Today’s Agenda
At this point, you might expect me to simply introduce you to Charlotte Bronte, and talk about who she was and how her life may be reflected in her writing. However — I will not be doing this.
There are many ways to approach literature, and it is time that we started to discuss how we might be more organized in our approaches.
When you read a book, you can read it and respond to it. However, you also need to be aware that there are organized ways to respond to literature in academia, and that these “ways” – or schools, as I will call them – each have their own distinct philosophical dispositions.
For example, this semester I have generally been encouraging you to consider what is know as Biographical Criticism. Does anyone know what this means?
However, and as Frankenstein shows us, it is very possible that there are great and significant limits to any attempt to understand someone’s writing by reflecting on the kind of person you suspect that they are.
I want to begin today by showing your some other approaches to literature that I think you may find exciting.
Psychoanalysis:
A psychoanalytical approach to literature attempts to understand the conscious and unconscious implications of a text, of a character’s actions and reactions to the experiential world into which they are “thrown.”
Feminism:
Feminist literary approaches tend to focus on gender roles and expectations, and the tensions that arise through both the subjugation and oppression of women, as well as to the many possible social relationships that bind patriarchal and matriarchal individuals and societies
Queer Theory:
Queer Theory addresses more than just homosexual relationships. Like Feminism, it deals with gender roles, expressions, and tensions as they develop within society, but places an extra emphasize on how these tensions shape and dictate the experience for “queer” society – i.e. sexually marginalized groups and individuals.
Marxist, or Neo-Marxist:
A Marxist reading focuses on issues that relate to class and workplace concerns, as they are imagined through the concepts of the proletariat and bourgeoisie. It presupposes ongoing class tensions that have the potential to erupt into revolution.
Post-Colonial Theory
Post-Colonialism is concerned with the writing of oppressed people as it is used to write back to, and comment on, the empires that oppress them. Under post-colonialism, one imagines that there is a source of power, and that this source of power moves through the world.
Post-Modernism:
A Post-modern reading of a text pays specific attention to the different forms and methods used to tell a story, and critiques how these forms both interact and how they expose one another’s limits.
Now, there are other approaches as well, and all of these schools are interconnected. But I want to get you thinking along these terms, because Biographical criticism, the kind of criticism I have been doing all semester, is basically flawed in some important ways. What might these flaws be?
Journal Entry
Group Discussion, the limits of Biographical Criticism
Discussion of reading.
Let’s begin to apply some of these concepts to the reading we did for today
Homework: Read to chapter 12.
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