Literary Critical TheoryAn Overview of Its Developmentand Major TypesRhetoricalNewCriticismTraditionalMetaphoricalStylisticStructuralistPoliticalMyth TheoryBiographicalMarxistFreudian

Historicist

LITERARY THEORYTEXT-BASED"Practical Criticism""Close Reading"READER-BASED"Big-Picture Questions"1960sMerging1970sTHEORYBOOM(denies a main theory)FreudianNew HistoricistMyth TheoryBiographicalCognitive- ScientificStructuralistTraditionalMarxistFeministPostmodernHistoricalNew Criticism

Deconstruction might ask If the apple peel and the flesh are both part of an apple,are they not in fact one and the same thing?Myth Theory might ask What is the significance of the apple image in legend? Feminist theory might ask What possibilities are available to a woman who eats this apple, and has she been forced by males to think she wants an apple?Formalism might ask What type, shape, and diameter is the apple, and so what?Gender criticism might ask...'Is this apple gendered, and has the apple been discriminated for or against because of its gender?'Marxist theory might ask Who owns the apple, and how do "Powers" determine who gets the apple or how much of the apple goes to the common citizen?New Historicism might ask 'What is the background of relations in which the apple is embedded--geneticists, growers, workers, sellers, buyers, eaters?'Poststructuralism might ask'How stable a subject is this apple--worthy of study?'Psychoanalysis might ask What does the apple remind us of--and why?Reader-Response might ask What does the apple taste like, and do you enjoy it? Structuralism might ask How are the apple peel and the flesh differentiated into composite parts, and how does that analysis help us appreciate the apple?'

WE WILL BE EXPLORING SOME OF THE FOLLOWING CRITICAL THEORIES: MarxistNewHistoricistReader-ResponseNewCriticismArchetypalPsycho-analyticFeminist

Our Websitespublic.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/crit.summaries.htmlandwww.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm

Other sites for reference arehhh.gavilan.edu/ecrook/1B/LiteraryTheory.htm includes Formalist/New Criticism, Biographical-Historical, Psychoanalytic, Mythological, Sociological/Cultural (Feminist, Marxist, etc.), Reader Response, and Deconstructionhttp://www.textetc.com/criticism.html includes Traditional, New Criticism, Rhetorical, Stylistic, Metaphorical, Structuralist, Post-Structuralist, Myth Theory, Freudian, Jungian, Historical, Biographical, Sociological, Political, Marxist, Cognitive