Ok, I’m going to make a far-out (yet concise) statement here; kick me with pleasure.
With our recent background in ancient literary criticism, it seems almost unbelievable that this explosion of theories have all taken place in the last five or six decades. Perhaps the reason for this was the limited number of critics participating in the dialogue, or small number of dissident writers whose works have survived. Regardless of the reason, the explosion of theory is our problem, not the ancients.
My far-flung idea has to do with the order in which Barry presents his introduction to theory. Based on his treatment of Structuralism, it seems as though the other theories are going to be subordinate. The Marxist, linguistic, and feminist criticisms all concern themselves with “repeated motifs” specific to their theory. These repeated motifs can then be compared and contrasted to prior examples in order to make critical statements about a work. New historicism will alter this idea slightly because it does not rest on one specified area of interest, i.e., feminism is concerned with issues of gender studies, while Marxism is concerned with economic cause and effect. New historicism, instead, establishes history as the largest “chicken” in the hierarchy.
This is my guess based on the reading and my limited knowledge of the history of theory. I hope it is neither to obviously the truth or so far out that Doug will strike me in class.
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I think that education has, like so many other things, been influenced by the vacuum (the appliance) and other inventions. When things become simpler and life becomes easier, we have more time to sit around like the ancients did and come up with "stuff." We don't have to raise large families to run the family farm. Most of us live in cities and have small families.
ReplyDeleteThough I don't know much about the daily lives of the ancients, it seems that those guys had a lot of time on their hands. Then life got progressively more difficult for a lot of people. I think that difficulty tends to propagate thought, and I know that some of the best ideas (and art) has blossomed from oppression, but the oppressed tend to have a limited resources (at least until they chop off someone's head).
The French can be so strange (their films, to say the least), but they have so many great thinkers in their corner that we have to forgive them. So, if you aren't a Formalist, you must be a structuralist in some way, whether--as you said--your chicken is feminism, Marxism, etc. So, I think that it is a jumping off point to look at ways to analyze the text.
So...yes?
I had not thought of this until you brought it up, but it is an interesting point. I am not sure if he would refer to the other threories as being subordinate, especialy in terms of importance, but it does seem like they could very easily be seen as off-shoots of structuralism. If we look at this theory as the study of the general patterns in iterature, then these other fields could be seen as just close examinations of very specific patterns - gender relations and economic systems. This explosion of theory might not be a variety of new approaches, but rather variations on the same approach. Interesting. Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteStructuralism is certainly the "biggest chicken" in terms of it's scope. It has the potential to embrace all other theories as mere elements of an even larger all embracing structure that is language as a whole. Still it seems inaccurate to say it "subordinates" the other theories because of the connotation of some kind of controlling influence. I seriously doubt that feminists and marxists (simply to choose a few groups you named) were good little structuralists who decided to focus more specifically. The other theories develop independently out of other concerns. In making the claim I think we're in danger of assuming that because something comes first (in time and in the text) that it is a cause. I don't see a causal relationship here except with Post-structuralism.
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