Ehrlich's ENG 275 Course Playbook

Feminist Literary Criticism

Feminist literary criticism analyzes literature within the context of gender dynamics, focusing on how texts relate to patriarchal ideologies and questioning the traditional, male-centered narratives that have dominated literature. This school of criticism examines how language, symbolism, and narrative structure tend to reinforce traditional roles and stereotypes that marginalize women’s voices. Feminist critics look at how characters are portrayed and how the works being examined may have been shaped by patriarchal values, and emphasize the need to reinterpret works written by women, as well as to read 

This approach examines how language, symbolism, and narrative structure frequently reinforce roles and stereotypes that marginalize female voices. Feminist critics review not only how female characters are portrayed but also how the canon itself was shaped by patriarchal values. They often emphasize the need to bring forth and reinterpret texts written by women, as well as to read canonical texts from a new, gender-critical perspective.

Feminist literary criticism focuses on

• representation of women in literature
• power dynamics and patriarchy
• gender roles and stereotypes
• women's writing and the female literary tradition
•  intersectionality (race, class, sexuality)

Some major theorists are

• Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex)
• Elaine Showalter (Gynocriticism)
• Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar (The Madwoman in the Attic)
• Judith Butler (Gender as performance)

Feminist literary theory 

• analyzes how female characters are portrayed and represented in literature, and what those portrayals reveal about societal norms and about social and cultural biases.  
• promotes interest in works by women by focusing on texts that may have been ignored or undervalued in traditional criticism. 
• borrows from other disciplines (such as psychology, sociology, or history) to study the intersection of gender with sexuality, class, and race. 
• challenges the idea that male perspectives are universal and works to increase inclusivity

Formalism

Formalism (also known as New Criticism) focuses on strictly analyzing the text itself—its structure, language, and literary devices—without considering external context. This school's view is that the meaning of a literary work is primarily a product of its internal structure, language, and literary devices rather than its historical background or the author’s biography. 

Formalism emphasizes

• close reading of the text  that is, paying close  attention to elements such as imagery, metaphor, symbolism, and the organization of the text
• close analysis of how literary devices create meaning
• dissecting the structure to determine how all parts contribute to the whole
• literary form, imagery, metaphor, irony, paradox
• unity and coherence of the work
• the text itself, without consideration for external factors such as author intent, history, etc. 

Some major theorists are 

• Cleanth Brooks (The Well Wrought Urn)
• John Crowe Ransom (The New Criticism)
• I.A. Richards (Practical Criticism)

Some formalist concepts:

• Autonomy of the Text: Formalists claim that the text can be understood as an independent aesthetic object, and that extraneous contextual information (such as social and historical influences) is less relevant to its interpretation.
• Defamiliarization: This concept refers to techniques used to render the familiar strange, prompting readers to see ordinary objects or ideas in a fresh light. Formalism believes that these techniques are essential to understanding how form shapes meaning.
• Ambiguity and Paradox: Formalism appreciates textual ambiguities and contradictions, arguing that these complexities enrich a work’s overall interpretive potential.

Historicism

Historicism examines literature in its historical context, looking at literature as a product of its time.This approach focuses on the ways in which the historical context, including the author’s life, political circumstances, and cultural conditions, informs a text’s meaning. Critics using this lens analyze literary works alongside the historical forces that shaped them, arguing that understanding a work’s origin and its cultural setting is essential for grasping its full significance. The historicist school of criticism underscores that literature is deeply embedded in its temporal, social, and cultural environment, and that these factors are as crucial to understanding a text as its internal content.

Some key concerns:

• The influence of historical, political, and social contexts
• Cultural ideologies at the time of writing
• Literature as a cultural artifact
• Power, discourse, and representation (New Historicism)

Some major theorists:

• Stephen Greenblatt (New historicism)
• Michel Foucault (Discourse and power)
• Raymond Williams (Cultural materialism)

Historicism emphasizes

• Exploration of how a literary work reflects the ideologies of its era by examining the socio-political and cultural environments of the period when the work was written, providing insights into themes, moral attitudes, and literary conventions.
• Considering the author’s personal history and experiences, which allow critics to better understand the motivations behind narrative choices and thematic engagements.
• The interplay between text and history by looking at literature as both a reflection of and an influence on historical events and social conditions and by studying contemporaneous texts or historical documents alongside literature.
• Analyzing how power is represented and circulated through language.

Post-Colonial Literary Criticism

Post-colonial criticism investigates literature produced in or about former colonies, focusing on issues of empire, identity, and resistance, and addressing the enduring impact of colonialism in literature.  This school of literary criticism addresses the enduring impact of colonialism in literature, examines how the literary works grapple with the cultural domination of colonial powers, and looks at the ways in which literature reflects the dynamics of power, control, and identity that arise from the colonial encounter. 

Some key concerns:

• Colonizer vs. colonized perspectives
• Cultural identity, hybridity, otherness, and displacement
• Language and power
• Political and economic impacts

Some major theorists:

•     Edward Said  (Orientalism)
•     Homi K. Bhabha (Hybridity, mimicry)
•     Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak ("Can the Subaltern Speak?")

Historicism emphasizes

• Analyzing how colonialism is critiqued or reproduced in a text.
• Reading from the perspective of the colonized rather than the colonizer.
• Examining resistance narratives and cultural reclamation.
• Studying the legacy of colonialism and the cultural biases embedded within the  texts, to highlight the ongoing struggles for cultural and political self-definition in formerly colonized nations

Psychological Literary Criticism

Also known as psychoanalytic criticism, this approach applies theories of psychology (especially Freudian and Jungian) to literature to to explore the inner lives of both characters and their creators and to understand character motivation, symbolism, and the unconscious. This critical approach examines the unconscious mind, intentions, repressed desires, and emotional undercurrents that shape both literary production and narrative content.

Key concerns:

• Repression, desire, and the unconscious
• Oedipus complex and family dynamics
• Archetypes and collective unconscious (Jung)
• Dreams, symbols, neuroses

Major theorists:

• Sigmund Freud (Id, ego, superego; repression)
• Carl Jung (Archetypes, collective unconscious)
• Jacques Lacan (Language and desire)

Psychological literary criticism seeks to 

• Interpret character behavior through psychological theories.
• Identify symbolic meanings and dream-like imagery.
• Explore how authors project their inner conflicts into the narrative.

Main methods of critical analysis

• Through psychoanalytic techniques, critics analyze symbols, dreams, and recurring motifs to unearth hidden, often unconscious, dimensions of characters and narratives.
• Through authorial and character analysis, critics evaluate the psychological conflicts of a character (or even the author) can reveal deeper layers of meaning, such as unresolved childhood traumas or internalized social tensions.
• Through Jung's concepts of the collective unconscious and of archetypes, critics highlight universal aspects of the human experience as expressed through literature. 

This psychological school of criticism illuminates the dynamic interplay between individual psyche and textual symbolism, offering a window into the hidden emotional and mental processes that inform a literary work.

Marxist Literary Criticism

Rotted in the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Marxist literary criticism focuses on the ways in which literature reflects and perpetuates the economic and social structures of its time. It investigates how texts represent class struggle, ideology, and the distribution of power and wealth, and views literature through the lens of class struggle, materialism, and ideology. It analyzes how literature reflects, reinforces, or challenges economic and social structures and reveals literature as a socially embedded practice—one that carries explicit and implicit messages about class relations and economic determinism, thereby shaping our understanding of both art and society.

Key concerns:

• Class conflict and economic power
• Ideology and hegemony
• Alienation and commodification
• Literature as reflection or critique of capitalism

Major Theorists:

• Karl Marx (Base/superstructure model)
• Georg Lukacs (Reflection theory)
• Terry Eagleton (Literature and ideology)
• Fredric Jameson (Cultural logic of late capitalism)

Marxist literary criticism focuses on

• Examining how literature portrays class and labor.
• Critiquing the role of ideology in shaping narrative.
• Analyzing the economic forces behind production and consumption of literature.

Main methods of critical analysis

• Historical materialism: Marxist critics view literature as part of the superstructure—a reflection of the economic base of society. They analyze texts to understand how they support or critique capitalist ideologies.
• Class struggle and Ideology: By uncovering the ideological underpinnings of concepts like power, labor, and class conflict, these critics expose the ways in which literature can reinforce or subvert social hierarchies.
• Alienation and exploitation: Themes of exploitation and alienation are central in Marxist analysis, highlighting how the economic realities of society influence both the creation and reception of literary works.