Literary theory

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Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature.[1] However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense—considerations of intellectual history, moral philosophy, social prophecy, and other interdisciplinary themes which are of relevance to the way humans interpret meaning.[1] In humanities in modern academia, the latter style of scholarship is an outgrowth of critical theory and is often called simply "theory."[2] As a consequence, the word "theory" has become an umbrella term for a variety of scholarly approaches to reading texts. Many of these approaches are informed by various strands of Continental philosophy and sociology.


The practice of literary theory became a profession in the 20th century, but it has historical roots that run as far back as ancient Greece (Aristotle's Poetics is an often cited early example), ancient India (Bharata Muni's Natya Shastra), ancient Rome (Longinus's On the Sublime) and medieval Iraq (Al-Jahiz's al-Bayan wa-'l-tabyin and al-Hayawan, and ibn al-Mu'tazz's Kitab al-Badi),[3] and the aesthetic theories of philosophers from ancient philosophy through the 18th and 19th centuries are important influences on current literary study. The theory and criticism of literature are, of course, also closely tied to the history of literature.





One of the fundamental questions of literary theory is "what is literature?" – although many contemporary theorists and literary scholars believe either that "literature" cannot be defined or that it can refer to any use of language. Specific theories are distinguished not only by their methods and conclusions, but even by how they define a "text".

The principles and methods of literary theory apply to non-fiction, popular fiction, film, historical documents, law, advertising, etc., and in the related field of cultural studies. Some scholars within cultural studies treat cultural events, like fashion or football riots, as "texts" to be interpreted. By this measure, literary theory can be thought of as the general theory of interpretation.[citation needed]



Differences among schools[edit]

The different interpretive and epistemological perspectives of different schools of theory often arise from, and so give support to, different moral and political commitments. For instance, the work of the New Critics often contained an implicit moral dimension, and sometimes even a religious one: a New Critic might read a poem by T. S. Eliot or Gerard Manley Hopkins for its degree of honesty in expressing the torment and contradiction of a serious search for belief in the modern world. Meanwhile, a Marxist critic might find such judgments merely ideological rather than critical; the Marxist would say that the New Critical reading did not keep enough critical distance from the poem's religious stance to be able to understand it. Or a post-structuralist critic might simply avoid the issue by understanding the religious meaning of a poem as an allegory of meaning, treating the poem's references to "God" by discussing their referential nature rather than what they refer to. A critic using Darwinian literary studies might use arguments from the evolutionary psychology of religion.

Such a disagreement cannot be easily resolved, because it is inherent in the radically different terms and goals (that is, the theories) of the critics. Their theories of reading derive from vastly different intellectual traditions: the New Critic bases his work on an East-Coast American scholarly and religious tradition, while the Marxist derives his thought from a body of critical social and economic thought, the post-structuralist's work emerges from twentieth-century Continental philosophy of language, and the Darwinian from the modern evolutionary synthesis. To expect such different approaches to have much in common would be naïve; so calling them all "theories of literature" without acknowledging their heterogeneity is itself a reduction of their differences.


For some theories of literature (especially certain kinds of formalism), the distinction between "literary" and other sorts of texts is of paramount importance. Other schools (particularly post-structuralism in its various forms: new historicism, deconstruction, some strains of Marxism and feminism) have sought to break down distinctions between the two and have applied the tools of textual interpretation to a wide range of "texts", including film, non-fiction, historical writing, and even cultural events.

Bakhtin argued that the "utter inadequacy" of literary theory is evident when it is forced to deal with the novel; while other genres are fairly stabilized, the novel is still developing.[4]


Schools of literary theory[edit]


The concept of emergence has been applied to the theory of literature and art, history, linguistics, cognitive sciences, etc. by the teachings of Jean-Marie Grassin et the University of Limoges (v. esp.: J. Fontanille, B. Westphal, J. Vion-Dury, éds. L'Émergence—Poétique de l'Émergence, en réponse aux travaux de Jean-Marie Grassin, Bern, Berlin, etc., 2011; and: the article "Emergence" in the International Dictionary of Literary Terms (DITL)).

See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b Culler 1997, p.1
  2. ^ Searle, John. (1990) The Storm Over the University, The New York Review of Books, December 6, 1990.
  3. ^ van Gelder, G. J. H. (1982), Beyond the Line: Classical Arabic Literary Critics on the Coherence and Unity of the Poem, Brill Publishers, pp. 1–2, ISBN 90-04-06854-6 
  4. ^ Bakhtin 1981, p.8


  • Peter Barry. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. ISBN 0-7190-6268-3.
  • Jonathan Culler. (1997) Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-285383-X.
  • Jean-Michel Rabaté. The Future of Theory. ISBN 0-631-23013-0.
  • René Wellek. A history of modern criticism : 1750-1950. Yale University Press, 1955-1992, 8 volumes.
    • 1: The later eighteenth century
    • 2: The romantic age
    • 3: The age of transition
    • 4: The later nineteenth century
    • 5: English criticism, 1900-1950
    • 6: American criticism, 1900-1950
    • 7: German, Russian, and Eastern European criticism, 1900-1950
    • 8: French, Italian and Spanish criticism, 1900-1950

Further reading[edit]

  • Castle, Gregory. Blackwell Guide to Literary Theory. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
  • Culler, Jonathan. The Literary in Theory. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007.
  • Terry Eagleton. Literary Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. (
  • Literary Theory: An Anthology. Edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
  • Lisa Zunshine, ed. Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010

External links[edit]