1.2 Historical Development of Literary Theory

Literary theory has evolved significantly over time, reflecting changing cultural and intellectual landscapes. From ancient Greek concepts of mimesis to modern ideas of deconstruction, the field has constantly reimagined how we interpret texts.

This journey through literary theory showcases diverse approaches to understanding literature. From formalism's focus on text structure to postcolonialism's examination of power dynamics, each movement offers unique insights into the complex relationship between words, meaning, and society.

Historical Development of Literary Theory

Evolution of literary theory

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• Classical period (Ancient Greece and Rome)
  • Plato's concept of mimesis suggests poetry should imitate ideal forms and serve a moral purpose in society (The Republic)
  • Aristotle's Poetics analyzes the elements of tragedy, emphasizing plot, character, and catharsis (Oedipus Rex)
• Medieval period
  • Religious and allegorical interpretations of texts prevail, seeking to uncover divine truths and moral lessons (Dante's Divine Comedy)
  • Scholasticism applies Christian theology and logic to the study of literature, focusing on the literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses of texts (Thomas Aquinas)
• Renaissance and Early Modern period
  • Rediscovery of classical texts sparks a humanist approach to literature, emphasizing human experience and individual expression (Shakespeare's sonnets)
  • Sir Philip Sidney's The Defence of Poesy argues for literature as a means of moral instruction and delight, combining Horatian and Aristotelian ideas (Arcadia)
• Enlightenment and Romantic period
  • Rise of individualism promotes the concept of the author as a creative genius, expressing unique emotions and imagination (Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads)
  • Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment introduces the idea of aesthetic autonomy, separating art from moral and utilitarian concerns (Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn)
• 19th and early 20th century
  • Emergence of realism and naturalism in literature, depicting everyday life and social conditions with scientific objectivity (Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Zola's Germinal)
  • Influence of Marxism encourages a focus on literature as a reflection of social and economic conditions, exposing class struggles and ideological conflicts (Upton Sinclair's The Jungle)
• Mid-20th century to contemporary times
  • Development of formalism and New Criticism emphasizes close reading and the autonomy of the text, ignoring authorial intent and historical context (T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land)
  • Emergence of structuralism, post-structuralism, and deconstruction challenges traditional notions of meaning and interpretation, revealing the instability of language and the role of power in shaping discourse (Roland Barthes' The Death of the Author, Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology)
  • Rise of postcolonial, feminist, and queer theories explores issues of identity, power, and marginalization in literature, giving voice to previously silenced perspectives (Edward Said's Orientalism, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble)

Shifts in theoretical movements

• Shift from mimetic to expressive theories of literature
  • Classical emphasis on literature as an imitation of reality, reflecting universal truths and ideal forms (Aristotle's Poetics)
  • Romantic focus on literature as an expression of the author's unique emotions and imagination, celebrating individual creativity and originality (Coleridge's Biographia Literaria)
• Transition from author-centered to text-centered approaches
  • 19th-century biographical criticism focuses on the author's life and intentions as key to understanding the meaning of a text (Sainte-Beuve's Portraits)
  • New Criticism emphasizes close reading and the autonomy of the text, treating the work as a self-contained entity independent of authorial intent or historical context (Cleanth Brooks' The Well Wrought Urn)
• Move from structuralism to post-structuralism and deconstruction
  • Structuralist focus on underlying systems and structures governing literary meaning, seeking to uncover universal patterns and rules (Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, Lévi-Strauss' The Raw and the Cooked)
  • Post-structuralist and deconstructionist challenges to stable meaning and binary oppositions, revealing the instability of language and the role of power in shaping interpretation (Derrida's Writing and Difference, Foucault's The Order of Things)
• Emergence of identity-based and politically engaged theories
  • Feminist theories address issues of gender representation, patriarchal oppression, and female empowerment in literature (Hélène Cixous' The Laugh of the Medusa, Elaine Showalter's A Literature of Their Own)
  • Postcolonial theories examine the legacy of colonialism, cultural hybridity, and the struggle for self-determination in literature from formerly colonized nations (Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, Gayatri Spivak's Can the Subaltern Speak?)
  • Queer theories explore non-normative sexualities, challenging heteronormativity and binary gender categories in literature (Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet, Jack Halberstam's The Queer Art of Failure)
  • Marxist and New Historicist approaches situate literature within its social and historical contexts, examining the interplay between texts, power structures, and ideologies (Raymond Williams' Marxism and Literature, Stephen Greenblatt's Renaissance Self-Fashioning)

Historical contexts of literary approaches

• Impact of political and social movements on literary theory
  • Influence of Marxism and the rise of the working class on materialist approaches to literature, emphasizing class struggle and economic determinism (Georg Lukács' The Historical Novel, Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction)
  • Feminist and civil rights movements inspire gender and race-based theories, challenging patriarchal and white supremacist ideologies in literature (bell hooks' Ain't I a Woman?, Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera)
• Role of intellectual and philosophical traditions in shaping theoretical perspectives
  • Influence of German Romanticism and idealism on the development of expressive theories of literature, emphasizing the creative imagination and the unity of art and nature (Schiller's On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Hegel's Aesthetics)
  • Impact of French structuralism and post-structuralism on the rise of deconstruction and reader-response criticism, challenging the stability of meaning and the authority of the author (Barthes' S/Z, Iser's The Act of Reading)
• Relationship between literary theory and broader cultural and historical trends
  • Postmodernism questions grand narratives and universal truths, celebrating pluralism, irony, and the blurring of boundaries between high and low culture (Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition, Hutcheon's A Poetics of Postmodernism)
  • Globalization and the increasing attention to postcolonial and world literatures in contemporary theory, examining issues of cultural exchange, translation, and hybridity (Said's Culture and Imperialism, Damrosch's What Is World Literature?)

Key figures in theory development

• Aristotle
  • Author of Poetics, a foundational text in Western literary criticism that analyzes the elements of tragedy and the principles of dramatic composition
  • Developed concepts of mimesis (imitation), catharsis (emotional purgation), and the unity of action, time, and place in tragedy (Oedipus Rex, Medea)
• T.S. Eliot
  • Influential modernist poet and critic who helped shape the formalist approach to literature in the early 20th century
  • Emphasized the importance of tradition, impersonality, and the objective correlative in essays such as "Tradition and the Individual Talent" and "Hamlet and His Problems" (The Waste Land, Four Quartets)
• Ferdinand de Saussure
  • Swiss linguist and semiotician whose work laid the foundation for structuralism and the study of signs and signification
  • Developed the concept of the linguistic sign as a union of signifier (sound-image) and signified (concept), and the distinction between langue (language system) and parole (individual speech acts) (Course in General Linguistics)
• Michel Foucault
  • French philosopher and historian who examined the relationship between power, knowledge, and discourse, influencing the development of New Historicism and cultural studies
  • Analyzed the formation of subjects through disciplinary practices and the role of power in shaping truth and knowledge (Discipline and Punish, The History of Sexuality)
• Judith Butler
  • American philosopher and gender theorist who developed the concept of gender performativity and contributed to the growth of queer theory and feminist literary criticism
  • Challenged the notion of a stable, natural gender identity, arguing that gender is a performative act constituted through repetition and social norms (Gender Trouble, Bodies That Matter)

Key Figures and Movements in Literary Theory

Key figures and their contributions to the development of literary theory

• Sigmund Freud
  • Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis who influenced the development of psychoanalytic literary criticism
  • Explored the role of the unconscious, repression, and desire in human behavior and creative expression (The Interpretation of Dreams, Civilization and Its Discontents)
  • Psychoanalytic concepts such as the Oedipus complex, the uncanny, and the return of the repressed have been applied to the analysis of literary texts (Hamlet, The Turn of the Screw)
• Jacques Derrida
  • French philosopher and founder of deconstruction who challenged the notion of stable meaning and binary oppositions in texts
  • Developed concepts such as différance (the endless deferral of meaning), the trace (the absent presence of meaning), and the supplement (the excess that destabilizes meaning) (Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference)
  • Deconstructive readings expose the inherent contradictions and aporias within texts, revealing the instability of language and interpretation (Plato's Phaedrus, Rousseau's Confessions)
• Edward Said
  • Palestinian-American literary theorist and critic who developed the concept of Orientalism and contributed to the growth of postcolonial theory and criticism
  • Analyzed the representation of the Orient in Western literature and scholarship as a discourse of power, constructing the East as an exotic, inferior Other (Orientalism, Culture and Imperialism)
  • Examined the role of literature in the formation of cultural identity, resistance, and the struggle for self-determination in postcolonial contexts (Yeats and Decolonization, Reflections on Exile)
• Hélène Cixous
  • French feminist writer and theorist who contributed to the development of écriture féminine (feminine writing) and the exploration of gender and language in literature
  • Argued for a subversive, non-linear, and body-centered mode of writing that challenges patriarchal language and binary oppositions (The Laugh of the Medusa, The Newly Born Woman)
  • Analyzed the representation of women and the feminine in literature, emphasizing the need for women to reclaim their bodies and voices through writing (Dedans, Angst)
• Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
  • Indian literary theorist and critic who developed the concept of strategic essentialism and contributed to the growth of postcolonial and subaltern studies
  • Examined the silencing and marginalization of subaltern voices in colonial and postcolonial contexts, emphasizing the need for a critical engagement with the Other (Can the Subaltern Speak?, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason)
  • Analyzed the role of literature and translation in the formation of cultural identity and the negotiation of power relations between the West and the non-West (Death of a Discipline, An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization)

Major shifts and movements in the history of literary theory

• Russian Formalism
  • Early 20th-century movement that emphasized the formal properties of literary texts, focusing on the "literariness" of literature
  • Analyzed the devices and techniques used to create aesthetic effects, such as defamiliarization, plot construction, and narrative perspective (Viktor Shklovsky's "Art as Device", Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale)
  • Influenced the development of New Criticism and structuralism, which also prioritized the formal elements of texts over their historical or biographical contexts
• Reader-response criticism
  • Emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on the role of the reader in the creation of literary meaning and the interactive nature of the reading process
  • Key figures include Wolfgang Iser, who developed the concept of the implied reader and the act of reading as a dynamic process of anticipation and retrospection (The Act of Reading, The Implied Reader), and Stanley Fish, who argued that interpretive communities shape the meaning of texts through shared assumptions and strategies (Is There a Text in This Class?, Surprised by Sin)
  • Emphasized the plurality of meanings and the active participation of the reader in the construction of textual significance, challenging the New Critical notion of the autonomous, self-contained text
• New Historicism
  • Developed in the 1980s, examining literature in relation to its historical and cultural contexts, emphasizing the circulation of power and the negotiation of meaning within specific social formations
  • Key figures include Stephen Greenblatt, who analyzed the interplay between literary texts and the social, political, and ideological forces that shape them (Renaissance Self-Fashioning, Shakespearean Negotiations), and Louis Montrose, who explored the representation of gender and power in early modern literature (The Purpose of Playing, The Subject of Elizabeth)
  • Challenged the formalist separation of text and context, arguing for the inseparability of literary and non-literary discourses and the need to situate texts within their material conditions of production and reception
• Ecocriticism
  • Emerged in the 1990s, exploring the relationship between literature and the environment, focusing on issues of sustainability, environmental justice, and the representation of nature in texts
  • Analyzes the ways in which literature reflects and shapes attitudes towards the natural world, examining themes such as pastoral, wilderness, and ecological crisis (Cheryll Glotfelty's The Ecocriticism Reader, Lawrence Buell's The Environmental Imagination)
  • Engages with interdisciplinary perspectives from ecology, environmental history, and social justice movements to address the ethical and political dimensions of human-nature interactions in literature (Rob Nixon's Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Ursula Heise's Sense of Place and Sense of Planet)
• Digital humanities
  • Interdisciplinary field that combines literary studies with computer science and digital technologies, exploring new ways of analyzing, visualizing, and disseminating literary texts and data
  • Uses computational methods such as text mining, network analysis, and geospatial mapping to uncover patterns and connections within large corpora of texts (Franco Moretti's Graphs, Maps, Trees, Matthew Jockers' Macroanalysis)
  • Engages with issues of digital literacy, accessibility, and the impact of technology on the production and reception of literature (Jerome McGann's Radiant Textuality, N. Katherine Hayles' How We Think)
  • Develops innovative pedagogical and scholarly practices, such as collaborative annotation, digital editions, and online archives, to enhance the study and teaching of literature in the digital age (Miriam Posner's How Did They Make That?, Julia Flanders' Digital Humanities and the Library)