The Tale of Literary Theory [Part I]
- May 29, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Many books have been written about books, and, when successful, they are able to extend and transform the original work. But the story of literary theory is also one worth telling. With a history stretching as far back as Ancient Greece, it’s a surprisingly lively account of conflict between rival ideas with a scope, like literature, as broad as the human experience. It has produced a long list of often-divergent ways to think about literature (called ‘schools’), many of which are influenced by cultural, political, and economic ideas.
What is literature?
The task of understanding literary theory is made more complex because of the vague and contested nature of literature itself. Northrop Frye, in his book Anatomy of Criticism, argues that an elementary textbook on literary studies will not contain a clear answer to the question ‘what is literature?’ because there are no real standards to determine what is, and is not, literature. The Dictionary of Literary Terms and Theory (Cuddon & Habib, 2013) defines literature as “a broad term which usually denotes works which belong to the major genres” and as writing generally considered to be qualitatively superior to other forms. In An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, Bennett and Royle assert that literature, in some sense, does not exist; it is ‘spectral and elusive’. This seems to put us on the back foot somewhat. How do we talk about something that we can’t define? Let’s start at the beginning with Ancient Greece.
The history of literary theory
Western literary theory begins with Plato and Aristotle, with the latter’s text Poetics considered foundational to any study of the discipline. The text dates to 335 BC and was, after a long absence, returned to Western culture in the Middle Ages through a translation by Averroes, a Muslim scholar who lived in Andalusia (Iberia). In Poetics, Aristotle discusses literature as a distinct field of knowledge, one identifiable by genre (epic, tragedy, and comedy), distinct compositional techniques, and shaped by ancient Greek poets including Homer, Sophocles, and Aristophanes. For example, comedy represents men as worse than they are in real life; tragedy as better.
“I propose to treat of Poetry in itself and of its various kinds, noting the essential quality of each; to inquire into the structure of the plot as requisite to a good poem; into the number and nature of the parts of which a poem is composed; and similarly into whatever else falls within the same inquiry. Following, then, the order of nature, let us begin with the principles which come first.”
(Aristotle, Poetics)
Aristotle provides insights into the use of narrative, character, and plot in literature. He argued that what you say is more important that how you say it (or write it), that plot is more important than character in tragedy, and that plots have a beginning, middle, and an end. He describes this type of analysis - a systematic study of literature - as ‘poetics’. Poetics has been greatly influential in the development of Western literary theory, and its influence can be recognised in modern English studies.
Modern studies of English literature began in the 19th century in England and the United States. Courses were, in some instances at least, conceived as a means to cultivate or maintain social cohesion and cultural identity through the study of texts that represented acceptable values (a tradition that continues in universities today). The early English courses were a combination of language study with grammar, the identification of literary devices, and the study of famous works such as those by Shakespeare. They included Old English in Beowulf, as well as Latin and other European languages. The ‘rhetorical’ elements of the courses (including public speaking and recital) were, over time, regarded as impractical and ultimately replaced by a focus on writing. Around the beginning of the twentieth century, the courses began to expand their set texts beyond the traditional canon and the classics, and the language component of the courses was separated. Over time, they began to resemble what we now recognise as English studies, which differs substantially from the study of linguistics.
Literary theory practiced at major universities in the UK and America from around 1940 until the 1970s was known as either ‘humanism’, ‘liberal humanism’, or ‘formalism’. A prominent type of formalism was New Criticism, which focused on ‘intrinsic’ analyses of individual literary works and not their historical, social, or philosophical contexts, which were considered ‘extrinsic’, or outside of the scope of literary studies. This approach is perhaps what most people would expect from literary theory and studies, and is one that modern critical approaches can, broadly, be defined as being in opposition to. Today, formalism is considered ‘traditional’ because of its focus on the text and its intrinsic meaning. Formalist approaches did, however, evolve to include more biographical, social, and intellectual history, and to look at patterns in narrative, character archetypes, and plots. ‘Close reading’ - an analytical method created by formalists - is still widely practiced today.
Matthew Arnold, F.R. Leavis, I.A. Richards, T.S Eliot, Cleanth Brooks, and M. H. Abrams were prominent formalists.
War of the Proses
Theory influenced by linguistics, politics, philosophy, and culture started to gain ground against formalism after the second world war. Opponents argued that it lacked explicit grounds to defend the assumptions of its method - ‘practical criticism’ that minimised non-literary influences - and that it failed to account for theoretical questions raised by psychoanalytic and Marxist theories, among others.
These ideas came in successive iterations, or ‘waves’, beginning with Structuralism. It was, like formalism, largely focused on the text, which it intended to examine on an objective basis. A text was seen as part of a larger abstract structure, whether literary, linguistic, anthropological, or otherwise. Post-structuralism built upon and expanded the linguistic ideas of structuralism, blurring the boundaries of language and meaning. Language was not just a description of the world; it influenced, or determined, how we see the world. It was more philosophical and sceptical than its predecessor, and undermined established ways of thinking about theory. Similar theoretical schools arose from the expansion of literary analysis, including post-modernism, New Historicism, Cultural Materialism, and more. These schools tended to draw meanings and qualities out of a text that were not immediately, or obviously, inherent in it; at least to one who reads a text as it was written. For example, a Marxist reading might focus on elements of a story relevant to its theories, such as the social class of its characters, the economic conditions experienced by the author, or the author’s social class and their bias towards enforcing or challenging social norms. An ecocritical reading might examine themes related to the natural environment such as growth, decay and renewal, the displacement of people and animals from their natural environments, and the damaging impact of human activity. A psychoanalytic reading might reveal the author’s unconscious intentions.
Common themes among the more recent theories include: scepticism towards things we take for granted, such as identity, self, and gender, which are often conceived of as ‘social constructions’; the argument that there is no disinterested inquiry and that all analysis is affected by some kind of ideological commitment; relativism, which diminishes objectivity and establishes meaning in specific contexts only; and the idea that language cannot be a literal description of reality and texts (or that language can only act as a ‘signifier’ of reality - so, texts are really about other texts, and definite meanings or readings are not possible).
In summary, formalism attempts to discover unity within a text, such as how the use of language, symbolism, and narrative create coherence, while rival approaches such as ‘deconstruction’ seek contradictions within a text that demonstrate the instability of meaning, or find meanings that serve their theoretical goals.
Structuralist and post-structuralist theorists and influences include Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, Sigmund Freud, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes, and Claude Levi-Strauss.
“J. Hillis Miller…defined a deconstructive reading as one that "seeks to find...the element in the system studied which is alogical, the thread in the text in question which will unravel it all, or the loose stone which will pull down the whole building."”
(Abrams, 1997)
Barry (2017) summarises some basic points about new theory:
“…Politics is pervasive,
Language is constitutive,
Truth is provisional,
Meaning is contingent,
Human nature is a myth.”
Aftermath and present day
The transition from ‘traditional’ forms of literary theory to its successors was anything but smooth, and the new ideas encountered vigorous resistance to what were seen as attacks, not just on academic approaches to literature, but against the broader society and its moral foundations. The new theory, characterised by - or at least famous for - postmodern thought and ‘deconstructive’ practices, was inherently subversive and radical, and drew heavily from philosophical ideas and political ideology. It was precisely these qualities that excited the minds of young academics in the midst of a cultural revolution. Goldberg, in his essay The Deconstruction Gang, wrote:
“…the recent movement in American ‘literary studies’…takes deconstruction as the very theme and method of criticism precisely because it mistrusts all conceptual structures of ‘truth’ or ‘meaning’ and therefore seeks to deconstruct them.”
The shots fired in the ‘theory wars’ in America and Britain from the late 1950s to 1980s still echo in many universities today. Peter Barry documented the key conflicts in his book, beginning with the initial blitzkrieg to the ‘counter-revolution’ in the late 1990s and beyond against ‘political correctness, relativism, postmodernism, multi-culturalism, among others’. The conflict appears to have died down in recent decades, but, as Barry suggests, this is perhaps only because the ideas of new theory have come to be accepted and taught in modern English courses. There are, however, independent voices on the internet (on platforms such as Youtube) who cater to those who prefer text-centred approaches to theory.
Continued in part II...
Reference & Reading List
Frye, Northrop, Anatomy of Criticism, Princeton University Press, 2020
Culler, Jonathon, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2000
Bloom, Harold, The Anatomy of Influence, Yale University Press, 2011
Aristotle, Poetics, Public Domain
Barry, Peter, Beginning Theory: An introduction to literary and cultural theory, Manchester University Press, 2017
Bennett, Andrew and Royle, Nicholas, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, Routledge, 2016
Cuddon, J.A &. Habib, M.A.R, Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory, 2013
Abrams, M.H, The Transformation of English Studies: 1930 -1995, 1997, www.jstor.org, April 2024,
Goldberg, S.L., The Deconstruction Gang, www.lrb.co.uk, 1980, April 2024, https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n10/s.l.-goldberg/the-deconstruction-gang
Brooks, Cleanth, The Formalist Critics, 1951, www.jstor.org, April 2024, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4333214?read-now=1&seq=10#page_scan_tab_contents
Norton, Andrew, The decline of the humanities, andrewnorton.net.au, April 2024, https://andrewnorton.net.au/2023/07/04/the-decline-of-the-humanities/
University of Sydney, ENGL1017: The Idea of the Classic, 2024, March 2024,
University of Sydney, ENGL3655: The Literary in Theory, March 2024, https://www.sydney.edu.au/units/ENGL3655
University of Sydney, April 2023, University of Sydney’s English program ranked first in Australia, www.sydney.edu.au, April 2024,
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