Theories Comparrasions

Reader Response Theory and New Historicism

Reader response theory and New Historicism- similar as they both text readers into the text

Reader Response theory- can’t lose sight of the text- can relate this to the focus to specific detail Foucault used which influenced the new historicists. Through paying attention to detail, it is clear that the New Historicists aren’t losing sight of the text.

New Historicists- interested in different disciplines-don’t just look at literature in isolation- discourses are connected- interweb of disciplines- can compare this to Reader Response theory which is all about the reader and the experiences they have and the way they read the text. New Historicism does not focus on the reader but on the broader cultural world.- the new historicists shift focus away from the author.- Reaction against New Criticism- who ignored historical forces with effect literature

Reader response- the text is nothing if there is not a reader- can use this as a way of contrasting to New Historicism- can suggests that the historical nature and gaps within a text would still be there even without a reader’s interpretation 

Reader response- filling in the gaps of a text- value of literary texts- canon of literary texts have come from various different interoperations- New Historicism would offer various readings of a text that do not concern the reader

 New Critics and the Theorists of Reading                  

New critics- employ the conventional model of interpretation- the author is the origin of and the reader is the destination. The text is where the messages are. Theorists of reading have issues with this because what if the text has multiple readers? Author could be anticipating how the text would be read?

Wimsatt and Beardsley- can’t lose sight of the text- Isar argues against this kind of theory by suggesting that readers are not passive readers- think of this in regards to the text as being a set of instructions- have to be active to carry these instructions out. 

Marxism and New Historicism

Marxism is a lot more broad- focuses outwardly on the text- whereas New Historicism focuses on the specific details of a text

Marxism- focusing specifically on class struggle within a text, whereas a New Historicist could approach a text by looking at any part of history- More broad in terms of areas they can go

Marxism- belongs to ideas of production. New Historicism- belongs to ideas on normalisation

Both are based on history, rather than focusing on language or structure

Both are interested in the broader context of the text has been written in- rather than the focus on the reader’s response.

Foucault- would have identified as a Marxist 

Orientalism and Structuralism

Orientalism- Although there is meaning within the text, Said suggests that there are silences within a text where you have to have fill in the gaps. Can compare this to Structuralism- you need to fill in the gaps for yourself- the text isn’t going to give you everything

 Structuralism- focuses on the form of a text through their responses, whereas Orientalism focusing on the cultural context a text was written in- can argue that although they are both interested in filling in the gaps of text, they are interested in doing it for very different reasons and in different ways.

Deconolisation- Post Colonial Theory- our are readings of work shaped by the world around it-institutions of literarture= all of your decisions are shaped by these- can compare this to Marxism- interested in texts and how they night change historical context. 

Post Colonial Theory- Idea of the hierarchy- West at the top and East at the bottom- can compare this idea to the superstructure and base- culture, art, media, lit ect is the superstructure. The base- underlying historical context.- can suggest that both theories are interested in layers and pecking order of things within texts 

Post Colonial Theory- framing of distance- separates East from the West. Can compare this idea to the way Marxist theory is interested in the distance between different classes within society. 

Post Colonial Theory- Fanon- colonised person- people try to get them to admit that their culture is inferior to their own- can compare this to Marxism and the focus on the 'inferior' lower classes. 

Can there be a role for literature in literature? - Both of these theories focus on the ideas of culture within literature 

Post Colonial Theory- The Orient- never going to be seen as separate- Binary opposition- Can compare this to Marxism- the upper class and the lower class are always going to be seen as Binary Oppositions 

Marx- Not wanting to describe the world but to change it.- This is the same thing as Post Colonial Theory.

Power- How do things do the same- Althusser-  can compare this to the ideas about the power of the west and the east 

Geography in Post Colonialism- is this indebted to Marxism- not one of is free from Geography-something that has a cultural basis. Said and Geography- Texts tend to set up an idea of what is close and what is far away- can compare this idea to the idea of classes either being close or far away- a metaphorical geography.

Marxism- can use the idea of mass culture as a way of looking at the idea of Geography- something that you can't escape from. Mass culture has a wide geographical scope- like the West does too. 

'Marxist approaches to literature are [...] attempts both to articulate the relationship between literature and society and to call the separation which this implies into question'- Haslett, 17

'theoretical complexity ' of the superstructure and base- page 17- Haslett

New Historicism- literary method imports ideology back into literature- psychology and literature are the same things- different to psychoanalysis-  Freud- literary scholar fits into the idea of psychoanalysis and literature fitting together- Can talk about the way he talks about Oedipus.- can use the Peter Barry quote here about New Historicism- 'when we say that new historicism involves the parallel study of literary and non literary texts, the word 'parallel' encapsulates the essential difference between this and earlier approaches to literature'- 168

Silences- ideas of silences can relate to reader response theories- have to fill in the gaps yourself- dream interpretation- about unlocking something which is underneath- this involves a narrow range of interpretation and reader response theory involves a broader reinterpretation- the gap can be filled with lots of different answers- psychoanalysis seems to be a right or wrong way of interpreting something- you end up with an answer

'Lacon's reinterpretation of Freud links the unconscious with language[...] he uses Saussure's model of language as a system of signs in which signifiers are linked arbitrarily to signifieds' - The theory of criticism- page 222 

Fish and communities of readers- reading is a process that unfolds over time- can relate this to Marxism- focuses on class- upper classes and lower classes (communities). 

Gaps- Iser tries to fill the gaps between text and reader- can relate this to Marxism- Marxism focusses on the gaps between the upper classes and the lower classes.

Structuralism 

Interested in how society is structured- can argue that other theories, such as Marxism and Post Colonial theories focus upon the ways in which society is structured. Sincronic- snapshot in time to understand language - Dicronic - how things change over time- relates to these other theories as they take a broad approach to history 

Language is always going to be a part of a structure- Marxism suggests that society has always been a part of the structure it is under 

According to Marxists formalists weren't paying enough attention to social conditions- main focus of marxism

Marxism- emerged in a system of beliefs. We get caught up in a set of beliefs that define us. Can relate to a patriarchal society too- Gender theory 

Binary Oppositions- can relate this to the idea of structuralism- Butler got her ideas from here and was influenced by them. Could also relate this to Post- Colonial theories- the west and the east are opposite to each other. Marxism too- the upper class and the lower classes are binary oppositions- relate this to the idea of Semiotics 

Cixous- wrote ideas directly linking to Derrida-  presence and writing absence

Intersectuality-  overlaps- how this effects gender and literature - could think about this in colonialism

New Historicism- Foucault- not a feminist writer- wrote a lot about sexuality 

Judith Butler- ideas of performativity- interested in rethinking categories- can relate this to the idea of Marxism and postcolonialism 

Marxism and Post Colonial theory - interested in marginalised figures- so is gender theory.

Peter Barry

Post Colonialism

'the first characteristic of postcolonial criticism - an awareness of representation of the non-European as exotic or immoral 'Other' '- page 187

'the stress on 'cross-cultural' interactions [...] is a characteristic of postcolonialism'- page 189 

'identity as doubled, or hybrid or unstable'- page 188

'Post Colonialism criticism draws attention to issues of cultural difference in literary texts and is one of several critical approaches we have considered which forms on specific issues, including issues of gender (feminist criticism), of class ( Marxist criticism) and of sexual orientation'- 191

Marxism 

'this concept of linked and interacting causes is intended to undercut simplistic notions of one-to-one correspondence between base and superstructure'- page 157  

Marxism 

'Hegemony is like an internalised form of social control which makes certain views seem 'natural' or invisible so that they hardly seem like views at all, just the way things are'- 158 

'the main tenant of Marxist criticism - that the nature of literature is influenced by the social and political circumstances in which it is produced- might well be immediately accepted as self-evidently true'- page 160

Lesbian/gay Criticism 

'the key underlying question, for anyone choosing between these two possible alignments, is whether it is gender or sexuality, which is the more fundamental in personal identity'- page 138 

'one of the main points of post-structuralism was to deconstruct binary opposition [...] showing, firstly, that the distinction between paired opposites is not absolute, since each term  in the pairing can only be understood and defined in terms of the other'.- page 138

'identity categories' like 'gay' and 'straight' 'tend to be instruments of regulatory regimes'-139

Lesbian/gay criticism 

'all identities, including gender identities, are 'a kind of impersonation and approximation' - page 139 

Structuralism 

'structuralism's characteristic views the notion that language doesn't just reflect or record the world, rather it shapes it'- page 59 

'structuralists accept that the world is constructed through language, in the sense that we do not have access to reality other than through the linguistic medium'- page 61

'is the belief that things cannot be understood in isolation'- 38

'organising experience'- 38 

 'thus, in the structuralist approach to literature, there is a constant movement away from the interpretation of the individual literary work and a parallel drive towards understanding the larger abstract structures which contain them'- page 39

Structuralism 

Saussure- 'words that is so to say are 'unmotivated signs' meaning that there is no inherent connection between a word and what it designates'- page 40 

Psychoanalyst 

'Freudian interpretation is often highly ingenious, rather than highly simplistic'- page 95

'the underlying assumption is that when some wish, fear, memory, or desire is difficult to face we may try to cope with it by repressing it'- page 95