The Obvious Truth About Professors and You

FL 200 & ESPAÑOL 301

I found this article in the NYT to be of interest. Clearly, you will not find it at all compelling. :)

Professors’ Liberalism Contagious? Maybe Not

By PATRICIA COHEN

Published: November 3, 2008

Three sets of researchers recently concluded that professors have virtually no impact on the political views and ideology of their students.

KAFKAESQUE FOOD FOR THOUGHT

"Kafka's stories and novels have provoked a wealth of interpretations. [Max] Brod and Kafka's foremost English translators, Willa and Edwin Muir, viewed the novels as allegories of divine grace. Existentialists have seen Kafka's environment of guilt and despair as the ground upon which to construct an authentic existence. Some have seen his neurotic involvement with his father as the heart of his work; others have emphasized the social criticism, the inhumanity of the powerful and their agents, the violence and barbarity that lurk beneath normal routine. Some have found an imaginative anticipation of totalitarianism in the random and faceless bureaucratic terror of The Trial. The Surrealists delighted in the persistent intrusions of the absurd. There is evidence in both the works and the diaries for each of these interpretations, but Kafka's work as a whole transcends them all. One critic may have put it most accurately when he wrote of the works as "open parables" whose final meanings can never be rounded off"

"Kafka, Franz" Encyclopædia Britannica Online.

[Accessed 13 September 2000].

Copyright © 1994-2000 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

• How would you attempt to make sense of The Metamorphosis?
• What theoretical paradigms could help you? How?
• What sort of theses would you propose to illuminate specific "problems" in the text?
  

Transgender Romance

20th Annual Cervantes Symposium of California
The University of California, Berkeley October 17-18, 2008
Cervantes and Romance

Deportment, Reading and Passing: Transgender Spotting in Cervantes's La española inglesa
Harry Vélez Quiñones (University of Puget Sound)

I gently asked the physician if she could put the chart down and look at me. After she did so, I explained much to her surprise that I was a transgender woman and that a pap smear wasn’t necessary. She laughed, and I did as well, since I had assumed that I rarely pass. The lesson is one we all can learn. Sometimes we pass and sometimes we don’t.
- Gianna E. Israel

La española inglesa is one of the least popular of the twelve short novels included in Miguel de Cervantes’s Novelas ejemplares of 1613. Its generic filiation is probably to blame for that. As Carroll B. Johnson confessed in his masterful essay of 1988: “For years I had my students read only the “realistic-novelistic” stories, because they are obviously and immediately relevant to a number of contemporary concerns (…). I had always shunned La española inglesa because of its membership in the “romance” group” (377). Indeed, early critics of this work such as Rafael Lapesa and Alban K. Forcione had long established how this text is much closer to romance than to the modern novel. Dealing with the conflicted love-affair between the valiant Ricaredo and the beautiful and resourceful Isabela the novel is set in a courtly milieu and it abounds in exotic twists and turns. As Marsha S. Collins puts it:

The protagonists’ tortuous path traces a series of adventures that, by accident or providential design, test the steadfastness of their love and religious faith, which are inseparable in La española inglesa. Fate, challenges, and remarkable coincidences —staples of romance fiction— saturate the plot of the tale. (57-8)

Piracy, abduction, duels, poisoning, disfigurement, murder, and captivity get in the way of both lovers and parents, who, predictably, live long enough to witness a miraculous happy ending. That being said, it is also the case that other more historically grounded critics such as Joseph V. Ricapito, Carroll B. Johnson, and Barbara Fuchs see in this text the very real presence of historical, economic, and cultural conflicts affecting early modern Spaniards. Yet, it would be as interesting to note the extent to which the text’s identity as romance appears to cover up something far more problematic, novelistic, and ─perhaps─ “essential”. Taking Barbara Fuchs’s use of the term “passing” back to its material origins, I propose that we read La española inglesa as a “transgender romance”. That is, I want to suggest that strategies used to create a performance of gender that conceals one’s genetic sex assignment are also at play in texts that gain by covering up their “essential” filiation. The practice as well as the politics of passing in the crossing between ethnicity, gender, and caste and how they structure this transgender romance is at the heart of what this paper aims to discuss.

Carpe Diem on Steroids

ESPAÑOL 301 -Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
(Juana de Asbaje y Ramírez; ¿1648?-1695)

Soneto CXLV - A su retrato

(Procura desmentir los elogios que a un retrato de la poetisa inscribió la verdad, que llama pasión)

Este que ves, engaño colorido,
que, del arte ostentando los primores,
con falsos silogismos de colores
es cauteloso engaño del sentido;

éste, en quien la lisonja ha pretendido 5
excusar de los años los horrores,
y venciendo del tiempo los rigores
triunfar de la vejez y del olvido,

es un vano artificio del cuidado,
es una flor al viento delicada, 10
es un resguardo inútil para el hado:
es una necia diligencia errada,

es un afán caduco y, bien mirado,
es cadáver, es polvo, es sombra, es nada.

VERSIFICACIÓN Y RIMA:
Estrofa: Soneto (catorce versos de once sílabas:
dos cuartetos [o serventesios] y dos tercetos)
Sílabas: Once en cada verso
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 + 1 = 11
Este que ves, engaño colo-rido,
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 + 1 = 11
que, del arte_ostentando los pri-mores,
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9-10 + 1 = 11
con falsos silogismos de co-lores
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 + 1 = 11
es cauteloso_engaño del sentido;
Rima: Rima perfecta con el esquema ABBA ABBA CDC DCD

TRADUCCIÓN AL INGLÉS

(She tries to refute the praises inscribed on her portrait by Truth, which she calls passion.)

This, that you see, this colored treachery,
which, by displaying all the charms of art,
with those false syllogisms of its hues
deceptively subverts the sense of sight;

this, in which false praise has vainly sought
to shun the horrors of the passing years,
and conquering of time the cruelty,
to overcome age and oblivion's might,

is a vain artifice cautiously wrought,
is a fragile bloom caught by the wind,
is, to ward off fate, pure uselessness;

is a foolish effort that's gone wrong,
is a weakened zeal, and, rightly seen,
is corpse, is dust, is gloom, is nothingness.

(©Alix Ingber, 1995)

Primer ejercicio de poesía

ESPAÑOL 301

Monadas,

Mientras yo lucho contra un ingente mar de mocos ustedes tendrán la oportunidad de lucirse a sus anchas analizando y comentando textos poéticos.
Eso sí yo les voy a ayudar.
De los siguientes 6 pasos yo me encargaré de tres y ustedes llevarán a cabo los otros tres. A mí me tocan los números 2, 3 y 4.

1- Lectura atenta del texto - Vocabulario y referencias culturales esenciales para la comprensión del texto
2- Localización – Quien escribe, cuándo y bajo qué influencias culturales.
3- Determinación del tema – Asunto o argumento; Tema
4- Determinación de la estructura – métrica, rica, tipo de estrofas y/o composición.
5- Análisis de la forma partiendo del tema – Explica como la forma y el lenguaje del poema explicitan el tema: recursos poéticos usados, tropos, figuras del lenguaje, etc. y cómo éstas funcionan para hacer que el tema del texto se perciba efectivamente.
6- Conclusión – Reflexiones finales sobre el texto.

Fernando de Herrera (1534-1598)

Rojo sol

Rojo sol que con hacha luminosa
coloras el purpúreo alto cielo,
¿hallaste tal belleza en todo el suelo,
que iguale a mi serena luz dichosa?

Aura süave, blanda y amorosa 5
que nos halagas con tu fresco vuelo;
cuando el oro descubre y rico velo
mi luz, ¿trenza tocaste más hermosa?

Luna, honor de la noche, ilustre coro
de los errantes astros y fijados 10
¿consideraste tales dos estrellas?

Sol puro, aura, luna, llamas de oro
¿oísteis mis dolores nunca usados?
¿visteis luz más ingrata a mis querellas?


2- Localización – Quien escribe, cuándo y bajo qué influencias culturales.
Se trata de un soneto de Fernando de Herrera, poeta español del siglo XVI. Herrera escribe en la tradición renacentista y es, por decirlo así, heredero directo de Garcilaso de la Vega, el “príncipe de los poetas españoles”.

3- Determinación del tema – Asunto o argumento; Tema
Como gran parte de los sonetos, éste trata temas de amor. La voz poética intenta establecer un diálogo con diversos elementos de la naturaleza para así alabar a una anónima amada. Con el sol habla de la belleza de su “sol” (la amada). Con el suave viento del aura habla de la rubia trenza de los cabellos de la amada. Con la luna habla de los dos astros que adornan el rostro de la amada (sus) ojos. A los tres juntos interroga en el cuarteto final sobre el dolor que sufre el amante y sobre la ingratitud de la mujer.

4- Determinación de la estructura – métrica, rica, tipo de estrofas y/o composición.

Estrofa: Soneto (catorce versos de once sílabas: dos cuartetos [o serventesios] y dos tercetos)

Sílabas: Once en cada verso

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 + 1 = 11
Rojo sol que con hacha lumi-nosa

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 + 1 = 11
coloras el purpúreo_alto cielo,

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 + 1 = 11
¿hallaste tal belleza_en todo_el suelo,

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 + 1 = 11
que_iguale_a mi serena luz dichosa?

Rima: Rima perfecta con el esquema ABBA ABBA CDE CDE

Rojo Sol que con hacha luminosa A
coloras el purpúreo alto cielo, B
¿hallaste tal belleza en todo el suelo, B
que iguale a mi serena luz dichosa? A

Aura süave, blanda y amorosa A
que nos halagas con tu fresco vuelo; B
cuando el oro descubre y rico velo B
mi luz, ¿trenza tocaste más hermosa? A

Luna, honor de la noche, ilustre coro C
de los errantes astros y fijados D
¿consideraste tales dos estrellas? E

Sol puro, aura, luna, llamas de oro C
¿oísteis mis dolores nunca usados? D
¿visteis luz más ingrata a mis querellas? E

Image and Illusion in Early Modern Spain - Duke University

Pedro de Camprobín La muerte visitando al caballero (c.1660)

A couple of you asked me what is it that I am presenting here at Duke University today. Fair question! Here is the abstract of the paper I am delivering later today. I have also added a couple of visuals so that you can better understand what I am proposing.

The Dream of Olmedo: Trophies of Vanity in Lope, Pereda and Camprobín

Harry Vélez-Quiñones
The University of Puget Sound

«La Muerte es como una vieja cortesana que anduviera por cruces y caminos a la búsqueda de obligados compañeros de viaje…»
Memento mori

Read most often in the context of tragedy, Lope de Vega’s El caballero de Olmedo (1623) reveals itself as a different kind of fantasy when viewed through the prism of vanitas. As tragedy, it is simply the case that don Alonso’s hubris leads him to his undoing. His adamant pursuit of doña Inés in Medina, when he is but a forastero from Olmedo, sets him on a fatal course against forces that he is not able to control. Commentators have highlighted the hero’s pride and arrogance, yet seldom have readers or viewers been invited to envision don Alonso’s self-image. That is, how exactly should we visualize this small-town hidalgo? What is it that moves him to act in such a reckless fashion? What is it that he sees in himself that the play does not quite show us? Moreover, how is it that a young lady as well positioned as doña Inés should fall for a stranger such as Alonso? Surely she most see in him something extraordinary that other suitors lack. This paper aims to fill this visual void by proposing that we read El caballero de Olmedo in the context of early modern representations of the vanitas theme in painting. Antonio de Pereda’s Desengaño del mundo o Sueño del caballero (c.1650-55) and Pedro de Camprobín’s La muerte visitando al caballero (c.1660), among other works, can help us understand the particular construction of masculinity at work in Lope’s play. Don Alonso’s penchant for collecting trophies that exemplify his vanity leads him to a final acquisition, that “vieja cortesana que anduviera por cruces y caminos a la búsqueda de obligados compañeros de viaje…”

Antonio de Pereda, Desengaño del mundo o Sueño del caballero (c.1650-55)

Los hijos cargarán con los pecados de los padres

ESPAÑOL 301

Se me ocurre que quizá les sea útil meditar en lo siguiente antes o después de de leer "No oyes ladrar los perros" de Juan Rulfo.

Un tipo de carga:
Do the sons bear the sins of the fathers or not?: Exodus 20:5, Deuteronomy 5:9 and Deuteronomy 24:16; Ezekiel 18:20
1. YES they do
1. (Exodus 20:5) - "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,"
2. (Deuteronomy 5:9) - "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,"
3. (Exodus 34:6-7) - "Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; 7who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations."
4. (1 Cor. 15:22) - "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive."
2. NO they don't
1. (Deuteronomy 24:16) - "Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin."
2. (Ezekiel 18:20) - "The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself."

Otro tipo de carga:
Aeneas was the son of Anchises and Venus. He was a cousin of King Priam of Troy, and was the leader of Troy's Dardanian allies during the Trojan War. After the fall of Troy, he led a band of Trojan refugees to Italy and became the founder of Roman culture (although not of the city of Rome itself). He was the mythical progenitor of the Julian gens through his son Ascanius, or "Iulus," and Virgil made him the hero of his epic, the Aeneid.

See Aeneas - Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius Fleeing Troy, 1596, by Federico Barocci, Galleria Borghese, Rome
See Aeneas - Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius, 1619, by Bernini, Galleria Borghese, Rome
See Aeneas - Aeneas carrying Anchises, Ascanius, and Creusa out of Troy ["Fire in the Borgo"], by Raphael and assistants 1511-1515

Psychoanalysis and Feminism: Sarah Palin & Judith Warner

FL 200

This morning I came across the following blog entry on Sarah Palin by NYT contributor Judith Warner. The post tells how Warner's reading of a photograph of Sarah Palin and elder statesman and Jewish cultural icon, Henry Kissinger, leads her to feel sympathy for the former. The feeling prompts her to compare Palin and Elle Woods, the ditzy, gutsy, hardw0rking, and ultimately brilliant heroine of the Legally Blond and Legally Blond II movies. Faulty as this analogy is, the post and the comments readers made on it are a very interesting read.
Warner's analysis falls somewhere between Cultural Studies, Psychoanalytical criticism and Feminism. It raises as many questions about Palin and John McCain as it does about Warner and her take on contemporary American women. Have fun with it!

3 tesis, 3 párrafos y 3 opciones para tus ensayos

SPAN 301

Como todos sabemos, escribir ensayos críticos no es tan fácil como parece. No solamente es necesario interrogar los textos y luchar para encontrar un buen tema, también hay que esforzarse para crear una tesis estimulante que le haga justicia al tema.
Como ejemplo de lo anterior y en preparación para su próximo texto crítico, les presento tres "primeros párrafos" sobre La rosa de Anderson Imbert. Estúdienlos y traten de entender cómo funcionan.

PÁRRAFO NO. 1
La rosa de Enrique Anderson Imbert, presenta un espectáculo desolador tras la devastación de una pobre aldea por soldados enemigos. De en medio del desastre surge la posibilidad de restitución o venganza cuando una nueva Judith aparece para hacerle frente al Holofernes cuyas tropas casi violan a su pobre y vieja abuela. Sin embargo, el texto subvierte nuestras expectativas. La rosa roja que antes ha servido para humillar a la anciana pasa a los pechos de la coqueta moza que optará por “hacer el amor y no la guerra”. El recuerdo bíblico es solo eso, una desvirtuada leyenda sobre la que Judith salta como antes ha hecho con el cadáver de la vieja que salva su vida.

Este ensayo parte de la idea de que La rosa es una re-interpretación de una historia bíblica: el fatal encuentro entre la heroica Judith y el torpe y lascivo gigante Holofernes.

PÁRRAFO NO. 2
Si el mito cristiano del origen de la humanidad castiga a la primera mujer y la condena a la reprobación eterna por sucumbir a la tentación del mal y a su vez seducir a su incauta pareja, La rosa de Anderson Imbert parece abrir una puerta a la consolación. La expulsión del paraíso, la tentación carnal y la seducción aparecen en este cuento libres de toda censura moralizante. Judith, la joven que al final del cuento busca con una flor en los pechos al capitán de la tropa que ha diezmado su aldea no lo hace como la bíblica Judith para descabezarlo sino para hacerlo perder la cabeza por sus tentadores encantos. Así como el desliz de Eva conduce a la verdadera población del mundo tras la abolición del falso paraíso en el cual Jehová y la Serpiente luchan, la unión entre la víctima y el guerrero conquistador se presenta como la única opción lógica en un universo moderno, quizá más cínico pero no menos cruel.


Este ensayo parte de la intuición que tuvimos sobre la correspondencia de la rosa de "Anderson Imbert" y la manzana de George Preedy. Se trataría de un ensayo que ve en La rosa un comentario acérbico sobre el mito de la creación.

PÁRRAFO NO. 3
Todo texto, como advierte la crítica post-estructuralista, se constituye en relación con otros textos. En algunos casos incluso se puede decir, como habría afirmado Borges, que todo texto es la re-escritura de un texto anterior. No hay ejemplo más claro que La rosa de Enrique Anderson Imbert. Presentado al lector como una carta en la que un anónimo autor re-escribe un cuento de George R. Preedy, la historia que se cuenta en La rosa es a su vez una re-escritura de una popular historia bíblica. El mítico gigante Holofernes se enfrenta otra vez en el cuento de Anderson Imbert a una imponente Judith. Sin embargo, como veremos, se trata esta vez de un combate de otro tipo. Al igual que la inconclusa carta del anónimo autor, el narrador de esta re-escritura bíblica opta por un final abierto que pone en tela de juicio la autoridad de la historia original.

Este ensayo está más interesado en leer el texto de Anderson Imbert como re-escritura. Lo que le interesa al autor es acentuar su carácter post-moderno. Se trata de un fragmento de un mito dentro de un fragmento de otro texto: la anónima carta a George R. Preedy.

My Brain on Crack

FL 200

It occurs to me that this provocative and poignant list hits on some of the issues we talked about when we analyzed Governor Palin's press release concerning the pregnancy of her teenage daughter. It further helps understand the kind of cultural criticism that "reading against the grain" allows you to make. Enjoy it, even if it makes you feel weird.

This Is Your Nation on White Privilege

September, 14 2008
By Tim Wise

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

* White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even s black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
* White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
* White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in the first place because of affirmative action.
* White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re "untested."
* White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.
* White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.
* White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.
* White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."
* White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago mean you must be corrupt.
* White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people; you're an extremist who probably hates America.
* White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.
* White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a “light" burden.
* And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull. For review copies or interview requests, please reply to publicity@softskull.com

Why Theory? / ¿Teoría para qué?

FL 200 & ESPAÑOL 301

This question is one that comes up every year I teach either of these courses. Even students who get into theory wonder at times if it has any other usefulness besides making reading literature a highly challenging proposition.

Here then is a challenge to you: Identify theoretical paradigms at work in this article.

The text in question is not literary criticism but political analysis. Its author is not a professor or a theorist with a French name but an American journalist from the New York Times.

A little bit about him: "Nicholas D. Kristof writes op-ed columns that appear twice each week in The New York Times. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he previously was associate managing editor of The Times, responsible for the Sunday Times" NYT. Oh, and to top it of he is from Yamhill, Oregon.

Cardinal Newman, Father Ambrose St. John, and Oscar Wilde

FL 200

The following two news items and (1 & 3) and the single biographical entry on Oscar Wilde (2) should help us see the extent to which what "happens" inside Dorian Gray's old schoolroom, that is, what is reflected on Basil Hallward's supernatural canvas is still something that troubles the good Christian people of England.

(1) Violating Cardinal Newman's wishes The Pope wants to rebury John Newman separately from the man he loved, Father Ambrose St John [09/04/2008]

(2) "[Oscar] Wilde defeated Edward Carson for the foundation scholarship in classics at Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1874 won a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was influenced by John Ruskin, Walter Pater and Cardinal Newman. He became a disciple of aestheticism, pursuing beauty for beauty's sake; his poem Ravenna (1878) won the Newdigate Prize" [Wilde's biographical sketch]

(3) "Fr. Ian Ker [sic], a priest and biographer of Cardinal Newman, told the Weekend Australian yesterday that homosexulists [sic] were using Newman's close friendship with another priest as a political ploy. 'Clearly' Fr. Kerr said, Newman 'did love his dear friend' but he called it 'ridiculous' to claim, a century after the fact, that they were homosexuals who lived 'as husband and wife.' 'There is no evidence for that whatsoever, and everything he wrote and said suggests he would have thought homosexuality was immoral, not to mention that it was illegal at the time. Theirs was a close friendship that some people are now trying to misrepresent and use for their own purposes'" [09/04/2008]

Sometimes, current events render what we read more dramatic. This is one of those moments.

Postmodernism

FL 200

On Thursday we will be discussing chapter 4 of Barry's book on Literary Theory. That is, we will be talking about postmodernism. Names such as Jürgen Habermas, François Lyotard, and Jean Baudrillard are on the agenda.

Postmodernism is the name of a category and postmodernity is the label applied to the times we currently live in. These names would seem to indicate that we have broken with modernity, yet nothing could be less accurate. Culture works on a principle of accretion. If we are still fairly medieval about a number of things, married to many Renaissance notions, baroque at times, solid defenders of rationalism and other enlightened positions, romantics to the core, etc., it is no less the case that modernism is very much with us today and within postmodernism. Aesthetic currents such as Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism are still in some form alive today. "In some form" is the operational term here.

In a nutshell, the relationship between modernism and postmodernism is akin to that between our attitudes towards love at different points in our life. Thus, after having had one's heart broken by the first time our take on love resembles modernism. Yet, after very many sad, happy, joyful, and deep relationships with many wonderful lovers we tend to be closer to postmodernism. There is no drama in postmodernism and no regrets. Playfulness is central. A gentle irony pervades it all. There is no "romance of my life", as Dorian would have put it, and that is just perfectly fine. Being together with someone has ceased to be about great verities such as LOVE, MARRIAGE, FAMILY, etc. and has become self-referential: relationships are all about themselves. Etc.

Below you will find some basic principles, courtesy of Professor Mary Anne Gillies. Also do make sure to study Professor's Klages handout on postmodernism available here and in Moodle. It will make Barry's short chapter much more meaningful.

POSTMODERNISM: Label given to Cultural forms since the 1960s that display the following qualities:

• Self reflexivity: this involves the seemingly paradoxical combination of self-consciousness and some sort of historical grounding
• Irony: Post modernism uses irony as a primary mode of expression, but it also abuses, installs, and subverts conventions and usually negotiates contradictions through irony
• Boundaries: Post modernism challenges the boundaries between genres, art forms, theory and art, high art and the mass media
• Constructs: Post modernism is actively involved in examining the constructs society creates including, but not exclusively, the following:

Nation: Post modernism examines the construction of nations/nationality and questions such constructions

Gender: Post modernism reassesses gender, the construction of gender, and the role of gender in cultural formations

Race: Post modernism questions and reassesses constructs of race

Sexuality: Post modernism questions and reassesses constructs of sexuality

Las medias rojas

ESPAÑOL 301

Monadas, como van a ir viendo, jugar con los textos siempre es lo mismo que teorizar.

Ayer en clase, sin hablarlo, aplicamos nociones del estructuralismo, el post-estructuralismo, el "New Historicism" y, claro, el "close reading" tradicional.

Estructuralista fue el intento de encontrar paralelos en el texto entre las "medias rojas" y otros aspectos. Así sacamos la conclusión de que existe una conexión evidente entre éstas y:

• el sueño de Ildara de una vida más acomodada que el narrador le atribuye a ella
• el riesgo que toma Ildara de sufrir uan "caída moral" que la lleve a la prostitución
• la brutal paliza que recibe Ildara a manos de su padre
• la inocencia de Ildara que es como una Caperucita Roja [Little Red Riding Hood] que estuviera con el lobo [el tío Clodio] metido en la casa. (Esto no lo discutimos, pero se podría demostrar.)

Post-estructuralista fue nuestro interés en sacar a la luz los silencios del texto. El análisis de la voz narrativa en busca de ambivalencias, ambigüedad, ironía, etc. forma parte de esto.

"New Historicism" Neo-historicista fue el intento de colocar el cuento en un determinado contexto histórico y una problemática social específica: la inmigración. Nuestro breve análisis del texto en galego sobre la emigración entra dentro de ese paradigma crítico. Un análisis de dicho texto habría mostrado una actitud completamente diferente a la de la narradora. Además nos habría dado pistas para buscar en textos de la época cómo se iban construyendo una serie de discursos conflictivos en torno al problema de la emigración. Los neo-historicistas son un sub-grupo o escuela dentro del post-estructuralismo.

Close-reading - Utilizamos este acercamiento al texto para analizar el tipo de lenguaje que encontramos. Así resulto fácil ubicar el cuento en el medio rural en Galicia. También nos sirvió esta técnica para descubrir cómo el tío Clodio sabe que Ildara le miente.

Otro recurso tradicional que empleamos fue nuestro intento de discutir el texto dentro del movimiento naturalista. Sin embargo, como empezamos a ver, conviene estar alerta y no caer en simplificaciones. Este texto se presenta como texto naturalista, pero esconde tal vez una agenda nacionalista de signo complejo.

Habría sido posible acercarnos a este texto desde el marxismo o el feminismo...

En el apéndice del libro de Jonathan Culler (LIT) se discuten las distintas "escuelas" o acercamientos teóricos. Es información similar a las que les puse en el blog al principio del curso. Lean estas descripciones y téngalas presentes a la hora de leer los textos.

Back to the Future

FL 200

We are always going to be working on a back-and-forth fashion with the texts we discuss. Quite often we need to go back before we can go forward. Such is the case tomorrow.
I want to go over some of the points raised in the 6 chapters that we read for Tuesday.
Make sure that you think about these.

Be prepared to dazzle your peers and me with your insights on the following points as well as on the assigned reading for tomorrow.


CHAPTER I
[5] "Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,"
What can this mean in aesthetic, social, sexual, and political terms, etc.

CHAPTER II
[25] A late XIXth C. carpe diem cult? “A new Hedonism-- that is what our century wants.”
What can this mean in aesthetic, social, sexual, and political terms, etc.

CHAPTER III
[40] Harry’s project: - “To project one's soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment…”

CHAPTER IV
[57] What are the implications of this intrusion of theatre in the realm of the novel?

CHAPTER V
[81] Sibyl’s mother and her son: “The exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture that accompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem more vivid to her. She was familiar with the atmosphere. She breathed more freely, and for the first time for many months she really admired her son. She would have liked to have continued the scene on the same emotional scale, but he cut her short.”
Comment on Sibyl’s mom take on theatrical effects as opposed to her daughter’s.

CHAPTER VI
[85]Sibyl as Rosalind: “Sibyl was playing Rosalind. Of course, the scenery was dreadful and the Orlando absurd. “But Sibyl! You should have seen her! When she came on in her boy's clothes, she was perfectly wonderful. She wore a moss-coloured velvet jerkin with cinnamon sleeves, slim, brown, cross-gartered hose, a dainty little green cap with a hawk's feather caught in a jewel, and a hooded cloak lined with dull red. She had never seemed to me more exquisite. She had all the delicate grace of that Tanagra figurine that you have in your studio, Basil. Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves round a pale rose.”
Why does Sibyl as Rosalind move Dorian so powerfully?

Wilde rewriting Wilde

FL200
As you read Wilde's TPDG bear in mind that the book that you are handling follows the 1891 edition of TPDG. The original was 6 chapters shorter and published in serialized form in 1890. Its reception was rather negative for the most part:

"Critical reaction to The Picture of Dorian Gray was generally unfavourable: while the anonymous reviewer in The Christian Leader claimed that Wilde had “performed a service to his age” by painting “the tragic picture of Dorian Gray’s life” (Stuart Mason, Oscar Wilde: Art and Morality, p. 21), unsigned reviews in other publications, including the Daily Chronicle, St. James’s Gazette and Scots Observer, denounced the work as corrupt, poisonous, leprous, and [a medico-legal fiction] suited only for “[outlawed noblemen and] perverted telegraph boys” (Karl Beckson (ed.), Oscar Wilde: The Critical Heritage, pp. 71-75). Wilde wrote numerous letters to the press, pointing out the artistic merits of his work and defending it against ethical criticisms. He went so far as to claim that the only error in the book was that it contained a moral: “And the moral is this. All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment” (The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde, p. 430)." NOTE

For the 1891 edition of the novel as a book Wilde made a number of changes that responded to the criticism leveled against the book. Chaptes III, V, XVI, XVII, XVIII and portions of chapters XIX and XX were added. Also, the very odd preface that the novel now has was added then. He also edited selected sentences and fragments elsewhere.

Judith Butler en el capítulo séptimo

ESPAÑOL 301

Solamente unas líneas para advertirles que en su lectura del capítulo 7 de LIT se
concentren únicamente en la sección sobre Judith Butler y la performance del género. "Judith Butler dice que la categoría de género no puede ser entendida como un destino biológico y sí como una performance que evoca la constitución cultural de la categoría género". NOTA Esto es lo que nos interesará considerar en clase.
Las tesis de Butler valen incluso para entender el comportamiento de los soldados y del capitán en La Rosa. También, claro, la decisión de Judith.

En clase mañana jueves... "L I T E R A T U R A"

ESPAÑOL 301
Como estaremos hablando de poética, narrativa y hermenéutica será bueno que practiquemos la teoría.
Les dije que leyeran y prepararan bien La Rosa de Enrique Anderson Imbert para mañana.
Aquí tienen unas preguntas para orientar la discusión:

¿Quién es el narrador de este texto que tantos de ustedes conocen?
¿Quién habla? ¿Qué visión trata de presentar?
* Who speaks? - ¿Quién habla? – el narrador y los personajes:
¿Cómo hablan el narrador y los personajes… desde qué perspectiva o ángulo… qué saben o no saben, etc.?
* Who speaks to whom? – ¿Quién habla con quién? – el narratario
¿A quién se dirige la narración implícita o explícitamente? ¿Cómo se construye ese lector? ¿Cómo obedece la persona que lee a la interpelación del texto para convertirse o no en el “lector que el texto desea”?
* Who speaks when? - ¿Cuándo?
¿Cómo y cuándo hablan los personajes? ¿Hablan directamente o a través de otros personajes o de cartas, señas, símbolos, etc.? ¿Por qué?
¿En qué orden se estructura la narración?
* Who speaks what language? - ¿Cómo se habla?
Distintos narradores y personajes pueden hablar de distinta forma por muchas razones: edad, enfermedad, clase social, disimulación, hipocresía, etc.
* Who speaks with what authority? – La autoridad del narrador
Narradores fiables o no-fiables - tendemos a confiar en el narrador y los autores saben esto y lo utilizan para crear determinados efectos
* Focalization - Who sees?
Point of view – el punto de vista es algo más complicado:

Me gustaría también que leyeran con mucho cuidado el poema "Chico Wrangler" de Ana Rosetti.

Chico wrangler
Dulce corazón mío de súbito asaltado.
Todo por adorar más de lo permisible.
Todo porque un cigarro se asienta en una boca
y en sus jugosas sedas se humedece.
Porque una camiseta incitante señala,
de su pecho, el escudo durísimo,
y un vigoroso brazo de la mínima manga sobresale.
Todo porque unas piernas, unas perfectas piernas,
dentro del más ceñido pantalón, frente a mí se separan.
Se separan.

Structuralism and Fashion... on a lighter note

FL 200
As I was preparing for class and thinking about Structuralism, Roland Barthes, and Mythologies I was reminded of one of the unsung cultural geniuses of the late XX century, the fabulous Brenda Dickson.
As you know, Barry asserts that "A signifying system in this sense is a very wide concept: it means any organised and structured set of signs which carries cultural meanings. Included in this category would be such diverse phenomena as : ... fashions (in clothing, food, 'life-style', etc.)" (47).
Thus, without any further ado I give you Brenda Dickson:

Structuralism, Lodge, The Oval Portrait & Cat in the Rain

FL200 - Structuralism - BT #2 – pp. 39-60
Some Elements of Structuralism and its Application to Literary Theory
Cf. WWW: http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/struct.html
1) 37- Definition of Structuralism
a) What are these “structures”? Where do they come from?
b) Where does meaning reside for structuralists?
2) 38- The structuralist approach
a) How does it approach texts?
b) What does it do to them in relation to structures? Give an example.
3) 41-44 Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)
Cf. WWW: http://www.criticism.com/md/the_sign.html &
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/saussure.htm
a) What are Saussure’s three main pronouncements on meaning and language?
b) Why can we say that words are “unmotivated signs”?
c) What is the relation between the arbitrariness of signs and the notion that language reflects or represents reality?
d) Give an example of a “paradigmatic chain”.
e) Give an example of a “dyad”.
f) In what sense is meaning attributed to objects or ideas by the human mind?
g) What are the consequences of such attribution?
h) Give an example of how language constitutes the so-called objective world?
i) Define langue and parole? Give an example of these as applied to literature.
4) 47- Structuralism and culture
a) What do structuralists read as if it were a language? How is this possible?
5) 48- Roland Barthes (1915-1980)
Cf. WWW: http://www.sunderland.ac.uk/~os0tmc/myth.htm
a) What does Barthes accomplish in his work, Mythologies (1957)?
6) 49- What do structuralist critics do? : You tell me.
a) What did we attempt to do of the options listed after number 1?
7) 50-51 Barthes’s 5 Codes (S/Z [1970]): http://www.cla.purdue.edu/English/theory/narratology/modules/barthescodes.html
8) READ “The Oval Portrait”: BT Appendix 1 - pp. 272-275
9) 56- What does Barry mean by his “paraphrase” of D.H. Lawrence: “[N]ever trust the moral, trust the tale”?
10) READ: David Lodge – “Analysis and Interpretation of the Realist Text”, pp. 24-42 and be prepared to discuss his approach to the story by Hemingway: “Cat in the Rain” included in the last 3 pages of the article.

PREGUNTAS QUE DEBES PODER CONTESTAR EN CLASE ESTE MARTES

ESPAÑOL 301
CAPÍTULO 3

¿Qué son los estudios culturales [Cultural Studies]?

¿Qué papel juegan en su desarrollo Roland Barthes y Raymond Williams?

¿Qué es interpelación?

¿Qué relación hay entre los estudios culturales y la teoría literaria?

¿Qué relación entre los estudios culturales y los estudios literarios?

CAPÍTULO 4

¿Qué papel juega Ferdinand de Saussure en el desarrollo de la teoría literaria?

¿Qué quiere decir que el lenguaje no es una nomenclatura [i.e. Lista de nombres de personas o cosas]?

¿Qué concepto clave aporta Noam Chomsky que permite teorizar sobre el papel que juegan los lectores ante un texto?

¿A qué se dedica la poética y a qué se dedica la hermenéutica?

¿Qué se entiende por Reader’s Response Theory?

¿Qué es y cómo se explica la falacia de la intencionalidad?

p. 67 – Explica la siguiente afirmación: “Meaning is context-bound, but context is boundless”.

Puntos a destacar del capítulo 2

ESPAÑOL 301 Como les prometí el otro día, esto es lo que me interesa destacar del capítulo 2

p.27 ¿Qué vino primero: el huevo, la gallina, la apariencia de literaridad [lenguaje descontextualizado] o la designación de un texto como literario [lenguaje que constituye su propio contexto]?

• En todo acercamiento a la literatura vamos a tener que posicionarnos entre estas dos opciones.
• [USO ESPECIAL DEL LENGUAJE]La literatura es lenguaje descontextualizado, libre de funciones o propósitos pragmáticos. Esto es tan cierto que, como demuesta LIT, si sacamos lenguaje ordinario de su contexto pragmático podemos ver que muchas veces alcanza un cierto nivel literaridad. Por eso es que se han venido estudiando las características propias literarias del lenguaje descontextualizado. Son estas características las que nos han llevado a acercarnos a ese tipo de lenguaje de manera diferente a la que empleamos con el lenguaje ordinario en contextos prácticos.
• i.e. Recuerden mi intento de literaturizar las declaraciones de Sarah Palin sobre el embarazo de su hija.
• [LENGUAJE ESPECIAL] La literatura es lenguaje al que nos acercamos diferentemente, o sea es su propio contexto, porque ha sido designado previamente como “literatura” y por tanto merecedor de un tratamiento especial. Es decir, la literatura es una categoría institucional del lenguaje.
• i.e. Recuerden el principio hiper-protegido de cooperación. (p.25-26) Cuando nos dan, ofrecen o venden un lenguaje como literatura nos acercamos a él de otra manera y lo leemos con otros ojos. Estamos dispuestos a pasar trabajo analizando ese lenguaje especial porque nos han asegurado que “vale la pena” moral, estética, política, filosófica, o educacionalmente.

p.27-34 Cinco maneras de concebir la literatura

• La literatura como:
• Lenguaje en el que la lengua está enfatizada o en el que la lengua se destaca como objeto en sí.
• Lenguaje que presenta un alto nivel de organización y e integración entre sus diversos aspectos.
• Lenguaje por el que accedemos a un universo ficcional
• Lenguaje cuyo fin es el de crear agradables o estimulantes momentos de placer
• Lenguaje auto-reflexivo, o sea, lenguaje que hace gala de su estatus como texto en relación con otros textos.

p.35-41 ¿Para qué sirve la literatura? ¿Cuáles son sus funciones?

Los críticos según Frank O'Hara - Critics according to Frank O'Hara

ESPAÑOL 301 & FL 200

Se me ocurre también que sería saludable que ya que estamos preparándonos para entrar en el espacio de la crítica literaria que recordemos lo que advierte y recomienda el poema "The Critic" del escritor norteamericano Frank O'Hara (1926-1966): 

It occurs to me that, since we are embarking on a literary criticism journey, we would do well in reflecting on what Frank O'Hara's poem "The Critic" admonishes and recommends:

The Critic

I cannot possibly think of you
other than you are: the assassin

of my orchards.  You lurk there
in the shadows, meting out

conversations like Eve's first
confusion between penises and

snakes.  Oh be droll, be jolly
and be temperate!  Do not

frighten me more than you
have to!  I must live forever. 

We will not be able to please Mr. O'Hara all the time and indeed we will probably take pleasure in giving him more than a few scares.  Still, no one can say we did not stop for a moment to consider what his poem advised.

No creo que podamos complacer al señor O'Hara todo el tiempo.  Es más, estoy seguro de que probablemente le daremos al menos media docena de sustos de muerte.  Sin embargo, nadie podrá decir que no nos detuvimos aunque fuera por un momento a meditar sobre lo que su poema aconsejaba.

George W. Bush and Foucault - War on Terror

ESPAÑOL 301

¡Hola chicos!

Se me ocurre ahora que quizás debía enfatizar dos o tres ideas clave sobre la lectura de hoy.
Sobre FOUCAULT es necesario entender lo revolucionario que es su propuesta. Su crítica del paradigma dominante, la llamada hipótesis represiva de la sexualidad, desenmascara la complicidad del poder con los desordenes que presuntamente intenta controlar. No es que la burguesía victoriana reprimiera una sexualidad que era libre antes. Lo que sucede es más complicado. La sexualidad es un efecto no una causa: es el producto de la actividad discursiva de distintos colectivos obsesionados por entender, sistematizar, regular y controlar la variada y compleja variedad de conductas humanas. La actividad discursiva de políticos, médicos, moralistas, artistas, etc en torno a lo sexual consigue crear nuevas categorías a través de las cuales se consigue poder sobre los otros.
El paralelo que mencioné en clase hoy día es el término "war on terror" tal como lo utilizó George Bush después de los ataques terroristas contra las Torres Gemelas.
Como discute Julian Reid en su libro The biopolitics of the war on terror: Life struggles, liberal modernity and the defence of logistical societies (Manchester UP, 2006):

The War on Terror is widely represented as a conflict between regimes tasked with achieving security for human life against an enemy dedicated to the destruction of the social and political conditions necessary for the flourishing of human life. Not simply an enemy that is motivated against the interests of common humanity, but an enemy which in being so driven, is ready to resort to subhuman tactics, and which therefore requires,paradoxically, a less than human response in defence of the integrity of human life. Hence the declaration by liberal regimes and the mobilisation of their societies for a war of fundamentally illiberal proportions and dimensions. A war deemed to require the permanent mobilisation of entire societies against an enemy said to threaten their security from within. A war against an enemy which like a parasite living off its human host, breeds in the most vulnerable areas of liberal societies, waiting for the moment to release a pathological violence upon its otherwise oblivious prey. A war which requires the development of new and evermore intensive techniques with which to monitor the movements and dispositions of the life of liberal societies themselves because it is there that the enemy festers and will emerge to such devastating effect.

La constante repetición del término "war on terror" por políticos, medios de comunicación, autoridades religiosas, radio, televisión, escuelas, etc. ha conseguido crear una nueva categoría a través de la cual el poder consigue ejercer su dominio sobre todos. Este es un ejemplo de cómo la teoría sirve para entender fenómenos no solamente literarios sino políticos. Las tesis de Foucault sobre la sexualidad serán super útiles en nuestro acercamiento a la novela de Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Esto vale por ahora. Mas tarde tocaré otros puntos de la clase de hoy jueves que me gustaría que quedaran claros también.

Literary Theory and Criticism

FL200 & ESPAÑOL 301

It occurs to me that this brief outline of the major "schools" or "movements" in literary theory and criticism could come in very handy. ENJOY!

Literary Theory and Criticism

<http://sparkcharts.sparknotes.com/lit/literaryterms/section6.php>

Literary theory and literary criticism are interpretive tools that help us think more deeply and insightfully about the literature that we read. Over time, different schools of literary criticism have developed, each with its own approaches to the act of reading.

Schools of Interpretation

Cambridge School (1920s–1930s): A group of scholars at Cambridge University who rejected historical and biographical analysis of texts in favor of close readings of the texts themselves.

Chicago School (1950s): A group, formed at the University of Chicago in the 1950s, that drew on Aristotle’s distinctions between the various elements within a narrative to analyze the relation between form and structure. Critics and Criticisms: Ancient and Modern (1952) is the major work of the Chicago School.

Deconstruction (1967–present): A philosophical approach to reading, first advanced by Jacques Derrida that attacks the assumption that a text has a single, stable meaning. Derrida suggests that all interpretation of a text simply constitutes further texts, which means there is no “outside the text” at all. Therefore, it is impossible for a text to have stable meaning. The practice of deconstruction involves identifying the contradictions within a text’s claim to have a single, stable meaning, and showing that a text can be taken to mean a variety of things that differ significantly from what it purports to mean.

Feminist criticism (1960s–present): An umbrella term for a number of different critical approaches that seek to distinguish the human experience from the male experience. Feminist critics draw attention to the ways in which patriarchal social structures have marginalized women and male authors have exploited women in their portrayal of them. Although feminist criticism dates as far back as Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and had some significant advocates in the early 20th century, such as Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir, it did not gain widespread recognition as a theoretical and political movement until the 1960s and 1970s.

Psychoanalytic criticism: Any form of criticism that draws on psychoanalysis, the practice of analyzing the role of unconscious psychological drives and impulses in shaping human behavior or artistic production. The three main schools of psychoanalysis are named for the three leading figures in developing psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Jacques Lacan.

• Freudian criticism (c. 1900–present): The view of art as the imagined fulfillment of wishes that reality denies. According to Freud, artists sublimate their desires and translate their imagined wishes into art. We, as an audience, respond to the sublimated wishes that we share with the artist. Working from this view, an artist’s biography becomes a useful tool in interpreting his or her work. “Freudian criticism” is also used as a term to describe the analysis of Freudian images within a work of art.
• Jungian criticism (1920s–present): A school of criticism that draws on Carl Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious, a reservoir of common thoughts and experiences that all cultures share. Jung holds that literature is an expression of the main themes of the collective unconscious, and critics often invoke his work in discussions of literary archetypes.
• Lacanian criticism (c. 1977–present): Criticism based on Jacques Lacan’s view that the unconscious, and our perception of ourselves, is shaped in the “symbolic” order of language rather than in the “imaginary” order of prelinguistic thought. Lacan is famous in literary circles for his influential reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter.”

Marxist criticism: An umbrella term for a number of critical approaches to literature that draw inspiration from the social and economic theories of Karl Marx. Marx maintained that material production, or economics, ultimately determines the course of history, and in turn influences social structures.These social structures, Marx argued, are held in place by the dominant ideology, which serves to reinforce the interests of the ruling class. Marxist criticism approaches literature as a struggle with social realities and ideologies.

• Frankfurt School (c. 1923–1970): A group of German Marxist thinkers associated with the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt. These thinkers applied the principles of Marxism to a wide range of social phenomena, including literature. Major members of the Frankfurt School include Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, and Jürgen Habermas.

New Criticism (1930s–1960s): Coined in John Crowe Ransom’s The New Criticism (1941), this approach discourages the use of history and biography in interpreting a literary work. Instead, it encourages readers to discover the meaning of a work through a detailed analysis of the text itself. This approach was popular in the middle of the 20th century, especially in the United States, but has since fallen out of favor.

New Historicism (1980s–present): An approach that breaks down distinctions between “literature” and “historical context” by examining the contemporary production and reception of literary texts, including the dominant social, political, and moral movements of the time. Stephen Greenblatt is a leader in this field, which joins the careful textual analysis of New Criticism with a dynamic model of historical research.

New Humanism (c. 1910–1933): An American movement, led by Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More, that embraced conservative literary and moral values and advocated a return to humanistic education.

Post-structuralism (1960s–1970s): A movement that comprised, among other things, Deconstruction, Lacanian criticism, and the later works of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault. It criticized structuralism for its claims to scientific objectivity, including its assumption that the system of signs in which language operates was stable.

Queer theory (1980s–present): A “constructivist” (as opposed to “essentialist”) approach to gender and sexuality that asserts that gender roles and sexual identity are social constructions rather than an essential, inescapable part of our nature. Queer theory consequently studies literary texts with an eye to the ways in which different authors in different eras construct sexual and gender identity. Queer theory draws on certain branches of feminist criticism and traces its roots to the first volume of Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality (1976).

Russian Formalism (1915–1929): A school that attempted a scientific analysis of the formal literary devices used in a text. The Stalinist authorities criticized and silenced the Formalists, but Western critics rediscovered their work in the 1960s. Ultimately, the Russian Formalists had significant influence on structuralism and Marxist criticism.

Structuralism (1950s–1960s): An intellectual movement that made significant contributions not only to literary criticism but also to philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and history. Structuralist literary critics, such as Roland Barthes, read texts as an interrelated system of signs that refer to one another rather than to an external “meaning” that is fixed either by author or reader. Structuralist literary theory draws on the work of the Russian Formalists, as well as the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure and C. S. Peirce.

Literary Terms and Theories

Literary theory is notorious for its complex and somewhat inaccessible jargon. The following list defines some of the more commonly encountered terms in the field.

Anxiety of influence: A theory that the critic Harold Bloom put forth in The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (1973). Bloom uses Freud’s idea of the Oedipus complex (see below) to suggest that poets, plagued by anxiety that they have nothing new to say, struggle against the influence of earlier generations of poets. Bloom suggests that poets find their distinctive voices in an act of misprision, or misreading, of earlier influences, thus refiguring the poetic tradition. Although Bloom presents his thesis as a theory of poetry, it can be applied to other arts as well.

Canon: A group of literary works commonly regarded as central or authoritative to the literary tradition. For example, many critics concur that the Western canon—the central literary works of Western civilization—includes the writings of Homer, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and the like. A canon is an evolving entity, as works are added or subtracted as their perceived value shifts over time. For example, the fiction of W. Somerset Maugham was central to the canon during the middle of the 20th century but is read less frequently today. In recent decades, the idea of an authoritative canon has come under attack, especially from feminist and postcolonial critics, who see the canon as a tyranny of dead white males that marginalizes less mainstream voices.

Death of the author: A post-structuralist theory, first advanced by Roland Barthes, that suggests that the reader, not the author, creates the meaning of a text. Ultimately, the very idea of an author is a fiction invented by the reader.

Diachronic/synchronic: Terms that Ferdinand de Saussure used to describe two different approaches to language. The diachronic approach looks at language as a historical process and examines the ways in which it has changed over time. The synchronic approach looks at language at a particular moment in time, without reference to history. Saussure’s structuralist approach is synchronic, for it studies language as a system of interrelated signs that have no reference to anything (such as history) outside of the system.

Dialogic/monologic: Terms that the Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin used to distinguish works that are controlled by a single, authorial voice (monologic) from works in which no single voice predominates (dialogic or polyphonic). Bakhtin takes Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky as examples of monologic and dialogic writing, respectively.

Diegesis/Mimesis: Terms that Aristotle first used to distinguish “telling” (diegesis) from “showing” (mimesis). In a play, for instance, most of the action is mimetic, but moments in which a character recounts what has happened offstage are diegetic.

Discourse: A post-structuralist term for the wider social and intellectual context in which communication takes place. The implication is that the meaning of works is as dependent on their surrounding context as it is on the content of the works themselves.

Exegesis: An explanation of a text that clarifies difficult passages and analyzes its contemporary relevance or application.

Explication: A close reading of a text that identifies and explains the figurative language and forms within the work.

Hermeneutics: The study of textual interpretation and of the way in which a text communicates meaning.

Intertextuality: The various relationships a text may have with other texts, through allusions, borrowing of formal or thematic elements, or simply by reference to traditional literary forms. The term is important to structuralist and poststructuralist critics, who argue that texts relate primarily to one another and not to an external reality.

Linguistics: The scientific study of language, encompassing, among other things, the study of syntax, semantics, and the evolution of language.

Logocentrism: The desire for an ultimate guarantee of meaning, whether God, Truth, Reason, or something else. Jacques Derrida criticizes the bulk of Western philosophy as being based on a logocentric “metaphysics of presence,” which insists on the presence of some such ultimate guarantee. The main goal of deconstruction is to undermine this belief.

Metalanguage: A technical language that explains and interprets the properties of ordinary language. For example, the vocabulary of literary criticism is a metalanguage that explains the ordinary language of literature. Post-structuralist critics argue that there is no such thing as a metalanguage; rather, they assert, all language is on an even plane and therefore there is no essential difference between literature and criticism.

Metanarrative: A larger framework within which we understand historical processes. For instance, a Marxist metanarrative sees history primarily as a history of changing material circumstances and class struggle. Post-structuralist critics draw our attention to the ways in which assumed met narratives can be used as tools of political domination.

Mimesis: See diegesis/mimesis, above.

Monologic: See dialogic/monologic, above.

Narratology: The study of narrative, encompassing the different kinds of narrative voices, forms of narrative, and possibilities of narrative analysis.

Oedipus complex: Sigmund Freud’s theory that a male child feels unconscious jealousy toward his father and lust for his mother. The name comes from Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex, in which the main character unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother. Freud applies this theory in an influential reading of Hamlet, in which he sees Hamlet as struggling with his admiration of Claudius, who fulfilled Hamlet’s own desire of murdering Hamlet’s father and marrying his mother.

Semantics: The branch of linguistics that studies the meanings of words.

Semiotics or semiology: Terms for the study of sign systems and the ways in which communication functions through conventions in sign systems. Semiotics is central to structuralist linguistics.

Sign/signifier/signified: Terms fundamental to Ferdinand de Saussure’s structuralism linguistics. A sign is a basic unit of meaning—a word, picture, or hand gesture, for instance, that conveys some meaning. A signifier is the perceptible aspect of a sign (e.g., the word “car”) while the signified is the conceptual aspect of a sign (e.g., the concept of a car). A referent is a physical object to which a sign system refers (e.g., the physical car itself).

Synchronic: See diachronic/synchronic above.