Shifting Frames: Contextualizing Critical

Theory

A Presentation by Jenny Moffitt

Aims

• To answer the question: “What is critical theory?”• To gain an overview of the major schools of

theory as outlined by Steven Lynn• To learn the distinguishing traits of New

Criticism, including the key terms, texts, and ideas of the school

• To consider reactions against New Criticism• To learn the distinguishing traits of Reader-

Response Criticism, including the key terms, texts, and ideas of the school

• To apply the theory of Reader Response to film

What is Critical Theory?

• The _______________.

• The ______________

• “Critical theory is thus _____________

Major Schools of Theory: An Overview

1. New Criticism (14-17):

2. Reader-Response Criticism (17-20):

3. Deconstructive Criticism (20-23):-

4. Historical, Postcolonial, and Cultural Studies (23-28):

- Historical Criticism

- New Historicism

- Postcolonial Criticism

- Cultural Studies

5. Psychological Criticism (28-31):

6. Feminist Criticism (31-33):

• Note: Each chapter of Steven Lynn’s Texts and Contexts is devoted to one of these critical schools.

The“Well-Wrought

Urn”of New Criticism

Key Terms for New Criticism

• Close Reading –

• Intentional Fallacy –

• Affective Fallacy -

• Explication –

• Organic Unity –

• Ambiguity -

• Objective Correlative –

The Major Names and Texts

of New Criticism• T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) -

• I.A. Richards (1893-1979) -

• Cleanth Brooks (1906-1994) –

• John Crowe Ransom (1888-

1974) –

• Renè Wellek (1903-1995)

and Austin Warren (1899-1986)

• W.K. Wimsatt (1907) and

Monroe Beardsley (1915-1985)

Questions to Ask When Doing a New Critical

Reading (46)1. What complexities (or tensions,

ironies, paradoxes, oppositions, ambiguities) can you find in the work?

2. What idea unifies the work, resolving these ambiguities?

3. What details or images support this resolution (that is, connect the parts to the whole)?

Reactions to New Criticism

Let’s take a look at some sections of Kenneth Koch’s 1956 poem “Fresh Air.” How does he poke fun at New Criticism? How does he challenge

New Critical beliefs?

“The Death of the Author?”:

The Emergence of

Reader Response Criticism “Little Girl

Reading,” Berthe Morisot (1888)

Key Terms for Reader Response Theory

• Transactional Experience –

• Efferent Reading –

• Aesthetic Reading –

• Literary Experience –

• Collective Meaning -

Types of Reader Response Theory

Structuralism –

* Narratology –

Phenomenology -

Reception Theory –

Subjective Criticism -

The Major Names and Texts of Reader Response

Theory• Louise Rosenblatt

(1904 -2004) –

• David Bleich -

• Stanley Fish (1938) –

• Wolfgang Iser (1926) and Hans Robert Jauss (1922-1997) -

The Main Principles of Reader Response Theory

Questions to Ask When Doing

A Reader-Response Reading (67)

1. How do I respond to this work?

2. How does the text shape my response?

3. How might other readers respond?

Responding to Responses

Consider this scene from Masked &Anonymous (Dir. Larry Charles) where we

see three different responses (by Pagan Lace, Bobby Cupid, and Uncle Sweetheart) to the

samesong (Bob Dylan’s “Drifter’s Escape”). Is this an example of Reader Response Criticism?

Do they reach a “collective meaning?” How do you respond to their responses, the

performance, the scene, the song?

Works Cited

Bressler, Charles. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1994.

Koch, Kenneth. On the Great Atlantic Railway: Selected Poems 1950-1988. New York: Knopf, 1994.

Lynn, Steven. Texts and Contexts: Writing About Literature with Critical Theory. New York: Pearson Longman, 2005.

Masked & Anonymous. Dir. Larry Charles. Sony, 2003.

Image Sources

Figure 1 - <http://architecture.mit.edu/>Figure 2 - <http://www.gardenzilla.com/>Figure 3 - <http://www.ibilio.org/>