This document provides an overview of several major literary theories: reader response theory, archetypal literary criticism, feminist literary criticism, and postcolonial literary criticism. For each theory, it defines the key ideas, provides examples of how to analyze a text using that theoretical lens, and recommends further required reading materials to learn more about each approach. The goal is to introduce students to different critical perspectives they can use to interpret literary works.

1. Literary Theory
• An Introduction

2. What is literary
theory?
• Think of it as a lens through
which one views a text (any
text—not just written).
Depending on the lens one
uses, and the way in which that
lens is focused, our attention is
drawn to a particular aspect of
the text more so than others.
• Different schools of literary
theory offer different ways of
seeing and interpreting a text.

3. Read the following statements and think about
the degree to which you AGREE or DISAGREE
with the statements.

4. The most important thing about a text is the
individual reader’s experience with the text.

5. When studying a text, you don’t need to
understand what the author originally intended.

6. The meaning of a text depends on the experience
the reader brings to the text.

7. There is no right or wrong answer when it comes
to literature.

8. If you mostly agreed with those statements, you
might be using Reader Response theory to
analyze literature. Read on…

9. Reader Response

11. Definition
• A theory that stresses the
importance of the reader's
role in interpreting texts.
Rejecting the idea that there
is a single, fixed meaning
inherent in every literary
work, this theory holds that
the individual creates his or
her own meaning through a
"transaction" with the text
based on personal
associations.

12. Key Quotations
• "A poem is what the reader lives through under the
guidance of the text and experiences as relevant to the
text." -Louise Rosenblatt
• Any school of criticism that sees a literary work as an
object, claiming to describe what it is and never what it
does, misconstrues the very essence of literature and
reading. Literature exists and signifies when it is
read.,(Paraphrase) -Stanley Fish

13. How do you do it?
• The text doesn’t have any meaning without the reader.
• When you read the text you approach it with all of your prior knowledge,
experience, culture, world view, etc.. You bring that to the text.
• As you read, you ask yourself, what are you bringing to the text that makes you
interpret the text that way. This is called a “transactional analysis.”
• As you read more and experience the world more your “horizon of
expectations” changes. That means that you may interpret a text in a different
way and this is still a valid interpretation.
• There is no single fixed meaning in any text. That doesn’t mean that any
interpretation is valid though.

14. Required Reading
• Reader Response Theory:
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.c
om/virtualit/poetry/critical_de
fine/crit_reader.html

15. In Summary
• “The Correct Reading” was traditionally the goal of literary criticism.
• Reader response criticism is a reaction to this. How one interprets a text is
subjective and is based on time, place, culture, etc.

16. Archetypal Literary
Criticism

18. Definition
• Archetypes determine the form
and function of literary works
• A text's meaning is shaped by
cultural and psychological myths.

19. What is an archetype?
• Arche “first” and typos “form”
• An original model or pattern
from which copies are made
• Archetypes are the recurring
images, symbols, or patterns
which may include motifs such
as the quest or the heavenly
ascent, recognizable character
types such as the trickster or the
hero, symbols such as the apple
or snake are all laden with
meaning already when
employed in a particular work.

20. Fundamental Plot
Archetype
THE JOURNEY
• Protagonist moves from
innocence to experience
• Begins in familiar environment
• Descent into danger
• Battle “monsters” in underworld
(task)
• Return home (reunion, marriage)

21. Common Archetypal Figures
• The Child
• The Hero
• The Great Mother
• The Wise old man
• The Trickster or Fox

22. How do you do it?
• Look for patterns, images, objects, characters that remind you of patterns,
images, objects, and characters that you’ve seen before (Note: it helps to
have a list of archetypal symbols. You will get that as a resource in the next
slide).
• What did those patterns, images, objects, and characters mean in the other
text you read?
• Apply that to your current text.
• You might ask yourself whether the author intended that meaning, but in
archetypal literary theory, as will all theories that evolved from New Criticism, it
doesn’t matter what the author intended. That does not affect the meaning.

23. Required Reading
• Northrop Frye’s Theory of
Archetypes:
http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/dher
ring/ap/consider/frye/indexfryeov
.htm
• Archetypal Literary Theory note:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/253
907931/Archetypal-Literary-
Criticism

24. Feminist Literary
Criticism

26. Definition
• Feminist literary criticism tends to examine the roles of women in literature,
both as writers and subjects within the text. For most of the history of literary
criticism, women’s voices were ignored—mainly because most critics were
men who tended to read and write about their own experiences—not
necessarily out of a conscious desire to exclude women.

27. How to do it
• As you’re reading a text, try to answer the following questions:
1. What is the protagonist’s attitude toward the male and female characters in the text? How is this
evident and how does it affect your response to the characters?
2. How are women represented in the text?
3. What roles do both men and women play within family, work situations, etc.? (for example, hero,
breadwinner, friend, helper, cook, servant, sex object…)
4. What were the social and historical conditions for women in this period that might help us understand
their roles and desires in the text
5. How do women exercise their power in the text? What are the consequences?
6. How and to what degree are the women’s lives limited or restricted in this text

28. Required Reading
Feminist Literary Criticism:
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/vir
tualit/poetry/critical_define/crit_fe
min.html
and
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
resource/722/11/

29. Postcolonial Literary
Criticism

31. Definition
• Postcolonial criticism usually involves the analysis of literary texts produced in
countries and cultures that have come under the control of European colonial
powers at some point in their history. It can refer to the analysis of texts written
about colonized places by writers hailing from the colonizing culture.

32. Hegemony
• Pronounced “he-GEM-ony”
• Refers to the domination and control of one country or class of people by
another country or class of people.
• Karl Marx described cultural hegemony that of a ruling class dominating a
culturally diverse society by changing their world view and culture so that their
domination becomes culturally accepted.

33. Other important ideas
• terms "first-world," "second world," "third world" and "fourth world" nations are
critiqued by post-colonial critics because they reinforce the dominant positions
of western cultures populating first world status. This critique includes the
literary canon and histories written from the perspective of first-world cultures.

34. How to do it
• How does the literary text, explicitly or
allegorically, represent various aspects of
colonial oppression?
• What does the text reveal about the
problematics of post-colonial identity,
including the relationship between personal
and cultural identity?
• What person(s) or groups does the work
identify as "other" or stranger? How are
such persons/groups described and
treated?
• What does the text reveal about the politics
and/or psychology of anti-colonialist
resistance?
• What does the text reveal about the
operations of cultural difference - the ways
in which race, religion, class, gender,
sexual orientation, cultural beliefs, and
customs combine to form individual identity
- in shaping our perceptions of ourselves,
others, and the world in which we live?
• How does the text respond to or comment
upon the characters, themes, or
assumptions of a canonized (colonialist)
work?

35. Required reading
• Post-colonial literary theory:
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit
/poetry/critical_define/crit_post.html
• Wikipedia article on Post-colonialism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcolonial
ism

36. Sources
Brewton, Vince. "Literary Theory." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web. 21 Feb.
2015.
Brizee, Allen, and J.Case Tompkins. "Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism."The
Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 14 May 2012. Web. 21 Feb. 2015.
<https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/01/>.
Karen, Nelson. "Gliffy Public Diagram - Timeline of Literary Theory." Timeline of Literary
Theory. Gliffy, 22 Feb. 2013. Web. 21 Feb. 2015.
<http://www.gliffy.com/publish/4334446/>.
"Postcolonialism." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 8 Feb. 2015. Web. 21 Feb. 2015.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcolonialism>.
• All images from Flickr’s Creative Commons image search