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/lit/ - Literature

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11170298 No.11170298 [Reply] [Original]

What theory of literary criticism do you subscribe to?

>> No.11170307

Here's a brief overview for the uninitiated:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/literary/

>> No.11170570

>>11170298
What's the point of literary criticism anyway? If the author failed to adequately convey his intentions than surely it is a failure of the author and not the reader. A good work should not require a critical reading from its intended audience. Obviously, an ancient work such as the bible whose initial intended audience is long dead requires a lot of study but I don't really see why say Harry Potter or the Chronicles of Narnia. Other exceptions include advent-garde works or mythopeic works such as Lord of the Rings which intend to create n artificial cultural background. But for the most part it seems silly to me.

>> No.11170733

>>11170570
What criteria are you using to separate narnia from lotr, is it just because narnia is shorter?

>> No.11170883

>>11170733
Narnia is a fairly straightforward and direct allegory for Christianity. While Tolkein's work definitely had some strong Christian influences it is not at all a one to one allegory but instead a whole new mythopoeia.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien%27s_legendarium

>> No.11170899

>>11170570
>A good work should not require a critical reading from its intended audience
thats a criterion, ie, a theory of literary criticism. idiot.

>> No.11170947

>>11170899
You are equivocating:

P1. All things in the set of "theories of literary criticism" are bad.

with

P2. The set of "theories of literary criticism" is bad.

or

P3. The set of "popular theories of literary criticism" is bad.

When I speak of "literary criticism" it should be obvious that I mean the current popular state of the field and not alternatives I am proposing or theories that are not very popular and also that I am most probably referring to the specific fields in OPs image.

Moreover, I can truthfully say "the set of theories of literary criticism" is bad even if some theories that fall under it are good as long as most of the theories in the set are bad.

My language was possibly ambiguous but not incorrect.

>> No.11171068

Traditional criticism.
Am literati, just want to do traditional lit crit. Took three years of english, still don't agree with postmodern schools of criticism.

>> No.11171175

I guess moral/dramatic; when i have written critical essays i tend to fish out allusions to whatever culture's esoteric/mythic tradition (maybe a bit of a jungian as well. A lot of works too are written with one of these schools in mind already so i just pick what is appropriate.

>> No.11171209

>>11170298
Genetic criticism
Structuralism
Russian Formalism
Queer criticism

>> No.11171224

>>11170298
all of them

>> No.11171243

The Jewish Question regarding author, society and literary content and how redpill or bluepill a work is in relation to today and how it can help fellow right-wingers

>> No.11171255

>>11170298
Said's and Auerbach's.

>> No.11171752

>tfw only read for pleasure and don't give a fuck about anything else

>> No.11171791

>>11171752
Then reader response criticism is perfect for you.

>> No.11171798

>>11171243
consider taking a break from the internet, it will do you good.

>> No.11171809

It is not about preferences, faggot.

Critical methods should be chose in order to achive ur aim. It would be sensless to use ie queer theory to analise structural problem of text.

>> No.11171816

Despite being receptive to and sympathetic of most of those listed, I resonate most with post-structural and especially queer theory. Wouldn't mind answering any questions about either. Feel free.

>> No.11171821

>>11170570
>there is such a thing as a universal "reader"
sure is summer in here

>> No.11171829
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11171829

>>11170570
>I haven't bothered studying it nor do I know anything about, but let me give you my opinion, because, like, dude, it seems silly to me.

>> No.11171845

>>11170570
what is the 5th type of literary criticism on the OP image for $200

>> No.11171853
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11171853

>>11171791
Nah, I didn't enjoy reading that stuff. Too dry. Only literary theory I enjoyed reading was Johnson's preface to Shakespeare and pic related.

>> No.11171857

>>11170570
>If I don't get it, the writer must be bad.

>> No.11171862

>>11171853
Read Hazlitt on Shakespeare.

>> No.11171865

>>11171816
Could you give me just a brief, simple outline of queer theory, what it is about and how it is applied? If that is a too broad question, I'd gladly read an essay on it by a scholar or something.

>> No.11171874

>>11171809
important post

>> No.11171875

>>11170298
moral/psychoanalytic/marxist, occasionally deconstruction.
reader-response for poetry usually, but that's because most people can't write anything where classic symbolism or form play a part.
fantastic time quads btw

>> No.11171882

>>11171175
you're looking more cultural studies than moral/dramatic. moral crit is more victorian than what you're thinking of.

>> No.11171894

>>11171875
>psychoanalytic/marxist
pottery

>> No.11171899

>>11171865
not him, but queer theory is basically that nobody knows what the essential nature of sexuality or gender are (or if there are any). since there's no agreed upon definition, a lot of texts can be read as queer (male/male friendships in the victorian era were very close, and modern audiences might interpret them as queers if they did that now), or which are explicitly queer (accounts of upper class boarding school molestation and fagging from the same era) and would be recognised as that by most (but not all) audiences, and then there are ones where it's ambiguous (catullus saying that he would mouthfuck other poets would not be seen as queer, but manly and powerful, for him by romans, but would be seen as oral outrage by the victorians, and pretty fucking gay to most audiences now). queer theory focuses on those, and also what happens if you find/replace he and she throughout the text, and other things like that.
some people who try to adopt the name do believe in gender essentialism and sexual essentialism, but that's a pretty recent confusion and usually you can tell they're lying about being aware of what the theory uses as its main tenets within a few buzzwords.

>> No.11171903

>>11171894
>he probably thinks that means i'm into wihelm reich
there's already a cheat sheet of definitions linked in the thread if you don't know what the words mean

>> No.11171907

>>11171862
I did. I didn't like his tragedy > comedy ideas.

>> No.11171994

>>11170298
I mostly lean towards a collaborative methodology of post-structuralism, marxism and psychoanalysis. What really gets me going is examining representations of dissipative mechanisms that are more and more prevalent in society (deterritorialisation of capital, disintegration of the subject, the liberation of desire, etc.), while at the same time, showing how these apparent "freedoms" are in fact reinforcing an even more rigid hegemony by encouraging us to rebel, but only within the well-defined parameters and limits imposed by late capitalism.

>> No.11172014

>>11170298
Whether you like it or not, we are all up to date with deconstructionism. I enjoy new historicism though

>> No.11172133

Where does the Recepction theory falls into?

>> No.11172139

formalism is the only answer

>> No.11172221

>>11170298
My dick up your ass criticism.

>> No.11172229

>>11170298
Cultural studies with a bit of reader-response, usually, but I don't stress the labels. I like good close reading and authorial intent when known.

>> No.11172233

>>11170570
A good author's intentions are not so straightforward or simple. You can enjoy works on multiple levels, but getting references, context, finding hidden depth, etc., is fantastic. The best works for me always reward rereading and study, but that doesn't mean I didn't love them before I understood so much. As Eliot said, great art can be apprehended before it is understood.

>> No.11172265

>>11170298
None. They're just tools to look at literature in different types of ways. You should be using many types of it in your readings.

>> No.11172285

I have a subscription to the LARB.

>> No.11172298

>>11170947
>When I speak of "literary criticism" it should be obvious that I mean the current popular state of the field and not alternatives I am proposing or theories that are not very popular and also that I am most probably referring to the specific fields in OPs image.
If you confer a quality to a set, all the elements of that set presses that quality, otherwise they are not part of that set.
YOU are the one equivocating, you LITERAL *******pseud******* faggot fuck, kill yourself with your fake 'logickish' chicanery.

>> No.11172410

>>11172298
P(a) ≠ ∀x∈a. P(x)

It's that simple.

>> No.11172420

>>11170298
Formalism

>> No.11172431

>>11172410
Rendering an inconsistent statement into formal notation doesn't resolve the inconsistency.

>> No.11172536

Kind of related but does anyone have any good points to argue against Foucault and Barthes' ideas of the author? Examples of texts which go against their theories would also be useful

>> No.11172588

>>11172536
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20156370?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

>> No.11172590

>>11172536
There this author which dedicated a lot of his books to arguing against Barthes's death of the author. I can't remember his name though.

>> No.11172716

Reader-reaponse

>> No.11172833

>>11172536
Which points of Foucalt and Barthes do you want to argue against? Death of the author is kind of irrefutable imo, not because it holds objectively true, but rather because it accommodates the potential for its own refutation within its theoretical framework. You can't read the work through the life of the author himself, because intentionality will always be something that is endlessly deferred or denied satisfaction. However, you can read the work as a product of its times, and the author's life is naturally an extension of that. It's why its unreasonable to call Freud a disgusting, incestuous pervert: even if he did unintentionally project his own neuroses into his theories and taint their objectivity, we don't have to read the text as revealing some intimate truth about Freud himself; rather, we can say that the tension in his works illuminated the mechanisms of repression that were typical of his times. If you want to know more, I'd recommend a brilliantly titled essay called "Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, or, You're so Paranoid, You Probably Think this Essay is About You" By Eve Kosovsky Sedgewick.

>> No.11173189

"Literary criticism" is possibly the gayest thing ever invented, leaving actual homosexual sex in a very distant second place.

>> No.11173207

>>11172431
>If you confer a quality to a set, all the elements of that set presses that quality, otherwise they are not part of that set.

Mathematically that would be something along the lines of: P(a) → ∀x∈a. P(x)

But that is completely wrong and in many systems doesn't even type check.

>> No.11173212

>>11173189
Where does that place Queer theory on the gay scale then

>> No.11173312

>>11173207
So, let's go back to your original statement:
>"the set of theories of literary criticism" is bad even if some theories that fall under it are good as long as most of the theories in the set are bad.
Introducing 'sets' here is part of your equivocation. It allows you to start making slippery statements about categorical logic rendered in the language of set theory. Sticking with basic categorical logic, the contradicting is clear:
All theories of literary criticism are bad.
Not all theories of literary criticism are bad.
These two statements cannot hold simultaneously. You snake fuck.

>> No.11173326

>>11173212
bit before postmodernism

>> No.11173760

>>11172833
Interesting. Not the same anon but thanks.

>> No.11174581

>>11171857
>if I don't get it, it must be profound and deep

>>11173312
>All theories of literary criticism are bad.
Well its good I never said that then. Language is ambiguous and sometimes people omit qualifiers when talking in a forum as opposed to writing a formal essay. Nitpicking such details is silly.

>> No.11174608

>>11170298
Criticism is jewish. None of those.

>> No.11174667

>>11170947
Anglo philosophy was a mistake.

>> No.11174726

>>11171899
>mouthfucking
>oral outrage
kek

>> No.11175159

>>11172536
>>11172833
Best one you'll get is from feminism/queer theory. Basically, the argument is that it is suspicious that just when females, poc, and etc are getting a voice in art that now the author is dead and all that matters is the text.

>> No.11175207

>>11175159
Crazy paranoid conspiracy theories aren't an argument.

>> No.11175222

>>11175159
you don't know what queer theory is, and the people you're citing dumb arguments from haven't understood what "nothing outside the text" means.
queer theory operates under the idea that the author doesn't own gender or even the text itself, and that by queering up the text and swapping all the pronouns around, they are in fact critiquing it.

that aside, death of the author just means word of god is as good as word of superfan#13 and has no overriding power.
it means that if mccarthy tells you that at the end of BM what they found in the bathroom is the boy had been turned into the michelin man and given glitter herpes, you can say, no, i don't think that's what those words meant because i think it's about that time my uncle touched me and are you having a stroke?
it doesn't make either one of you right. public opinion might be divided on the matter.

a good argument against it would be from intellectual property. feminists would support it too because they probably want to control which sites their nudes go up on as an extension of that principle. but there's still plenty of instances where public sentiment has overruled the author's opinion of the text, or editing has changed the author's intentions right out of the presses, so i wouldn't hold much hope for it becoming a reality that the author has final say on interpretation as, outside of principle, it'll never work.

>> No.11175232

>>11174581
Look at you writhe and slither, you disgusting reptile.

>> No.11175264

All of that is useless for a writer.

I only care about stuff that will help me write. Usually, I only read criticism written by poets I love. But I do read a lot of it.

>> No.11175273

>>11175264
depends what you're writing. sometimes hitting on a pool of those critics can sell six more books than your sample.

>> No.11175296

>>11170298
I believe a school of thoughts relevance is a case by case sort of thing. You can technically construe anything as adhering to a particular school in some way. I feel it's best to appreciate the openness of interpretation, though not to the point that you're just stroking your own ego.

>> No.11175304

>>11175296

On another note, despite what I appreciate about its use of close reading and analysis, I'll never get past how inundated New Criticism is with male-eurocentrism.