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 its 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] Many critics will use more than one school of literary theory when analyzing a work.
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/>, accessed 19 April 2014
External Links
- http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/literary-theory - The Collins English Dictionary's definition page for Literary Theory.