What is Literary Theory?
A simplified analysis of Stanford's normative definition of literary theory
A student of literature, first encountering a chapter on literary theory might get overwhelmed, as the subject matter of literary theory happens to be vast and ever-changing or evolving. I speak from personal experience. Four years after my Bachelor’s, I am now on a journey of understanding what comprises theory and how theory can be used in academia. It is indeed a given, that the study of literary theory demands excessive reading of multiple texts and interpretations of it. I have been doing just that. It might sound surprising, but even as a student of literature, I had never bothered to understand the definition of literary theory, or should I say, I was never introduced to it in class. All I remember learning was different literary theories and literary criticism. Reading those texts without a formal understanding of what literary theory is, might have led to my distaste for literary theory. But with an intention to change that, I have embarked on a journey of studying literary theory from scratch, and share it with my fellow readers as I go along. My goal is to simplify literary theory so no student leaves a classroom thinking, “Literary theory is just too much jargon, I don’t understand it”.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines literary theory as, “any principles derived from internal analysis of literary texts or from knowledge external to the text that can be applied in multiple interpretive situations”. In simple words, literary theory comprises of internal analysis of a particular text, or analysis of a text through ideas external to that text”. Now what does this mean?
When you read a book, as a reader, you would probably read it as a fiction. But if you try to analyze it, via, themes and symbols, you are attempting to find out what is written “between the lines”. You try to fit the context of the story within the year it was published and understand the social, political, cultural influence that the story might have. You don’t look at it simply as a story, but a medium through which you are able to understand “why” and “how” the story was written. This practice of analyzing and interpreting texts is a major part of literary theory.
Let’s understand this with an example. Let’s take the American classic, “The Great Gatsby”. Now for an internal analysis, you try to understand what is integral to the story, i.e. themes, symbols, characters, motifs etc. The internal analysis of this story can be done via themes of death, war and depression in the 1920’s. The “internal”, refers to the ideas that already exist in the book and readers are merely trying to uncover how these ideas fit into the context of the story.
Now, let us try an understand what does an external analysis mean. The Great Gatsby is widely known as a commentary on “The American Dream”, an idea of a perfect American life that emerged after the first world war. “The American Dream is an idea or the national ethos of the United States, that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life. This life includes a house, a job, children etc.” And it was this idea that is heavily explored in “The Great Gatsby”, especially its decline and the dark face of an American dream. An external analysis of the story, then, would be a political or social analysis of the story, taking into account the idea of “the American Dream”. Here, you are attempting to use ideas outside of the text, “politics and society”, to form a new interpretation or perspective about the text. And this interpretation then, can be analyzed through more different and fresh perspectives.
For instance, there can be a paper titled, “The Great Gatsby - The decline of the American Dream and its impact on society and politics of America in the 1920’s”. There can also be a paper titled, “The Great Gatsby - the role of women in the American dream of 1920’s”. These two papers are applying an external ideas of “society” and “feminism” to understand the text through a new perspective.
Now that we have understood what literary theory comprises of, it’s essential to understand what exactly it is. Is it a subject? Is it an idea? A branch or a subsection of literature? Is it an entirely different field? Well, different scholars have different opinions, hence, it is almost impossible to define literary theory as any one of the above. It can be referred to all of them. To understand what different scholars mean, I would recommend the following texts. "(Beginning Theory by Peter Barry, A short introduction to Literary Theory by Jonathan Culler)
Literary theory, however, is essentially considered a tool, which is used to analyze a literary work, associate it with the external realistic world or compare it with another literary work, to understand its social, cultural or political aspects. In other words, with the help of literary theory, a reader is able to interpret a literary text in multiple ways and compare its themes to various other existing ideas, concepts or theories.
It is with the help of literary theory that you are able to release a text from the clutches of a fictional story, and expose it to the external world, thus, finding images and themes in the text that reflect this particular outside world.
thankyouuu for this!!! And I loved your interpretations/commentary of an excerpt from the book nausea!!!!!