Lecture 2: The Difference between Critical Theory and Literary Criticism
Objectives
· To clarify the difference between literary theory and literary criticism
· To define the terms theory and literary theory
· state the functions of a literary critic
1.1 Introduction
Literary theory can be defined simply as the various methods and tools we use to analyze and understand literature. In other words, when we try to understand literature, we use certain methods to help us understand the meaning, and those methods comprise literary theory. Literary criticism, on the other hand, is the practical application of those theories or methods to particular works of literature--the actual use of a method to better understand a text’s meaning. The term “criticism” applies to any kind of textual evaluation, including close readings and book reports; it is the most common activity in literary study. Criticism enhances readers in general and students in particular to handle self-consciously literary texts, its language and hidden features. It provides variant ways of « interpreting texts, trying to see how texts work, what kinds of work texts do and why texts work in particular ways. While all texts can be critically reworked, no text is simply there, offering a transparent collection of ideas. » (Humm 1995, p. xi)
Literary theories include formalism, historicism, deconstructionism, gender approaches, psychological approaches, and several other methods critics and readers use to understand meaning. For example, if a reader wants to understand every element of Nathanial Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown,” who has a dream that changes his entire outlook on his family and society, a critic using the historical theory of criticism might look at the Puritan belief system in order to see what elements of Puritanism appear in the story and affect the story's outcome. Using biographical theory, which postulates that an author's life may affect the way he or she writes, a biographical approach would require the critic to look for any evidence in Hawthorne’s life that he felt negatively about Puritanism. Such an approach would discover, for example, that Hawthorne actually changed his last name, which was originally spelled without the w, because he was appalled that one of his ancestors was a judge at the Salem Witch trials in 1692-93.
1.2 Conclusion
In sum, then, theories provide the methods by which readers and critics look at the meaning of literature, and criticism is the use of those methods to understand meaning.
1.3 Summary
There is a big difference between Literary Theory and Literary Criticism. One might think of Literary Criticism as centred in real-world answers to puzzling questions that always emanate from specific texts. Literary Criticism then has the practical goal of formulating questions and supplying answers. Mathew Arnold held that criticism without a text to criticize was an anomaly. For today's theorists, the text as Arnold understood it simply does not exist as such. Further, the author as Arnold understood him does not exist either. What is left of the author, text, and reader trio is the reader, and in the world of theory today it is the reader who reigns supreme. If Literary Criticism is rooted in the practicality of uncovering meaning in a text, Literary Theory accuses Literary Criticism of an unreliability rooted in a pre-conditioned ideology that is so vaguely constructed as to be pointless. By contrast, a literary theorist concerns himself with the underlying framework of a reader’s very thought processes which in turn impact on his values and aesthetic judgments. The focus here is on the assumptions of the reader and not on the details of the text. Ideally, all parts of a theory should be logical, well-defined and replicable by other disinterested theorists.
Humm, Maggie. (1995). Practicing Feminist Criticism An Introduction. Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf, USA, p. xi
Dobie, Ann B. (2011). Theory into Practice: An Introduction to Literary Criticism. 3rd ed. USA,Wadsworth,