Hey everyone, I've been thinking of starting this thread as an elongated project over the discussion of published works for quite a while now. Naturally, as writers, we look at literature in different ways, interpreting scenes and structures differently between each other as readers. This establishes our interest and fondness for a piece of literature, or even our consideration for the story as a worthy work. I started yet another course in literary theory and it's reminded me how much I actually enjoy the subject because of how much it adds to the experience of reading established literature, and sometimes even new pieces. If this grows enough, though rather unlikely, I would like it to be a forum section of its own, since it is very important to how readers will read works and thereby can influence the strength of your own writing as well as the prospective salability of the work you produce. Critical literary theory tackles the substance of the work and I'd like to discuss your thoughts on the theories themselves, the theorists, the published works within the theories, or the applications. You could even comment on the historical application of theorists such as Horace (my personal favorite of the originals), Plato, or maybe even Sidney. Mainly though, I'd like to focus on the more modern theories, such as Gender theories, Reader Response, New Criticism, Post-Colonialism, Psychoanalytical, or various Ethnic Theories. These include theorists such as Freud, Lacan, Woolf, Fetterley, Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, and so so so many others. Feel free to apply them various works you've read and then we can discuss your application. Essay length posts are welcome. You could even discuss the application of these theories to your own writing, but please don't post direct stories in here for critique. There's a lot of theory and it's all particularly complex and difficult. I know quite a bit on the subject, but I am constantly learning. The best way to fully grasp these theories is to work together on them. I'll post something substantial on probably Marxism later this week to start, but feel free to discuss whatever theories you're interested in. Rhetorical theories like Reader Response tend to be the most popular for new delvers into theories, but I tend to prefer a more Psychoanalytical approach. Anyways, though it's a difficult set of subjects, I hope there's a few interested here.
For an introductory post into the world of theory, I chose to go with a rather difficult, but interesting, psychoanalytical theorist: Jacques Lacan. Lacan is the author of many psychoanalytical works that developed outside of the traditional Freudian approach. I will be utilizing Lois Tyson's critical theory today as a guide for references on Lacan, and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby to show my interpretative example of how to apply the theory to an established work. I'm learning it still, and I certainly haven't perused through all of Lacan's work, but I'm trying out formulating a grasp on the subject. The best place to start with Lacan is infancy. At this point in life, he asserts, the child has no real perception of their own person or body. The child is also unable to cognitively perceive its environment, identifying the environment and its self as a formless mass. By six to eighteen months, however, the child enters the Mirror Stage, which Lacan has a lot to talk about on. Basically, this is where "the infant now develops during this stage a sense of itself as whole rather than a formless and fragmented mass" (Tyson 26). Self identity and desires are established. This is the "me me me" phase of a child's life, and sometimes an adult's, but we'll get to that application later. Everything is of self interest and easily directed by images, but not yet language. This is what Lacan refers to as the Imaginary Order. Images guide the child's direction in self-centered desires, influencing how they react to visual stimuli and appearances. When the child begins to grasp language though, it enters the Symbolic Order. The Symbolic Order is subject to cultural and immediate societal stimuli in its growth. In this order, a person gains their sense of cultural morals and laws. This order dictates their values as they come to understand the symbolic values through language and focus less on simply visual. This is also where the child begins to formulate empathetic understandings of other's needs, outside their own. The transition for them Imaginary order to the Symbolic isn't absolute though. The Imaginary Order often bleeds through from the unconscious into the light. This is much like Feud's Ego bursting forth. It remains in the subject's unconscious throughout their lives, but is generally subdued by the cultural growth of the Symbolic. However, this is not always the case, which I will try to argue with Gatsby. There are plenty of other items to apply with Lacan, especially his insanely complicated concept of the real, which I'm still working on deciphering, but I just wanted to start with this basic run-through of concepts for him. I will address another in the next few paragraphs with Gatsby, including his position that unconscious thoughts are driven by loss or lack of something from the character. The Lacanian unconscious loss or lack is pervasive in The Great Gatsby because these unconscious desires are the driving forces behind Mr. Gatsby’s whole existence. To Gatsby, the unreasonable need to attain the affection of Daisy is a symptom of the Imaginary Order bleeding through his unconscious and controlling his actions of self-interested gain. From the moment Gatsby exclaims that “(Daisy’s) voice is full of money” (Fitzgerald 94), the reader understands that Gatsby’s desires don’t involve romantic love with Daisy, they revolve around the much older problem of being born outside a society with no access. Daisy is a product of old money, which Mr. Gatsby had pretended to be a part of to make her fall in love originally. His new wealth he attainted through illegal means, outside of the established cultural laws of the symbolic order, won’t grant him access to the society of the old money that she is a part of. He was born to the lower caste and thereby will never have access to fulfill the lack of status he wishes to rectify to that extent. The society that Daisy represents is, in a Lacanian sense, Mr. Gatsby’s objet petit a, which Tyson describes for Lacan as being “anything that puts me in touch with my repressed desire for my lost object” (Tyson 28). Though it can be argued that Daisy is the lost object of desire, the society she represents was actually more of a loss to Gatsby than anything else. He desires unconsciously to be born of a higher caste, and though he can attain vast sums of wealth, he can never be born again into old money. When his false means of acquiring wealth are revealed by Tom, Daisy backs away from Gatsby. Even though she has viewed his home and seen all his enormous wealth that makes him equal financially to her family’s economic status, he can never enter her society. He wasn’t born with it and never will be. Tyson describes Gatsby’s objet petit a well in quote about Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, but the quote fits almost better for Gatsby’s situation. Tyson states that The Great Gatsby is “structured by the protagonist’s unconscious search for objet petit a, a search that is necessarily unsuccessful, for objet petit a is always a lost object that can never be found” (Tyson 33). Gatsby’s lost object was something that he tried to attain against the Symbolic Order of his life illicitly multiple times, but always fell short. He had no true means of attaining it because it was forever out of his reach. No matter if he became the paragon of wealth and desire for Daisy, her birth status of belonging to old money was something Mr. Gatsby would be chasing his entire life, getting as close as humanly possible yet never touching. Mr. Gatsby is therefore controlled more pressingly by his drive under the Imaginary Order. He goes beyond interests of the Symbolic Order around him that is supposed to have shaped his life and suppress the unconscious Imaginary Order. He never gets over his low-birth, and just before his death when Daisy leaves him behind, he stands outside of his vast wealth afraid to enter. He watches it from an outside view, waiting for the old money of Daisy who was within it to stay, but she doesn’t. His objet petit a remains just outside of his reach. Anyways, that's a start to my discussion of Lacan. Feel free to comment or criticize. I'm trying to understand better, so if you get a concept of his better, or want to study more and try to utilize another novel to apply his theories to, cool. Otherwise, I'll move on the Marx in a few days on the same text. My works cited will likely be the same for a long while, but I'll put them here for reference in at least one post. This is sort of like me talking through the theories. The best way to figure them out, I've found. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott, et al. The Great Gatsby. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009. Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. Routledge, 2015.
I've never looked into Lacan but always wanted to. From what you've written here it sounds like his theories agree with what I know about Jung and the unconscious, but he goes into much higher resolution in certain ways. It's true. Reading helps but writing about it or trying to express it to others helps a lot more. Nobody learns more than the teacher, assuming the teacher takes the role seriously enough. Looking forward to more of this.
I don't have a lot to add, because this is a bit too far outside of my education, but this is a great idea. I think discussions of literature in general add meat to the forum. Hopefully some more people will chip in and 'flex' their own degrees or informal knowledge on the topics. I'm interested to see more.
My second post will be getting into Marxist literary theory, which isn't terribly far off from its economic, political and social theories that many of us are very familiar with. The theory places economics as the root and base of the social superstructure, developing its understanding of how classes develop and control starting from their economic situations and development. Classes are heavily tied to what Marxists call 'socioeconomic class,' placing each groups social circle based on their economic position. For these theorists, all material and historical human interactions and events occur within or between these social groupings based on socioeconomic position. Marx himself only separates this between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but Tyson splits these classes even further into a five layer system in America: "underclass, lower class, middle class, upper class, and 'aristocracy'" (Tyson 53). Aristocracy may come as a surprise, given the country is very democratically driven, but the absolute 'haves' are a dynasty in themselves, akin to royalty in most nations. The other main point I would like to talk about is the role of ideology in Marxism. Tyson states "For Marxism, an ideology is a belief system, and all belief systems are products of cultural conditioning" (Tyson 54). I want to unpack that statement a little before getting to the meat of it. First, the word product is very decisive chosen within the description of Marxist theory. Commodification is a large scale concept in the theory, assigning specific value to different places, items, even people according to what they represent for the person in control of them. For instance, a person may acquire a broken down sports car for its exchange value, intending to sell the car after repair to give them an actual monetary value. The person who buys the renovated sports car knows that it likely won't gain any exchange value, but instead he uses it for its sign exchange value. Sign-exchange value represents the notice and interest the buyer's nice car would bring them from outside parties, likely someone they are trying to impress. In short, everything is assigned socioeconomic value in Marxism. To continue with the quote, ideology is thereby considered a system that is imprinted on an individual by their culture surrounding them, not on inherent truth. To exemplify this, we can look at the American dream. This is the belief system that if one works hard enough, all classes can be achieved by everyone. Social mobility is ever present for the determined under this ideology, and Marxists believe this ideology is able to control its followers by pushing their capitalistic drive to constantly improve their position. Marxists claim to see through this and understand that this social mobility is a construct to keep the lesser classes constantly working and producing for the benefit of the higher. In viewing Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby under these ideas from Marxists, the reader can understand that the story proves the falsehood of the American Dream by the exemplified failure of Mr. Jay Gatsby. Without further ado, here's my interpretation of the novel under the application of Marxist theory. From a Marxist point of view, The Great Gatsby functions to exemplify the failings of the American dream. As Tyson explains, the American dream “opens the possibility that anyone can win…that we are all ‘as good as’ the wealthiest among us” (Tyson 56). Fitzgerald’s novel conversely shows us that the very opposite is true. Through classism, Mr. Gatsby can never achieve the status of wealthy because he was never born into it. The Great Gatsby is thereby a warning against putting faith in the capitalist system to rise from rags to riches by identifying the inherent classism that leads to the impossibility of the American dream. Though Daisy is often referred to as a pure and consuming love interest to Mr. Gatsby, under Marxism she is instead representative of the American aristocracy. Mr. Gatsby has an insatiable desire for her sign-exchange value. His primary interest in her is to achieve the impossible goal of belonging to the highest social circle of ‘old money’ by acquiring the sign-exchange object of Daisy and thereby attaining the status position through the marriage. Gatsby’s large fortune, of which he acquired through illegal means, places him at the near pinnacle of high-class ‘bourgeoisie,’ but his low birth won’t allow for him to cross that barrier. The American dream would have the lower born castes believe that they can achieve that of the most prevalent people in American aristocratic culture by simply by working hard enough. Tyson tells the reader “Marxist analysis reveals that the American dream is an ideology, a belief system, not an innate or natural way of seeing the world” (Tyson 55). By chasing Daisy, Mr. Gatsby alerts the reader that his life is moving forward in chasing the American dream. He built his wealth from escaping the poor Mid-Western family he was born into and learning all the necessary items to advance his position in extreme rapidity. He achieved the American dream, but in a corrupted manner. This would signal that illegal means were the only method to move so fast. But when he finally attains Daisy with an affair, he loses her almost instantly. The corruption of Gatsby to acquire the American dream by moving from the bottom end of the proletariat to the almost aristocratic end of the bourgeoisie better illustrates his extreme drive to acquire something classism would never allow, thereby revealing the fatal flaw in his design. He puts all his genius and means into building value in order to disguise his low birth in order to impress Daisy, but Tom’s inquiry reveals the mask Mr. Gatsby’s money plays. Daisy backs away from him, just after defending him, signaling her understanding that Mr. Gatsby was never of the right birth to enter into her world. Mr. Gatsby desperately tries to get her back, but it is hopeless. Regarding Gatsby’s desire for status, Tyson writes “possession of Daisy would give Gatsby what he really wants: a permanent sign that he belongs to her socioeconomic class” (Tyson 71). Daisy, however, never will allow it. Tom may be an obscenely awful husband, but he controls a more vast wealth than anyone in the novel and he is of the right caste. No matter how much love Gatsby has for her, though it may be more for her inherent sign-exchange value, he can never truly attain Daisy without stealing her away with lies and deceit. Therefore, the American dream of capitalistic ventures is naturally blocked by classist walls built by those of old breed. Gatsby stands outside of his vast wealth at the end and waits for Daisy, but she never comes back to him. No matter how much he controls or gains, he will always remain a member of the proletariat. His death under the destructive ends of the bourgeoisie Buchanan’s games is necessary to drive the point home that all of Gatsby’s grand efforts were fruitless. Classism is at America’s core within its top elites, and the American dream is a manufacturer hope of which not even the most driven of the lower castes can ever attain. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott, et al. The Great Gatsby. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009. Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. Routledge, 2015. As always, feel free to comment, contend, or even outright reject what I have written. If I'm wrong in interpretation, then I'm wrong. But I'm willing to learn. Otherwise, I'll probably do a Feminist next. Likely a French one because I really enjoy Beauvoir and Kristeva, but we shall see. Happy studying!
Good idea for a thread! If you don't mind, I don't mind adding some things here. Classical literary criticism is an interesting thing to think about because so much of what you would read in a collection of critical theory, or an introductory course on Criticism Theory, doesn't, I feel, quite cover it. A lot of the writers who commented on literature (or 'poetry' as they might have generally preferred) have some serious caveats to them that means their literal words cannot really be taken at face value. Plato, for the first and maybe original example of a literary critic, is in reality more of a complex thinker than just a basic reading of his works would suggest. Does he always mean what he says? I don't honestly think so, if he does then why is his protagonist Socrates and not himself? In reality I think Plato has been misunderstood by a lot of people, even his biggest fans, and this really does affect everything we associate with him. Just like how his story of Atlantis is written, and very clearly fictional just to make a point, while Plato's Socrates might have argued for poets to be banished from the ideal Republic, I just do not think Plato himself would have agreed with that. His work needs to be seen as a development of arguments, and should really be read chronologically rather than thematically - which is what we tend to do. When this is done, Plato's actual opinions become a lot more nebulous and hard to define. And I think there is a reason for that. I think Plato's aim was not prescriptive at all, it was to encourage argument and thought. He was trying to make people think, and honestly too much of his writing is taken at face value in my opinion. With this lens, when you go back to the bits of The Republic that deal with literature (poetry) you really have to wonder what the role of any art should be. Because even the words Plato used are, when looked at more cynically, a bit vague. I mean, he talks primarily about lyric poetry and drama, but what is the dialogues themselves if not mini plays? The same cannot really be said for Aristotle, whose work 'Poetics' is a lot more prescriptive. Leaving aside the question of if the manuscripts we have of Aristotle are Aristotle's actual words, and not lecture notes made by students, and let us suppose they really are Aristotle, he sees a function to literature that is holistic. The arts are important because they make you feel emotions. While I cannot share his opinion that Oedipus Tyrannus is the best play of Ancient Greece, I think the whole Oresteia claims that, I find Aristotle's thinking flawed in that he does not treat drama as metatextual. Drama is all about the experience, it is not to be 'read' for messages. Not that I think Aristotle can be blamed for this, Poetics is certainly an amazing essay, especially as a start of formal literary criticism, but there is good reason to not take him as gospel like later thinkers and writers did. Another strong, although now obscured influence, was the work done at the Library of Alexandria. We only really know about the sort of criticism from there thanks to the people it influenced. Theocritus and Callimachus are not well known names today, but both were connected to the library in some way, and their poetry is very refined, has a lot of references to other things and subjects, and is very self-consciously learned. Which is in quite stark contrast to the more earthy and grounded Homer. Not only did poetics have to be intelligent to this group, it needed to be elite, skillful and refined. Honestly, I don't think the grammarians and the Librarian at the Library of Alexandria get enough credit. Instead of a Homeric hymn being just a song in praise of Aphrodite, something from this world would be written while also being about the dangers of love, or a clever exploration of the different kinds of love in the classical world - to give an example of what I mean. Obviously, with this being the famous library, this is the end of the Greek era, and both Theocritus and Callimachus had profound influence on Roman writers (Rome was just rising as a force at this time) like Catullus, Virgil, and Horace. Literary criticism up to, let's say, Sidney is not about different perspectives - but about developing our understanding of the potential of literature of all kinds. It's not until the Romantic era that we see the first dawning of what we'd today call Literary Theory.
I havent read gatsby since college... And didnt enjoy it enough to retain it accurately enough to comment on your analysis But i do still have Tyson's book! There are 2 books ive read that ive been trying to "analyze" on my own time for a deeper meaning to them, so ill contribute eventually
It's honestly a book. I have a collection of theory works that I have on hand while reading Tyson and it helps a lot. Can't wait to hear your response eventually! @Lemex very interesting post. I have a lot to say on those as well, but I'm at work currently. I'll get to the history a little later. Your Plato view is one I haven't heard before.
I'm not sure how you'd use Gatsby to talk about Post Colonial theory. It's going to be difficult to write about. In Post Colonial Theory you have three types of response to post-colonialism as a process. I forget the exact terminology Post Colonial studies use, I will need to look them up, but essentially there are: 1) writings from the heart of the empire as an immigrant. That's like Sam Selvon's Lonely Londoners, a fantastic novel about the effects of black British citizens going to London to make a living and experiencing racism. 2) writings from the colony as a direct response to imperialism: You have something like Chinua Achebe's Africa trilogy which is about the process and then dismantlement of the imperial system in a colony. So, it starts with Things Fall Apart which is about life in Nigeria before the British imperial interests there. The second book deals with the later days of British rule. The third book deals with Nigeria as an independent nation, newly free from Imperialist rule. This also relates to... 3) writings about the lingering effects of imperialism: you'll find a lot of Indian, Middle Eastern and Caribbean writing relates to this, generally speaking. It's often touching on lingering difficulties of decolonialization and economic independence from the Center. All three of these respond to the Center in some way. The Center being the heart of imperialist power, like London would be the 'Center' of the British empire. Chinua Achebe is a fantastic writer. Yeah, it's not exactly the most commonly heard point of view on Plato, but I've read a few academic papers that basically argue it. The Socratic method was a way of exposing lazy thinking if nothing else. And since Plato was a student of Socrates, it's unlikely he would have wanted anything to be easy.
@Lemex some very good points. Yes, people have definitely worshiped at the altar of Plato and Aristotle and many others, but it's not something I've ever done. Though I may praise a certain writer (and I've certainly pushed Aristotle's Poetics on these forums, or some version of it) I don't see any thinker or writer as a be-all and end-all, but as another voice to add to the ongoing dialogue (or multilogue). They all have their faults and oversights, and even if we miss those at first we'll eventually be able to see them better if we remain open to the fact that everyone has faults. And as i see it literary theory, well, pretty much all theory, began very concretely and we developed a growing understanding of abstraction and meta-awareness. Up to a certain point this is helpful and necessary in order to understand the way we think, including how we think about the way we think, but if taken too far it tends toward endless regression and navel gazing. I also think it was important to reach that point as well, because it showed us that there's a limit to how far you want to go with meta-ness. Too much and it begins to devour itself and everything your'e trying to understand. I think we each need to make the decision for ourselves what we consider too meta—where to draw that line. But personally I see some utility in examining writings that go way over the line, as an exercise in learning to recognize the too-muchness when you see it, and to help yourself decide where to draw that line.
Also important to understand that the theories derived from political ideologies have the same limitations and blind spots as the ideologies themselves. They are products of a particular time, reactions against certain things, and often over-reactions (deliberately or not) created by extremists. Of course they all have some validity, and as contributions to the ongoing multilogue of history they all contribute some good points. But just as they pointed out weaknesses in the kinds of theory that came before, they all contribute their own weaknesses and need to be re-evaluated by later theory or by individual thinkers/readers who can see through some of the rhetoric.
I agree, yeah. I think after Sidney, especially when we move into the 1800s, and especially the Modernist era when this stuff really started to crystallise into Realism, Modernism, Structuralism, and whatever else you can name, Theory becomes more a way of broadening perspective rather than some kind of objective lens. This post is already becoming a bit post-modernist, but when you look at someone like Greenblatt's work on historicising Shakespeare, or Zizek's Lacanian Marxist critiques of capitalist culture, it really begins to widen your way of seeing the potential and power of literature. There are people who worry about 'expanding the western canon' but I think those fears are misguided. In reality, even in traditional aestheticist criticisms of literature like Harold Bloom's, there's more than just one western canon, never mind just a western canon.
As an addition to my first post in this thread, one thing I want to add is that the Library of Alexandria, and the Librarians (the manager of the whole organization, we don't know much about what he did exactly and we shouldn't assume our modern 'librarians' have much relation even though it probably did) were the first to divide literature formally into genres. I suppose the Athenians did before this, with splitting Comedy and Tragedy into different categories (thanks Aristotle) and having different festivals for them, and I guess seeing a difference between Epic and Lyric. But the Library solidified this by, refining those distinctions into History, Philosophy, Science, Medicine, Epic, Lyric, Drama, and then splitting those further down into sub categories. For such a vast collection of books as the library was, this would seem to be good common sense but at the time it wasn't. This was an innovation. In history we have to leave aside a lot of assumptions about this sort of thing. The point I'm trying to make is that our relationship with literature as a concept isn't something objective but is always evolving. so even things like Marxist criticism or Eco-Criticism should be placed into a historical context too. A lot of modern Literary Theory was solidified into what we know it as now in the 60s, with the rise of Postmodernist thought. I've been thinking about, and rereading some of the basic texts of Postcolonialist theory too, and what I said was basically right but not very accurate. Comes with writing off the cuff about such things! Especially the third point which is verging on being just wrong. In the book Beginning Theory by Peter Barry, a popular introduction to Literary Theory used here in the UK, and very painless in describing all the major theories and ideas, Postcolonial critical approaches are summed up as: 1) They reject universalist claims about western literature and the western canon. Basically the idea that the 'western canon' is the best books - especially given it's limited cultural outlooks (it's from western Europe and north America for the most part). 2) They examine the representation of other cultures in literature as a way of achieving this So for example the way Africans are portrayed in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and seeing if this enlarges the reader's cultural awareness of Africans or just basically confirms their already-existing beliefs. Conrad's book was actually condemned in a famous article by Chinua Achebe (is it obvious I like his work?) as a 'bloody racist'. 3) they show how literature is often evasive and silent on colonial issues. I'm going to detail a good example of this with Jane Austin, but there's also for example Shakespeare's The Tempest which has an influence of the early colonization, but it the island in the play is governed by a prince from Europe - which is a bit troubling when you think about it. 4) They bring to the forefront questions of cultural differences and diversity in a text. 5) They celebrate 'hybridity', when a group of characters show they belong to more than one culture. 7) They look for 'otherness' as a catalyst for change or energy in a text. I'm struggling to think of examples here, except perhaps Othello in Othello, being a Moor is the only real reason Iago gives for hating him, starting the whole plot. Othello is not a white Venetian, he's a black African. As above, Post colonial theory does not just apply to writers whose nations were once colonised, but also the colonizers. A good example of this is the example we used during my MA, Mansfield Park by Jane Austin. The novel is ostensibly about a nouveau-riche family, the Bertrams living in Mansfield Park who adopt the poor Fanny Price. The Bertram's are Fanny's rich aunt and uncle, and it is not ancestrally their home (the estate is called Mansfield Park after all) - so Marxist criticism can very easily be applied to this novel as well, especially in the Marxist interest in produce and material goods, the class conflict angle really applies to the social interactions here as well. But to go on, the whole novel is set in England, among the wealthy middle class - the Bertrams got their money from sugar plantations in the colonies, Antigua specifically. They are slave owners, Slavery among the British empire would not be outlawed until the 1830s - so there is a rich irony that the estate in England is supported by the exploitation of an estate basically a world away. All the love affairs and silly games the Bertrams play with each other has this hidden shadow of colonialism and racism hanging over it. During the novel the Bertrams' plantation is only mentioned once, in what is basically a glorified throw away line - but it colours the rest of the novel. So little attention is given to it that it is even a bit of a condemnation of British attitudes at the time. The book can be read like this. The horrors of slavery in a colony has provided the riches for the rich of the empire who don't seem to know or care about the sort of things that keeps their riches flowing. Again, the Marxist criticism can be applied here too. But there is more to Postcolonial criticism than even just this. The colonised and colonizer can be one and the same thing. People can have very complex relationships with their environments, especially ones that are troubled. W.B. Yeats was very proudly an Irishman - very pro-Irish independence, but had a complex relationship with Great Britain. I think it would be interesting to look at the development of Yeats as a poet from his earlier, very refined and Celtic Romanticism to the later, more world-aware Modernism. There's such a huge merging of ideas, cultures and histories in Yeats' work that there is probably a lot there. But the tensions of being an Irishman both in Ireland, then England, and then Ireland again perhaps fueled a lot of his work. What did he mean, for example, by 'A terrible beauty is born' when talking about the Irish revolutionaries in 'Easter 1916'. Like the Sam Selvon novel I mentioned previously, The Lonely Londoners, which is about British citizens from the colonies coming to Britain and struggling to make a life in what is both a new world and also one they have every right to be in, the experiences of groups in the 'empire' but not from the 'center' can be very troubled. Perhaps a good, if unorthodox example of this is Catullus. Catullus was from Verona - which at the time was the province of Cisalpine Gaul (Gaul on this side of the Alps) which had only become a Roman province recently. He was from an elite Roman family, and the province was becoming Romanized (Augustus would later merge Cisalphine Gaul, Italia (central Italy) and Magna Graecia (southern Italy) into the single 'Italia') so he was a Roman, but also from the provinces. And seemed to be aware of it when he moved to Rome itself and began to write. In the book Catullus and his World, T.P. Wiseman says that Gauls had a strong habit of slurring words, so when Catullus writes about love - they should be read as if drunk. Especially with the lines like poem 5 opening: Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus, 'Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love' Romans enjoyed a drink, but at this time (late Republic) they really looked down on Gauls for being barbaric, lustful and drunken. There is a bit of friction between worlds even here, as Catullus is writing from the 'center', and Catullus is playing with that tension between what is expected of him as a Roman and member of the elite, and what is expected of him as a not-quite Provincial who is not fully Roman. It is a bit like Catullus saying that he is the sexy wildman from the north, not like the other - boring metropolitans here in Rome. I wouldn't say Catullus is committing some kind of cultural appropriation exactly, but there is a tension that affects the poetry. It is also very noticeable that out of all the Augustan poets, Catullus is the most urban and urbane. He was writing in Rome, about Rome; about drinking, the nightlife, love affairs, parties, attacks on celebs, hanging out and being cool in the forum with friends. Aside from Ovid who came later, most other Augustan poets talked about war, nature, and philosophy. This is something I've thought a lot about in relation to postcolonialism - because there is a sense that he was always trying to prove his Romanness despite the fact that he had so many non-Roman influences. This is a sort of blending of cultures, while also promoting the culture of the Center. I'm summing up a lot here, and there is a lot of nuance to a lot of what I'm talking about.
I don't know much about literary theory, but here's a major point I'm interested in. How much of it, and which theories, are more about literature and less about politics? Because much of it I think would be more accurately called political theory focused on literature.
It's not just political, politics affects a lot of our lives though. I don't find much politics in something like the chronosphere or psychoanalytic theory.
I have no idea what a chronosphere is, is that a literary theory, or a science fiction novel? And yeah, I'm totally down with the psychological theories, but those are really a lot less about literature and a lot more about psychology. So it sounds like literary theory is so far either political or psychological theory applied to analyzing literature? This is what I'm trying to determine.
There's also aestheticism which is just looking at a work for it's aesthetic value. While most theories have a political angle, that's true of all things. But there are literary theories without politics, I only gave two examples. The chronosphere is about time relations in a work. I'll explain it in a bit.
Ok here. A brief google turns this up: Marxist theorists use traditional techniques of literary analysis but subordinate aesthetic concerns to the final social and political meanings of literature. Source So the question then becomes what is traditional literary analysis. Off to google some more. But I suspect it's going to be the stuff @EFMingo clued me in on some time ago in relation to the Book Club.
If you are looking for traditional theory, then you'll want to look up Literary Realism, Structuralism, or the classical theory like in Aristotle or Plato up to about Ben Johnson and Wordsworth's preface to Lyrical Ballads. That's when formal Theory started to develop.
If literary analysis what I'm thinking of, then it's explained in this article: How to Write Literary Analysis
Thanks @Lemex I'll look into that. But I suspect the core of it is the approach I posted just above. I was really looking for the core, stripped of any particular cultural bias etc—the part that doesn't change from one theory to another. Another (and probably better) way to say it is I want to understand how to do literary analysis, not to see particular instances that have been done already. It's the same distinction you find between for instance learning how to think philosophically, rather than learning about the history of philosophy and what particular philosophers have written, or between learning how to paint as opposed to learning about the history of painting and the work of particular artists.
I think some things can be easily conflated. There's literary criticism, literary analysis and literary theory. For the sake of simplicity we should throw 'literary analysis' away. Criticism is not always negative either, and you will have Theory, most of the time, in Criticism. So, say, an essay looking at the images of monsters in Beowulf, random example. This will be informed by Theory, most likely, but it will not be purely theoretical. Literary Theory is the theoretical approach to literature. Criticism isn't always critical, but talking about some specific point on a text in great depth. Theory is approaching a text from a theoretical framework, and honestly most of the approaches are political. The Chronosphere is basically, and it's a bit difficult to explain, the way time functions in a narrative. Looking at the difference between the story as the reader experiences it and the way the characters do. So say if two characters are going to the same place from the same place, and the protagonist gets on the train while the other walks, it'll take less time for that character to get to the city, and will probably only be a sentence or two between the two locations. They then wait for the second character in the story. They could be waiting days, but to the reader it'll only be five pages later, and maybe about 20 minutes. I'm simplifying horrendously here, and I'll admit I'm not sure I understand it perfectly myself. Aestheticism is mostly signified in Theory by Harold Bloom, and his work in on finding an objective aesthetic quality to a text. So looking at the quality of writing and quality of images found in the writing of a novel. It's a very 'art for art's sake' sort of lens. So, say, something like Wordsworth, and the Romantic era, was amazing for Aestheticism.
Also wikipedia tells me that there's an 'Evolution' branch of Literary Theory, focused on signs of natural selection and biological evolution, which I've not heard about myself but can't imagine it's very political either.
Thank you, that is extremely helpful. Ok, so that sounds like critical thinking, which is specifically about going into great detail in meaningful ways (at least intended to be meaningful). ... or psychological. Or Chronological, which sounds similar to an Einstinian Relativity approach (not precisely, I'm trying to be clever and funny here).
I was going off of this quote I posted above, that I found through Google (Gasp, could Google ever be wrong??! ): Marxist theorists use traditional techniques of literary analysis but subordinate aesthetic concerns to the final social and political meanings of literature. That led me to believe that literary theory is built around the nucleus of literary analysis. Is that wrong? Does it include analysis at some level? I'm posing these questions in general, for anybody to answer or as something to pursue myself. If you know, then I'm all ears.
