LITERARY CRITICISM

Although literary criticism has been around since, arguably, Aristotle’s Poetics, the twentieth century gave birth to the incessant output of books about books that clutter the shelves of bookstores, filled with a lot of stuff about literature meant to make you feel stupid when probably three quarters of it is bullshit. But hell, it’s classy bullshit, and at least it does not generally harm anyone. Although I hear rumblings every few years that the Chicago school of criticism is about ready to launch a nuclear offensive against the Yale School of criticism, Harvard is ready to mount a ground offensive, while Duke is rapidly developing new weapons of critical mass destruction.

Aristotle's Poetics remains a major brick in the foundation of literary criticism (what an awful metaphor); but dang, I wish that pesky chapter on comedy didn't disappear, which would have probably helped us understand what the hell he meant about catharsis.

Particularly from the 1960s on, literary criticism and theory has exploded. It has grown into an industry that makes publishers rich and offers nothing to the critics, except for Harold Bloom. I have always told my English students who are interested in continuing on to graduate school in English to bone up on and prepare for theory. Graduate work in literature is a theoretical world. It doesn’t help you earn more money, but it helps you to earn more theory to theorize upon. One professor literally told my class in graduate school that theory is “a brain-fuck.”

Although we have perhaps swung away from the, at times, absurd arcane density of critical theory in the 1980s (no one can tell me with a straight face that they understand what Homi Bhabha or Jacques Derrida is talking about), it is still a pretty thorny landscape where you come upon frequent abominations of the human language such as “metaphoricity” and endure annoying catchphrases like, “cognitive dissonance,” or “everything is socially constructed,” or, my least favorite, “interrogate the text.”

The MacSinclair Canon of Literary Criticism (evolving under construction).

I try my best to give my undergraduates some rudimentary background in critical theory in each literature class I teach, and many of them have requested what I think is a solid reading list. My advice has been to get David Richter’s anthology, or the Norton Anthology from which I offer a list of must-read names and / or essays.

But here, I am going to gradually generate a list of what I believe are the best and essential book length studies of critical theory. Any such list, of course, is subjective, but I will try to balance my preference with the requirements of a graduate education. The first two are good introductions to modern and contemporary theory and criticism, a means to gain a fundamental background. Then, from each movement, one could read a few definitive works. (I’m sorry that image #2 below is so ginormous. I feel too lazy to crop it right now).

an Introduction. Terry Eagleton. I received boot-camp in literary theory from this book in college in the 1980s. It is still the classic. Eagleton is a clear, cogent, familiar writer, which is often hard to find in the world of critical theory. He frequently updates the book since it came out. A Marxist critic, the first chapter may be off-putting if you are not interested in or prepared for political criticism or cultural materialism, but after that, each chapter moved chronologically from the early twentieth century through each movement in literary theory up until now.

1. Literary Theory: an Introduction. Terry Eagleton. I received boot-camp in literary theory from this book in college in the 1980s. It is still the classic. Eagleton is a clear, cogent, familiar writer, which is often hard to find in the world of critical theory. He frequently updates the book since it came out. A Marxist critic, the first chapter may be off-putting if you are not interested in or prepared for political criticism or cultural materialism, but after that, each chapter moves chronologically from the early twentieth century through each movement in literary theory up until now.

2. This introduction is a bit more rudimentary than Eagleton, but this is also its benefit. Each literary theory in movement in the twentieth century is clearly defined, and he gives plenty of bibliographical material for further reading. Consider picking up also his Practicing Theory and Reading Literature. He puts each critical movement into practice by interpreting different pieces of literature. This is pretty effective, because a lot of books might give dense descriptions on what, say, deconstruction is, but you never really see how the fuck deconstruction works.

Comedy, Tragedy, Romance and Satire/Irony. And then he sub-divides each mode into sub-genres. If anything, after you read this book, you feel like you could talk about any period in literary history with a little bit of conviction.

3. Anatomy of Criticism. Northrop Frye. One of the top ten great classics of literary criticism. Frye is what is known as a Myth or Archetypal critic. He is interested in grand, mythical patterns, images and symbols that have repeated, developed and mutated since the beginning of literature. Therefore, you not only get a fascinating understanding of a particular critical approach, you also get a vast history of literature. He divides literature up into "modes," or what we understand as genre: Comedy, Tragedy, Romance and Satire/Irony. And then he sub-divides each mode into sub-genres. If anything, after you read this book, you feel like you could talk about any period in literary history with a little bit of conviction, which can either be helpful at cocktail parties, or leave you stranded in a corner because no one gives a shit about the history of literature.

The Well Wrought Urn. Cleanth Brooks. Although new criticism is somewhat anathema in literary studies, it is a bit in vogue again; and, at the least, it is important to understand new critical close reading in order to have some grasp of the criticism of the last half of the 20th century that reacted against it. This book is one of the most representative of the early to mid twentieth century method of close reading that dominated the English classrom for decades. In all too simple a description, new criticism believed in the text itself. The critic believes that the history that surrounds a poem, the biography and influence of the poet, and the readers response to a poem are all irrelevant to understanding literature. Therefore, interpretation is concerned with the formal constructio of the poem itself. However, any reading of the myriad new critics from the 1920s to the 1960s testifies to how varied the movement is, and that our retrospective and stringent definitions of new criticism are fairly fallacious. Anyhow, this is a lovely book, and a nice example of clear, focused interpretations of literature.

4. The Well Wrought Urn. Cleanth Brooks. Although "new criticism" is somewhat anathema in literary studies, it is a bit in vogue again; and, at the least, it is important to understand new critical close reading in order to have some grasp of the criticism of the last half of the 20th century that reacted against it like allied nations against Nazi tyranny. This book is one of the most representative of the early to mid twentieth century method of close reading that dominated the English classrom for decades. In all too simple a description, new criticism believed in the text itself. The good critic should say, screw the history that surrounds a poem, the biography and influence of the poet, and the reader's response to a poem. All of that stuff is irrelevant to understanding literature. Therefore, interpretation is concerned with the formal construction of the poem itself: metaphor, symbol, imagery, theme . . .all that stuff that made most kids want to puke in English class. However, any reading of the myriad new critics from the 1920s to the 1960s testifies to how varied the movement is, and that our retrospective and stringent definitions of new criticism are fairly fallacious. All those so-called postmodernists who railed against totalizing history love to totalize new criticism. Anyhow, this is a lovely book, and a nice example of clear, focused interpretations of literature, written by a lovely man who could be as racist as the next southerner from the 1930s at times.

A Room of Ones Own. While the world of literature and literary criticism was dominated by men men men, Virginia Woolf wrote this groundbreaking book on women and literature. She writes cogently, powerfully and creatively about the haunting absence of women in the arts since the renaissance, and the miracle of writers like Jane Austen. Particularly effective is her allegory of Shakespeares hypothetical sister, Judith, who has the same intelligence and creative drive as her brother, but is fated to suicide when she attempts to become a playwright. I use this book at least once a year.

5. A Room of One's Own. While the world of literature and literary criticism was dominated by men men men, Virginia Woolf wrote this groundbreaking book on women and literature. She writes cogently, powerfully and creatively about the haunting absence of women in the arts since the renaissance, and the miracle of writers like Jane Austen. Particularly effective is her allegory of Shakespeare's hypothetical sister, Judith, who has the same intelligence and creative drive as her brother, but is fated to suicide when she attempts to become a playwright. I use this book at least once a year.

6. Mimesis. Eric Aurbach. Relegated to exile in Instanbul in 1935 because of the Naziism, Auerbach only had primary texts to use for his study of the history of literary representation from Homer to modernism. This vast work explores how great pieces of literature represents everyday life. He celebrates the extraordinary development of the ordinary by conducting close readings of literary texts, some of them fairly arcane. Since he only had access to primary sources, it would seem to be a perfect example of new criticism. However, Auerbachs interest is in the world and life that surrounds a text, so when Mimesis came to America in the 1950s, it gave birth to Historicism, one of the most dominant and influential critical movements practiced today.

6. Mimesis. Eric Auerbach. Relegated to exile in Instanbul in 1935 because of those ever tolerant and lovable Nazis, Auerbach only had primary texts to use for his study of the history of literary representation from Homer to modernism. This vast work explores how great pieces of literature represents everyday life. He celebrates the extraordinary development of the ordinary by conducting close readings of literary texts, some of them fairly arcane. Since he only had access to primary sources, it would seem to be a perfect example of new criticism. However, Auerbach's is interested in the world and life--the history--that surrounds a text, so when Mimesis came to America in the 1950s, it gave birth to Historicism, one of the most dominant and influential critical movements practiced today.

the Reader in Paradise Lost. Stanley Fish. In the academic world, many consider Stanley Fish to be a slippery critic (ha ha), while others consider him to be just an asshole. Nonetheless, his works span many different approaches and perspectives from the 60s until today. But he will be most remembered for his work in Reader-Response criticism, a movement that reacts against the new critics prohibition against the readers response toward a text. Fish begins to argue in this book that all meaning in a text depends upon the meaning that a reader brings to it, not meaning that somehow dwells in the text itself. He goes so far to argue (Im not sure if in this book) that a text doesnt exist until a reader reads it. If you dont get reader response after reading this book, youll at least understand Miltons Paradise Lost a bit more, an epic poem that every English graduate student has to suffer over for a semester (or more).

7. Surprised by Sin: the Reader in Paradise Lost. Stanley Fish. In the academic world, many consider Stanley Fish to be a slippery critic (ha ha), while others consider him to be just an asshole. Nonetheless, his works span many different approaches and perspectives from the 60s until today. But he will be most remembered for his work in Reader-Response criticism, a movement that reacts against the new critics prohibition against the reader's response toward a text. Fish begins to argue in this book that all meaning in a text depends upon the meaning that a reader brings to it, not meaning that somehow dwells in the text itself. He goes so far to argue (I'm not sure if in this book) that a text doesn't exist until a reader reads it. If you don't get reader response after reading this book, you'll at least understand Milton's Paradise Lost a bit more, an epic poem that every English graduate student has to suffer over for a semester (or more).

8. The Anxiety of Influence. Harold Bloom. Reacting against the commonplace notion of his time that literary influence is warm and benign, Bloom claims that ever since Milton, when all the literary ideas became used up, a strong poet insures his place in the canon by destroying his precursor. (Influence, by the way, derives from the same root as the word influenza). The great poet "misreads" the precursor as a means to make his/her influence the new poet's own. There are many techniques of misprision, and, well, quite frankly, I won't bullshit more here claiming to understand this important work. Even Bloom admitted recently that he had not the slightest idea what he was talking about. Seriously. He did.

This is Harold Bloom himself. It is a testament to what you might end up looking like if you read too much of this shit.

The Political Unconscious. Frederic Jameson. Oh dear God, you will probably have to read this book in graduate school. It is one of those books that no one can clearly explain. Everyone knows the first line, though, "Always historicize!" It is the major work of what has become known as new historicism. But, actually, it is the central book of Marxist criticism too. Whereas psychoanalytic criticism Freud style reads the psychological tensions beneath a text, Jameson argues that the unconscious battle beneath the surface of a text is political. All texts, according to Jameson, conceal the unbearable reality of the social revolution that never happened, and the utopia that never comes. Beats me how he sees this in text, but if you read Northrop Frye, Eric Auerbach and some Freud, you have a heads up. Hint, the introduction, conclusion, and first few pages of each chapter have the juicy bits.

Of Grammatology. Jacques Derrida. Holy crap, dear mother of God, if you don't read this book (actually, a collection of essays), you at least have to read some things about this book. It is the most accesible book by the founder of Deconstruciton, the one movement in literary criticism that ever made headlines and the cover of main stream magazines, usually with captions that read something like, "Is this the end of Western Civilization?" All too simply, Derrida turns new criticism and almost all traditional criticism upside down by claiming that no text ever signifies any stable meaning. In fact, all texts fail to mean anything. And deconstructive criticism sets out to examine how something as harmless as a little poem by Keats doesn't mean anything. Yes, I am being facetious. Deconstruction is an important movement that involves a complex examination of phenomenology, semiotics, semantics, linguistics, history and a whole shit load of other arcane stuff. It also engenders an encyclopedia of jargon you can use randomly in any conversation to appear smart when you really don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Ah, those crazy French.

Orientalism. Edward Said. Ah, it just keeps getting more and more dense as we move through the 1970s. Written in the midst of the American oil crisis which engendered racist stereotypes of Arabs, Said examines the ways in which we turn the Orient into an exotic "other" as a means to bolster and affirm our own western identity. He examines the dynamics of the othering effect in various pieces of literature, like T.E. Lawrenes Seven Pillars of Wisdom. The book is representative of what becomes Post-Colonial criticism, one of the most popular currently practiced today, which examines the socio-political ramifications in literature from the ways in which American-European empire fucks up the colonized and the subsequent ramifications of colonies liberated from empire. And other stuff I don't quite understand yet. How do we represent otherness / how does otherness represent us.

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