Critical Theory Cheat Sheet
Donald E. Hall. Literary and Cultural Theory: From Basic Principles to Advanced Applications. Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
Theory
Key Ideas
Theorists
Comments
Formalism /New Criticism
1920’s forward
-analysis of literary structures (genre; character, plot, setting, etc.)
-rejected literature’s historical and biographical contexts
-intrinsic meaning of texts; literature expresses “universal truths”
-critic’s task to explore precisely through language and form how that truth is expressed
-“Close reading”; the TEXT holds THE meaning
-Aristotle (The Poetics)
-Plato (The Republic)
-John Crowe Ransom
-Cleanth Brooks
-T.S. Eliot
Reader Response
-emphasis on reader’s role in creating meanings
-meanings generated by a transaction between reader and a text; meaning is not wholly intrinsic to the text
-Louise Rosenblatt (The Reader, The Text, and The Poem)
-Robert Probst (Response and Analysis)
-Wolfgang Iser
-Stanley Fish
-Norman Holland
Rhetorical Analysis
-“an authorial presence [in a text] that leads the text’s rhetorically attuned reader toward an authorially desired interpretation or response” (44)
-Wayne Booth
Marxist/Materialist Analysis
-based on Marx’s theories of class and cultural production
-importance of class and economic conditions; power relationships and class ideologies presented within a text
-Terry Eagleton
-Karl Marx
-Frederich Engles
Psychoanalytic Analysis
-concept of the unconscious, conscious, ego and id
-human activity not always conscious
-nature/ nurture
-developmental stages; childhood trauma and its effect on development
-Sigmund Freud
-Jacques Lacan
-Northrup Frye
Structuralism and Semiotic Analysis
-principles of scientific linguistic study applied to literature
-signified (the concept), signifier (the word), sign (combination of concept and word)
-making meaning through binaries (oppositions)
-no sign is ever fully understandable
-language structures our perception of reality
-language is never neutral
-Ferdinand de Saussure (linguistics)
-Claude Levi-Strauss (anthropology)
-Romon Jakobsen (linguistics)
-Jonathan Culler
-Roland Barthes
-Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose)
-Robert Scholes
Deconstruction/ Post-structuralism
-calls into question all assumptions of comprehension and comprehensiveness; meaning never certain, always “deferred.”
-the power deployed and social relationships organized through discourse
-“difference”: meaning made through differences among signs, but never made certain
-texts betray traces of their own instability
-there is nothing outside the text
-“blindness and insight”
-the world is a text
-Jacques Derrida
-Michael Foucault
-Jonathan Culler
Feminist Analysis
-focuses on gender (the social roles performed by the sexes)
-draws upon and influences every other critical theory
-recognition of different degrees of social power granted to and exercised by women and men
-explores complex ways women have been denied social power and the right to free expression
-like Marxist and materialist analysis, feminist criticism sees texts as thoroughly social-language, institutions, and social power reflect patriarchal interests
-women resist and are subversive to patriarchal power
-Julia Kristeva
-Hekene Cixous
-Luce Irigaray
-bell hooks (race and gender)
Toril Moi
Elaine Showalter
Gay/Lesbian/Queer Analysis
-encompasses many different methodologies (post-structuralism, gender, race, class, psychology)
-focus on sexuality as a particularly important component of human identity, social organization, and textual representation
-influence of negative attitudes toward same-sex desire
-social attitudes about sexuality have changed dramatically; differ significantly for men and women
-issues of “normality” are appropriate subjects for critique and investigation
-Henry Abelove
-Margaret Cruikshank
-Michael Foucault
-Eve Sedgwick
Race, Ethnicity, and Post-Colonial Analysis
-explores relationships between a text and its social context
-examines how the belief systems of a time and place are reflected in, and potentially altered by literary representation
-racism and ethnocentrism are thoroughly entrenched in language, literature, art, and social institutions
-“race” = physical distinctions combined with distinct social history
-“ethnicity” = nonphysical aspects of cultural identity (religion, social customs, language)
-“post-colonialism” focuses on national and regional legacies of national and regional imperialism and colonialism
-commitment to challenging oppression based on cultural identity
-understanding that race and ethnicity have been used in ways that empowered and oppressed
-Gloria Anzaldua
-Henry Louis Gates
-bell hooks
-Elaine H. Kim
-Edward W. Said
New Historicism and cultural studies
-New Historicism uses many other forms of analysis but always rooted in historical research on past eras and pre-20th century texts
-cultural analysis also uses many other forms of analysis. Focuses on 20th century or present-day works; often emphasizes non-literary genres
-history is not linearly progressive and is not reducible to the activities of prominent individuals
-daily life reveals much about belief systems of a time period
-Wayne C. Booth
-John Brannigan
-Michael Foucault
-Stephen Greenblatt
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