Transcript Twentieth Century Literature

Twentieth Century
Literature
Major Critical Approaches
Questions to consider
What is literature?
 What do we get out of literature?
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Critical Theory Definition
Critical theory is what we bring to
literature, and, in turn, what we get out of
it.
 Two major types
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– Historical/Biographical
– Expressive Realism
Historicism
Basically, we have been doing this all year
 Considers the literary work in the facts of
the historical period.
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New Historicism
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Much the same as Historicism with one
difference:
– New Historicism finds meaning by looking at a
text within the framework of the prevailing
ideas and assumptions of its historical era.
Psychoanalytic
Freudian
 Looks at a text as the subconscious
expressions of the author.

Feminist
Looks at literature by exposing how a
work reflects masculine ideology.
 They have noticed that women and men
tend to communicate differently: men
directed towards solutions, women
towards connecting.
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Marxist
Literature reflects a class struggle and
materialism
 Questions to ask:
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– What role does class play in the work; what is the
author's analysis of class relations?
– How do characters overcome oppression?
– In what ways does the work serve as propaganda for
the status quo; or does it try to undermine it?
– What does the work say about oppression; or are
social conflicts ignored or blamed elsewhere?
– Does the work propose some form of utopian vision
as a solution to the problems encountered in the
work?
Desiree’s Baby
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What lens(es) can we
look at this story though?
Historianism?
New Historianism?
Psychoanalytic?
Feminist?
Marxist?
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quadroon: Person
descended from one
black grandparent and
three white grandparents.
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Look for foreshadowing