms of object it investigates
In terms of methods and approaches
Sources: structuralism and marxism

DECONSTRUCTION and POSTRUCTURALISM

- Deconstruction : difference
Difference
Example (pig – swine)
Signifier
- The metaphysics of presence
The metaphysics of presence
Presence >< absence
Speech > writing
- Deconstruction as reading texts against the grain
Deconstruction = body of subversive readings of philosophical and literary texts
Aporias
Double dimension of violence (binary oppositions, hierarchy of the term)
Massive repression of other potential relationships
Free play of language n their own texts
- Poststructuralism
Yale School
Stylistic obscurity/ intellectual elitism  irritation
Radical scepticism and relativism
Poststructuralist attitudes with deconstruction
Influences

DISCOURSE

ECOCRITICISM
Central issue
 Political and literary agenda
The term ecocriticism
Ecolinguistics

EMPATHY

EPIC THEATRE
Brecht
Verfremdungseffekt
Combination of different technical devices
Brecht’s general aim
Defamiliarisation

FEMINIST CRITICISM and GENDER STUDIES

- A basic distinction, leading to gender studies
Difference between sex and gender
Typical effect of ideology
Gender studies (queer studies)
- Feminism (and gender studies) in literary criticism
Rewriting literary history to undo the effects of woman’s systematic exclusion
Studying representations of women in male-authored works
Studying the role of the reader in the creation of gender stereotypes
Criticising patriarchal language and inventing more woman-friendly discorses
- Impact

GENRE (Fr. < Lat. genus / generis = birth, origin, kind)

- A typology of the three basic genres
- A flexible concept of genre
• Material form
• Use of media
• Style
• Structure
• Representational mode
• Audience
• Function effect
- Functions of genres
- From genre to genre-system

HERMENEUTICS (Gr. hermeneuein = to explain, to interpret)

Definition
- Biblical interpretation
Historically
From the early Christianity onwards
From Church Fathers and in the Middle Ages
From the twelfth century onwards (schema)
The humanistic movement, the Reformation and the Enlightenment
- Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 – 1834)
Subjective and historical dimension
 The hermeneutical circle
- Wilhelm Dilthey (1833 – 1911)
- Later developments

HISTORY OF LITERARY STUDIES

Vagueness of the notion of “literary theory”
Difficulty of limiting the object in space
Temporal axis
Narrative sequences
Influenced by theory and ideology
- The history of literature and the history of literary studies
Analogy between historiographical project at the object- and meta-levels
Overlap between the history of literature and the history of literary studies
- The options of this coursebook
In order of space
In terms of literary theory
Chronologically speaking

IDEOLOGY CRITIQUE (Fr. idéologie = science of ideas [coined 1796])

- Mainstream Marxism
- Later interpretations (Althusser)
- Ideology and literature

IMPLIED AUTHOR
Distinction from the real author as a historical person
Distinction from the narrator
Awareness of some individual presence standing

IMPLIED READER

INSPIRATION (Lat. in-spirare = breathe, inhale, blow into)

Definition
Origin of the writer’s inspiration
Inspiration as an external force (muses, Holy Spirit)
Inspiration as an inner force (eighteenth century, genius)
- Inspiration and perspiration
Genetic studies
Permanent interplay between (un)conscious energies and activities
Typology of writers: poeta vates, poeta faber, poeta doctus

INTERTEXTUALITY
Generic intertextuality
Specific intertextuality
- Forms of specific intertextuality
- positive vs polemical
- intralingual vs interlingual vs intersemiotic
- repetitio vs adiectio vs detractio vs transmutatio vs immutatio
Evolution of Western literary history has displayed ≠ general patterns in its use of intertextuality:
- throughout the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Neoclassical period
 - from the Romantic age onwards
- in modernism and postmodernism
- Theoretical implications in a poststructuralist perspective

LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE
Variety of language (technical terms; formalisation, elevated and impersonal register)
Opposition between science and literature language
The science communication is seriously hampered by
- the absence of a recognised universally applied terminology;
- the presence of scientific rhetoric
- The terminology of literary studies
Terminological problem
Literary terms are general vocabulary of the language

LIBERAL HUMANISM

LITERARY HISTORY
- The selection of data (corpus definition)
Vagueness
Space
Time
- The combination of data (narratives, meaningful sequences) (narrativity)
- Pragmatism, theory and ideology as major constraints

MARXIST APPROACHES TO LITERATURE

Marx and achievements
- General characteristics
Political, materialist, teleological
Base/ superstructure
In the field of cultural study
- Two famous exponents: Lucas and Brecht
Reflection theory
Realist novel – type
Opposed to Modernist experimental writing (formal experiment)
Brecht
- The Frankfurt School
Critical theory of culture and society
Critical theorists
- Marxist literary and cultural theory today
Changes
Legacy

MEDIA (Lat. plural of medium = middle)

Physical or material existence
Three basic types of media: oral communication, written communication (printing), electronic communication,
new digital technologies
- Power relationships and questions of representations
Impact on the communicative act as such
Relevant criteria to describe and compare media (time frame, space, extent, quantitative proportions,
individualisation, interactivity, gate controls, multimedia recording)
 The role of mass media
Writers and readers do not share the same immediate context and may even belong to very different cultures

METATEXT, METADISCOURSE (Gr. meta = after, following, with)

- Literature and writing about literature (shifting borderlines)
- Functions and requirements of metaliterary discourses

MIMESIS
Mimesis  imitation
Central issue in literary theory form its beginning
Plato’ s Republic
Aristotle (+ paradox)
Theories of mimesis have profoundly influenced literary theories until today (before the nineteenth century, the
romantics, Realism and Naturalism in the nineteenth century and Marxism)

MODEL OF COMMUNICATION (Roman Jakobson’s)

Roman Jakobson
Diagram of the model
Different functions are copresent in literature
Limitations (idealised view, ideological bias, static definition)

NATION, NATIONALISM AND LITERATURE

Social identity
Historical constructs
Institutions
Media
- Origin, identity, language
Common origin
Common identity (conformity, autonomous territory, self-determination)
Common language
- Nationalism and literature
Canon
Criticism and education system
National philologies
Anthology and patrimony (teaching system)

NEW CRITICISM
American critical movement (+ Wellek and Warren)
Forerunner and influence (GB + practical criticism)
In Germany and France
- General characteristics
Uniqueness and autonomy of the individual literary work
Abstracting the individual work from context and influences (intentional fallacy, affective fallacy, heresy
of paraphrase)
Unity
Anti-theoretical stance
- Impact
Objective
Selective (lyrical poetry)
Role of the reader
Greater ideological involvement
 Standard methodology

NEW HISTORICISM

NORMS and MODELS

- Norms and literature

PHILOLOGY (Gr. love of language)

Late 18th c (Western imperialism)
19th c
// study of written texts from the past
2nd half of 19th c
Early 20th c
20th c

POSITIVISM (Eng. < Fr.: positive = definite, certain, real)

Origins
- General characteristics
- Impact

POSTCOLONIAL THEORY, POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

Empire building
Third World
- A radically broader scope
Revaluation of literary work written in the former colonies (settler and invaded)
Migration
Greater openness to new genres
- Ideology critique, political action
Political agenda
Negritude
Experiment with hybrid cultural forms
At the level of genre
At the linguistic level
Theoretical eclecticism
- Impact
Commonwealth Literature
Sudden rise into prominence of postcolonial theory

PRAGUE SCHOOL (or PRAGUE LINGUISTIC CIRCLE)

- Backgrounds: structuralism, formalism, philosophy
Diachrony – synchrony (>< Saussure) influence
Russian formalism
- A functional approach
Main difference between Russian formalism and Prague structuralism (function > form)
Model of communication (Jakobson)
Functional principle applied in the field of literary studies (artefact – aesthetic object) (Mukarovsky)
Functions  set a norms and expectations
Applied to individual text
- Impact
 Broader semiotic theory
Greater attention to the reader who concretises the text
Linguistic theory noted internationally (Jakobson)

PRODUCTION and DISTRIBUTION

- Aspect of the book industry: publishing
Tasks of the publishing house in the literary process
Most publishing houses are commercial enterprises
- Aspect of the book industry: three zones of literary activity
Literature is a complex and stratified system
Imprints
Important part of literary activity which exists outside the continuum
Modern computer technology and the Internet

PSYCHOANALYTICAL APPROACHES
Theory for psychic disorders
- Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
Scheme: the basic terms of the body vs society conflict
Libido and sexuality
Importance of childhood (desire >< conflict – repression/ sublimation)
Oedipus complex
Feminists
Adulthood (compromise formation, slips, mental disorder)  dynamic process
Dream; dream-work  mechanisms of the dream work: condensation, displacement, symbolism,
secondary revision
Literary work
Low opinion of writers
The study of the joke
- Jacques Lacan (1901 – 1981)
Construction of the individual subject with society
Child as a speaking subject/ language creates the subjects alienation
Language creates unconscious desire

PUBLIC INTERLOCUTEUR, PUBLIC MILIEU, GRAND PUBLIC

Public interlocuteur
Public milieu
Grand public

READER

READER-ORIENTED THEORIES
- The return of the reader in the 1960s
- Wolfgang Iser’s Wirkungsästhetik (theory of aesthetic response)
Leerstellen
Reading is a temporal process
The dynamics of reading involves the permanent formation, assessment and revision of retrospective and
propective hypotheses
Implied evaluative side to Iser’s theory / literary value
- Hans-Robert Jauss’s Rezeptionsästhetik (reception theory)
Iser experimental >< conventional
Horizon of expectation
 Deviation
Redefine literary history
- Norbert Groeben’s empirical reader research
Reader
Literary studies
- Stanley Fish’s affective stylistics
1st model (// Iser)
2nd model (>< Iser  relativistic and subjectivist position
3rd model (reader = member of an interpretive community)

RHETORIC (Gk techne rhetorike = art of speech)

Definition
Initially
Later
Characteristics, rules and conventions (invention, disposition, elocution, memoria, action)
- Historical sketch
In the Middle Ages
During the Renaissance and the Neoclassical period
The nineteenth century (decline)
The twentieth century (revival + media)
- Rhetoric and manipulation: ethical concerns

RUSSIAN FORMALISM
- Two centres, twin ambitions
Moscow Linguistic centre
The Society for the study of Poetic Language
- Early formalist positions: Shklovsky
Material vs devise >< content vs form
In narrative fiction: fibula vs siuzhet
In poetry
Defamiliarisation (// Brecht)
- Late Russian formalism: Tynyanov
- Impact
Similarities between Russian formalism and New Criticism (literary studies, autonomy and specificity,
Modernist literature)
Difference between New Critics and Russian formalism
Todorov

SCIENCE
- Basic concepts and the views of Karl Popper
Regularity, causality, deterministic, probabilistic, model of reality, explanations, predictions, complexity
Prove, verify, falsify, disprove
Induction, deduction
Hypothetical or provisional character
Testing hypothesis: logical consistency, observation and experiments
- Thomas Kuhn’s concept of the scientific paradigm
Observation is likely to be selective
Understanding of the phenomena involves an act of interpretation
The scientific paradigm (competing paradigms may also coexist at the same time)
Serious damages to the mechanism of falsification

SCIENCE AND LITERARY STUDIES

 Dilthey
Against a rigid distinction between human sciences and nature sciences
- A science of literature?
Epistemological obstacles:
Mental reality
Historical angle
Multitude of complexly related variables
In literary studies the researcher is more problematically entangled in the object of study
Abandon the scientific model for the hermeneutical one

SEMIOTICS, SEMIOLOGY (Gr. sema = sign)

- Ferdinand de Saussure
- Charles Sanders Peirce
- Impact

STRUCTURALISM
Based on two principles (network of structural relationships; objective and scientific)
- Central concepts
Cours de linguistique générale
Sign
Sign – extralinguistic referent
Exception: onomatopoeia
Relative motivation
Language = complex self-regulating structure
Syntagmatic relations
Paradigmatic relationships
Language >< parole
Diachronic – synchronic
- Semiotics
Cultural behaviour
Levi Strauss
- Structuralism and literary studies
Effects on literary studies (linguistics, textual structure, literary and textual codes, theory rather than
theory, anti-humanism (erosion of the human subject), anti-elitist and inclusive conception of culture)

STYLE and STYLISTICS (Lat. stylus = sharp-pointed instrument for incising letters on a wax
tablet)
Dualistic understanding of style
Semanticisation of form
Analysis of text in terms of their linguistic features
- Stylistic variation
- Conflicting perspectives
High scientific ambitions

TEXT (Fr. < Lat. texere = to weave)

Possible use of the term:
- for text edition
- for semiotics
- for text linguistics and stylistics
- for narratology
Genre-neutrality
Text as an individually defined or definable unit of discourse
 - linearity
- autonomy
- intentionality
- Challenging the traditional text concept
Erosion of the text concept
Hypertext and related digital text technologies

UTILE DULCI
Definition and Horace
From Horace onwards until the end of the Neoclassical period (expansion)
In the Middle Ages (didactic orientation)
From the middle of the nineteenth century onwards (attacked)

REFERENCES AND SOURCES

INDEX OF CRITICS AND SCHOLARS

INDEX OF TERMS AND CONCEPTS

DIAGRAM: POSSIBLE PATHWAYS THROUGH THESE NOTES

DIAGRAM: MIND MAP OF MAJOR CRITICAL SCHOOL AND PARADIGMS

DIAGRAM: SURVEY OF INTERTEXTUAL AND METATEXTUAL RELATIONSHIPS