Criticism, theory, and literature
Going by what most of my previous students answered to the question "Why do I write," writing is expressing that overflow of emotion. The act of pouring out words onto paper seems the only way for them to live. To which Louis Markos, using M. H. Abrams categorization, would peg them as writers who believe that literature is a "reflection of internal realities." They share with the Romantics the notion that literature serves a personal, and sometimes prophetic, function.
He categorizes those theories that focus on the relationship between the work and the universe as "mimetic," with the literary piece serving as a "mirror held up to nature." The work as an imitation -- the reflection or refraction of reality -- leads us closer to (Aristotle) or farther away from (Plato) the truth.
Those theories that concentrates on the relationship between the work and the audience Abrams classifies as "pragmatic," with the assumption that literary works serve some social and didactic and aesthetic function. He calls those theories that focus on the relationship between the work and itself as "objective," with the idea that the literary piece is a "self-contained, self-referential artifact that can (and should) be studied apart from the universe, the audience, and the poet."
As Markos says, in his "Thinking Theoretically" lecture, we can't help but think what or how we are oriented in our writing. Each approach carries with it "our own (often unstated) presuppositions about God, man, and the universe." So when we say that we write to pour our hearts out on the page, we actually believe that what we say is unique and is of great importance to the rest of humanity. But what if we don't subscribe to that presupposition, shouldn't we change our rationale for writing then?
Apparently that is what literary critics have been doing since Plato argued for the exile of poets from his Republic. As Hazard Adams puts it, the history of literary criticism has shifted from an early and long period (about 2000 years) of debate grounded on ontological questions about imitation or mimesis and representation, to epistemological concerns (arising in the 17th century) as prior to what we assume to know. Adams then outlines more recent paradigm shifts in literary criticism and theory at the onset of the 20th century, citing the "linguistic turn" that argued for language as constitutive of and prior to the production of knowledge. In more recent decades, Adams continues, the field of literary criticism and theory has been more concerned with a political and cultural critique of literature in relation to notions of power and justice (2-7). We'll see how these paradigm shifts affect our literary production when we try to define the nature and function of criticism, theory, and literature. That's next. Meantime, here's Paul H. Fry's two-part introductory lecture to his Introduction to Literary Theory course (from Academic Earth). Watch it on Academic Earth Watch it on Academic Earth 
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Topics
1. Orientation 2. Criticism, theory, and literature3. Literature and the linguistic turn
References:
 Criticism, Theory, and Literature is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.  |
