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lawyers and literature
James R. Elkins
Narrative Theory & Literary Criticism
Two Brief Warnings about Theory and a Personal Note:
 "The way we read now
partly depends upon our distance, inner or outer, from the universities,
where reading is scarcely taught as a pleasure, in any of the deeper
senses of the aesthetics of pleasure." [Harold
Bloom, How to Read and Why 22 (New York: Scribner, 2000)]
"Since literature
seemed to be about everything that there is—about the human condition—I
figured that a good literary critic would have to make himself expert
at that big picture. It didn't take me long to realize that the professionalization
of literary criticism has taken reductionism as its model, and that
it too can lead to learning more and more about less and less until
you're in danger of knowing everything there is to know about nothing." [Richard Powers remark, in an interview with Jeffrey Williams, "The Last Generalist: An Interview with Richard
Powers," 2 (2) Cultural Logic __ (1999).
Personal Note: There is, of course, no science of
stories, but there is a well-developed field of narrative theory—narratology—and
enough literary criticism theory to provide years of study. Unlike the
narrative theorist and the academic literary critic, I do not focus
on theory, indeed, I don't even try to define fundamental terms like
story and narrative, or even draw a distinction between them. Consequently
in in literary criticism circles where theory is revered, there is little
talk about stories (as the focus is on how to interpret by way of theory).
In such circles, the approach I have taken would signal my status as
an amateur, an outsider who does not understand or respect the value
of theory. But I take this approach and use the language I do for a
reason. We are all, already (more or less), story folks and we don't
need theorists and narratology to establish or prove the point. We already
know what a story is and what it means to hear one and what it feels
like to tell one. We use stories in virtually every aspect of our everyday
lives—to pass the time, convey information, to let someone know
who we (or at least who we want to be), to locate ourselves in a place,
family, and community. We turn to stories to both survive and to imagine,
as well as for a host of instrumental purposes, for pleasure, and because
we must. Stories are part of our human inheritance. As with so much
contemporary academic writing, I find theory (with notable exceptions)
that theory casts all too little light on the understanding of stories.
The study of theory is all maintaining a discipline called literary
criticism, little about how any one of us (outside the discipline) might
try to learn how stories work and how we might begin to work with them.
[James R. Elkins]
On Theory
"Theory is the common
shorthand for approaches to texts which are not particularly concerned
about the two obsessions of traditional Criticism, Meaning and Value.
Theory reconnects literature with other areas of knowledge, not to find
the 'meaning' of the text, but to explore cross-currents between, for
example, fiction and psychoanalysis, capitalism and realism, sexuality
and writing, history and literary form, and language and other sign
systems." [Introduction to Contemporary Literary
Theory, Course Syllabus (Dr P. Smethurst, Hong Kong University)]
"My allegiance is
not to a literary theory but to the sum total of my liberating literary
experiences . . . ." [Frank Lentricchia, The
Edge of Night: A Confession 88 (New York: Random House, 1994)]
Review of a Major Survey
of Literary Theory: Keeping
the Faith: The Limits of Ideological Criticism [A
review of The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism]
 Literary
Theory
Literary Theory
Wikipedia
Literary Criticism
Wikipedia
Literary Criticism
Dictionary of the History of Ideas
A Brief History
of Literary Theory
Introduction to
Modern Literary Theory
Introduction to
Literary Theory
Literary
Criticism and Theory of Criticism
Literary
Theory
Critical Theory
On
the Teaching of Literary Theory
From Prague
to Paris: Formalism as a Method in Literary Study
Contemporary
Literary Theory
Literary
Criticism, Literary Theory and 'Theory Itself'
Review of Mark Turner's The Literary Mind
Courses
Theory of Literature
Archetypes
Archetypal and Myth Criticism
Archetypes
The American Hero-Quester
Archetypes: A Map of Meaning
Aristotle
Aristotle and Literary Criticism
Authorial Intention
Authorial Intention - Wikipedia
Deconstruction
Deconstruction: Some Assumptions
Existentialism
Existentialism
Feminist Literary Criticism
Feminist
Literary Criticism - Wikipedia
Imagery
Images & Narrative
Interpretation
The Problem
of Meaning in Literature
Literary Studies
Teaching and Studying Literature at the End of Ideology
Critical Inquiry
Literary Theorists
Wayne Booth
Wayne C. Booth - Wikipedia
Confessions of an Aging, Hypocritical Ex-Missionary
Kenneth Burke
Kenneth Burke - Wikipedia
Stanley Fish
Stanley Fish - Wikipedia
The Reader-Response Theory of Stanley Fish
Wolfgang Iser
Wolfgang Iser - Wikipedia
The Use of Fiction in Literary and Generative Anthropology: An Interview with Wolfgang Iser
Norman N. Holland
Norman Holland - Wikipedia
The Critical I
Louise Rosenblatt
Louise Rosenblatt - Wikipedia
Two Ways to Read, Three Ways to Write By
Louise Rosenblatt: Her Influence on Teaching Literature
Making
Meaning with Texts
Louise Rosenblatt: Obituary
Marxism
Marxist Criticism-Defined
Marxist Literary Interpretation - Wikipedia
Marxism
Marxist
Criticism
Media
On Defining Narrative Media
Narrative Theory
Narratology
Narratology: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative
Introduction to Narratology
Narrative Theory
An Apology for Parasitism: Revisiting an Old Debate
in the Theory of Narrative Art
The Cognitive and Anthropological Origins of Narrative
A Professor's Projects
The Complexity Theory of Narrative
The Origins of Narrative
Courses
The Nature of Narrative
History & Theory of Narrative Form
New Criticism
New Criticism
New Criticism
Modes of Reading, and Modes of Reading Swift
New Historicism
New Historicism - Wikipedia
Hew Historicism
The New Historicism in Literary Study
New Historicism
Phenomenology
Phenomenology
Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism
Psychoanalytic Literary Interpretation - Wikipedia
Psychoanalytic Approaches
Psychoanalytic Criticism
Psychoanalytic
Criticism
Psychoanalysis and Literature
Psychoanalytic Theory
Psychoanalytic Criticism
Postmodernism
Attributes
of Post-Modernist Literature
The Literature of Replenishment--Postmodernist Fiction
Queer Theory
Queer Literary Interpretation - Wikipedia
Reader Response
Reader-Response Criticism - Wikipedia
Reception and Reader-Response Theory
Reader-Response:
Various Positions
Reader
Response
Reader Oriented
Theory in the Classroom
Knowledge Transfer and Reading: Implications of the
Transactional Theory of Reading
Reader Response in Secondary and College Classrooms
Reader
Response: Empirical Research on Literary Reading
Rhetoric
Why Rhetoric Needs a Theory of Reading
Some Thoughts on Thinking Rhetorically
Narrative as Rhetoric
Schema Theory
Schemas and Stories
Schemata Theory and Roger Schank
Semotics
Semotic Literary Interpretation - Wikipedia
Structuralism
Structuralism
and its Application to Literary Theory
Structuralism
and Semoitics
Post-structural Narrative Theory-Wikipedia
Web
Negotiating a Passage Among Readers and Writers on the Web
Wittgenstein
The Narrative Act: Wittgenstein and Narratology Research Resources
Theory and Method
in American/Cultural Studies: A Bibliographical Essay
Literary Resources
on the Internet
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