Texts and Contexts Writing About Literature with Critical Theory

by Lynn, Steven J

• ISBN13: 9780205716746
• ISBN10: 0205716741
• Edition: 6th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-06-21
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

This book is deeply rooted in the views, responses, and history of contemporary critical theories. This popular book presents a user-friendly introduction to contemporary critical theories-from new criticism to cultural studies-as part of the practice of analyzing and writing about literature. The new edition has more coverage of film and other genres reflecting the growing interest in film as an academic field. There is more on current approaches to literature, including the relationship between rhetoric and reader-response criticism, Marxism, postcolonialism, queer theory, feminist theory, and African-American studies. For anyone interested in applying critical theory to writing about literature.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xiii
An Introduction, Theoretically	p. 3
Textual Tours	p. 3
Checking Some Baggage	p. 5
"Is there one correct interpretation of a literary work?"	p. 6
"So, are all opinions about literature equally valid?"	p. 6
Anything to Declare?	p. 9
Theory enables practice	p. 9
You already have a theoretical stance	p. 10
This is an introduction	p. 11
Here's the plan	p. 11
Recommended Further Reading	p. 12
Critical Worlds: A Selective Tour	p. 15
Brendan Gill, from Here at "The New Yorker"	p. 16
New Criticism	p. 17
Reader-Response Criticism	p. 19
Structuralist and Deconstructive Criticism	p. 22
Historical, Postcolonial, and Cultural Studies	p. 24
Psychological Criticism	p. 29
Political Criticism	p. 31
Other Approaches	p. 34
Works Cited	p. 35
Recommended Further Reading	p. 35
Unifying the Work: New Criticism	p. 37
The Purpose of New Criticism	p. 37
Basic Principles Reflected	p. 38
Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica	p. 38
Radicals in Tweed Jackets	p. 42
How to Do New Criticism	p. 45
Film and Other Genres	p. 47
The Writing Process: A Sample Essay	p. 49
Gwendolyn Brooks, The Mother	p. 49
Preparing to Write	p. 50
Shaping	p. 52
Drafting	p. 53
Practicing New Criticism	p. 55
Lucille Clifton, forgiving my father	p. 55
Questions	p. 56
Stephen Shu-ning Liu, My Father's Martial Art	p. 56
Questions	p. 57
Ben Jonson, On My First Son	p. 57
Questions	p. 58
The Parable of the Prodigal Son	p. 58
Questions	p. 60
Useful Terms for New Criticism	p. 60
Checklist for New Criticism	p. 61
Works Cited	p. 62
Recommended Further Reading	p. 62
Creating the Text: Reader-Response Criticism	p. 65
The Purpose of Reader-Response Criticism	p. 65
New Criticism as the Old Criticism	p. 65
The Reader Emerges	p. 66
Hypertextual Readers	p. 70
How to Do Reader-Response Criticism	p. 71
Preparing to Respond	p. 71
Sandra Cisneros, Love Poem #1	p. 71
Making Sense	p. 72
Subjective Response	p. 73
Receptive Response	p. 75
The Writing Process: A Sample Essay	p. 80
Preparing to Respond	p. 80
Ernest Hemingway, A Very Short Story	p. 81
Preparing to Write	p. 85
Shaping	p. 88
Drafting	p. 88
Practicing Reader-Response Criticism	p. 91
Michael Drayton, Since There's No Help	p. 91
Questions	p. 92
Judith Minty, Killing the Bear	p. 92
Questions	p. 96
Caroline Fraser, All Bears	p. 97
Questions	p. 98
Emily Dickinson, Through the Dark Sod	p. 98
Questions	p. 98
Useful Terms for Reader-Response Criticism	p. 99
Checklist: Using Reader-Response Criticism	p. 99
Works Cited	p. 100
Recommended Further Reading	p. 100
Opening Up the Text: Structuralism and Deconstruction	p. 103
The Purposes of Structuralism and Deconstruction	p. 103
Structuralism and Semiotics	p. 104
Post-structuralism and Deconstruction	p. 105
How to Do Structuralism and Deconstruction	p. 111
William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium	p. 111
The Writing Process: A Sample Essay	p. 117
Amy Clampitt, Discovery	p. 117
Preparing to Write	p. 118
Shaping	p. 123
Drafting	p. 125
Practicing Structuralist and Deconstructive Criticism	p. 129
Questions	p. 129
William Blake, London	p. 129
Cut through the anxiety, the unknown, the hassle à	p. 130
Questions	p. 131
Linda Pastan, Ethics	p. 132
Questions	p. 133
John Donne, Death Be Not Proud	p. 133
Questions	p. 134
Useful Terms for Deconstruction	p. 134
Checklist for Deconstruction	p. 136
Works Cited	p. 136
Recommended Further Reading	p. 136
Connecting the Text: Varieties of Historical Criticism	p. 139
The Purposes of Biographical, Historical, Postcolonial, Ethnic, Marxist, and Cultural Studies	p. 139
Biographical and Historical Criticism	p. 140
John Milton, When I Consider How My Light Is Spent	p. 140
Cultural Studies	p. 144
New Historicism	p. 147
History as Text	p. 148
Marxist Criticism	p. 150
Postcolonial and Ethnic Studies	p. 155
How to Do Historical Criticism	p. 158
The Writing Process: Sample Essays	p. 160
John Cheever, Reunion	p. 160
A Biographical Essay	p. 163
Preparing to Write	p. 163
Shaping	p. 167
Drafting	p. 170
A New Historical Essay	p. 173
Preparing to Write	p. 173
Shaping	p. 174
Drafting	p. 175
Practicing Historical Criticism	p. 178
Useful Terms for Historical, Cultural, and Postcolonial Criticism	p. 179
Checklist for Historical Criticism	p. 185
Works Cited	p. 185
Recommended Further Reading	p. 186
Minding the Work: Psychological Criticism	p. 191
The Purpose of Psychological Criticism	p. 191
How to Do Psychological Criticism	p. 196
William Wordsworth, A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal	p. 197
The Writing Process: A Sample Essay	p. 200
William Shakespeare, Hamlet 4.4.32-66	p. 201
Preparing to Write	p. 202
Shaping	p. 205
Drafting	p. 206
Practicing Psychological Criticism	p. 211
Emily Dickinson, A Narrow Fellow in the Grass	p. 211
Questions	p. 212
Marianne Moore, O to Be a Dragon	p. 212
Questions	p. 213
Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach	p. 213
Question	p. 214
Your Dream Here	p. 214
Useful Terms for Psychological Criticism	p. 214
Checklist for Psychological Criticism	p. 215
Works Cited	p. 215
Recommended Further Reading	p. 216
Gendering the Text: Feminist Criticism, Postfeminism, and Queer Theory	p. 219
How to Do Feminist Criticism, Postfeminism, and Queer Theory	p. 226
Mary Astell, from A Serious Proposal	p. 229
The Writing Process: A Sample Essay	p. 234
Samuel Johnson, To Miss _____ On Her Playing upon the Harpsichord à	p. 235
Preparing to Respond	p. 236
Shaping	p. 237
Drafting	p. 239
Revision: Gay and Lesbian Criticism	p. 241
Practicing Feminist, Postfeminist, and Queer Theory Criticism	p. 243
William Shakespeare, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?	p. 243
Questions	p. 244
Emily Dickinson, My Life had stood-a Loaded Gun	p. 244
Questions	p. 245
Tobias Wolff, Say Yes	p. 245
Questions	p. 249
Gender in the Movies	p. 249
Useful Terms for Political Criticism	p. 250
Checklist for Political Criticism	p. 251
Works Cited	p. 252
Recommended Further Reading	p. 253
Appendix 1	p. 254
The Canonization	p. 254
Appendix 2	p. 256
A Note on How Theories Relate	p. 256
Credits	p. 260
Index	p. 262
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Practices Questions 1. Read closely. You can assume that everything 1. What formal elements does this work is carefully calculated to contribute to the have? (Structure, imagery, diction, etc.) work¿s unity¿figures of speech, point of view, 2. How can these formal elements be diction, recurrent ideas or events, etc. arranged in opposing pairs or groups? 2. Find oppositions, tensions, ambiguities, and 3. What unifying idea holds these ironies in the work. opposing elements together? 3. Indicate how all these various elements are (Think in terms of an ¿Although X, Y¿ unified¿what idea holds them together? thesis sentence.) 1. Move through the text in slow motion, 1. What is your response to the text? describing the responses of an ideal reader¿ 2. If the text were changed in some specific what is anticipated, what is experienced. way (a word, a phrase, a sentence, etc.), 2. Or, move through the text describing your how would your response change? own personal response. 3. Is your response personal and 3. Focus on how particular details shape idiosyncratic, or is it shaped by the text readers¿ expectations and responses. and shared norms of interpretation? 1. Identify the oppositions in the text, and 1. What does the text most obviously determine which items are favored. seem to say? 2. Identify what appears to be central to the text, 2. How can the text be turned against and what appears to be marginal and excluded. itself, making it say also the opposite of 3. Reverse the text¿s hierarchy (the system of what it most obviously seems to say? favoring), opening up another (or an other) 3. How can something apparently reading; and/or argue that what appears to be marginal or trivial in the text be marginal is actually central. brought to the center of attention? 1. Research the author¿s life and relate that infor- 1. How can you connect the author¿s life to mation, cautiously, to the work. his or her writing? Are there common 2. Research the author¿s time (the political issues, events, concerns? history, economic history, intellectual history, 2. How can you connect the literary work etc.) and relate that information, to its historical context, including its cautiously, to the work. literary context? 3. Research how people reasoned during the 3. Is the author part of a dominant culture, author¿s lifetime, the patterns and limits in- or a colonial culture, or a postcolonial volved in making sense. Relate those logical culture, and how does that status affect strategies to the work. the work? 1. Apply a developmental concept to the work¿ 1. What appears to be motivating the for example, the Oedipal complex, anal reten- author, or character, or even reader? tiveness, castration anxiety, gender confusion. 2. What other motivations, repressed or 2. Relate the work to psychologically significant disguised, might be at work? events in the author¿s life. 3. What developmental concepts might 3. Consider how repressed material may be help to explain this behavior? expressed in the work¿s pattern of imagery or symbols. 1. Identify the qualities of gender, class, race, 1. How does this work advance or question sexual preference, religion, etc. of the author a particular political agenda? and/or characters: that is, say how individ 2. How would readers of different political uals are portrayed as members of some group. stances read this work differently? 2. Consider whether the text promotes or 3. How are the individuals in this work undermines stereotypes. portrayed as part of a group or class? 3. Imagine how the text might be read by a cer- tain type of reader; or how a text might have been neglected by a certain type of reader. Texts and Contexts Writing About Literature with Critical Theory Sixth Edition Steven Lynn University of South Carolina New York San Francisco Boston London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore Madrid Mexico City Munich Paris Capetown Hong Kong Montreal For Annette and Anna Vice President and Editor-in-Chief: J