Week 9 and 10: Formalism, New Criticism, Structuralism, Literature and History

- part of the history of our discipline:

• biograpical approaches (19th century)
• formalism
• marxism
• new critisism
• structuralism
• ....

- generator of analytical tools & concepts: 

• close reading, orientalist misrepresentation, discourse analysis, deconstructive reading...

- literary theory as a genre:

• focus on form & structure rather than society & culture 

- only text itself is to be seen, not author or historical context (intrinsic approach)

- manner in which words are put together --> scientific way

- machine age! (text taken apart like a machine) 

- influenced by linguistics

- literature = organization of language (deciates from ordinary language)

- Boris Eichenbaum, Viktor Shklovsky, Roman Jakobson

- defamilliarizes habitual phenomena because we are not paying attention --> automatic --> art is to make sth. unfamiliar 

- six functions of language: referential, phatic, conative, emotive, metalingual, poetic/aesthetic 

- ideal of objective and scientific method for interpretation of teaching texts (UK+USA)

- close reading: how form + content work together (rythm, stylistic devices) 

- key representatives: Richards & Brooks

- against affective fallacy + intentional fallacy 

--> reader's emotion + author's message

- denotative and connotative meaning of words

- great literature communicates universal + timeless values (war, loyalty)

- key representatives: Barthes, Culler, Jakobson

--> texts & cultural phenomena cannot be understood in isolation --> need to be placed/analysed in larger structures they are part of 

signifier-signified, langue vs. parole

• linguistic signs are arbitrary 
• system of signs gain meaning through relations (language) 
• paradigmatic chain: hut, cottage, house 
• binary opposition: day/night --> only meaning through opposite 
• language doesn't represent reality --> not universal --> invented by us 

- interpretation of the world is a function of language --> depends on the signifying systems that we have at our disposal

- reality is not reflected by language but produced by it

- language is only a set of human conventions 

- literary text is a construct whose mechanisms & internal structures need to be understood 

- no interest in how literature represents reality 

- focus on how meaning is produced within the signifying system

- Harry Potter series (parole) --> genre: school story (langue)

- pattern repeated: relationships between individual/group; child/family 

- repeated motifs: absent parents, close friendship, conflicts with teachers...

- binary oppositions: Harry/Voldemort, good/evil, Wizarding world/muggle world 

- parralels & symmetries: Harry/Ron/Hermione, four houses, four headmasters 

- narrative situation: authorical/figural

- focalization: Harry, but also others

- main plot/subplot --> fight voldemord vs Weasley saga/Quidditch 

- easy to compare

- response on historical events & development seen

- attention on ideas, concepts, ideals & principal at a certain time 

- anglo-saxon literature

- medieval literature

- early modern literature

- romantic literature

- victorian literature 

- when does a period end? 

- which period is it?

- the simultaneous of non-simultaneous: transitions of periods never clear --> we named epochs today 

- before new historicism: general summary offered interpretation for literary texts --> not primary sources

--> act of interpretation

- new understanding of relationship between literary & history 

- key representatives: Stephen Greenblatt, Louis Montrose

- approach to the relationship between literary & historical material

- understanding of history & of the way in which we can "know" the past

- anthologies 

- digital databases

- archives 

- historicity of texts (cultural specificy & mode of writing) & textuality of histroy ( no access to real past only textual traces)

- use of narrative techniques & plot patterns in historiography 

- literature & culture are inextricably intertwined & cannot be analysed separately 

new people think about specific contexts (religion, gender)