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Introduction to American Literature (Literary Theory (Feminst Criticism…
Introduction to American Literature
Study of Literature
Roman Jacobsons Functions of Language
subject/referential
denotes relationship of messages to facts
addresser/emotive function
poetic fct/ reflexive reference to own structue
addressee/conative
aims to influence behaviour
phatic fct/maintenance of contact between adee and ader
metalingual fct way in which code is highlighted
Literary System
Written Communucation
time lag
addressee has no influence
social sphere -> network of relations
roles
production
mediation
reception
criticism
What is Literature?
no perennially valid answer
Descriptive criteria
Mimesis
Fictionality
Poesis
Aesthetic Convention
Ambiguity
Non-Pragmatic Discourse
Particular/peculiar use of lang
literature
is creative writing
uses language in peculiar ways
deviates systematically from everday speech
literary language
draws attention to itself
flaunts its material being
Literary texts are characterized by
fictionality
poetic function
lack of pragmatic function
ambiguity
Branches of literary studies
literary theory
reflects
debates
suggests approaches in terms of reading texts
literary history
development of literature
includes criticism
looks at historical context
literary periods
Colonial literature (1607-1776)
Lit of the enlightenment(1750-1800)
Lit of the early republic(1776-1830s)
Romanticism and American renaissance(1800-1855)
Realism/Naturalism(1865-1915)
American Modernism(1915-1945)
Postmodernism and Multiculturalism(1945-now)
literary criticism
here journalist AND scholary practice
Rita Felski´s use of language
recognition
enchantment
knowledge
shock
Poetry
criteria for good poetry
renews language
points at complexity of life
conveys meaning through form
meditative rather than narrative
basic feet
iamb uX
trochee Xu
spondee XX
dactyl XUU
anapest UUX
basic metrical forms
Trimeter
Tetrameter
Pentameter
Rythm
end-stopped line
enjambement/run-on line
pause or ceasura(,.;)
Rhyme patterns
end-rhyme
rhyming couplet (aa bb cc)
alternating rhyme (abab cdcd)
embracing rhyme (abba cddc)
chain rhyme (aba bcb cdc)
tail rhyme (aab ccb or abc abc)
masculine rhyme
feminine rhyme
triple rhyme
rich rhyme
identical rhyme
eye rhyme
half rhyme
internal rhyme
Stanzas
couplet
heroic couplet
Tercet
Quartrain
Sestet
Octave
Rethorical figures
Phonological rethorical figure
Alliteration
Consonance
Assonance
Onomaoteia
Morphological rethorical figure
Anaphora
Epiphora
Epanalepsis
Anadiplosis
Polyptoton
Synonomy
Syntactic rethorical figure
Parallelism
Chiasm
Asyndendon
Polysyndendon
Inversion
Ellipsis
Semantic rethorical figure
Metaphor
Simile
Metonymy
Euphemism
Synecdoche
Hyperbole
Irony
Litotes
Oxymoron
Paradox
Antithesis
Hendiady
Personification
Types of Poems
Ballad
alternating rhymes
alternation trimeter-tetrameter
combines poetry, narrative and drama
Ode
praises or is dedicated to smth/someone
Apostrophe
Hymn
praises god or the divine
Elegy
serious reflection/mourning of the dead
Sonnet
Italian/Petrarchan Sonnet
octave(2 quartrains)
embracing rhyme
sestet
cdecde or cdcdcd
volta
14 lines
English/Shakespearean Sonnet
3 quartrains
alternating rhyme or abab babc cdcd
volta
couplet
gg or ee
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry (1980s)
refers to journal dedicated to poetry
poetry that is
avant-garde, experimenta
language centered, minimal
e.g. Harryette Mullen
imagery
Dinah & Jemina as stereotypes of African American cook
red, white and blue for America
Dinah for right of women
Drama
features of drama
stage directions
secondary text
dialogue/polylogue
primary text
level of communication
internal
external
title
prologue
form of theatre
reviews
dramatic irony
dramatic language
monologue/soloquy
prologue/epilogue
Aside
typology of theatre codes
actor
acoustic
utteances
voice-quality
pitch
individual vocal character
visual
body language
appeareance
stage
acoustic
music
loudspeaker
noise
visual
stage-set
light
stage forms
Ancient Greece
amphitheatres
very large
acting=loud
wearing masks
many gestures
Middle Ages
religious festivities, market places
acting=serious renditions
stand up+comedy and interaction
Renaissance
elizabethian stage, shakespeare(apron stage)
set=minimal, costumes= elaborate
professional theatre groups
asides, monologues
Modern Times
proscenium stage, more like a picture
set=elaborate
seperation of actor and audience(4th wall)
stage illuminated
Today
wide range
pictures
time in drama
retrospectives
foreshadowings
Duration: 2-4h
start in beginning = ab ovo
start in middle = in medias res
start at the end = in ultimas res
character in drama
dramatis personae
mirror character
foil character
confidante character
types of drama
Tragedy
imitation of action that is admirable
performed, not narrative
Gustav Freytags Pyramid
Act 1: Exposition
Act 2: Rising action
Act 3: Climax
Act 4: Falling action
Act 5: Denouement
evoke pity and fear
good to bad fortune
anagorisis: protagonist realizes his error
tragic fall also gain not only pure loss
Aristotelean Drama
unity of place, time, action(focus on main plot)
solution of conflict in the end
immediate presentation of chars
coherent sequence of action
wants to affect spectators emotions and satisfy psychological needs
catharsis
Epic (Brechtian) Theatre
uses narrative techniques
epic narrator(introduces chars,etc)
non-Aristotelean
appeal to reason and satisfact spectators intellectual needs
Alienation effect
playing in a way the audience can`t identify with chars
achieved by
explanatory caption
actors stepping out of char
stage design doesn`t represent any real locality
wants the spectator to know that he/she is in a theatre
Absurd drama
long pauses
short utterances
Absurd world that doesn´t make sense
chars have no definite identity
Comedy
in general
evoke laughter
derivation from normality
only low figures can be seen as ridiciolous
ending: often deus ex machina
types of comedy
farce
burlesque
satire
parody
comedy of manners
Blackface Minstresly
white actors imperson african american people
comedy of black sterotypes
Ethopian Dialogues
wordplay
misunderstanding
intellectual simplicity
History of drama
1620: Puritans
1642:theatres were closed
1774: continental congress bans all plays
1959: A Raisin in the Sun
1962: Virginia Wolf
A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry
1930-1965
grew up in southside of chicago
died at age of 34
her father bought house in white district -> supreme court
Premiere 11.03.1959
Intertextual reference
Harlem by Langston Hughes
Themes
American Dream
upward social mobility
James Truslow Adams
each family member has seperate dream
limited ressources though
Segregation
Feminist Issues
Beneathas dream
Prose
Narratology
study of how narratives make meaning
important Narratologists
Vladimir Propp
Gerard Genette
6 Steps
1.Basic narrative mode?
Mimetic
Digetic
2.How is narrative focalized?
external(viewpoint outside) reader is told what chars say and do
internal(viewpoint in char, feeling and thoughts)
3.Who is the narrator?
degree of reliability
reliable
unreliable
degree of expliciteness
covert
overt
presence on level of chars
heterodiegetic
homodiegetic
communication level of speaker
intradiegetic
extradiegetic
involvement in actions
autodiegetic
not involved
4.How is time handled?
story=sequence of events
plot=causal and logical structure
flashback=analepsis
flashforward=prolepsis
discourse time
story time
5.How is the story packaged?
Frame narrative
Embedded narrative
How are speech and thought represented?
DS/DT
DS is norm
IS/IT
FDS/FDT
char apparently in control
FIS/FIT
NRSA/NRTA
NRA
narrator apparently in control
stanzels narrative situations
first-person
authorial
figural
techniques of characterization
telling names
figural characterization
authorial characterization
Scarlet letter
Dimmesdale
guilt ridden
Hesters lover
Chillingworth
represents evil and lust
Faustian character
Hester
hebrew=mytrle
Latin: old testament
Wiliam Prynne=puritan politician
Pearl
morally and socially innocent
hester dressing her like letter
mediator between social and natural existence
Hermeneutic circle
all understandment is context related
cant interpret part of text without looking at the whole
cant interpret part of text without including culture, life experience and history
Romance
fidelity to truth
representation of the marvelous
imaginary events
types of Romances
gothic
narrative oscillates between rationality and irrationality
historical
narr. oscillates between civilization and wilderness
imagination is a source of potential insight but also anxiety and terror
metaphysical
narr. structured by a metaphysical quest for an elusive truth
hermeneutical
imagination no longer source of horror and despair
Novel
fidelity to facts
representation of the probable and ordinary
actual events
Iser´s Triad
The real
extra textual world
actuality that produces the text
field of reference for text
The fictive
an intentional act
The imaginary
manifests itself in diffuse manner
without conrete shape
the act of fictionalizing
converts realtiy to sign(points somewhere else to endow imaginary with a gestalt)
all of them in a relationship and in a literary text
Discourse
manipulation of the story in the presentation of the narrative
concerned with how a story is told
articulates a particular view of the world
includes
plot
narrative voice
focalization
narrative modes
representation of speech/thought
time
style
Literary Theory
psychoanalytic criticism
Sigmund Freud
Freudian Terminology
EGO
consciousness
"adult"
enforces the reality principle
ID
"child"
unconsciousness
primal desires
governed by the pleasure principle
SUPEREGO
"parent"
conscience
controls unacceptable desires and represses those
tells you to follow the rules
Sublimation
redirection of social desire to a higher social aim
Displacement
Repression
Condensation
analogy between
conscious mind and manifest
content of a literary work
unconscious mind and latent
Jacques Lacan
the unconscoius
conscoius level
thoughts
perceptions
preconscious level
memories
stored knowledge
unconscious level
immoral urges
violent motives
unacceptable sexual desires
structured like language
Lacanian Terminology
the imaginary order "child"
world beyond logic and grammar
locations of subjects fantasy images of himself
the real
nature
materiality of things beyond language
the symbolic order
world of language, laws
social world
Hemmingway
Iceberg theory
deeper meaning of the story should never be evident on the surface -> room for interpretation
manifest-overt
latent-covert
what do they do?
psychological studies of authors
explore nature of the creative process
theorize psychological effects of literary texts on readers
decode signs
psychological poetics
New Historicism
seeks to understand works through its historical context
method based on parallel reading -> no hierarchy
movement -> wants to destabilize established conceptions of what history and fiction are
discourse
sociological poetics
ideology
culture
what do they do?
juxtapose literary and non-literary texrs
defamiliarize literary canon
focus on questions of ideology and power
assume that all reality is textualized, determined by discoursive practices
New Criticism
textual interpretation
hermeneutical poetics
Feminst Criticism
wants to destabilize images of women
womens representation in literature
rereading
literary written by women
rediscovery
American Renaissance
1941
establishes american literary canon
focus on aesthetics
American critics
Jane Tompkins
Pragmatic
hands on
French Critics
focus on representation and structure of language
theoretical
make use of Lacan
Gender Studies
Femaleness
biology
Feminity
cultural and social construct
defining gender
Judith Butler
can you construct your identity?
Feminism
political position
Gynocritics
"female works should not be analyzed after male models"
Development of women´s writing
Feminine Phase
1840-1880
women wrote in "effort" to come close to men´s intellectual achievments
phase of imitating the previous models
Feminist Phase
1880-1920
represents new woman
phase of protest
Female Phase
1920-2000
phase of self-discovery
seach for identity
Free Phase
2000-today
participation in mainstream
can write about any subject they like
Sensational designs
1985
critizises established canon
bases literary works on their popularity
What do they do?
rethink the canon
examine representations of women in literary pov
deconstruct established binary oppositions
Black Feminist criticism
points out invisibility of black women in literature
critizise black male intellectuals
Ecocriticsim
Envoirenmental crisis
relationship of humans to the envoirenment
relationship between literature and physical envoirenment
Anthropocentrism
focus on humans
current phase on geologic timescale
humans made irreversible impact on earth
humans actions significant geological force
Ecocentrism
centered on nature
envoirenmental ethics
criticism of anthropocentric values
Interest of ecosphere must overide humans interests
Ecofeminism
link from feminism to ecology
women have been associated with nature, the emotional
Ecofiction
deals with eco centered or human centered kinds of fiction
including effects on human nature such as celebration, lament and anger