Literary theory
[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.
Types of Literary Theory
There are different types of literary theories, which can also be defined by literary criticisms. Here are some examples:
Archetypal/Myth Criticism
C.G Jung and Joseph Campbell viewed the genres and plot patterns of literature as archetypes and mythic formulas. Archetypes are "repeated types of experience in lives of ancient ancestors which inherited the collective unconscious of the human race and are expressed in myths, dreams, religion, and private fantasies, also in the work of literature." - C.G. Jung
Examples of Archetypes: the sun, the moon, circles, colors, Wise Old Man, the Great Mother, etc. Another archetype would be the color white, signifies death and is associated with innocence.
Psychoanalytic Criticism
Psychoanalytic criticism, is one of the initial approaches within the school of literary criticism. This concept is used by critics to analyze the unconsciousness of the mind. Originally constructed by Sigmund Freud when he was studying patients in an asylum, Introductory Guide to Critical Theory says, Freud began his researches into the workings of the human mind in 1881, after a century during which Europe and America saw the reform of the insane asylum and an ever-increasing interest in "abnormal" psychological states, especially the issue of "nervous diseases" (which was the first phenomenon that Freud studied, examining the nervous system of fish while gaining his medical degree at the University of Vienna from 1873 to 1881).[3]
References
- ↑ “Literary Theory” by Vince Brewton, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002, <http://www.iep.utm.edu/literary/>, accessed 16 April 2014
- ↑ "Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism" by Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins. Purdue OWL, <https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/722/>.
- ↑ http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/freud.html
External Links
- http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/literary-theory - The Collins English Dictionary's definition page for Literary Theory.