Critical methods:
A brief summary of some critical approaches
Structuralism:
An intellectual movement that began in the 1950s in France, and adopted in Britain and America in the 1970s.
Claude Levi-Strauss.
The godfather of structuralism. And a great beard.
Basically the idea is that a text can’t be understood in isolation; it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In order to fully understand a text you have to consider the context of the larger structures in which it is both produced and received. So, in order to fully appreciate The Great Gatsby, you have to be able to put it into the context of the literary tradition of novel writing, of telling a story, of creating fictional characters, of doomed lovers, of symbolism…and on and on it goes. Structuralism says that there isn’t a core meaning or essence inside a text, rather the meaning always comes from outside influences (both on the reader and the writer). It gives more prominence and credence to readers’ individual interpretations.
Modernism:
A cultural movement generally accepted to refer to the period at the beginning of the 20th century. Some point more specifically to the period between the first and second world wars, or to the 20 year period between 1910 and 1930 (think about when The Great Gatsby was written…).
Modernism was a reaction to everything that had gone before in terms of art, music, architecture, design and literature (amongst other things). The fundamental purpose of the modernists was to ‘make it new’.
Some of the characteristics of modernist writers are:
· Becoming more self-referential, so that poems, plays and novels raise issues concerning their own nature, status and role.
Feminist criticism:
The feminist criticism of today has grown out of the women’s movement of the 1960s. However, there has been a feminist tradition for several hundreds of years, which has recognised and proposed solutions to the problem of inequality between men and women.
A feminist critical approach would include:
Marxist criticism:
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels founded this school of thought in the mid nineteenth century. The aim of Marxism is to bring about a classless society. It tries to make concrete, scientific, logical explanations for life and behaviour (rather than considering spiritual explanations for example).
An intellectual movement that began in the 1950s in France, and adopted in Britain and America in the 1970s.
Claude Levi-Strauss.
The godfather of structuralism. And a great beard.
Basically the idea is that a text can’t be understood in isolation; it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In order to fully understand a text you have to consider the context of the larger structures in which it is both produced and received. So, in order to fully appreciate The Great Gatsby, you have to be able to put it into the context of the literary tradition of novel writing, of telling a story, of creating fictional characters, of doomed lovers, of symbolism…and on and on it goes. Structuralism says that there isn’t a core meaning or essence inside a text, rather the meaning always comes from outside influences (both on the reader and the writer). It gives more prominence and credence to readers’ individual interpretations.
Modernism:
A cultural movement generally accepted to refer to the period at the beginning of the 20th century. Some point more specifically to the period between the first and second world wars, or to the 20 year period between 1910 and 1930 (think about when The Great Gatsby was written…).
Modernism was a reaction to everything that had gone before in terms of art, music, architecture, design and literature (amongst other things). The fundamental purpose of the modernists was to ‘make it new’.
Some of the characteristics of modernist writers are:
- Ezra Pound. Best moustache in modernism.
An emphasis on subjectivity: how we see things rather than what we see. - A move away from apparent objectivity: i.e. external omniscient narrators, clear-cut moral positions etc.
· Becoming more self-referential, so that poems, plays and novels raise issues concerning their own nature, status and role.
Feminist criticism:
The feminist criticism of today has grown out of the women’s movement of the 1960s. However, there has been a feminist tradition for several hundreds of years, which has recognised and proposed solutions to the problem of inequality between men and women.
A feminist critical approach would include:
- Examining the representations of women in literature (written by both men and women).
- Greenham Common, 1981. Like fish need bycicles.
Challenging representations of women as ‘other’, or ‘lacking’ or part of ‘nature’.
Marxist criticism:
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels founded this school of thought in the mid nineteenth century. The aim of Marxism is to bring about a classless society. It tries to make concrete, scientific, logical explanations for life and behaviour (rather than considering spiritual explanations for example).
- A focus on the social class status of the author, with the assumption that the author is not necessarily aware of how much they reveal or say in a text.
- Relating the text to the social assumptions of the time in which it is read (e.g. do we read The Great Gatsby differently now, in the current social climate, from how it may have been interpreted when it was first written?).
- Looking at how the form of a text might reflect the social circumstances in which it was written (e.g. does the non-linear narrative in The Great Gatsby reflect a society of the 1920s that had lost its direction?)
- A focus on the social class status of the author, with the assumption that the author is not necessarily aware of how much they reveal or say in a text.
- Relating the text to the social assumptions of the time in which it is read (e.g. do we read The Great Gatsby differently now, in the current social climate, from how it may have been interpreted when it was first written?).
- Looking at how the form of a text might reflect the social circumstances in which it was written (e.g. does the non-linear narrative in The Great Gatsby reflect a society of the 1920s that had lost its direction?)