Assignment p-7 Newhistoricism,Ecocriticism &Queer Theory

                                                                               

                                               ASSIGNMENT

Name: Maheta Arati R.

Class: M.A.

SEM: 2

Roll no: 3

Paper: 7 (literary Theory& Criticism)

Topic: 1) New Historicism

              2) Eco-Criticism

              3) Queer Theory

Submitted to: Department of English

                     (MKBU)

Guided by: Dr. Dilip Barad

                        

1) What is the meaning of literary Theory & Criticism?

·    Literary theory and literary criticism are interpretive tools that help us think more deeply and insightfully about the literature that we read. Over time, different schools of literary criticism have developed, each with its own approaches to the act of reading.

There are many schools of interpretation. Like

·        Cambridge school.

·        Chicago School (1950s): 

·        Deconstruction (1967–present): 

·        Feminist criticism (1960s–present): 

·        Psychoanalytic criticism: 

·        Freudian criticism (c. 1900–present): 

·        Jungian criticism (1920s–present): 

·        Lacanian criticism (c. 1977–present): 

·        Marxist criticism:.

·        Frankfurt School (c. 1923–1970): 

·        New Criticism (1930s–1960s): 

·        New Historicism (1980s–present): 

·        New Humanism (c. 1910–1933): 

·        Post-structuralism (1960s–1970s): .

·        Queer theory (1980s–present): 

·        Russian Formalism (1915–1929): 

·         Structuralism (1950s–1960s): 

1) New Historicism

vWhat is the meaning of New Historicism?

               The term ‘New Historicism’ was coined by the American critic Greenblatt whose book Renaissance Self –fashioning: from More to Shakespeare (1980)

               A simple definition of the new historicism is that it is method based on the parallel reading of literary and non-literary texts, usually of the same historical period. That is to say, new historicism refuse to ‘privilege’ the literary text: instead of a literary ‘foreground’ and a historical ‘background’ it envisages and practices a mode of study in which literary and non-literary texts are given equal weight and constantly inform or interrogate each other.

             This equal weighting is suggested in the definition of new historicism offered by the American critic Louis Montrose.

Ø It is a literary theory based on the idea that literature should be studied and interpreted within the context of both the history of the author and the history of the critic. Based on the literary criticism of Stephen Greenblatt and influenced by the philosophy of Michel Foucault, New Historicism acknowledges not only that a work of literature is influenced by its author's times and circumstances, but that the critic's response to that work is also influenced by his environment, beliefs, and prejudices.

Ø A New Historicist looks at literature in a wider historical context, examining both how the writer's times affected the work and how the work reflects the writer's times, in turn recognizing that current cultural contexts color that critic's conclusions.

Ø Michael Warner phrases new historicism’s motto as ‘’The text is historical’ and history is textual’’.

Ø Frederic Jameson insisted, ‘’Always historicize.

v Differences between old and new historicism:

* Old: hierarchical, with literature being the “jewel,” and history the background

* New: Parallel readings, no more hierarchy.

* Old: A historical movement: creates a historical framework in which to place the text

* New: a historicist movement. Interested in history as represented and recorded in written documents—history as text.

* “The word of the past replaces the world of the past.”

* “The aim is not to represent the past as it really was, but to present a new reality by re- situating it.”

Foucault and New Historicism:

* New Historicism is always anti-establishment, on the side of liberal ideas and personal freedoms.

* Believe in Michel Foucault’s idea of an all-seeing—panoptic—surveillance State.

* The panoptic state exerts power through discursive practices, circulating ideology through the body-politic.

* The State is seen as a monolithic structure and change is nearly impossible.

vAdvantages of New Historicism

* Written in a far more accessible way than post-structuralist theory.

* It presents its data and draws its conclusions in a less dense way

* Material is often fascinating and distinctive.

* New territory.

* Political edge is always sharp, avoids problems of straight Marxist criticism.

Barry’s example, Montrose’s essay on Fantasies, reinforces the idea that literature plays off reality and reality plays off literature.

"New Historicism focuses on the way literature expresses-and sometimes disguises-power relations at work in the social context in which the literature was produced, often this involves making connections between a literary work and other kinds of texts. Literature is often shown to “negotiate” conflicting power interests. New historicism has made its biggest mark on literary studies of the Renaissances and Romantic periods and has revised motions of literature as privileged, apolitical writing. Much new historicism focuses on the marginalization of subjects such as those identified as witches, the insane, heretics, vagabonds, and political prisoners."

v   What new historicists do?

vExample of New Historicism

Ø  When we studying Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, one always comes to the question of whether the play shows Shakespeare to be anti-Semitic. The New Historicist recognizes that this isn't a simple yes-or-no answer that can be teased out by studying the text. This work must be judged in the context in which it was written; in turn, cultural history can be revealed by studying the work — especially, say New Historicists, by studying the use and dispersion of power and the marginalization of social classes within the work. Studying the history reveals more about the text; studying the text reveals more about the history.

Ø  The New Historicist also acknowledges that his examination of literature is "tainted" by his own culture and environment. The very fact that we ask whether Shakespeare was anti-Semitic — a question that wouldn't have been considered important a century ago — reveals how our study of Shakespeare is affected by our civilization.

Ø  New Historicism, then, underscores the impermanence of literary criticism. Current literary criticism is affected by and reveals the beliefs of our times in the same way that literature reflects and is reflected by its own historical contexts. New Historicism acknowledges and embraces the idea that, as times changes, so will our understanding.

2) Eco – criticism

      What is Eco-criticism?

Eco criticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment

                                   -Cheryll Glotfelty

Ø  We can also know this theory as a Green Studies.

Ø  Eco criticism is a concept first arose in the late 1970s at a meeting of the WLA.

Ø  The term Ecocriticism maybe first used by William Rueckert and his essay was ‘’Literature&ecology: an experiment in ecocriticism.

Ø  A claim for usage in literary criticism of the related term ‘Ecological’ is made by Karl Kroeber’ who was a prominent US ecocritic.

Ø  The word ‘ecological’ was in his article ‘Home @Grasmere’: ecological holiness which was appeared in the journal PMLA in 1977.

Ø  Eco criticism as it now exists in the USA takes it’s literary bearing from three major 19^th century’s American writers whose work celebrate nature, the life force and the wilderness as manifested in America.

                      Three writers like

Ø  These three were member of the group of new England writer, essayist and philosopher known collec-lively as the transcendentalists, the first major literary movement in America to achieve ‘cultural independence’ from European models.

Ø  Three major works of these three writers.

         What Eco critics do?

Ø  Example of  Ecocriticism

Ø  In 1915 the aging Thomas Hardy overwhelmed by a sense of the collapse of civilized values as the great war dragged on, wrote a brief poem called in time of ‘’The Breaking Of Nations’’

1.

Only a man harrowing clods

                      In a slow silent walks

With an old horse that stumbles and nods

     Half a sleep as they stalk.

2.

Only thin smoke without flame from the heaps of couch-grass

    Yet this will go onward the same though Dynasties pass.

3.

Yonder a main and her Wight come whispering by: war’s annals will cloud into night ere their story die.

3. Queer Theory

                         What is queer theory?

·         The term Queer Theory is coined by Teresa de lauretis, who is the Italian feminist.

·         Definition of queer theory

·     

Ø  It emerged in the early 1990s out of the field of Queer studies and women’s studies.

Ø  Queer theory was influenced by the work of following writer

Ø  Queer Theory builds both upon feminist challenges to the essential self and upon gay/lesbian studies close examination of the socially constructed nature of the sexual acts and identities.

Ø  This theory focuses on ‘’mismatches’’ between sex/gender and desire.

Ø  This theory argues, following Michel Foucault, that the homosexual as a social category emerges essentially in the post-Renaissance period.

Ø  In the late 19^th century several legal and medical texts speak of the homosexual as a deviant or a criminal, and homosexuality was projected as the dark Other of heterosexuality

Ø  The use of poststructuralisam  by queer theorists like

Ø  1)Judith butler,

2) Lee Edelman

3) Diana Fuss

Queer Theory rejects an ‘’essentialism’ of identity politics, and the binary opposition of heterosexuals

Ø  Queer Theory suggests the possibilities of political change, where gay/lesbian identities find a voice.

v What Queer theorists do?

Ø  They identify and establish a canon of ‘classic’ lesbian/gay writers whose work constitutes a distinct tradition.

Ø  These in the main 20^th century writers such as

Ø  They identifies lesbian/gay episodes in main stream work and discuss them such relationship between Jane & Helen in Jane Eyre rather than reading same sex pairing in non –specific ways for instance as symbolizing aspects of two same character.

Ø  Expose the ‘homophobia’ of mainstream literature and criticism as seen in ignoring or denigrating the homo sexual aspects of the work of major canonical figures for example-by omitting overtly homosexual love  lyrics from selection or discussion of poetry of W.H.Auden’S  ‘MARK LILLY’.

v Example of Queer Theory

1) The Love Poetry of The first world war in ‘Mark Lilly’s Gay Men’s literature in 20^th century.’

2) Martin Taylors ‘Lads: Love Poetry of the Trenches.’

3) Herbert Read’s ‘My company’

A man of mine

           Lies on the rot

And first his lips

         The worms will eat

It is not thus I would have him kissed

    But with the warms passionate lips

       Of his comrade here

(Gay Men’s Literature in the 20^th century pp-78-9)