Lit Crit Table I

Formalism Genre Rhetorical

Approach

Literature is

ReaderStructuralism Deconstruction
Response
its purpose

methodology

implications

aesthetic
bracket off
revolutionized the
appreciation of outside
study of literature;
verbal art and contexts; focus helped create
Formalism unified in terms technique.
on structure and literature as a
of form and
Literature
elements of the serious object of
New Criticism
meaning;
valued as a
work,
inquiry; became
features irony, high art whose especially how official way to
paradox, and
meaning can form and
teach literature-complexity
transcend time. meaning are
anyone could learn
related. Identify to do a formalist
has a single
and state central explication--didn't
valid
tension or
need to research
interpretation
paradox in the social,
poem and relate biographical, and
elements of
historical contexts.
poem to it.
Establish unity
of the work
through
interrelation of
all its parts.
organized by Purpose and Identify
Literary work can't
categories and value depends characteristics be read out of the
derives meaning on the genre. of different
context of other
through its
For Aristotle, genres of
works similar to it.
Genre Studies relationship to the purpose of literature and Authors write
other works
tragedy was categorize
within certain
with similar
catharsis, the individual
traditions and
characteristics. purging of the works. Look for conventions, even
Constitutes a
emotions of patterns of
if they break with
"contract"
fear and pity. thought and
them. Part of
between reader Literature that technique and work's meaning is
and writer based improves on a ways a work in the relationship
on generic
genre is
plays upon
to its genre.
autonomous
object;

expectations

valued.

a means to an
moral
end, an
instruction,
instrument for inform and
getting
persuade the
something done; reader;
features
literature not
strategies and bound by
techniques
methods of
designed to
history and
govern the
philosophy-reader's
can draw on
response
both to get at
the essence of
things
(Sydney)

generic
expectations.

Consider
"intentional
author's
fallacy" not a
purpose and
fallacy at all;
intention, how literature is
they want the rhetorical since it is
Rhetorical
audience to act; always about ideas,
research how and often touches
rhetoric taught on ultimate
at the time to questions about the
find out what nature of
rhetorical
humankind etc.
conventions the Author always
audience would writes to an
recognize.
audience and the
author's conception
of the audience
alters the work of
art.
Study the
Reader is really an
is an experience; to alter
reader's
complex
ideal or implied
text is not
reader and often is
separate from its assumptions process of a
Reader-Response
reader
fantastically
realization by a and
talented, erudite
(Fish)
reader; reader's characteristic constructing
ways
of
meaning
from
(like Stanley
Phenomenology deep
viewing the the words, what Fish!); Reception
Psychology psychological world; results reader brings to approach notes that
identity makes
(Holland)
in reader's self-the text and
the meaning of a
hypotheses
about the work, discovery to gets from the text changes over
experience of it; time and that
gets answers, achieve a
which alter the reading that study reception readers get more
of the work in sophisticated from
reader's identity feels right
its time and
learning to read
and so on in a

loop.
meaning is
transactional-the result of the
transaction
between the
reader and a text

an individual
instance of a
larger system of
Structuralism language and
based on linguistic structure;
literature is a
theories of
Saussure--langue, special kind of
parole, signifier, language use
signified, sign that has its own
rules and
conventions
which govern
how individual
works are
formed.

over time; studynew literary styles.

the reader's
RR diametrically
"interpretive
opposed to
community"
formalism--no
which largely objective reality to
defines how
the literature
one reads, what outside of the
a reader seeks transaction with a
in the text.
reader.

a way to learn Study sets or works best with

more about the genres to
prose narratives
system of
determine the and less well with
language and rules that
poetry; very
structures that govern them-- rationalistic-determine
ex is Propp's assumes that
cultural
eight actions in meaning is
production;
the fairy tale. understood through
can lead to a Divide the workdifference as
science of
up into lexie or expressed through
signs
divisible
binary oppositions
components
(light/dark; male
based on
rationality/female
functional
emotionalism;
codes to do
written vs. oral
with the plot, language etc.) Has
suspense,
not really fulfilled
character
its intentions. Led
development, to postsocial
structuralism.
knowledge, and
themes

text whose
meaning is
known only
Deconstruction through
Post-structural- difference.
Language is
ism
arbitrary; truth
claims and
intentions of a
text are
undermined by
its own
contradictions;
meaning is
finally
indeterminate.

allows you to
Identify
can be used with
see through thebinary
many other
alleged
oppositions in approaches. Like
stability of
the text and
Formalism,
textual
look for
involves close
meaning;
moments that reading of
textual
overturn the
language, but
meaning is not privileged term; denies unity of
finite; close doesn't just
form and meaning;
attention to the reverse the
uses the discovery
play of
hierarchy but of rules in
language
undermines the Structuralism to
yields pleasure idea of the
undermine idea of
opposition as rational rules;
valid. Locate recognizes author's
the point of
intentions, as in
contradiction, rhetorical criticism,
where the text places power to
"breaks free of make meaning of
the constraints the text, as in
imposed by its reader response.
own realistic
form" (Belsey
104)