28 Mart 2015 Cumartesi

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Information About Four Literary Theories;

STRUCTURALISM


     This intellectual movement began in France. Two important philosophers emerged with Structuralism, who are Claude Levi Strauss, and Roland Barthes. The basic aim of the Structuralism is to show that everything relates to one another, because they cannot be understood in isolation. They love to be observe in the context of larger structures. These structures imposes our way of perceiving world. These structures are not objective, and they are constructed by our way of perceiving the world. They want to move from the particular to the general.
       Structure has a great importance than the text itself, because structure is taking you further away from the text into more abstract world. Therefore; you move away from the text, by analyzing its relation to other structures. Structuralism is about understanding concepts through understanding the other concept. According to Structuralism; language is a system of signs, and each sign is composed of signifier and signified. Signifier is the sound image, and signified is the concept. Every word is composed of signifier and signified, and they are like the two sides of the same paper, so they can never be separated. The meaning is achieved through difference between signifiers. The meaning is an endless play of signifiers. The meaning is always deferred, and it is impossible to arrive at a final signified. Moreover; Structuralism is comparative. They understand everything by seeing its difference from something else. Every sign can be detached through its relation to other sign. Everything is linguisticly constructed, and all the words are compound of signs.
                                          



                                         

MARXIST CRITICISM


     Marxist Criticism is based on the political and economic theories of Karl Marx. The aim of Marxism is to bring about a classless society, based on the common ownership of the means of production. It is a materialistic philosophy, which rejects spirituality.According to materialism, life shapes our conscious, and there is no other world, there is only society. It gives us logical and scientific explanation, as an opposed to the idealism, which considers spirituality, and believes the existence of spiritual world.
       Marxist Criticism looks for concrete, scientific, and logical explanations of the world. According to Marx, there is a struggle for power between different social classes, and he rejects this competition. History is composed of class struggle. Therefore; according to Marxist Criticism, literary texts cannot be separated from society, history, and individual experiences, because writers class and ideology effects their works. Texts represents reality, reflects the world. It looks like a mirror, real life is reflected in its page. Literature is aesthetically detached from us. Marxist Criticism claims that literature is politics itself, it tries to reflect reality, and politics at the same time.
                                                    






READER RESPONSE THEORY

          Reader Response process first emerged in 1930s, as a reaction against to the growing tendency to reject the readers role in creative meaning. It became popular in 1970. It focuses on the reader or audience reaction to a particular text. They think that reader relates his or her own personal experience, and also the intellectual environment contributes to the response of the text, in that sense; author is not responsible for the meaning of the text. They do not consider as an outside, readers own social, cultural, and intellectual background. They give importance with the form of the text.
   There are two beliefs in Reader Response Theory, the first one is; role of the reader cannot be omitted, because they think that without an audience the text does not exist. The reader actively has an important role. According to the second belief; readers do not passively consume the meaning process in the text. They do not get meaning objectively, but they use their own interpretation, intellectual background in order to understand the text. In that sense; the meanings of the text may change, because each reader gets different meanings. Also, even the same reader can provide different meanings in different times. If the reader does not read the text, this means that the text does not exist. Therefore; the reader is the most important component. His role is important, because he/she creates the meaning.
            

NEW CRITICISM

     New Criticism emphasizes "close reading" of the text itself, in order to understand the literary work. Mathew Arnold and T.S. Eliot are influential figure of New Criticism. It emerged in 1920s, but was dominant in 1940-50s. There was a student expansion in US.They thought that they need to come up with a methodology, in order to appeal all of them. For example; teachers mostly gave a copy of poems or texts, and they want students to read and analyze them. In this sense, New Criticism is ahistorical, it does not value things  according to history. It does not give importance to historical values, text should be separate.
       New Criticism supports the individuality of the text, so it is ahistorical. They only focus on the words on page, but they are not concern with the context of the text, because they value text over context, such as cultural, historical, biographical, sociological. They think that context is a secondary material, so they emphasizes close examination of a text with minimum regard for the biographical or historical circumstances. New Criticism aims to detach the author from the text. Here, the intentional fallacy and the affective fallacy is very important. Intentional fallacy is a term to describe the problem inherent in trying to judge a work of art by assuming the inherent of the artist. Affective fallacy refers to the supposed error of judging or evaluating a text on the basis of its emotional effects on a reader. The difference between the content of the work and the achieved content, which is art, is technique. Therefore, the technique and form are important.