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Literary theory is a critical approach that you can choose to focus your textual analysis. In this context, the word “critical” does not mean engaging in scathing commentary on a text. Rather, a critical approach is one where you evaluate what you read and think about it from different perspectives.
Define and differentiate between theoretical frameworks and theories. Distinguish between deductive and inductive reasoning and explain how the role of theory differs in qualitative and quantitative research. Formulate social research questions. Explain the importance of a literature review.
WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT? Becoming familiar with literary theories allows us to formulate more focused, meaningful interpretations and ideas. Applying the basic, guiding principles of these theories helps us think critically about the literature and allows us to ask ourselves relevant, meaningful, and focused questions.
- Practical criticism: This study of literature encourages readers to examine the text without regarding any of the outside context—like the author, the date and place of writing, or any other contextual information that may enlighten the reader.
- Cultural studies: In direct opposition to practical criticism, cultural theory examines a text within the context of its socio-cultural environment. Cultural critics believe a text should be read entirely through the lens of the text's cultural context.
- Formalism: Formalism compels readers to judge the artistic merit of literature by examining its formal elements, like language and technical skill. Formalism favors a literary canon of works that exemplify the highest standards of literature, as determined by formalist critics.
- Reader-response: Reader-response criticism is rooted in the belief that a reader's reaction to or interpretation of a text is as valuable a source of critical study as the text itself.
Theories and methods, just like concepts and models, provide systematic strategies that can help solve problems in literary studies. Their problem-solving potential is also the main reason for them being indispensable for the purposes of rational forms of textual analysis and interpretation.
Using examples from Foucault and Derrida, it shows that theory involves questioning the most basic assumptions of literary study. Theory is interdisciplinary; it is analytical and speculative; it is a critique of common sense and it is reflexive.
People also ask
Why are theories and methods important in literature?
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The question ‘What is literature?’ arises because critics and theorists hope, by saying what literature is, to promote what they consider the most pertinent critical methods and to dismiss methods that neglect the most basic and distinctive aspects of literature.
