Table of Contents
1.
Introduction
2.
Formalistic
4.
Archetypal
6.
Feminist
9.
Sociological
10. Glossary
11. Works Cited
12. Credits
*Written by Mark Lund, Carver Center for the Arts and Technology, Baltimore County Public Schools, 1996.
Introduction: What is
Literary Criticism?
Literary criticism is the study, analysis,
and evaluation of imaginative literature.
Everyone who expresses an opinion about a book, a song, a play, or a
movie is a critic, but not everyone's opinion is based upon thought,
reflection, analysis, or consistently articulated principles. As people mature
and acquire an education, their ability to analyze, their understanding of
human beings, and their appreciation of artistic craftsmanship should
increase. The study of literature is an
essential component in this- growth of reflection.
Sometimes students object to analysis and ask, "Why do we have to
analyze everything? Why can't we just enjoy the books we read in
English?" These are good
questions, and there are some good answers for them. First, talking about an
experience, actual or vicarious, is one way of increasing enjoyment. Second, sometimes talking about an
experience involves recreating it in words, but it can also involve the search
for meaning, in short, analysis.
Finally, as Socrates said, "The life which is unexamined is not
worth living." Analysis, or examination, increases awareness and
understanding; it is part of the maturation process. The analysis of literature
has always been part of a liberal education.
When a work of literature is studied without reference to history or to
the life of the author, the approach is intrinsic, or formalistic. However, literature is related to two other
humanistic disciplines: philosophy and history. Philosophy explores basic, general ideas, such as truth, beauty,
and goodness. History attempts to
ascertain what happened in the past and why it happened. Philosophy may help readers to understand
the general ideas, or themes, of a literary work. History helps to elucidate the life and times of the author.
Traditionally, literary studies were conducted within the three
humanistic disciplines of literature, history, and philosophy. In the twentieth century, the social
sciences have been used to develop new approaches to criticism. Psychology has helped to illuminate the
motivations of characters and the writers who create them. Sociology has revealed the relationships
between the works the author produces and the society that consumes them. Anthropology has shown how ancient myths and
rituals are alive and well in the plays, poems, and novels that are popular
today.
Literary criticism has been a social institution for many centuries. Different ages take different approaches, but the activity is constant. Authors are aware of criticism so that it is probably not entirely fair to say that the literary critic reads meanings into the texts that were never intended by the author. Literary criticism is not "reading between the lines" -it is reading the lines very carefully, in a disciplined and informed manner. This is why it is possible to speak of some of the approaches discussed in this booklet as elements of literature. That is, it is valid to speak of archetypal elements in a literary text, sociological elements in a literary text, and formal elements in a literary text. The approaches to literature do not put the elements there; they are already there. The approaches help to reveal and clarify them.
The formalistic approach began with Aristotle (384-322 BC), a
philosopher of ancient Greece, who in his book The Poetics attempted to
define the form of tragedy. Aristotle
wrote that the tragic hero was an essentially noble individual who,
nevertheless, manifested a flaw in character that caused him or her to fall
from a high position to a low position. The flaw in character (hamartia) was a
kind of blindness or lack of insight that resulted from an arrogant pride (hubris). During the course of the tragic action, the
hero came to a moment of insight-today it might be seen as an epiphany-that
Aristotle called anagnorsis. Thus
the tragic plot moves from blindness to insight. As an imitation (mimesis) of a serious action, the tragic plot
had to be written in a dignified style.
The effect of the tragedy was supposed to be catharsis or the purging of
the emotions of pity and fear. All the
elements of tragedy went together to produce a formal unity: this is the
essence of the formalistic approach.
The
twentieth century formalistic approach, often referred to as the New Criticism,
also assumes that a work of literary art is an organic unity in which every
element contributes to the total meaning of the work. This approach is as old as literary criticism itself, but it was
developed in the twentieth century by John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974), Allen Tate
(1899-1979), T.S. Eliot (1888- 1965), and others.
The formalist critic embraces an objective
theory of art and examines plot, characterization, dialogue, and style to show
how these elements contribute to the theme or unity of the literary work. Moral, historical, psychological, and
sociological concerns are considered extrinsic to criticism and of secondary
importance to the examination of craftsmanship and form. Content and form in a work constitute a
unity, and it is the task of the critic to examine and evaluate the integrity
of the work. Paradox, irony, dynamic
tension, and unity are the primary values of formalist criticism.
Because
it posits an objective theory of art, there are two axioms central to formalist
criticism. One of these is The
Intentional Fallacy which states that an author's intention (plan or
purpose) in creating a work of literature is irrelevant in analyzing or
evaluating that work of literature because the meaning and value of a literary
work must reside in the text itself, independent of authorial intent. Another
axiom of formalist criticism is The Affective Fallacy which states that
the evaluation of a work of art cannot be based solely on its emotional effects
on the audience. Instead, criticism must concentrate upon the qualities of the
work itself that produce such effects.
The formalistic approach stresses the close reading of the text and
insists that all statements about the work be supported by references to the
text. Although it has been challenged
by other approaches recently, the New Criticism is the most influential form of
criticism in this century.
Formalism is intrinsic literary criticism because it does not require
mastery of any body of knowledge besides literature. As an example of how formalistic criticism approaches literary
works, consider Shakespeare's Macbeth.
All the elements of the play form an organic whole. The imagery of the gradual growth of plants
is contrasted with the imagery of leaping over obstacles: Macbeth is an
ambitious character who cannot wait to grow gradually into the full stature of
power, but, instead, must grasp everything immediately. A related series of clothing images
reinforces this point: because Macbeth does not grow gradually, his clothing
does not fit. At the end of the play,
his "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy drives home the
point as we see, and pity, a man trapped in the lock-step pace of gradual
time. Formalistic critics would
immediately see that the repetition of the word "tomorrow" and the
natural iambic stress on "and" enhance the meaninglessness and frustration
that the character feels. References to
blood and water pervade the play, and blood comes to symbolize the guilt
Macbeth feels for murdering Duncan.
Even the drunken porter's speech provides more than comic relief,
for his characterization of alcohol as "an equivocator" is linked to
the equivocation of the witches.
Shakespeare's craftsmanship has formed an aesthetic unity in which every
part is connected and in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Historical and Biographical Approaches
Historical criticism seeks to interpret the
work of literature through understanding the times and culture in which the
work was written. The historical critic
is more interested in the meaning that the literary work had for its own time
than in the meaning the work might have today.
For example, while some critics might interpret existential themes in
Shakespeare's Hamlet, a historical critic would be more interested in
analyzing the play within the context of Elizabethan revenge tragedy and
Renaissance humor psychology.
Biographical criticism investigates the life of an author using primary
texts, such as letters, diaries, and other documents, that might reveal the
experiences, thoughts, and feelings that led to the creation of a literary
work. For example, an investigation of
Aldous Huxley's personal life reveals that Point Counterpoint is a roman
a clef: the character Marc Rampion is a thinly disguised imaginative
version of Huxley's friend, D.H. Lawrence.
Historical criticism and biographical criticism are used in tandem to
explicate literary texts. Sometimes the
very premise of a novel may seem more probable if the circumstances of composition
are understood. For example, students
often wonder why the boys in Lord of the Flies are oil the island. Their plane has crashed, but where was it
going, and why? The book may be read as
a survival adventure, but such a reading would not account for the most
important themes. Knowing that William
Golding was a British naval commander in World War II and knowing some of the
facts of the British involvement in the war help in an understanding of the
novel. The most important fact relating to the premise of the novel is that
during the London Blitz (1940-1941) children were evacuated from the
metropolitan area: some were sent to Scotland, some to Canada and
Australia. Golding imagines a similar
evacuation happening during his scenario of World War III. The itinerary of the transport plane is
detailed at the beginning of the novel: Gibraltar and Addis Ababa were stops on
an eastward journey, probably to Australia or New Zealand. The aircraft was shot down, and the boys are
stranded on a Pacific atoll. In the age
of the intercontinental ballistic missile, the evacuation seems impossible, but
the novel was published in 1954 when atomic weapons were still delivered
principally by bombers. The history of
the rise of Hitler and World War n also helps readers to understand why Ralph's
democratic appeasements crumble under the ruthless aggression of Jack's regime.
In short, the historical approach is vital to an understanding of literary texts. Sometimes, knowledge of history is necessary before the theme of the work can be fully grasped.
The archetypal approach to literature evolved from studies in
anthropology and psychology. Archetypal
critics make the reasonable assumption that human beings all over the world
have basic experiences in common and have developed similar stories and symbols
to express these experiences. Their
assumption that myths from distant countries might help to explain a work of
literature might seem a little far-fetched.
However, critics of this persuasion believe it is valid.
Carl Jung (1875-1961), a student of Freud,
came to the conclusion that some of his patients' - dreams contained images and
narrative patterns not from their personal unconscious but from the collective
unconscious of the human race. It was
Jung who first used the term archetype to denote plots, characters, and
symbols that are found in literature, folk tales and dreams throughout the
world. Some of the principal archetypes
are described in the following paragraphs.
The Hero and the Quest
According to Joseph Campbell, the story of
the hero is the monomyth, or the one story at the bottom of all stories. The hero is called to adventure. This means that the hero must go on a
quest. The first stage of the quest is
separation: in this stage the hero separates from familiar surroundings and
goes on a journey. The second stage of
the quest is initiation: the hero may fight a dragon, conquer an enemy or in
some other way prove his or her courage, wisdom and maturity. The final stage is the return: the hero must
return to society to use the courage and wisdom gained in the initiatory
phase. Often the initiation involves a
journey to the underworld, and the return phase is regarded as a kind of
rebirth. This links the myth of the
hero to the next archetypal motif.
(Mary Renault's The King Must Die (1958) is a good actualization
of this pattern.)
The Death and Rebirth Pattern
Many myths from around the world reflect the cycle of the seasons. Sometimes mythic thought requires a sacrifice so that the seasons can continue. A sacrificial hero (in myth it is usually a god or king) accepts death or disgrace so that the community can flourish. Although the sacrifice is real, it is not necessarily to be regarded as final: the god who dies in the winter may be reborn in the spring. Characters like Oedipus and Hamlet, who sacrifice themselves to save their kingdoms, are based on the archetype of the dying god. Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" reflects this archetypal pattern in a contemporary setting.
Mother Earth Father Sky
A surprising number of cultures regard the
earth as the mother of all life, and she is sometimes seen as the original
divinity who was wedded and superseded by the archetypal male divinity, the sky
god. The offspring of the earth mother and the sky father are all of the
creatures that inhabit the world. Earth
mother characters in literature are characterized by vitality, courage, and
optimism. They represent embodiments of
the life force. Shug Avery in Alice
Walker's The Color Purple represents a modern version of the earth
goddess: she gives Celie the courage to live.
Culture Founder,
Trickster, Witch
Culture founders are heroes who invent rules,
laws, customs, and belief systems so that society can function and people can
live. Prometheus was the great culture
founder of the Greeks. He created
mankind and invented writing, mathematics, and technology so that human beings
could survive. Because he stole fire
from the gods and gave it to men, he also became a sacrificial hero, condemned
to be tortured in the Caucasus Mountains until he was freed by Heracles. Modern characters who derive from the
culture hero archetype would include Mr. Antrobus in The Skin of Our Teeth and
Finny in A Separate Peace. Both
of these characters are creative inventors, organizers, and leaders. The antithesis of the culture hero is the
trickster. Representing the forces of
chaos, the trickster delights in mischief.
At times the trickster may appear evil, but the essential quality
embodied by this archetype is childishness.
Hermes is the trickster in Greek myth; Loki, in Norse myth. Native American myths have many trickster
figures. In William Golding's Lord
of the Flies Ralph's culture-founding efforts are constantly subverted by
Jack, a trickster figure who is motivated only by the idea of fun. The female trickster contrasts with the
earth goddess figure in that she devotes herself to pleasure rather than
nurturing: she is referred to as the outlaw female or witch. Medea comes close to epitomizing this
archetype.
Four Elements = The World
Earth, water, fire, air: these
are the symbolic elements that compose the world. Earth usually has the
connotations of nurturing life. Water
may purify, and flowing rivers represent the flow of life; but water may also
destroy when it is uncontrolled, as in a flood. Fire represents destruction, but it can also purify and make way
for the new. Air is the spiritual
element; words denoting the spirit are often derived from the words for wind.
The other term for archetypal criticism is
myth criticism. Literary critics,
poets, and storytellers all use myths in the creation and interpretation of
literature. This reflects their belief
that the old myths, far from being falsehoods, reveal eternal truths about
human nature.
Most people would identify the current era of
literature as the modern period; surprisingly, literary critics and historians
do not. Contemporary literature (1945
to the present) is called Postmodernist.
Modernism as a literary term is applied to the writers of the first half
of the twentieth century who experimented with forms of writing that broke
age-old traditions: writers like T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf,
Langston Hughes, and William Faulkner.
These writers viewed human beings as trapped in tragic paradoxes that
could only be expressed by difficult and unorthodox styles. The writings of the modernists are regarded
as classics of the twentieth century, but contemporary writing has moved beyond
them. The tragic stance has given way
to irony, and the break up of the culture is treated with sardonic humor. Since 1945 everything is disposable: books,
culture, social mores, even-with nuclear weapons- planet Earth itself. Television, with its thousands of stories
and its parodies of literary classics, cuts against the privileging of any
story as a work of art. In the
Postmodern Age, there is no literature, there are only stories; there is no
wisdom, there is only information, and information is, almost by definition,
disposable.
Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead illustrates some of the principal qualities of
Postmodern literature. Aristotle's
notion of the noble hero is undercut by two bumbling antiheroes who don't have
enough individual identity to be able to tell themselves apart. They intrude
from the margins of Shakespeare's Hamlet, wander and wonder aimlessly,
and are finally packed off to a meaningless execution, disposable tools in a
nasty internecine conflict. Shakespeare's
play has form and purpose; the hero has a role to play in life, even though he
may have doubted this at the beginning of the play. Stoppard's heroes make jokes about death, about fate, about
everything. Stoppard's plot doesn't
really go anywhere because like Pirandello's six characters and Beckett's two
tramps, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters in search of a plot. Worse, they are characters in search of
personalities. In the film version,
pages of dramatic scripts float and swirl about all the scenes like autumn
leaves or trash escaped from the recycling bin. The tragic world of Hamlet is subverted by the ironic
Postmodern interlopers, proving that even a mighty Shakespearean text can be deconstructed,
that is, reduced to meaninglessness. Deconstruction is the movement in
criticism that best expresses the Postmodern consciousness. It has supplanted
New Criticism in most of the literature departments of American colleges and
universities.
Deconstruction might be regarded as the antithesis
of formalism. Where the formalist
critic seeks to demonstrate the organic unity of a literary work, the
deconstructionist tries to show how attempts at unified meaning are doomed to
failure by the nature of language itself.
Thus, to deconstruct a literary work is to show that it is
self-contradictory.
Originating in a radical
skepticism about the capacity of language to mean anything, deconstruction
thrives on the paradoxes of twentieth century thought. As Freudian psychology destroyed the notion
that the conscious self controls the person, as Einsteinian physics undermined
ideas of objectivity, deconstruction assaults the belief that language is
unequivocal in its meaning and that literary works have a stable meaning
intended by the author. Formalist
critics accepted the intentional fallacy because they thought that the literary
text could stand on its own without reference to authorial intention, but for
the deconstructionist literary texts crumble into contradictions under
analysis.
Before deconstruction became a trend in
criticism, even before the word deconstruction entered the language,
Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990), wrote what might be regarded as the classic
deconstructive narrative, The Alexandria Quartet. Completed in 1960 and composed of four novels that relate the
same events from different points of view, the Quartet does not attempt
to establish one version of the story as definitive. Rather, in a relativistic universe perspective rules the world:
one step to the left or right and the whole picture changes.
During the 1960s a new school of criticism arose from the struggles for
women's rights. While social and
economic justice were the most obvious goals of the feminist cause, many women
realized that the roots of the inequality were cultural. This perception led to
the development of feminist literary criticism. Using psychological, archetypal, and sociological approaches,
feminist criticism examines images of women and concepts of the feminine in
myth and literature.
Feminist critics have shown that literature
reflects a patriarchal, or male dominated, perspective of society. Patriarchalism is an ideology that causes
women to be depicted in two ways: as goddesses when they serve the patriarchal
society in the role of virtuous wives and mothers as prostitutes and witches
when they do not. Plays and novels
often reveal both views of women.
Thornton Wilder parodies these stereotypes with the characters of Mrs.
Antrobus and Lily Sabina in the play The Skin of Our Teeth. Wilder does not spare the patriarchal
Mr. Antrobus, whose foibles are plain for all the audience to see.
A fresh approach to
the investigation of literature, feminist criticism often focuses on characters
and issues that have been neglected or marginalized in previous studies. So much has been written about Prince
Hamlet, that feminist interpretations of the motivations and conflicts of Queen
Gertrude and Ophelia are often striking in their originality. Similarly, Charlotte Gilman-Perkins
"The Yellow Wallpaper" brings feminist criticism to the
foreground. It is this freshness of
approach that makes feminist criticism one of the most exciting contemporary
approaches to literature.
As a form of sociological criticism, feminist
criticism shares some qualities with Marxist approaches. Both are critical of society, as it is
presently constituted. Both are
concerned with the lives of those oppressed or marginalized by the dominant
culture. Both investigate literature as
a means of bringing about changes in attitudes and ultimately in society.
The philosophical (or moral) approach to
literature evaluates the ethical content of literary works and concerns itself
less with formal characteristics.
Philosophical criticism always assumes the seriousness of literary works
as statements of values and criticisms of life, and the philosophical critic
judges works on the basis of his or her articulated philosophy of life.
Assuming that literature can have a good effect on human beings by increasing
their compassion and moral sensitivity, this form of criticism acknowledges
that books can have negative effects on people as well. For this reason, philosophical critics will
sometimes attack authors for degenerate, decadent, or unethical writings.
While this description may make philosophical
critics seem similar to censors, these critics rarely call for burning or
banning of books. Unlike censors, they
try to deal with the whole literary work rather than with passages taken out of
context. Some people might criticize J
.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye because Holden Caulfield is a poor
role model. The book might also be
attacked because of its profane language.
In fact, these aspects of the novel have led to its being banned in many
school districts throughout the United States.
Although the philosophical critic may find both of these aspects of the
novel disturbing, he or she might still believe that, on balance, the book was
to be commended for its indictment of hypocrisy and materialism. For the philosophical critic, it is not a
question of objectionable characters and passages; it is a question of the
totality of the work. Instead of
banning books that they find to be without redeeming social merit,
philosophical critics write scathing reviews explaining why they consider the
books they are attacking to be decadent or unethical. In the twentieth century, philosophical critics have tended
toward a humanistic belief in reason, order, and restraint. This explains their reluctance to ban books
despite their moral concerns: if human beings are rational, as the
philosophical critic believes, they will listen to reason when it is spoken;
and they will reject evil and embrace the good.
The psychological approach has been one of the most productive forms of literary inquiry in the twentieth century. Developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and his followers, psychological criticism has led to new ideas about the nature of the creative process, the mind of the artist, and the motivations of characters.
Freud's principal ideas are essential to an
understanding of modern literature and criticism. Although the works of Freud consist of many complex volumes,
there are four main ideas that have been so influential that it is hard to
believe they were not always with us.
The Unconscious
According to Freud, human beings are not
conscious of all their feelings, urges, and desires because most of mental life
is unconscious. Freud compared the mind
to an iceberg: only a small portion is visible; the rest is below the waves of
the sea. Thus, the mind consists of a
small conscious portion and a vast unconscious portion.
Observing the conservative, prudish upper
middle classes of the late nineteenth century, Freud came to the conclusion
that society demands restraint, order, and respectability and that individuals
are forced to repress (or sublimate) the libidinous and aggressive drives. These repressed desires, however, emerge in
dreams and in art. The artist and the dreamer are both creators; both have a
need to express themselves by creating beautiful or terrifying images and
narratives. But the lust and aggression
may not be represented directly. This
leads to the use of symbols and subtexts in dreams and literature.
Freud developed his psychoanalytic theory
around three principles: the ego, the id, and the superego. The ego is conscious and represents
the part of the mind that interacts with the environment and with other people
in social situations. As the conscious
waking self, the ego is the reasonable, sane, and mature aspect of the mind
capable of mastering impulses and dealing effectively with the stresses of
daily life. Common parlance may show
disrespect for the "big ego," but for Freud the supercilious attitude
denoted by this phrase would, paradoxically, be an indication - of a weak ego. The id is unconscious and is comprised of
the basic drives of hunger, thirst, pleasure, and aggression. The id is
removed from reality, that is, from the outer world of society and environment.
The id is the mind of the infant, demanding instant gratification,
incapable of tolerating the delayed gratification that makes the ego socially
acceptable. At first, Freud thought
that the id had only one principle, the pleasure principle, also known as the
libido or sex drive. However, he found he could not account for aggression,
violence, and self-destructiveness without postulating a second principle, the
aggressive drive, also known as the death wish. The superego is the final part of the tripartite psyche.
Representing parentally instilled moral attitudes, the superego may seem to be
like the conscience. Like the id, however, the superego is largely
unconscious. Sometimes the superego is
thought to represent an idealized image (ego-ideal) towards which the ego
strives. During the normal course of
development, an individual gains in ego strength and is able to master basic
drives and mediate the demands of the id, the superego, and the environment.
Many works of literature contain characters who embody mental forces.
Some of these works were written long before Freud formalized his psychological
theory. Three famous works of Victorian
literature were published at about the time Freud was developing his ideas:
Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Robert Louis
Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and Joseph Conrad's
"The Secret Sharer" (1912).
Probably the most notorious id character ever created, Mr. Hyde
incarnates the aggressive drive of the unconscious; however, Dr. Jekyll makes
it clear in his statement of the case that he admired Hyde's tremendous love of
life. In a similar way, the captain in
Conrad's story recognizes that Leggatt has killed a man, but he allows Leggatt
to swim to a nearby island because he admires the freedom and self-possession
of Leggatt. Both Dr. Jekyll and the
captain live in L-shaped dwellings: like Freud's iceberg, part of the dwelling
is seen and part remains hidden.
Wilde's Dorian Gray resorts to hiding his portrait (which shows his
moral state) in the attic. In each of these works, an ego character must
mediate between the social environment and the desires of the id
character. The id is not so much
immoral as amoral. It is the way in
which the ego character deals with the drives of the id that constitutes the
moral action of the story.
In Greek myth, Oedipus was a king
of Thebes who, having been abandoned in childhood and consequently ignorant of
his own identity, unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. In describing the psychosexual development
of children, Freud analyzed the powerful feelings that develop between mother
and son. Freud believed that boys
develop strong attractions to their mothers during the phallic period (3-6),
with a corresponding rivalry developing between the boy and his father. Usually these conflicts are resolved as the
boy matures and develops love interests outside the home, but some neuroses of
adult life are supposed to result from insufficiently resolved Oedipal
conflicts.
The Oedipus Complex has been very
controversial and some psychoanalysts have modified or rejected it. Alfred
Adler (1870-1937), one of Freud's pupils, reinterpreted the Oedipus Complex
when he developed his own theory of the Inferiority Complex. Adler believed
that the primary motivation for human beings is not the libido, as Freud had
posited, but the will to power. For
Adler, then, the Oedipus Complex is essentially a power struggle between the
boy and the father, in which the boy tries to overcome feelings of inferiority
by successfully capturing the mother's attention. Adler also coined the term masculine
protest to refer to the rebellion of by young women (and some young men)
against the inferior status that women have in many societies. Masculine protest consists of aggressive
behavior towards others in an attempt to allay feelings of inferiority.
Writers were interested in the powerful
conflicts that arise in families long before Freud, but writers of the
twentieth century exploring these conflicts in their works will be labeled
Freudian whether they acknowledge the influence of Freud or not. D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers explores
the influence of a possessive mother on her sons; the same author's story
" The Rocking- Horse Winner" depicts a boy who believes he can win
his mother's love by being lucky in gambling on racehorses. Frank O'Connor's "My Oedipus Complex"
is a humorous treatment of Freud's ideas.
The same author's "Masculine Protest" makes use of the
Adlerian notion of the inferiority complex.
The literature of the past has been
reexamined in the light of psychoanalysis.
Freud himself started this trend when he named a complex after Oedipus:
this reinterpreted the play. In fact,
the play was profoundly psychological in its original conception. Oedipus goes to Delphi and receives,
prophecies from the gods: what better way to express the working of the
unconscious? Jocasta tells Oedipus that
many men have dreamed of sleeping with their mothers: dreams do reveal
unconscious desires. Finally, having
sorted out his identity, Oedipus, analyst and patient in one paradoxical
person, blinds himself and leaves the stage to wander the world, a sadder and a
wiser man.
Since the late 1940s Shakespeare's Hamlet has
been interpreted as having an Oedipal Complex.
He expresses love for his mother, and seems obsessed by the idea of
Claudius and Gertrude sleeping together.
His jealousy and aggression towards Claudius are overt. Of course, c Claudius is not Hamlet's father
but his stepfather. Hamlet idealizes and adores his real father. These facts do not deter the psychological
interpreters. Perhaps the concept of
masculine protest is as, applicable to the playas the Oedipal conflict. Hamlet feels that Gertrude is weak; worse,
he feels implicated in her weakness.
Much of the play dwells on Hamlet's feelings of weakness and
inferiority, and his aggressive behavior at the end may be interpreted as
masculine protest.
Poets, dreamers, and madmen all tap the
fountainhead of the unconscious, the source not only of aggressions and desires
but of the will to live. The psychological approach to literature delves into
the symbolic fictions that arise from the primordial springs of the imagination
and attempts to explain them to the rational, waking selves who inhabit the
daylight world.
Sociological criticism focuses on the relationship between literature
and society. Literature is always
produced in a social context. Writers
may affirm or criticize the values of the society in which they live, but they
write for an audience and that audience is society. Through the ages the writer has performed the functions of
priest, prophet and entertainer: all of these are important social roles. The social function of literature is the
domain of the sociological critic.
Even works of literature that do not deal
overtly with social issues may have social issues as subtexts. The sociological critic is interested not
only in the stated themes of literature, but also in the latent themes. Like the historical critic, the sociological
critic attempts to understand the writer's environment as an important element
in the writer's work. Like the moral
critic, the sociological critic usually has certain values by which he or she
judges literary work.
Marxist Criticism
One of the most important forms of
sociological criticism is Marxist criticism.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) developed a theory of society, politics, and
economics called dialectical materialism.
Writing in the nineteenth century, Marx criticized the exploitation of
the working classes, or proletariat, by the capitalist classes who owned the
mines, factories, and other resources of national economies. Marx believed that history was the story of
class struggles and that the goal of history was a classless society in which
all people would share the wealth equally.
This classless society could only come about as a result of a revolution
that would overthrow the capitalist domination of the economy.
Central to Marx's understanding of society is the concept of ideology. As an economic determinist, Marx thought that the system of production was the most basic fact in social life. Workers created the value of manufactured goods, but owners of the factories reaped most of the economic rewards. In order to justify and rationalize this inequity, a system of understandings or ideology was created, for the most part unconsciously. Capitalists justified their taking the lion's share of the rewards by presenting themselves as better people, more intelligent, more refined, more ethical that the workers. Since literature is consumed, for the most part, by the middle classes, it tends to support capitalist ideology, at least in countries where that ideology is dominant.
Marxist critics interpret literature in terms of ideology. Writers who sympathize with the working
classes and their struggle are regarded favorably. Writers who support the ideology of the dominant classes are
condemned. Naturally, critics of the
Marxist school differ in breadth and sympathy the way other critics do. As a result, some Marxist interpretations
are more subtle than others. Take the Marxist approach to Shakespeare's The
Tempest for example. The standard
Marxist party line would be to interpret Prospero as the representative of
European imperialism. Prospero has come to the island from Italy. He has used his magic (perhaps a symbol of
technology) to enslave Caliban, a native of the island. Caliban resents being the servant of
Prospero and attempts to rebel against his authority. Since Prospero is presented in a favorable light, the Marxist
critic might condemn Shakespeare as being a supporter of European capitalist
ideology. A more subtle Marxist critic
might see that the play has far more complexity, and that Caliban has been
invested with a vitality that makes it possible for audiences to sympathize
with him. Certainly, the Marxist view of the play brings out ideas that might
be overlooked by other kinds of critics and, thus, contributes to the
understanding of the play.
Sociological criticism, then, reflects the
way literature interacts with society.
Sociological critics show us how literature can function as a mirror to
reflect social realities and as a lamp to inspire social ideals.
abstruse: difficult to understand; abstract
Adlerian: of, or relating to, the pschological theories
of Alfred Adler ( 1870 -1937) stressing the will to power as the primary human
motivation
aesthetics: the
philosophical study of beauty and the arts
amoral: without
a sense of morality
anagnorisis: the
moment of revelation at the end of a tragedy
antithesis: polar
opposite
artifact: an
object made by human beings for an intended use
criterion: a
standard or guideline for evaluation
deconstruction: a
literary approach that seeks to undermine the notion that a literary text has a
fixed meaning
ego: the
Freudian term for the conscious, waking self
epiphany: a
sudden moment of clarity or recognition
existentialism: philosophy
stressing the radical freedom of the individual; according to this philosophy
human life has no meaning except that created by individuals
expressive theory: the
idea that a work of art emanates from the experience and imagination of the
artist
extrinsic: exterior; approaches to criticism that depend
upon non-literary criteria
Freudian: of, or pertaining to, the psychological
theories of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) stressing the libido as the primary human
motivation
hamartia: a
flaw in character resulting in moral blindness
hubris: arrogant
pride which leads to a fall
id: the aspect of the unconscious mind that encompasses the
libido and
aggressive drive
ideology: intrinsic
system of understandings which may be conscious or unconscious
inferiority complex: lack of self -esteem deriving from feelings
of powerlessness
integrity: wholeness;
the parts of a literary work are assumed by New Critics to constitute a
meaningful whole
intentional
fallacy: the theory that
an author's purpose in creating a work is irrelevant to the interpretation of
the work
intrinsic: interior; the formalist approach to
criticism emphasizes purely literary criteria
irony: a
technique in which the expected is subverted by the unexpected
libido: Freudian
term for the pleasure principle or sexual drive
mimetic theory: the idea that a work of art imitates
life
modernism: literary movement
of the first half of the twentieth century characterized by experimentalism and
anxiety
New Criticism: a
twentieth century formalistic approach emphasizing organicism, irony, and
tension
objective theory: the idea that a work of art is to be
analyzed by intrinsic criteria
Oedipus
Complex: the Freudian idea
that young boys have libidinous feelings for their mothers with corresponding
feelings of guilt and aggression for their fathers
organicism: the New Critical
idea of the work of art as a unity that transcends the sum of its parts
pathetic fallacy: the
New Critical rejection of effect on the audience as a criterion for evaluation
postmodernism: the
literary period since 1950 characterized by decentralization, skepticism and
parody
pragmatic theory: the
idea that the rhetorical effect of a work on the audience is the central
criterion for evaluation
roman a clef: [Fr.
novel with a key] a novel in which the characters are based on real people
whose names have been changed
superego: aspect of
psyche that incorporates parentally-instilled morals
Guerin, Wilfred L.,et al. A
Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 3rd. ed. New
York: Oxford UP, 1992.
Lynn, Steven. Texts and Contexts. New York: Harper Collins, 1994.
Meyer, Michael, ed. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. New York: St. Martins, 1994.
A Primer
By
Baltimore County Public
Schools
Towson, MD
1996