What are the 4 major theories in literature?

The answers to these questions might be found in critical theory and literary criticism, including new criticism, poststructuralism, psychoanalytic criticism, and Marxist theory.

What are the current trends in literary theory?

Currents to be covered include: Formalism and Structuralism, Poststructuralism, New Historicism and Postcolonial Criticism, Marxism and Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Race and Ethnicity Studies, Gay and Lesbian Studies and Queer Theory, Hermeneutics and Phenomenology, Reader-Response, Cultural Studies.

What are the major schools of literary theory?

The Major Schools of Literary Theory

  • American Pragmatism:
  • Russian Formalism:
  • Marxism:
  • Psychoanalysis:
  • New Criticism:
  • Structuralism:
  • Deconstruction:
  • Post-modernism:

Why do we study modern literary theory?

Literary theory enables a broad appreciation of global literature. Reading a text through the lens of literary theory provides a new perspective to better understand literature, learn more about different authors’ intentions, and generally improve the quality of literature for both authors and readers.

Who began modern literary theory?

Ferdinand de Saussure
However, the modern sense of “literary theory” only dates to approximately the 1950s when the structuralist linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure began to strongly influence English language literary criticism.

What is the nature of literary theory?

Like literature, literary theory is always the product or effect of historical conditions, even when a given theory appears “ahistorical”; chief among these conditions are a context of received ideas, intellectual traditions, academic conventions as well as the complex matrices of social and political relations and …

What are the various theories of literary criticism?

There are a variety of schools of literary theory, including feminist theory, post-modernist theory, post-structuralist theory, and more. Literary theory helps readers gain a deeper understanding while reading literature by drawing on a critical theory to gain further insight into literary texts.

What is the scope of literary theory?

One form of epistemic literary theory treats principles that apply across some set of individual works. We may refer to this as theory of literature or theory of literary patterns. It comprises such theoretical topics as the components of style, the types of genre, and the elements of narrative discourse.

What are the 5 characteristics of modernism?

The Main Characteristics of Modernist Literature

  • Individualism. In Modernist literature, the individual is more interesting than society.
  • Experimentation. Modernist writers broke free of old forms and techniques.
  • Absurdity. The carnage of two World Wars profoundly affected writers of the period.
  • Symbolism.
  • Formalism.

Why literary theory is important in modern literature?