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ASSIGNMENT SOLUTIONS GUIDE (2014-2015)

M.E.G.-5
Literary Criticism and Theory
Disclaimer/Special Note: These are just the sample of the Answers/Solutions to some of the Questions given in the
Assignments. These Sample Answers/Solutions are prepared by Private Teacher/Tutors/Auhtors for the help and Guidance
of the student to get an idea of how he/she can answer the Questions of the Assignments. We do not claim 100% Accuracy
of these sample Answers as these are based on the knowledge and cabability of Private Teacher/Tutor. Sample answers
may be seen as the Guide/Help Book for the reference to prepare the answers of the Question given in the assignment. As
these solutions and answers are prepared by the private teacher/tutor so the chances of error or mistake cannot be denied.
Any Omission or Error is highly regretted though every care has been taken while preparing these Sample Answers/
Solutions. Please consult your own Teacher/Tutor before you prepare a Particular Answer & for uptodate and exact
information, data and solution. Student should must read and refer the official study material provided by the university.
Q. 1. Write short notes on the following:
(a) Plot according to Aristotle
Ans. Aristotle defines plot as the arrangement of the incidents i.e. not the story itself but the way the incidents are
presented to the audience, the structure of the play. According to Aristotle, tragedies where the outcome depends on a
tightly constructed cause-and-effect chain of actions are superior to those that depend primarily on the character and
personality of the protagonist. Plots that meet this criterion will have the following qualities (context):
In a perfect tragedy, character will support plot, i.e. personal motivations will be intricately connected parts of the
cause-and-effect chain of actions producing pity and fear in the audience. The protagonist should be renowned and
prosperous, so his change of fortune can be from good to bad. This change should come about as the result, not of vice,
but of some great error or frailty in a character. Such a plot is most likely to generate pity and fear in the audience, for
pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves. The term Aristotle uses here,
hamartia, often translated tragic flaw, has been the subject of much debate. The meaning of the Greek word is closer to
mistake than to flaw, and I believe it is best interpreted in the context of what Aristotle has to say about plot and the
law or probability or necessity. In the ideal tragedy, claims Aristotle, the protagonist will mistakenly bring about his own
downfallnot because he is sinful or morally weak, but because he does not know enough. The role of the hamartia in
tragedy comes not from its moral status, but from the inevitability of its consequences.
Myth or Plot as Organic Whole
According to Aristotle the plot must be a whole, with a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning, called by
modern critics the incentive moment, must start the cause-and-effect chain but not be dependent on anything outside the
compass of the play (i.e. its causes are downplayed but its effects are stressed). The middle, or climax, must be caused by
earlier incidents and itself cause the incidents that follow it (i.e. its causes and effects are stressed). The end, or resolution,
must be caused by the preceding events but not lead to other incidents outside the compass of the play (i.e. its causes are
stressed but its effects downplayed); the end should therefore solve or resolve the problem created during the incentive
moment (context). Aristotle calls the cause-and-effect chain leading from the incentive moment to the climax the tying
up (desis), in modern terminology the complication. He therefore terms the more rapid cause-and-effect chain from the
climax to the resolution the unravelling (lusis), in modern terminology the dnouement (context).
(b) Definition of Literary Criticism
Ans. Literary criticism can be defined as an attempt to evaluate and understand the creative writing, the literature of
an author. Literature includes plays, essays, novels, poetry, and short stories. Literary criticism is a description, analysis,
evaluation, or interpretation of a particular literary work or an authors writings as a whole. Literary criticism is usually
expressed in the form of a critical essay. In-depth book reviews are also sometimes viewed as literary criticism. If we talk
about it in the terms of history of literary criticism then the names which would come at the fore are not alien to many, for
example Coleridge, Wordsworth and Arnold. Some of the most important criticism of English literature can also be
considered from the Defense of the Poetry. Some familiar names would be Shelly and Sidney. This certainly does not

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mean that prior to these names we cannot find any trace of literary criticism. The history can be traced to as back as the
roots of ancient Greek and Roman civilization. Some of the most considerable work of that era is Republic and Poetics
which talk about the grounds of poet in the society. Some of interesting terms used can be found in much celebrated work
of Raymond Williams Keywords. In modern literature we have another term used which is theory in order to explain
the various forms of literary criticism. Let us now look at this modern phenomenon which holds the key of our understanding of the major part or almost entire modern literary criticism.
What is Theory?
Theory in literary studies is not an account of the nature of literature or methods for its study. Its a body of thinking
and writing whose limits are exceedingly hard to define. The philosopher Richard Rorty speaks of a new, mixed genre
that began in the nineteenth century: Beginning in the days of Goethe and Macaulay and Carlyle and Emerson, a new
kind of writing has developed which is neither the evaluation of the relative merits of literary productions, nor intellectual
history, nor moral philosophy, nor social prophecy, but all of these mingled together in a new genre. The most convenient
designation of this miscellaneous genre is simply the nickname theory, which has come to designate works that succeed
in challenging and reorienting thinking in fields other than those to which they apparently belong. This is the simplest
explanation of what makes something count as theory. Works regarded as theory have effects beyond their original field.
(c) Eliots view of tradition
Ans. The idea of Eliots theory of tradition is based on the inevitable phenomenon of the continuity of the values
during the process called civilization. Eliot beings with a description that makes tradition a term of abuse and develops to
a metaphor of unquestionable authenticity. Seldom perhaps, he says, does the word appear except in a phrase of
censure. He further says: You can hardly make the word agreeable to English ears without this comfortable reference to
the reassuring science of archaeology.
The above quoted lines from one of the most celebrated critical endeavours make it clear that Eliot aims at developing
a new concept and structuring a new approach to the very phenomenon called poetry. Eliot, after beginning with the
seemingly derogatory implications of the term imparts a new meaning and magnificence to the term when he identifies
tradition with historical sense. The identification discussed above makes it clear that the tradition according to Eliot is
something more than mere conglomeration of dead works. The identification of tradition with historical sense serves to
ratify the stature of tradition in assessing the works and function of pets and poetry. He elaborates the idea of historical
sense and says: and the historical sense invokes a perception not only of the partners of the past, but also of its presence:
The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that whole
of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous
existence and composes a simultaneous order.
Eliot in the above quoted line puts forth a dynamic manifestation of tradition which shapes the minds of different
poets of different generation. Eliot also inkles that the poets conformity into tradition is an act of rigorous intellectual
efforts that constitute a poet in him. Eliot further defines the idea of historical sense and says: The historical sense which
is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal, and of timeless and temporal together, is what makes a writer
tradition. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acute by conscious of his place in time of his contemporaneity.
The excerpt from the essay makes it clear that Eliot pus the whole term in a much wider context than it is otherwise
used before. Eliot takes tradition to be an embodiment of values and beliefs shared by a race which leads to the idea that
there is a process of natural selection and rejection. The values and the belief that die with the passage of time are subject
to rejection. The values and beliefs that constitute the tradition are living one with capacity of mutual interaction. The old
and the new interpenetrate and this interpenetration results into a new order defined in terms of the simultaneous existence
of the values of the past and the present. The survival of past ratifies the presentness of it. The simultaneous existence of
the past and the present, of the old and the new. It is, thus, evident that the poet is guided chiefly by the dynamics of the
tradition.
(d) Freuds psychoanalysis
Ans. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is universally considered the father of psychoanalysis, and many date the birth
of psychoanalytic theory from the 1899 publication of The Interpretation of Dreams (copyright 1900). Although Freudian
theory, since its inception, has been relentlessly attacked from all sides, critics and proponents alike agree that Freuds
ideas have exerted a profound influence on twentieth-century thought and culture.
Throughout The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud analyzes his own dreams as examples to prove his new theory of the
psychology of dreams. Freud makes a distinction between the manifest, or surface-level, dream content and the latent,
or unconscious, dream thoughts expressed through the special language of dreams. He posits that all dreams represent

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the fulfilment of a wish on the part of the dreamer and maintains that even anxiety dreams and nightmares are expressions
of unconscious desires. Freud explains that the process of censorship in dreams causes a distortion of the dream
content; thus, what appears to be trivial nonsense in a dream, can, through the process of analysis, be shown to express a
coherent set of ideas. The dream work is the process by which the mind condenses, distorts, and translates dream
thoughts into dream content. Freud proposes that the ultimate value of dream analysis may be in revealing the hidden
workings of the unconscious mind.
The Interpretation of Dreams presents Freuds early theories in regard to the nature of the unconscious dream
psychology, the significance of childhood experiences, the psychic process of censorship, the hieroglyphic language
of dreams, and the method he called psychoanalysis.
Freud provides an overview of the scientific and theoretical findings on the interpretation of dreams up to that point
in history. He notes that the first written work on dream psychology dates back to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotles
tract On Dreams and Dream Interpretation. However, he claims that no convincing theory of dream interpretation has yet
been formulated; he asserts, In spite of being concerned with the subject over many thousands of years, scientific
understanding of the dream has not got very far. He laments that little or nothing touching the essential nature of the
dream or offering a definitive solution to any of its riddles has been accomplished.
Freud observes that, while scientific opinion has come to dismiss the idea that dreams can be interpreted, popular
opinion has stubbornly held on to the notion that dreams do indeed have meaning. He asserts that, contrary to the
reigning scientific opinion, he will prove that it is possible to interpret dreams using a scientific method.
(a) The ego, (b) The id, (c) The superego.
Q. 2. Explain and comment on the debate between Wordsworth and Coleridge on poetry and poetic language.
Ans. Poetry should be understandable to anybody living in the world. Wordsworth eschews the use of lofty, poetic
diction, which in his mind is not related to the language of real life. He sees poetry as acting like nature, which touches all
living things and inspires and delights them. Wordsworth calls for poetry to be written in the language of the common
man, and the subjects of the poems should also be accessible to all individuals regardless of class or position. Wordsworth
also makes the points that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion
recollected in tranquility. These two points form the basis for Wordsworths explanation of the process of writing poetry.
First, some experience triggers a transcendent moment, an instance of the sublime. The senses are overwhelmed by this
experience; the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings leaves an individual incapable of articulating the true nature
and beauty of the event. It is only when this emotion is recollected in tranquility that the poet can assemble words to do
the instance justice. It is necessary for the poet to have a certain personal distance from the event or experience being
described that he can compose a poem that conveys to the reader the same experience of sublimity. With this distance the
poet can reconstruct the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings the experience caused within himself.
It has been generally supposed that Wordsworths theory of poetic language is merely a reaction against, and a
criticism of, the Pseudo Classical theory of poetic diction. But such a view is partially true. His first impulse was less a
revolt against pseudo classical diction, than a desire to find a suitable language for the new territory of human life which
he was conquering for poetic treatment. His aim was to deal in his poetry with rustic and humble life and to advocate
simplicity of theme. Moreover, he believed that the poet is essentially a man speaking to men and so he must use such a
language as is used by men. The pseudo-classics advocated that the language of poetry is different form the language of
prose while Wordsworth believes that there is no essential difference between them. The poet can communicate best in
the language which is really used by men. He condemns the artificial language. Thus William Wordsworth prefers the
language really used by common men.
Wordsworths purpose, as he tells in the Preface was, to choose incidents and situations from common life, and
quite naturally, he also intended to use, a selection of language, really used by men. He was to deal with humble and
rustic life and so he should also use the language of the rustics, farmers, shepherds who were to be the subjects of his
poetry. The language of these men was to be used but it was to be purified of all that is painful or disgusting, vulgar and
coarse in that language. He was to use the language of real men because the aim of a poet is to give pleasure and such
language without selection will cause disgust.
Wordsworth was primarily a poet who had to become a critic by necessity. The new experiment which he had made
in the Lyrical Ballads (1798) called forth a systematic defence of the theory upon which the poems were written.
Wordsworth protested against the traditions and usages set up by the pseudo-classical school during the 18th century.
His views about the language which was to be employed in poetry raised a storm of protest against him even by such a
close friend as Coleridge. He said that there could be no essential difference between the language poetry and that of

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prose. By expounding his theory Wordsworth did nothing wrong. He simply emphasized the use of a simpler language
well within the reach of the cottagers and shepherds about whom he was composing his poems. Poetry was now coming
out of the narrow groves of town life and was embracing the life of nature and humanity in its simplest and most
unsophisticated forms. Wordsworth rightly felt that for the new poetry of the new age, a new language was needed. What
he earnestly felt, he expressed in the second Preface to the Lyrical Ballads:
The principal object proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and relate or
describe them throughout as far as this was possible in a selection of language really used by men
When we examine Wordsworths statement regarding poetic diction, the following facts clearly catch our attention:
1. The language of poetry should be the language really used by men, but it should be a selection of such language.
All the words used by the people cannot be employed in poetry. Only some selected words which are used in
common parlance can serve the purpose of poetry.
2. It should be the language of men in a state of vivid sensation. It means that the language used by people in a state
of animation can form the language of poetry.
3. It should have a certain colouring of imagination. The poet should give the colour of his imagination to the
language employed by him in poetic composition.
4. There is no essential difference between the words used in prose and in metrical composition. Words of prose
and poetry are not clearly demarcated, so that words which can be used in prose can find place in poetry and vice
versa. What Wordsworth means is that the words used in conversation, if they are properly selected, would
provide the rough frame-work of the language of poetry? When the poet is truly inspired, his imagination will
enable him to select from the language really used by men.
These are the four basic principles of Wordsworths theory of poetic diction. Wordsworth followed the main tenets of
his theory in some of his poems, but it became pretty difficult for him to stick strictly to his theory when he came to such
splendid poems as Tintern Abbey or Ode on the Intimations of Immortality etc.
Much of Coleridges poetry (like Romantic poetry in general) may be classified as nature poetry, but with a difference:
It does not offer descriptions of nature for the sake of merely describing nature. Rather, poets like Wordsworth and
Coleridge often strive to depict aspects of the natural landscape, flora and fauna in order to stress not merely the sublime
feelings of joy and awe evoked in the perceiver but, more importantly, to underscore the dialectical nature of the interaction
between self and not self. Coleridge does not see nature as something external or alien to himself. He does not believe that
a distinction exists between his inner mind and outer nature because he believes that his own mental faculties represent a
small part of the mind of God/Spirit which manifests itself physically in the material universe as a whole. Nature in all its
beauteous splendour everywhere exemplifies the harmonious workings of the divine mind. Nature is, to use one popular
metaphor of the time, a gigantic book of which God is the author. To read nature, with the aid of the Imagination, is thus
to search for evidence of Gods intention, each phenomenon (whether it be something as mighty as a mountain or
something relatively less imposing like the ashes in a fire) being a symbol of Gods presence. To use another metaphor,
nature is Gods handiwork, God being something of an artisan. To use yet another, nature is the body to which God is the
mind. The human mind operates analogously to Gods, hence to study nature is to gain insight into ones own self. There
is, thus, no distinction or division between the mind of the perceiver and the world outside the self which is the object of
perception, the two being caught up in a dialectical relationship, the study of one shedding light on the other. To put all
this another way, the individual mind might seem to be distinct from or antithetical to the external world around it, but the
fact that both form part of the universal mind in which both are sublated (or synthesized) resolves the contradiction. It is
this dialectical relationship of individual mind, the world and universal mind which Coleridge is repeatedly at pains to
discern which is the focus of many of his finest poems.
Coleridge expresses his Hegelian interpretation of the universe in his celebrated Biographia Literaria. The entire
cosmos is, in his view, synonymous with the self-realization of God or Spirit. All the disparate things which constitute the
universe form part and parcel of the one unifying force underlying all creation: Spirit. The cosmos may thus be described
as the perpetual self-duplication of one and the same power into object and subject, which presuppose each other and
can exist only as antitheses (qtd. in Abramss The Mirror and the Lamp, 119).
As Abrams puts it, it is in the generative power of this perpetually self-renewing opposition, in the mind of an
individual, between subject and object, between infinite and finite - in the existence, in the reconciling, and the recurrence
of this contradiction consists the process and mystery of production and life. In short, the dynamic conflict of opposites
[antithesis] and their reconciliation into a higher third [synthesis] serves Coleridge as the root-principle of his cosmogony,
his epistemology, and his theory of poetic creation.

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Drawing upon Hegels notion of the dialectic, Coleridge argues that the Imagination possesses a synthetic power (it
is esemplastic) in that it is able to assimilate disparate elements into organic wholes, to synthesize seeming binary
opposites (like good and evil) and to perceive the translucence of the presence of God in ordinary physical objects.
Coleridge puts all this this way: the Poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity. . . . He
diffuses a tone and spirit of unity, that blends, and, as it were, fuses, each into each, by that synthetic and magical power,
to which we have exclusively appropriated the name of imagination. This power [the Imagination] . . . reveals itself in the
balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness with difference; of the general, with the concrete;
the idea, with the image. . . . (qtd. in Abramss The Mirror and the Lamp, 118)
Q. 3. Discuss the relationship between base and superstructure in Marxist theory.
Ans. Superstructure can be simply defined as the ideologies that dominate a particular era, all that men say, imagine,
conceive, including such things as politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc. For Marx, the superstructure is
generally dependent on the modes of production that dominate in a given period. Superstructure is a term from Marxist
social analysis, central to the materialist concept of history and social development.
In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their
will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces.
The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real basis, on which
rises a legal and political superstructure, and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness K. Marx in the
Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.
It is argued that Marxs attempt to conceptualize social structure cannot be reduced to the base/superstructure model.
Marx shows that the economic structure or base is not a structure of people. It is an abstract and empty structure of the
relations between the productive forces in the economy. The actual persons or forces play no part of the structure. Taken
out of the actual world, and into the empty, abstract domain of the economic structure, a power is simply the ability to
perform a particular action. Taken in aggregate, the economic structure would be a set of these abilities, and the positions
with more abilities consequently become the dominant class.
In this structure there are no normative constraints, there is simply material possibilities, and enabling powers. The
normative image of relations of production only appears after the actors and forces are placed in the structure, and the
superstructure is placed over the top.
Marx argues that the fundamental base of any society, which permeates and shapes all its other legal, political and
intellectual characteristics, is the social relations of production: the social and technological way that production is organized
and carried out.
These relations of production provide the social foundation on which develops the superstructure of legal and political
relations and human intellectual ideas and consciousness.
What is law and who forms it? Actually, at every point in history some of the human minds are always at work to
frame law in order to legitimize the misappropriations of socially generated resources by a few in the society. In fact it is
the owing class which misappropriates the surplus in a legal way. This makes the existing law a perspective for the state
to function under, and also at the same time offers sufficient space to the large bureaucracy and judiciary to expand by the
implementation and administration of justice. The irony is evident here. We need to look at the version of justice, which
is projected to the masses by the privileged section of the society. The way justice is explained and interpreted is completely
dependent on the requirement of mode of production and is projected by the privileged section as something which is
moral, spiritual, ethical and universal. Going on with this point of view we can simply understand justice as the social
sanction for the simple purpose of exploitation and misappropriation, however the owing class would call it their right
and not misappropriation. This simple complex is, however, very complex if worked out in philosophical terms. It would
be interesting to notice in this respect, that how legal celebrities go on with the debates on the topic in all over the world.
We can understand legal superstructure in terms of the working of the mode of production as both are quite close. It
deals directly with the reason or logical justification behind the social distribution and helps in persuading and convincing
the working class that the only right they have is on what they receive as wages. In this way the extremes of their rights are
limited and by extension their psyche and consciousness. Unlike legal superstructure others like philosophical, cultural
and legal superstructures can be said to have a delicate link with base, because the individuals who are operative in these
spheres, share a notion of independent operation.
According to Marx, the most important place of human existence is political realm, as it is the only realm where
people struggle and fight their battle for the change. The formation of political groups, like political parties are very
crucial as it reflects the idea of specific class and helps in the mobilization of the masses on behalf of that specific class.

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In this context it is important to look at the role which trade unions played in England and France in the mid-nineteenth
century, as they help in attracting attention towards the burning issues of the age. How crucial is politics to the ruling
bourgeois class can be very well understood in terms of the fact that it has enabled entrepreneurship and industry to
decisively seize economic power from feudal nobility and aristocratic class in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Considering the role which politics played in the history, it would not be unjustified to call it a science of changing the
society. One reason that Marx and other later thinkers gave utmost importance to the political superstructure is that, it
works directly on the base to transform its working. Politics is always concerned about present and contemporary. It also
provides an activist edge to philosophy, ideology, religious beliefs, culture and literature.
The Religious Superstructure
It may not sound normal that the concept of God and religion shares a tangible link or connection with the social
structure and that the universal or so called eternal religious values have their roots in the social functioning of their times.
These so called religious principles form a concrete link with the society in which exist and work upon an important a
definite role. These help in changing peoples point of view and ideologies. There is little doubt that these religious and
divine values seem to guide people form a distant spiritual standpoint and does not appear to have any connection with the
mundane human existence, but this very stance of religious outlook is questionable. In fact we can go ahead and label of
social pressure and compulsions on the various religious beliefs and practices which exist in the society. Lots of changes
which Christianity has undergone after renaissance can be related to the various social and political changes in the society
of Europe. Another important point which we must bring our attention to is the two different conceptions of God, i.e.
feudal conception of God and capitalist conception of God. The feudal conception of God is very different from that of
the capitalist conception of God; the former is operative, overbearing and paternally beneficent, while the latter is relatively
sympathetic, friendly and persuasive. It would be quite interesting to look at the various aspects of relational principles
from this point of view which lets us peek into the basic foundation of religious belief, which in fact is deeply rooted in
the social practices of the time. In this context looking at the Miltons idea of God and the son would be fascinating, as
Milton in his magnum opus Paradise Lost attribute highly divine attitudes in his portrayal of God and the Son. As there
was a radical change at the base, the entire idea of God and Christianity underwent a radical transformation in the writings
of eighteenth century.
Marx was of the view that the change in the base in real history attracts lots of violence. The reason behind this idea
is fairly simple. Marx knew that the governing class or the privileged section of the society would always put a great deal
of resistance against the forces which intends to bring change. After all it is impossible to convince an owner to give up
all his property, wealth and other privileged for the greater good of the society and in capitalism greater good has always
a chance to wait and what cannot wait is personal profit. And this view of the society is there in spite of the fact that many
of the poets, religious thinkers, intellectuals and priests have spoken against the evil influence money, power and prestige.
We must agree that these people are right in the way the observed and analyzed the society of their time.
Superstructure: Some Conceptual Difficulties
It is the base, which witness the great and decisive changes and it is base which see two opposing classes fight each
other for their survival. Superstructure is not the one where such a clash or violent struggle happens. To quote Marx,
With the change of the economic foundation, the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed.
Here in the quotation the word transformed is of great significance as according to Marx, the changes which occur in the
base is followed by the superstructure. An excellent example is the legal superstructure which facilitates and legitimizes
the changes which occur in the base. In the case of law, at first we notice the changes which and its influence and later we
see that law follows the restructured base. But the case of philosophy, ideology and culture differ from that of the case of
law. In philosophy, people try to analyze the negative and positive effect of the changes or in other word they try to
attempt a critical analysis of the new emerging ideals and values which the change is about to bring, much before the
occurrence of social upheaval. The same is the case with literature, as the dissatisfaction, grievance and complaints
regarding the changes are reflected much before the actual happening. Considering this argument we can say that these
entire superstructures influence the base rather than getting transformed by it. This warns us not to take the word transform
literally and also compel us to understand Marxs word from a different perspective. An important question which comes
on the surface here is if the changes take place in the base first then what makes the people of superstructure aware of
their condition of existence? Or the question can also be put in another way what compels people to become active in
the political superstructure and throw away the existing construction of trend in the base in order to make the productive
power to flow freely towards the development in historical direction? It is better to think over the question from the way
Marxs theory of base and superstructure appear to a person.

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Next issue which comes in this context is related to the historical conflict. According to the Marx one has to understand
distinctly the nature of ideological transformation of the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophical in short,
ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict (between productive forces and relation of production)
and fight out.
Marx does not go into detail while expressing his views on the relationship of base and superstructure. The idea of the
Marx behind talking about the relationship of base and superstructure was to make clear that these concepts should be
understood in terms of theory and abstraction. He sort of hoped that social thinkers would understand the concept of base
and would realize its crucial existence. Marxs idea of the base confirmed that the theory of idealist thinkers that the social
reality was some sort of clay open for wishful molding by human being, was no way right. It was not possible for Marx to
emphasize the importance of social change at the level of modes of production without presenting base as a decisive and
quite difficult factor. Let us look at the Marx said once again, The philosophers have so far merely interpreted the world.
The point, however, is to change it. This simply means that the social reality must be taken from the hands of philosophers
and given to those who can really change the society i.e. the producers and the proletariat. Until such a thing would
happen nothing is going to change. The idea of base was meant to work against those idealist thinkers who merely tried
to interpret the world while the beneath this interpretation the process of operation and suppression of the working class
continued as freely as river.
Q. 4. Bring out the meaning of gynocriticism. How does Showalter use it in her criticism?
Ans. The psychoanalytical feminist criticism forms a base for the gynocriticism as it is based on the difference
between the gender and the creative process. Gynocriticism arose as a feminist critique as a result of the Freudian psychoanalytic perspective of the female inadequacy. According to Freudian psychology, the female possesses a psychological
deficiency in the lack of male anatomy and as a result suffers envy and feelings of inadequacy and injustice combined
with feelings of intellectual inferiority. However it is not just the physical female inadequacy that led to the inception of
gynocriticism. The male phallic prejudice itself, creates a female consciousness that demands a critique of the female
perspective. The prejudice against the female incites a specific noesis that becomes attributed to the female. Psychologist
Karen Horney theorised that the ideal of woman is not necessarily innate to her sex, but that the patriarchal pressures and
cultural influence compel her to behave in conformity with the image. This prejudice has concealed the female literary
tradition to the point of imitating the masculine.
However gynocriticism aims to uncover a female psyche, it frequently fails to encompass the female as a whole.
Often critics critique the feminist literature to the exclusion of other considerations such as race, class, social interest,
political inclination, religion and sexuality. According to Friedman, the self is not singular, it is multiple. Identity is not
constructed of gender alone. The female encompasses other attributes such as race, class, sexuality etc., that are all
subject to different positions of oppression and are in fact, related. The separation of these properties would create a one
dimensional view of the female. However, if gender and identity are merely constructs then it becomes difficult to assign
any inherent qualities of nature or language by which to critique. The same thing we see in Dass An Introduction. The
idea of some general and central experiences which Das talks about in her poem is not covered by the gynocriticism. And
as opposed to Dass idea that identity is not limited to gender alone Showalter builds her concept of gynocriticism.
One of Americas foremost academic literary scholars, Showalter is renowned for her pioneering feminist studies of
nineteenth and twentieth century female authors and her provocative cultural analysis of womens oppression in the
history of psychiatry. In her influential book A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bront to Lessing
(1977), Showalter advanced a new form of feminist literary theory under the term gynocriticism, offering an alternative
framework for the interpretation of womens literary history. Likewise, in works such as The Female Malady: Women,
Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980 (1985) and Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture (1997),
Showalter forged the branch of feminist criticism known as hystory, an attempt to reinterpret and redefine the pejorative
notion of womens hysteria as embodied in literary and social history. Showalters contributions to feminist criticism and
womens studies have helped influence the canon of British and American literature, bringing new visibility and legitimacy
to often forgotten or under appreciated female authors.
Showalter has been widely appreciated by critics for her prodigious knowledge, insightful analysis, and accessible
prose. Most feminist literary scholars have lauded her achievement in helping to legitimize and further develop feminist
critique, particularly by reevaluating the social and historical context within which womens writing is studied. However,
some critics have contended that Showalters reach often exceeds her grasp, faulting her for raising provocative questions
and presenting a wealth of material without analyzing it, or trying unsuccessfully to force-fit her usually expansive
subject-matter into a rigid critical context. Others have criticized Showalter for omitting or glossing over women writers

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who do not fit neatly into her thesis or analytical construct. In addition, some reviewers have objected to Showalters
literary biases, especially in regards to the Victorian era, and her dubious psychoanalytic assumptions. Showalters works
of cultural history, particularly The Female Malady and Sexual Anarchy, have received mixed reviews, but have been
generally praised for their broad, interdisciplinary approach to literary, cultural, and social trends. Showalters feminist
history of psychiatry in The Female Malady has been commended for raising disturbing and important questions about
the politics of interpretation and the power of gender as a determining factor in psychiatric treatment. Her focus on the
psychiatric patientrather than the history of the psychiatric professionhas also been viewed as a valuable contribution
to the subject. However, some reviewers have faulted Showalter for her selective use of data and statistics, and her
imprecise use of key terms, such as hysteria. In later works such as Hystories and Inventing Herself, critics have hailed
Showalters impressive synthesis of evidence, though some have found her arguments less substantial and convincing
than in previous works. Despite such shortcomings, Showalter has been highly regarded for calling attention to complex
issues surrounding gender and sexual politics. Many of her works, most notably A Literature of Their Own and The
Female Malady, have endured as staples of feminist literary criticism in university curricula.
Q. 5. Postcolonialism is a reading strategy. Comment.
Ans. The term Postcolonialism refers broadly to the ways in which race, ethnicity, culture, and human identity
itself are represented in the modern era, after many colonized countries gained their independence. However, some critics
use the term to refer to all culture and cultural products influenced by imperialism from the moment of colonization until
today. Postcolonial literature seeks to describe the interactions between European nations and the peoples they colonized.
The literature and art produced in these countries after independence has become the object of Postcolonial Studies, a
term coined in and for academia, initially in British universities. Postcolonial theory, often said to begin with the work of
Edward W. Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Homi K. Bhabha, looks at literature and society from two broad
angles: how the writer, artist, cultural worker, and his or her context reflects a colonial past, and how they survive and
carve out a new way of creating and understanding the world. One of the earliest critical works to present this point of
view is Robert J.C. Youngs White Mythologies: Writing History and the West (1990). This field gained prominence in the
1970s and has been developing ever since. Palestinian-American scholar Edward Saids critique of Western representations of the Eastern culture in his 1978 book, Orientalism, is a seminal text for postcolonial studies and has spawned a
host of theories on the subject. However, as the currency of the term postcolonial has gained wider use, its meaning has
also expanded. Some consider the United States itself a postcolonial country because of its former status as a territory of
Great Britain, but it is generally studied for its colonizing rather than its colonized attributes. In another vein, Canada and
Australia, though former colonies of Britain, are often placed in a separate category because of their status as settler
countries and because of their continuing loyalty to their colonizer.
When Said published his path-breaking book Orientalism in 1978, it established a trend that was, for some years,
loosely described as colonial discourse studies rather than postcolonial theory. Although Said ostensibly wrote about
the Middle East being constructed as the Orient by French intellectuals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it
was the Spanish and British empires that formed the main fields of colonial discourse studies. Although Saids main
thesis was that the West constructed something called the Orient as an object of investigation through varieties of
cognitive, disciplinary, and administrative practice, colonial discourse studies was broader in its focus and conclusions.
One of the major issues of the postcolonial studies is the concept of power. Let us look at Foucaults idea of power. In
the History of Sexuality Foucault writes:
Power must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which
they operate and which constitute their own organization: as the process which, through ceaseless struggle and
confrontations, transforms, strengthens, or even reverses them; as the support which these force relations find in one
another, thus forming a chain or a system, or on the contrary, the disjunctions and contradictions which isolate them
from one another; and lastly, as the strategies in which they take effect, whose general design or institutional
crystallization is embodied in the state apparatus, in the formulation of the law, in the various social hegemonies.
Some of the major voices and works of postcolonial literature include Salman Rushdies novel Midnights Children
(1981), Chinua Achebes novel Things Fall Apart (1958), Michael Ondaatjes novel The English Patient (1992), Frantz
Fanons The Wretched of the Earth (1961), Jamaica Kincaids A Small Place (1988), Isabelle Allendes The House of the
Spirits (1982), J.M. Coetzees Waiting for the Barbarians and Disgrace (1990), Derek Walcotts Omeros (1990), and
Eavan Bolands Outside History: Selected Poems, 1980-1990.
Orientalism by Edward Said is a cononical text of cultural studies in which he has challenged the concept of orientalism
or the difference between east and west, as he puts it. He says that with the start of European colonization the Europeans

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came in contact with the lesser developed countries of the east. They found their civilization and culture very exotic, and
established the science of orientalism, which was the study of the orientals or the people from these exotic civilizations.
Edward Said argues that the Europeans divided the world into two partsthe east and the west or the occident and the
orient or the civilized and the uncivilized. This was totally an artificial boundary; and it was laid on the basis of the
concept of them and us or theirs and ours. The Europeans used orientalism to define themselves. Some particular attributes
were associated with the orientals, and whatever the orientals werent the occidents were. The Europeans defined themselves
as the superior race compared to the orientals; and they justified their colonization by this concept. They said that it was
their duty towards the world to civilize the uncivilized world. The main problem, however, arose when the Europeans
started generalizing the attributes they associated with orientals, and started portraying these artificial characteristics
associated with orientals in their western world through their scientific reports, literary work, and other media sources.
What happened was that it created a certain image about the orientals in the European mind and in doing that infused a
bias in the European attitude towards the orientals. This prejudice was also found in the orientalists (scientist studying the
orientals); and all their scientific research and reports were under the influence of this. The generalized attributes associated
with the orientals can be seen even today, for example, the Arabs are defined as uncivilized people; and Islam is seen as
religion of the terrorists.
In his book Orientalism Said showed that the myth of the Oriental was possible because of European political
dominance of the Middle East and Asia. In this aspect of his thought he was strongly influenced by the French philosopher
Michel Foucault. The influence from Foucault is wide-ranging and thorough, but it is perhaps most pronounced when
Said argues that Orientalism is a full-fledged discourse, not just a simple idea, and when he suggests that all knowledge
is produced in situations of unequal relations of power. In short, a person who dominates another is the only one in a
position to write a book about it, to establish it, to define it. Its not a particular moral failing that the stereotypical failing
defined as Orientalism emerged in western thinking, and not somewhere else.

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