ENGL1080 Study Guide - Final Guide: Feminist Literary Criticism, New Criticism, Double Consciousness
11 Jun 2018
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Department
Course
Professor
3Literary Terms:
Timeline (most of these overlap)
● Moral Criticism, Dramatic Construction (~360 BC-present)
● Formalism, New Criticism, Neo-Aristotelian Criticism (1930s-present)
● Psychoanalytic Criticism, Jungian Criticism (1930s-present)
● Marxist Criticism (1930s-present)
● Reader-Response Criticism (1960s-present)
● Structuralism/Semiotics (1920s-present)
● Post-Structuralism/Deconstruction (1966-present)
● New Historicism/Cultural Studies (1980s-present)
● Post-Colonial Criticism (1990s-present)
● Feminist Criticism (1960s-present)
● Gender/Queer Studies (1970s-present)
Gender(s), Power, and Marginalization (1970s):
● Emerges from post-structural interest in fragmented, de-centered knowledge building
(Nietzsche) and Psychoanalysis.
● Regarding feminism: gender studies was not only new texts but radically new
interpretations of texts
● Oppose binary oppositions and contrast/classification
● “...the distinction between "masculine" and "feminine" activities and behavior is
constantly changing”
● What elements of the text can be perceived as being masculine (active, powerful) and
feminine (passive, marginalized)?
● What sort of support (if any) is given to elements or characters who question the
masculine/feminine binary?
Marxist Criticism (1930s):
● Marxism attempts to reveal the ways in which our socioeconomic system is the ultimate
source of our experience… “Whom does it benefit?”
● oppression and the benefits of “work and production”
● The Marxist school follows a process of thinking called the material dialectic (i.e.,
materialistic factors, like money and economics, drive historical changes)
● The continuing conflict between the classes will lead to upheaval and revolution by
oppressed peoples and form the groundwork for a new order of society and economics
where capitalism is abolished.
● What social classes do the characters represent?
● How do characters from different classes interact or conflict?
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Post-Colonial Criticism (1990s):
● History is written by the victors.
● Compare and contrast with cultural studies: investigates culture, but focuses on literature
produced by colonial powers and their differences with literature produced by the
colonized.
● focus is on control and subversion of colonies by the colonialists
● questions the canon
● questions first world/ third world dichotomy
● How does the text represent various aspects of colonial oppression?
● What does the text reveal about the problematics of post-colonial identity, including the
relationship between personal and cultural identity and such issues as double
consciousness and hybridity?
● How are Strangers treated?
● Perceptions and psychology of colonial/anticolonialists
● AVATAR!!!
Feminist Criticism (1960s):
● Focus is on the oppression of women
● Questions woman as “other”
● “Culture determines our “gender”, which is not the same as our sex”
● Proto-feminism= early period concerned with questions of morality and education of
women
● First wave: highlight of inequality→susan b anthony→ suffrage (1700-1900)
● Second wave: equal working conditions (NOW), dove, civil rights (1960-70)
● Third wave: resisting perceived essentials of “norms” and extending “definitions” of
gender or sex , black community included (1990-)
● How is male-female relationship portrayed?
● What is masculine?
● What is feminine?
● Where do “masculine” and “feminine” come from
Psychoanalytic Criticism (1930):
● Builds on Freudian theories of psych.
● The Unconscious, the Desires, the Defenses
○ childhood events→ unconscious mind→ behavior
○ Base levels of desire: mouth→ oral→ anal→ phallic
○ loss of genitals, affection from parents, life
● Repression causes problems… we “play out” conflicted feelings about our repressions
○ In order to keep conflicted feelings in the unconscious, we develop defenses.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Emerges from post-structural interest in fragmented, de-centered knowledge building (nietzsche) and psychoanalysis. Regarding feminism: gender studies was not only new texts but radically new interpretations of texts. The distinction between masculine and feminine activities and behavior is constantly changing . Marxism attempts to reveal the ways in which our socioeconomic system is the ultimate source of our experience whom does it benefit? . Oppression and the benefits of work and production . The marxist school follows a process of thinking called the material dialectic (i. e. , materialistic factors, like money and economics, drive historical changes) The continuing conflict between the classes will lead to upheaval and revolution by oppressed peoples and form the groundwork for a new order of society and economics where capitalism is abolished. Compare and contrast with cultural studies: investigates culture, but focuses on literature produced by colonial powers and their differences with literature produced by the colonized.
