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We no talk about:
- Feminism
- Postcolonialism
- Marxism
- Psychoanalysis
- Dominant, alternative and resistant readings
Structuralism
semiotics and stuff
- Structuralism is a way of thinking about the world which is predominantly concerned with the perceptions and description of structures. At its simplest, structuralism claims that the nature of every element in any given situation has no significance by itself, and in fact is determined by all the other elements involved in that situation. The full significance of any entity cannot be perceived unless and until it is integrated into the structure of which it forms a part.
- Semiotics, simply put, is the science of signs. Semiology proposes that a great diversity of our human action and productions -- our bodily postures and gestures, the social rituals we perform, the clothes we wear, the meals we serve, the buildings we inhabit --- all convey "Shared" meanings to members of a particular culture, and so can be analysed as signs which function in diverse kinds of signifying systems.
Some key terms
- Binary opposition - "pairs of mutually-exclusive signifiers in a paradigm set representing categories which are logically opposed and which together define a complete universe of discourse (relevant ontological domain), e.g. alive-not-alive. In such oppositions each term necessarily implies its opposite and there is no middle term"
- Mythemes - the smallest component part of a myth. By breaking up myths into mythemes, those structures may be studied chronologically or synchronically/relationally.
- Sign vs symbol - According to Saussure, "words are not symbols which correspond to referents, but rather are 'signs' which are made up of two parts (like two sides of a sheet of paper)"; a mark, either written or spoken, called a 'signifier' and a concept, called a 'signified'. The distinction is important because Saussure contended that the relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary; the only way we can distinguish meaning is by difference.
- Structuralist narratology - "a form of structuralism... that illustrates how a story's meaning develops from its overall structure (its langue) rather than from each individual story's isolated theme. To ascertain a text's meaning, narratologists emphasise grammatical elements such as verb tenses and the relationship s and configurations of figures of speech withing the story" (Bressler)
TLDR
- Structuralism is a way of understanding culture and meaning in the arts by relating the individual piece of art (a novel, a painting, a symphony) to something larger.
- Structuralism comes from a branch of language study called 'structural linguistics'
- Structuralism is explicitly anti-individual
- Structuralism is about a shared structure of meaning.
Key questions
Structuralism uses some basic questions to interpret literary texts.
- Are there any patterns in text A which are similar to patterns in text B? Structuralism is interested in similarities between texts.
- Are there any opposites in the text which are set against each other? In structuralism, opposites are called 'binary oppositions', such as good/evil, light/dark, tall/short etc.
In his book Literary Theory (1983), Terry Eagleton says that Structuralism represents a 'remorseless demystification of literature'. This means that when Structuralism is applied to a literary text, it strips the text of its aesthetic form and subjective meaning and reduces it to its bare essentials. All that is left is the underlying structure.
Reader-response theory
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Kind of the opposite to structuralism, but quite easy for close readings.
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Reader-response theory asserts that the idea of a "correct" reading -- though difficult to attain -- was always the goal of the "educated" reader, and that the reader's ability to understand a text is also subject a reader's particular "interpretive community". To simplify, a reader brings certain assumptions a to a text based on the interpretive strategies he/she has learned in a a particular interpretive community.
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Your cultural upbringing influences the way in which you will respond to texts and their characters/events.
TLDR
This critical movement emerged as a challenge to New Criticism, a movement that dominates American literary criticism during the 1940s-1970s period.
- New Criticism is a school of thought that proposed all meaning was contained within a text's form, structure and content. External factors, such as context and the author's identity and authority played no role in a text's meaning. In this sense, texts have objective meanings.
Reader-response criticism stood in opposition to the notion that a text's meaning was self-contained. It proposed that a text's meaning was instead created by reader's response to the text.
Reader-response criticism was mostly eclipsed by the Poststructuralist critical movement that emerged in the 1960s.
- Poststructuralism - A school of thought that stressed the indeterminancy of the meaning of texts. Poststructuralists believe it is impossible for texts to have objective meanings because there are many ways to interpret the same text.
The Poststructuralist movements also placed a similar emphasis on the reader's active role in the creation of meaning, a principle that remains influential today.
Some key terms
- Horizon of expectations - a term to explain how a reader's "Expectations" or frame of reference is based on the reader's past experience of literature and what preconceived notions about literature the reader possesses.
- Implied reader - the implied reader is "a hypothetical reader of a text. The implied reader embodies all those predispositions necessary for a literary work to exercise its effect -- predispositions laid down, not by an empirical outside reality, but by the text itself. Consequently, the implied reader as a concept has his roots firmly planted in the structure of the text; he is a construct and in n o way to be identified with any real reader" (Glossary of Literary Theory)
- Interpretative communities - a concept that readers within an 'interpretative community' share reading strategies, values and interpretive assumptions
- Transactional analysis - a concept developed by Louise Rosenblatt asserting that meaning is produced in a transaction of a reader within a text. As an approach, then, the critic would consider "how the reader interprets the text as well as how the text produces a response in her"
Questions about types of readers
- Who is the implied reader?
- How might different groups interpret a text?
- How might readers' personal experiences influence how they read a certain text?
- How might critics' own 'identity themes' and personal experiences influence or bias their interpretations?
Questions about reader experience
- What is the overall impact of the difference between the reader's experience of reading the text when compared to the characters' experiences in the text? Is the reading experience parallel to the experiences of the text's characters or narrator? Or is it quite different? Does the reader know more than the characters?
- Is the reading experience deliberately difficult? How does the quality of the reading experience contribute to the text's overall meaning?
- How does the text want readers to react to a key event or plot twist?
Queer theory
A broad area of literary criticism with many different avenues, but there are some things that the majority of queer theory has in common.
- Questionning established norms: Queer theory challenges stereotypical ideas that everyone is cisgender and heterosexual. They expand upon the wide varieties of sexuality and gender identity.
- Stereoptyes as social constructs: Most queer theorists argue that traditional conceptions of sexuality and gender are socially constructed. How humans develop is highly based on the environment around them and the influences they receive.
- Critiquing powerful institutions: Another important tenant of queer theory is dismantling hierarchies. The lens of queer theory is used to criticise those in power and how they may be operating in a discriminatory or restrictive way.
- Exploration of LGBTQ+ live: Queer theory also sheds light on the often untold stories and experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals. This normalises these stories and fights oppression.
- Challenging binaries: Queer theory deconstructs traditional binaries that are placed upon sexuality and gender by society. It instead argues that humans are much more fluid than this, and this should be explored, not demonised.
