Definition of Literary Theory

Indira Ahmed Fernandez | Jun. 2022
Bachelor of Hispanic Letters

The study of literature it is based on the reading and interpretations of the work by scholars; therefore, the work – or the works – constitute the object of this. There is some ambiguity in the use of the term since it can refer to the discipline itself or aspects of it (theoretical activities). For this reason, Walter Mignolo makes a differentiation between literary theories and literature theory; the first refers to the aspects of the discipline and the second would be understood as the discipline itself.

In any case, literary theory considered the possibility of a scientific knowledge of literature, from the motivations, the functions, the context in which each work is framed and what of this was decisive in the result final. This theory advances from concrete examples that can be observed in the works.

Historical Approach to Literary Theory

The contents elaborated in classical Greece on literary theory have been guidelines in its later development in the West. The fundamental figures are indisputably Aristotle and Plato. Plato formulates the first ideas about the origin of poetry, Aristotelian thought is centered on his Poetic and Rhetorical works, where he presents his theory of literary genres and displaces the interest of truth in favor of the pragmatic values ​​of communication and towards textual values. For him the truth and plausibility of the texts was paramount in his belief system.

But the initiators of the aesthetic-literary ideas of the moment should not be forgotten. These would be above all the members of the Pythagorean School, with theories of knowledge and metaphysics of the number, in which his ideas about beauty as order and harmony prevailed, as well as the cathartic value of music. The sophists are also important, who theorized about the relativity of laws, rhetoric, education of man and literature. Finally, in classical antiquity, there is Socrates, with the concept of art as imitation, its purpose and idealizing dimension.

In the Hellenistic period, considered between the III centuries a. c. and IIId. C, there is the decline of the Greek world and the seizure of power by the Romans. In the literary field and the reflections that derive from it, the theory is characterized by a lack of immediate relationship with Aristotle's Poetics, which displaces studies from the field of philosophy and speculation to that of philology, especially grammar and rhetoric.

Regarding the development of literary theory studies in Rome, it is necessary to insist on the strong influence that They exercise Greek poetics and rhetoric, which is manifested through the writers of training and language hellenic “The constant work of systematizing Greek culture in the sphere of the Roman world will give rise to a doctrinal corpus of undoubted importance and reference”. In this area, Cicero is a personality important, since it represents the philosophical conception of rhetoric.

In medieval times the systematization of studies and literary works becomes difficult, given the ecclesiastical rigidity and obscurantism. The church, the monks, were in charge of safeguarding this memory and passing on the knowledge through the time, but it was jealously guarded inside the monasteries, without possible access for the common people to it. However, the classical influence on these scholars is notable, as earlier doctrines were received and adopted. Averroes's commentary on Aristotle's Poetics is considered especially important, since it gave way to the knowledge of this author towards the end of the 14th century.

Later, in the classical period, the influence of Poetics begins to be reflected in French literature from the end of the 16th century to the middle of the 17th. This period was calledtime of criticism” and was characterized by the concern to know, rationally analyze and systematize the literary phenomenon.

major schools

With this background, literary theory found a way to continue developing. In the 19th century, it begins to move towards the formal and functional dimensions of the text, which are considered to be more secure interpretative bases. In this way schools of literary theory arise, which are named according to the elements to which they give primacy in textual analysis. Of these schools, the most important and representative are the following:

Russian formalism: according to v. Erlich"it is a Russian school of literary scholarship that originated around 1915-16, reached its peak in the early 1920s, and was suppressed around 1930”. The formalists' concept of literature was based on the theory of "estrangement”: they thought that the secret of art consisted in making reality look better, making it difficult to perception. They were based on the way literary works were written and were the first to speak of theory of literature (the science of literature was already being talked about since the second half of the 20th century). nineteenth).

post formalism: This is still a formalist school, but it generated a close relationship with Marxism. From the Marxist point of view, ideology and language cannot be separated, which is why this school is concerned with the phenomena of language as a social fact. Mikhail Bakhtin was the main figure and according to his thoughts: “the texts themselves do not reflect social or class conditions, but rather the way in which language disorganizes authority and liberates alternative voices”.

Structuralism: This school had two aspects, one Czech and one French. It was a fundamentally linguistic movement that emerged in the circle of Prague and considered the language as a whole. Roman Jakobson is one of the main figures of the Prague school, whose leader was Mathesius. In principle it was the result of a continuation of Russian formalism, but there were divergences. The guiding idea was the conception of the literary fact as a functional structure. The French side, which Wahnón considers to be misleading in its name, counted among its figures Roland Barthes and specialized in narrative (Czech structuralism had done so with the poetry). In this way they inaugurated narratology, the science of storytelling.

psychoanalytic theories: literary creation constitutes an essential source regarding the possibilities of psychoanalytic knowledge. Based on the ideas of Jung and Freud, literature was subjected to a rationalist and positive reading. The precepts of these currents can be summarized in these points: the literary work is the result of the subject's unconscious and fundamentally has a motivation sexual on which mechanisms of repression act (Freud); the artist is painfully torn between his human nature and the drive for creativity, between the collective and the individual (Jung).

reception theory: reacts against the certainty of the existence of an autonomous work. It recognizes that the dynamic presence of history imposes itself between literature and its study; and places the reader at the center of the studies, since it is necessary to understand. The aesthetics of reception takes literature as an act of living an everyday experience, a story that does not designate the past (although it is not unaware of it), because it is inevitable for man to escape from his circumstances.

Other theories that are part of the discipline are: sociological theories, new historicism, feminism, cultural studies, deconstruction and semiotics.