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    Literary Theory and Criticism

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    The document discusses different lenses or perspectives for analyzing literature, known as literary theories or criticism. It focuses on introducing the Gender/Feminist lens and the Social Power/Class lens. The Gender/Feminist lens examines relationships between genders and patterns of thought and power between men and women. It views society as patriarchal. The Social-Power/Class lens analyzes literature through the economic theories of Karl Marx, focusing on class struggles and conflicts between ruling and working classes. When reading Hamlet, these two lenses will be used to examine gender roles and power dynamics related to gender and social class.

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    Literary Theory and Criticism

    Uploaded by

    api-403941311
    236 views10 pages
    The document discusses different lenses or perspectives for analyzing literature, known as literary theories or criticism. It focuses on introducing the Gender/Feminist lens and the Social Power/Class lens. The Gender/Feminist lens examines relationships between genders and patterns of thought and power between men and women. It views society as patriarchal. The Social-Power/Class lens analyzes literature through the economic theories of Karl Marx, focusing on class struggles and conflicts between ruling and working classes. When reading Hamlet, these two lenses will be used to examine gender roles and power dynamics related to gender and social class.

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    literary theory and criticism

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    The document discusses different lenses or perspectives for analyzing literature, known as literary theories or criticism. It focuses on introducing the Gender/Feminist lens and the Social Power/Class lens. The Gender/Feminist lens examines relationships between genders and patterns of thought and power between men and women. It views society as patriarchal. The Social-Power/Class lens analyzes literature through the economic theories of Karl Marx, focusing on class struggles and conflicts between ruling and working classes. When reading Hamlet, these two lenses will be used to examine gender roles and power dynamics related to gender and social class.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    236 views10 pages

    Literary Theory and Criticism

    Uploaded by

    api-403941311
    The document discusses different lenses or perspectives for analyzing literature, known as literary theories or criticism. It focuses on introducing the Gender/Feminist lens and the Social Power/Class lens. The Gender/Feminist lens examines relationships between genders and patterns of thought and power between men and women. It views society as patriarchal. The Social-Power/Class lens analyzes literature through the economic theories of Karl Marx, focusing on class struggles and conflicts between ruling and working classes. When reading Hamlet, these two lenses will be used to examine gender roles and power dynamics related to gender and social class.

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    Literary Theory and

    Criticism
    Because there’s a reason we don’t all
    read literature the same way
    There’s more than one way to read a book.

    Each different perspective or “lense” that we look through is a different school of


    literary theory or criticism. These “lenses” determine what stands out to readers
    as notable and most important to be analyzed.
    We read through different lenses to offer
    ourselves the opportunity to look at a text
    from a variety of perspectives. These lenses
    will help us develop a more complex way of
    thinking about the world as well as reading
    literature
    Literary Theories

    ● Gender/Feminist lense
    ● Social Power/Class lense
    ● Reader Response lense
    ● Biographical Lense
    ● Psychoanalytical/Freudian lense
    ● Structuralism
    ● Post-structuralism
    ● Deconstruction
    ● Post-Colonial
    ● Archetypical
    ● Moral Criticism
    ● New Historicism
    Lenses for Hamlet

    We’re going to be using only a couple of


    lenses while looking at Hamlet (doing all
    would be overwhelming).

    We’re focusing on the Gender/Feminist


    lense and the Social Power/Class lense
    The Feminist lense

    Feminism: noun 1. the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights
    of women equal to those of men. 2. (sometimes initial capital letter) an organized
    movement for the attainment of such rights for women.

    A feminist critic sees cultural and economic disabilities in a “patriarchal” society


    that has hindered and prevented women from realizing their creative
    possibilities, achieving independence,
    Concepts held by the feminist criticism

    ● Civilization is patriarchal (male dominant)


    ● Concepts of “gender” are largely (if not entirely) cultural constructs created
    by the patriarchal biases of our civilization
    ● Patriarchal ideology pervades texts that have been considered great. Works
    lack autonomous female roles. They are implicitly addressed to male
    readers and they shut out the woman reader as an alien outsider

    This criticism focuses on the relationships between


    genders. While reading Hamlet we will examine the
    patterns of thoughts, behaviors, values, and power in
    relations between men and women.
    The Social-Class lense

    This critic grounds their theory in the economic and cultural theory of Karl Marx
    and his student, Fredrich Engles. Their theory holds that societies develop
    through class struggle and in capitalistic society this results in a conflict
    between ruling class (the bourgeoisie) and the working class (the proletariat).

    Karl Marx: German philosopher, economist, historian, political theorist,


    sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary. Most commonly known for writing The
    Communist Manifesto and developing the theory known as Marxism.
    Concepts held by Social-Class Criticism
    ● Humanity, its institutions, and its ways of thinking are developed by its basic
    economic organization (capitalism, socialism, etc.)
    ● Changes in basic economic organization cause changes in the constitution
    and power relations of social classes.
    ● Literature can be understood by looking at the economic class and
    ideologies or the writer. It can also be understood by examining the relation
    of the text to the social reality of that time and place.

    This theory focuses on power and money in literature. While


    reading Hamlet we’ll pay attention to who has power/money
    and who does not and what happens because of that.
    We’ll start Hamlet on Wednesday

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