Bil 424

1
UNIVERSITE DE YAOUNDE I THE UNIVERSITY OF YAOUNDE I

FACULTE DES ARTS, LETTRES ET FACULTY OF ARTS, LETTERS AND
SCIENCES HUMAINES SOCIAL SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT: BILINGUAL STUDIES/ETUDES BILINGUES

SECTION/ FILIERE: CONTRASTIVE STUDIES/ETUDES CONTRASTIVES
SPECIALISATION: COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
LEVEL/NIVEAU 4
COURSE/ UE CODE: BIL 424
COURSE TITLE: THEORY & CRITICISM IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
NAME OF INSTRUCTOR: Professor MANYAKA TOKO DJOCKOUA
DAY: TUESDAY TIME: 9.45-11.45 ROOM: NBP 13
Course Objectives: The aim of this course is to improve the students‟ ability to speak and
write about works of literature and the critical debates that they raise. The course will raise a
series of questions about the interpretation of literary works in the context of Comparative
Literature, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches under study:
New Criticism, Formalism, Structuralism, Post structuralism, Deconstruction and other
approaches, Feminism and New historicism, that are related to the broad field of cultural
studies.
Introduction to contemporary theory and criticism
New Criticism, Formalism: origin, main tenets, proponents, strengths and weaknesses
Study of selected poems
Structuralism: origin, main tenets, proponents, strengths and weaknesses
Post structuralism: origin, main tenets, proponents, strengths and weaknesses
Deconstruction: origin, main tenets, proponents, strengths and weaknesses
Deconstruction and Formalism/ Undecidability.
Deconstruction and Psychoanalysis
Feminism and Feminist Literature
New historicism
Study of selected literary works and excerpts from theorists‟ texts.
Bibliography
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. Boston: Heinle &Heinle, 1999.
Barthes, Roland. S/Z. Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Hill, 1974.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003.
Culler, Jonathan. Structuralism Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of
Literature. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1973
Damrosch, David et al. The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature: From the
European Enlightenment to the Global Present. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton
University Press, 2009
Guerin, Wilfred L., Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, John R. Willingham. A
Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999.
Richter, H. David, ed. Falling into Theory: Conflicting Views On Reading Literature. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin‟s, 2000.
Wimsatt, W.K. The Verbal Icon. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967
1
2
WEEKS I & II
1) Introduction to contemporary theory and criticism
2) The Psychoanalytical Approach
Theory
Theory, as Gerald Graff argues, is the sort of talk that we talk when we have lost our
consensus, when nothing “goes without saying,” so that we have to define every term and
justify every statement in the arguments we offer to defend our ideas (Richter 3). Theory
implies disagreement about fundamental principles. It leads to argumentation or discussion
about which principles are truly fundamental.
Literary Criticism
Literary criticism is the estimation of the value of a particular work. It deals with defining,
classifying, interpreting and evaluating works of literature. The earliest and important treatise
of theoretical criticism is Aristotle‟s Poetics.
Elements to consider in the analysis of a literary text: setting, plot, character, structure, style,
atmosphere and theme.
Literary Approaches
The Psychoanalytical Approach

The psychoanalytical approach emerged from the psychoanalysis studies of the
Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). It establishes the link between literary
works and their authors‟ psychological conflicts revealing unconscious mental processes and
repressed experiences. Freud divides the psyche into the id, the ego and the superego. The id
or the unconscious involves all man‟s desires, sexuality and other bestial drives. The ego or
the preconscious is the transitional stage between the id and the superego. It brings into effect
or implements the desires of the id. But at the same time, it creates defence mechanisms that
breed repression or displacement. The final stage of the topographical division of the psyche,
the superego or the conscious encloses the societal norms, which are moral, parental, and
judiciary. At this phase, sanctions are imposed on the id, and the ego, leading to the idea of
conscience. One may consequently speak of good or bad conscience, thus implying the notion
of guilt.
When the logic of Freud‟s theory applies to literature, it brings forth the assumption that
behind every work of art lie(s) the author‟s repressed desire(s). Writers write about things that
they would have done if society‟s laws and other circumstances had made them possible. In
other terms, most writings reflect their authors‟ unfulfilled dreams or unachieved desires
which Jung calls “personal unconscious.” “The personal unconscious belongs to the
individual; it is formed from his repressed infantile impulses and wishes, subliminal
perceptions, and countless forgotten experiences, it belongs to him alone.” For some writers,
literature is an outlet for these repressed experiences.
Formalism
Formalism or the close reading of a text places importance on form. The work of art
as object must be closely examined to disclose the meaning that is solely conveyed by its
intrinsic components. Though form surfaced in classical art, it became a major point of
interest with the advent of Romanticism in Europe in the late eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) introduced the concept of “a dynamic
imagination as the shaping power and unifier of vision” which generates harmony in a poem
where parts are interrelated to form a harmonious whole (Guerin et al.78).
2
3
Formalism, as M. H. Abrams puts it in A Glossary of Literary Terms, is “a type of

literary theory and analysis which originated in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the second
decade of the twentieth century” (102). In the Soviet Union, the proponents of this theory
were Boris Eichenbaum, Victor Shklovsky, and Roman Jakobson. At the beginning of the
1930s, Czechoslovakia hosted the centre of the formalist study of literature led by linguists
such as Roman Jakobson, Jan Mukarovsky, and René Wellek. Formalism reached the apex
during the 1940s and 1950s (Wofford 405). These linguists were preoccupied by the
“literariness” of a work of art. In 1921, Jakobson argued that: “the object of study in literary
science is not literature but „literariness‟, that is, what makes a given work a literary work”
(qtd. in Abrams 103).
American New Critics John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, Cleanth
Brooks, and William K. Wimsatt approved Jakobson‟s stress on the literariness‟ of the text.
They discarded extra-text references, focussing on “the complex interplay within a work of
ironic, paradoxical, and metaphoric meanings around a humanly important „theme‟‟‟ (Abrams
104). William K. Wimsatt and Monroe C.Beardsley‟s “The Intentional Fallacy” or “Authorial
Fallacy” rejects interpretation based on the author‟s intentions in literary criticism. These
critics also reject what they called “Affective Fallacy,” which they considered the erroneous
practice of interpreting texts according to the psychological responses of the readers. The
formalistic approach will hence allow the scrutiny of the various stylistic devices commonly
employed in the literary text. For example, a close reading of the text may disclose the use of
realism, satire, irony, images, metaphors, symbols, allegory etc.
3
4

Bil 424

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Bil 424

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Bil 424

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1

UNIVERSITE DE YAOUNDE I THE UNIVERSITY OF YAOUNDE I

DEPARTMENT: BILINGUAL STUDIES/ETUDES BILINGUES

The Psychoanalytical Approach

Formalism, as M. H. Abrams puts it in A Glossary of Literary Terms, is “a type of

You might also like