Literary Theory and its various Grounds of Meaning

Dr. Morillo ENG 260

method or School grounds of meaning

1.Biographical Criticism the author’s life

2.Historicism history

3.New Historicism the subject formed by discourses of power

4.Marxism/materialism history seen as class struggle

5.Formalism artfully arranged language/ how texts work

6.Reader Response phenomenology of reading/how readers read

7.Structuralism how language works to structure culture

8.Post-structuralism how language fails

9.Psychoanalytic how the mind works as cs/ucs; sexuality

10. Literary Darwinism genetics, human as animal

11. Cultural studies literature as cultural work; non-elite art

12. Mass Culture studies culture as means of state oppression

13. Aesthetics art as unique