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This is going to be a long post, so get ready, gentle reader!

I have never studied literary theory before. But I have always been interested. So I picked up a book that looked like a basic, simple introduction to the dominant schools of literary criticism. This book, geared to those who have no background in theory (like me!) has no primary texts, but instead each chapter (devoted to a particular theory) is divided into introduction, historical development, assumptions, methodology, questions for analysis, a sample student essay that reads a text through that theory, and tips for further reading. This third edition was published in 2003—I think two more newer editions have come out since then.

First, I’m going to describe each of the schools. This is mostly for my own edification, to reinforce what I’ve learned, and also to jog my own memory down the line. If this does not interest you, skip down to where I begin to opine about all this.

NEW CRITICISM

This is “the text and text alone� approach to literary analysis. In other words, the text’s meaning depends solely on the text. All other information (the author’s life, the historical context, the reader’s reaction, etc.) is more or less extraneous—the text contains all the information needed to discern its meaning. A New Critic close reads the text, which means she acknowledges allusions, diction, images, prosody, tone, and other literary devices—as well as all ambiguities, conflicts, and tensions� and ultimately resolves all of the preceding through one interpretation. There can only ever be one “right� interpretation. New Critics describe their methodology as “objective.� They fall under a larger school of criticism, the Formalists.

READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM

This is what it sounds like—the reader’s response is taken into account (unlike in New Criticism). The reader and text work together to form the meaning in a transactional experience. Structuralism (more on that later) is a type of reader-response criticism in that the reader brings certain codes (ways of understanding) to the text, and interprets the text via those codes. Phenomenology also falls under Reader-Response criticism, as this way of thinking emphasizes the perceiver. Objects exist if and only if we register them in our consciousness (concretization). One phenomenologist came up with reception theory that says that readers from any given historical period come up with the criteria by which they judge a text. How a text is evaluated changes from era to era (a particular era’s method of assessment is its horizon of expectation). Subjective Criticism is a third group of reader-response criticism, and it’s all about what the reader feels and identifies with in the text (“That old lady in Huck Finn makes me think of my grandma!�). What all of these sub-groups have in common is that the reader’s existence becomes important in terms of how a text is assessed. Depending on the sub-group, the reader can have a very prominent role in the relationship between reader, text, and meaning, or a very minor role.

STRUCTURALISM

This school is grounded in structural linguistics, or semiology (the study of signs), which was developed by Ferdinand de Saussure. I’m going to skip explaining most of the technical vocabulary , but basically Saussure analyzed language in a new way. For the purposes of literary theory, it’s probably most important to understand these terms: langue (what any little kid has internalized—the structure of the language that is mastered and shared by all its speakers), parole (individual utterances), and words as signs (a sign is made up of a signifier and a signified, where, for example, “tree� is the former and the concept of “tree� is the latter). Saussure says that there is no intrinsic link between the signifier and signified (for instance, calling a tree “tree� and not, say, “booga booga� is completely arbitrary). Meaning, he says, is relational—we know that a tree is a tree because it is not a truck or a bat. He says, “In language there are only differences.�

Structuralists, then, generalize Saussure’s findings to other areas. Signs are found everywhere, in that we read “codes� constantly—a red light means stop, a soccer ball indicates a certain kind of sport, etc. So, the “proper� way to arrive at meaning is to look at the codes behind the practice, not the practice itself. In terms of literature, Structuralists emphasize langue (the system of how texts relate to each other) and not parole (individual texts). Their crucial question is how a text conveys meaning rather what that specific meaning is. For example, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,� Structuralists will be interested in how darkness comes to represent evil, and light goodness (not merely the fact that these representations occur). A Structuralist will ask, why does darkness often represents evil in any text? what sign system is at work that allows readers to often read darkness in this way? Intertexuality (how texts relate to each other) is thus very important.

Important literary structuralists include Claude Levi-Strauss and Roland Barthes (the latter talks about binary operations in a text, such as light/dark and good/evil, where we understand through oppositions).

DECONSTRUCTION

Deconstruction theory, which started to emerge in the 1960s, went directly against structuralism. No codes can be used to get to the interpretation of a text because, when it comes down to it, a text has many meanings, and no one “right� interpretation. Thus, undecideability. Deconstruction, then, is a very postmodern theory—everything is subjective; objectivity is dead. Jacques Derrida is the father of deconstruction theory with Michael Foucault as another important voice. These thinkers say that modernity failed because it wanted an external point of reference (such as God or science) which could be the basis for a philosophy. These postmodern thinkers say that there is no point of reference like this, for no ultimate truth or unifying reality exists.

But, to go back to Derrida. Derrida actually used many of the tenets of structuralism. He agreed with Saussure that signification is arbitrary and conventional. Derrida proposes that there is a transcendental signified (essentially, the external point of reference I discussed above). A transcendental signified can only be understood on its own terms, not in relationship to other signifiers or signifieds. However, Derrida argues that there is no transcendental signified, because everything can always be understood in terms of other things—for instance, “self� can become “id, superego, and ego,� which can then be broken down, etc. etc. The idea that there is a transcendental signified is logocentrism.

So, to be a good Deconstructionist, one must first acknowledge the existence of binary oppositions (whereas two things are put in a hierarchy, and one understood as superior to the other, for example, as in light/darkness.) Crucial to Derrida’s formulation is différance (the “what-if� question—what if there was no transcendental signified? What if binary operations were reversed, so, for example, light was valued over darkness?).

When reading a text through the Deconstructionist lens, then, one first of all allows that a text can be reinterpreted countless times. Then, the reader identifies binary oppositions and reverses them. This is all supposed to dismantle previously held ideas and to ultimately allow the meaning of the text to be undecideable.

PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM

Freud! Lots of Freud! Unconscious; conscious; oral, anal, and phallic stages; Oedipus, Castration, and Electra complexes; id, superego, and ego. All words we’ve heard before. Jung differs in that he does not think that all human behavior is driven by sex, and comes up with the collective unconscious and proposes the importance of archetypes.

What was new for me was the introduction of Jacques Lacan. Apparently, he asserted that the unconscious is structured in the same way that language is. He divided the psyche into three stages: Imaginary (we are infants; we are united with the mother; everything is lovely), Symbolic (the father becomes the center of our concern; we learn language, gender differences; we realize our father can [metaphorically] castrate us; we therefore accept either the lack [girls] or the loss [boys] of the phallus, which, to Lacan, is not the penis but the transcendental signified—the ultimate meaning-giver which we therefore never possess, castrated as we are ] and the Real (the physical, actual world).

In terms of textual analysis, at the center of Lacanian theory is the belief that the psyche is marked by lack and fragmentation. Literary texts, though, can capture our desire to return to the idyllic Imaginary order.

There are many types of psychoanalytic criticism—for example, psychobiography (analyzing the author), character analysis, Freudian (applying the assumption that all human behavior is sexually driven to a text), Jungian (archetypal criticism—in literature, archetypes are characters/patterns/images of common human experience [birth, death, seasons]. The Jungian critic will examine a text to find various archetypes. For example, red will symbolize danger, and water, life ), and Lacanian (a critic attempts to show how the text represents elements of the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real, and then how these representations demonstrate the fragmentary self).

FEMINISM

Honestly, I didn’t learn anything surprising here. It involves identifying antifeminist characterizations in literature, seeking works written by women that the canon has overlooked, and reading the canonized work of male authors from a woman’s point of view.

MARXISM

Major elements of Marxism, as relevant to Marxist literary theory—social and economic conditions directly influence how and what we believe and value. Through daily life and interactions and material exchanges, humans define themselves. Thus, our ideas and concepts come from the real “grit� of living rather than some ephemeral idea of a spiritual reality. Bourgeoisie indoctrinate the working classes with their ideology, which is reflected in literature. He who holds the purse strings controls the literature, essentially. Various schools—in reflection theory, if we analyze a text, we’ll expose the direct relationship between the economic base (the means of production in a society) and the superstructure (all human institutions and ideologies in a society, including its art). So, a text directly reflects a society’s consciousness. The Frankfurt School states that a complex relationship exists between the base and the superstructure (basically, says that reflection theory is one-sided—instead, base and superstructure mutually influence each other).

A Marxist literary critic, then, understands that any text must be interpreted in light of its culture.

CULTURAL POETICS/NEW HISTORICISM

New Criticism put historical context in the background. New Historicism brings historical context to the foreground, and also redefines history. This school declares that all history is subjective—any historian is necessarily biased by milieu, economic conditions, personality, etc. Stephen Greenblatt is a main proponent, arguing that one’s culture permeates both texts and the texts critics. He finds much use in the writings of Foucault, who argued that history was not linear or purposeful or a series of cause and effects. Foucault saw finding historical truth as a process of piecing many different narratives and artifacts together. Essentially, this school gives history a crucial place in the interpretive process.

CULTURAL STUDIES

Postcolonialism (concentrates on writings from colonized or formerly colonized cultures, usually in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and South America, and usually as colonized by the British. Looks at questions of double consciousness [being caught between two cultures]) , African American Criticism (a main proponent being Henry Louis Gates, Gender Studies (an investigation not only of “femaleness� but also “maleness�.

OPINIONS!

(1) Good Lord, was I taught to be a New Critic in high school. I learned to analyze a text (poetry especially) through the magical lens of close reading. This was more or less the only way of reading that I was taught, and boy, did it have an impact on me! I was good at it, for one (close reading let me apply my neurotic sensitivity to a text!). For another, it was very satisfying—I could get to the “heart� of a text by picking, picking, picking at it. I could acknowledge weirdness and ambiguity but still have an overarching interpretation and conclusion. I could focus only on the words on the page, which, in a way, seemed like the ultimate respect to the author—I will grapple only with the world you have given me.

Honestly, until I started my M.F.A., it never really occurred to me that there WERE other ways to read and analyze a text. I began to get very frustrated when I encountered poetry like John Ashbery’s which simply could not be “decoded.� My close reading skills still helped me to have a vocabulary—I could talk about tone, diction, allusions, etc.—but when looking for a grand “meaning,� I had nothing. Then, the closer I looked at my own poetry, I realized that I more often than not had a “system� beneath my poem, something I expected the reader to examine until they got my meaning(s). I realize now, I was expecting my reader to be a New Critic! So, slowly, slowly, over the past two years, I’ve been expanding my ways to read and talk about a text (I can thank Marjorie Perloff for introducing the idea of “indeterminacy� into my vocabulary), as well as how to write a poem. But it was HUGE for me to realize that I was stabbing at every poem given to me (in workshop, in a book) with the tools of the New Critic—and this toolkit does not work for every poem. Not all poems are “meaty� in the way that the ideal New Critical poem is. Some are purely language and sound driven, others don’t want to mean, others mean but don’t want to mean coherently, etc. etc. I am glad that my high school taught me how to close read (this has been an extremely important skill), but in retrospect, I wish we had been introduced to alternative ways of looking at a text, so I didn’t think this was the only way!

(2) Which brings us to Harvard. HOW DID I GET THROUGH FOUR YEARS AT HARVARD AND NEVER HAVE TO READ A SINGLE PIECE OF LITERARY THEORY. Granted, I avoided classes that were theory based. But shouldn’t this have been forced upon me, at some point? I was, after all, an English major. How about in that sophomore seminar we all had to take? I recall comparing Joyce Carol Oates� We Were the Mulvaneys to old Viking sagas. An endearingly eccentric syllabus, perhaps, but oh, wouldn’t some Derrida have been more useful?

Actually, no. I did take one theory class at Harvard. The Theory of Metaphor, a graduate class which I sat in on and understood very little. This didn’t look at different ways of reading, though. It was lots of philosophical and linguistic takes on the metaphor.

But to continue my ranting. Outside of my freshman class on expository writing, I received no instruction on “how to write a paper.� The expos class was cool, but it basically reiterated the principles of close reading. In my actual English classes, the professor and TFs never told us how they thought one should write an essay. Now I wonder—where any of my peers writing Marxist or Structuralist or Deconstructionist analyses of texts? I close read over and over, and got no complaints. But man, did I just do my own thing. No one ever questioned how I argued.

All this to say—Harvard, your English department probably should have mandated theory. I graduated thinking there was only one right way to read and to analyze a literary text. Nobody every challenged this assumption. It is definitely true that I never sought out a professor for a conversation, but I did have to meet with TFs to talk about papers! And I’m sure they were too busy to question the fundaments of my belief system about critical writing, and I get that. But. This is why we should have had to take theory. I know that Harvard now has more stringent requirements for its English program. I hope theory is one of them.

(3) So, which theories did I like the best? I still think New Criticism has a lot to offer. Reader-Response Criticism seems like it could, at its reader-heavy spectrum, get pretty self-indulgent and silly. I thought Structuralism was fascinating. What a cool idea, to apply linguistics to literature! Deconstruction blew my mind, as I imagine it blows many people’s mind. This seemed like the most complicated theory as presented in the book I read. I’d be curious to read more. Psychoanalytic Criticism also seems like it could get pretty silly, and I have to say, I still don’t really get what Lacan was up to. Feminism was fairly straightforward, and a very necessary school, although not one that particularly excites me. I got a kick out of Marxism. I like the idea that economics and literature are so interconnected. I liked Cultural Poetics/New Historicism for connecting history and literature. Cultural Studies interested me with its talk of double consciousness—it made me think about all of the cultures we each belong to, and how sometimes those cultures can conflict. Now, if I were a literary critic (get ready for a tasty metaphor), my main meal would be New Criticism. I’d have a couple of sides of Structuralism, Marxism, and New Historicism. Dessert would be Deconstruction. Maybe my appetizer would be Cultural Studies. Hee!