A Handbook for Critical Approaches to Literature
Traditional Theories
- Historical-Biographical—These critics see works as chiefly a reflection of its author’s life and times or the life and times of characters in the work.
- What do you know about the time period of the work?
- What attitude does the author seem to take toward the time period?
- Does the author’s attitude limit or expand your own view of the literature/work?
- What parallels can be drawn between the author’s life and the life/lives of the characters in the piece?
- Does the author’s biography help you understand his/her work?
- Moral Philosophical—The critic believes the larger function of literature is to teach morality and/or probe philosophical issues.
- What moral is implicit in the work?
- What philosophy is the work purporting?
- Who does the work seem to regard as lacking in morals?
- Does the moral or philosophy advance your understanding of the work?
- Is the author successful in arguing his or her morality/philosophy?
*Both theories are useful, but over-interpretation is obviously a mistake to avoid when applying either one.
Formalistic Approaches
- Close Reading—These critics believe the reading stands on its own. Their focus is on sensitivity to the words in a particular work, the form of the work, and how the piece of literature works. Structure, shape, interplay, interrelationships, denotations and connotations, contexts, images, symbols, repeated details, climax, rising action, falling action, denouement, balances and tensions, rhythms and rhymes, sounds, the speaker’s voice, a single line or word set off by itself are all ways a work makes itself unique.
- What did the author achieve by arranging certain words, images, symbols, details, plot, and action in such a way?
- How did the author achieve this?
- How are the words used/deployed in the work?
- Are any images, symbols, or motifs important to the understanding of the work?
- Who is the speaker?
- New Criticism—The critics call for an end to what is outside the work.
- How are the parts of the literary piece arranged to form a whole?
- How are imagery and metaphor deployed?
- How does setting affect form?
- How does tone affect form?
- What emotional effect does the work have on the reader as a result?
*A word of warning about these theories: Do not divorce work from intention of author. Criticism begins here, but does not have to end here. There is life outside the text.
- Psychological Approach—These critics view analyses as an opportunity toward solving thematic and symbolic mysteries. They encourage reading between lines.
- Discuss the id forces in the work—desires or aggressions and how they function in the work.
- How does the ego or reality thwart the id or desires or aggressions in the work?
- Is the superego obvious in the story?
- Is the superego part of one or more of the characters’ identities or is it a function of the work or author itself/himself?
- What unconscious forces are operating below the surface of this work? Do they hinder or help our understanding?
- How is dreaming incorporated into the text?
*A word of warning: Too much or too little Freud paints the wrong picture.
- Mythological and Archetypal Approaches
1. Myth—symbolic projections of people’s hopes, values, fears, and
aspirations, collective and communal, demonstrating inner meaning of
human life and universe seen in legend, folklore, and ideology.
- water, sun, colors, circle, egg, yin-yang, serpent, numbers, woman, wise old man, trickster, garden, tree, desert
2. Archetype—universal symbolscreation, immortality, hero
- Which elements from the list are symbols for myths in this literary piece?
- What are the myths behind them?
- What is revealed by these myths?
- How do these myths help us understand the work itself?
- What is the creation myth of this work? How does it help us to further understand the story or does it complicate the story further?
- What does this work say about immortality?
- What is the importance of this archetype in the literary piece?
- Who is the hero of this story and what function does he/she play in this piece of literature?
*A word of warning: Literature is more than a vehicle for myths and archetypes—do not overdo.
- Feminist Approaches—These critics are concerned with the marginalization of women and the patriarchal culture. They also protest exclusion of women from canon, explore the use of silence, and try to move from misogyny in male texts to rediscovery of female texts.
- How does the work treat masculinity and femininity as social constructs?
- What is to be valued?
- Do female writers value diversity merely for its own sake?
- Do they attack men and valorize women excessively?
- Marxist feminism—attack capitalism as patriarchal and economically exploitative.
- Who rules the capital?
- Who has the power?
- Psychoanalytic feminism—concerned with mothering, doubling of characters, women’s diseases, and feminized landscapes.
- Feminism and film theory
- Why do females viewtheir own humiliation so passively?
- Does voyeurism lead to male ambivalence toward the image of woman?
- How are films viewed by men and women?
- How is the image of woman portrayed?
- Feminism myth criticism—Focus on great mother and other feminine images
- What myths about females exist?
- What purposes do these myths serve?
- Black feminism—A type of womanism that involvesturning our back on the men in the community, not buying into patriarchy (especially white women), exploration of slave narratives, attackson white preference for black male protest writing, and tropes of betrayal and violation.
- How is betrayal experienced in literature?
- How is violation portrayed in literature?
- Lesbian feminism—favors creative writing overstructured writing, investigate mirror images, secret codes, dreams, coming out?
- Is this work a coming out piece?
- What secret codes are inherent to the understanding of this work? Do they help understanding or hinder understanding of work?
*Be careful of idealizing women. Can a man be a feminist?
- Cultural studies—These critics favor interdisciplinary, politically engaged criticism which denies separation of high/low or elite/popular culture, studies cultural work that is produced and the means of production and acknowledges subjectivity.
- British Cultural Materialism
- Is culture a preserver of past?
- Is cultural studies a way to form a socialist utopia?
- What ideology underscores literature?
- How does ideology reinforce status quo?
- The New Historicism—studies letters, diaries, films, paintings, and medical treatises.
- What tensions arise?
- Are texts agents and effects of cultural change?
- American Multiculturalism—These critics explore race, African-American writers, Latina/Latino writers, Asian American writers, American Indian writers.
- Which cultures are canonized? Who decides?
- What constitutes a culture?
Additional Approaches
- Marxist—This approach studies class conflict, problems of the poor, effects of capitalism, and solutions to monetary issues.
- Which classes are represented?
- What unique problems do the poor suffer from?
- How is capitalism portrayed?
- What solutions are offered?
- Reader-Response Criticism—This is a reaction against new antics and formalist approach. These critics believe the text does not exist until it is read by some reader, thus the reader has a part in creating the text. Readers bring meaning to the text (from experiences they have had). This approach studies the rhetorical devices the author uses to get the reader to respond a certain way. They differentiate between:
- Narratee—one of a number of hypothetical readers story is directed at
- Real reader—with book in hand
- Virtual reader—whom author thinks he is writing for
- Ideal reader—of perfect understanding and sympathy
- How does the work affect the reader?
- What strategies/devices have come into play in production of those effects?
*Caution: There are as many meanings as readers. This ignores intelligible discourse.
- Post-Colonialism—These theorists study the writing of those who experience colonial oppression. The colonizers reveal their desire for wealth, domination, and their belief that the colonists deserve to be ruled. Double consciousness and unhomeliness (being abandoned by both cultures) is also explored.
- Describe cultures exhibited in text.
- What does each culture value?
- What is each culture’s world view?
- What does each culture reject?
- What happens in the text when two cultures clash, when one sees itself as superior?
- How does the privileged culture’s hegemony affect colonized culture?
- How is the colonized culture silenced?