Literary theory

From LitWiki

[Team 2 is working on this page for this week's WritDM Assignment!]

Introduction

According to the Collins English Dictionary, literary theory is defined as "the systematic analysis and study of literature using general principles". A common misconception about literary theory is that it is focused on the meaning of a work of literature, whereas the actual study involves the tools by which people attempt to understand literature. [1] With different schools of theory critics of different literary works can focus on those works through different aspects they consider the most important(for example a Marxist theory may focus on how characters in a story react to an economic situation). [2] Critics use more than one school of literary theory when analyzing a work.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Psychoanalytic theory, which is used to analyze the unconsciousness of the mind. This theory was created by Sigmund Freud

References

  1. “Literary Theory” by Vince Brewton, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002, <http://www.iep.utm.edu/literary/>, accessed 16 April 2014
  2. "Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism" by Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins. Purdue OWL, <https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/722/>, accessed 19 April 2014

External Links