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[Theo Kipnis (unaffiliated)]

This dialogue and the related articles are interesting to me because they seem to confirm a suspicion I had that literary theory has been a field that talks about the questions it itself raises, more than one that discusses the questions raised by works of literature. I mean no-one disrespect by saying this, and hope the statement to be taken as an inquiry. However, I have noticed that taxonomies of story structures, subjects, characters, and other elements exist, but I have had no luck finding analysis of the most common "points," "meanings," "underlying messages," etc., of literary works. In short, lots of material on how to read a story (and the problems with how other theorists read them), but not much on what the stories actually say.

What I have noticed is that each analyst approaches literature from his or her own level of analysis, such as the facets of a genre, comments on social equity, the relevance of the reader, etc. These are all fine and informative, but even within each of them I have had no luck finding a cohesive message. Namely, what can an overall view of the messages found in literature tell us about what authors are saying about human nature? Further, as there is not, to my observation, a common denominator that underlies the theoretical directions, comparing one interpretation to another is an apples-to-anvils exercise. As such, it is hard to gain intelligence from the rich history of literature about what is meaningful to people, based on durable works.

I would tend toward a psychoanalytic approach as a solution, but those I’ve seen cited so far are totally out of date in terms of contemporary psychology. It may just be time to update that approach’s source material.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. I would appreciate any feedback on this idea, as well as references to relevant books, thinkers, and counter arguments.

[Anonymous]

Because of cultural relativism there is a sort of blind eye toward content or as you put it toward what authros are saying about human nature.  There is a tendency toward psychological readings of literature outside of academia in the popular movement known as the enneagram.  There is a woman in Portland named Judith Searle who has written a book called The Enneagram and Literature.  That uses a sort of psychological portraiture based on a Sufi psychological system to classify characters.

Aristotle doesn't touch the aspect of "human nature" but does argue that there is a good and a bad ethos inside of characterization.  

In the Christian tradition this is much more widely attempted. There is a Lutheran theologian named Robert Benne who divides literatures into six or seven camps in his book Seeing is Believing (the book is actually about film, but could easily be adapted toward literature).  He talks about nihilism, Christian redemption, Greek tragedy, and other prevailing types of narrative within contemporary films.

You raise interesting questions.

I think that race, gender, class Marxism is probably the greatest thrust in contemporary literature study.  If you're not part of that you're considered part of the problem.

[dark globe]

I agree that literary studies should be subsumed into broader area studies programs. While it is important to teach students what goes into a well written piece of literature, knowledge of the historical and cultural context in which that work was written is more important.

I disagree with the comment that scientific theories are based upon experimental results. Quantum theory and especially superstring theory postulate conditions without any evidence whatsoever.

My degree is in literary studies, but I quickly abandoned the field when I realized how much utter rubbish gets published. Now there are many fine books as well; but in no other field could such unfounded nonsense be taken seriously.

I have been working in the field of history for the past ten years. It was extremely difficult to to make the transition and almost resulted in the end of my academic career but it was well worth it. I found not only that published works are almost always the result of serious research but also that the practitioners of this field are far less pretentious than those in literary studies.

I still teach courses on literature, but pay no attention to post-structuralist theory at all.

[Literature Student]

          Because of fragmentation, literary theory does not have dominance in literary studies. This is to its detriment.

[%sig%]

[disgruntled]

Self-esteem building through reading positive assessments of one's demographic group is where the push is at right now.

[Gettin' with it]

The nature of literary studies, as with all fields of knowledge, as with knowledge itself, is that it changes. Who fought New Criticism tooth and claw? Formalism?Humanism? Neoclassicism? Scholasticism? Romanticism? Transcendentalism? Reader Response theory? New Historicism? Psychoanalysis? Platonism? Neo-Aristotelianism? New Physics? The theory of relativity? Evolution?

Changes in bodies of knowledge, especially in the stratified realm of academia, is slow, will be resisted, is inevitable. Hegelians ought to know--or believe--that fragmentation will not endure, that it will evolve into another mode of knowledge. Narrow minds will not conceive of life lived differently beyond  the fence they've built around themselves even though those very fences have proven time and again to be more obstructive than protective. Literary studies today is no different than it was for each and every previous generation: fraught with contention, dynamic, full of brilliant ideas, weighed down by ignorance, and always on the cusp of change.

[happy if true]

Give us some examples of cutting edge literary criticism.

[GWI]

"Give us some examples of cutting edge literary criticism"

Well, check out Lauren Berlant's "Anatomy of National Fantasy," a study of Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter." It came out maybe a decade or more ago, after it was already presumed that literary analyses of the American Romantics was totally exhausted. But to read Hawthorne as a strident critique of American nationalism? Hawthorne studies has been revitalized. Can Stanley Cavell ever stop writing about Emerson? And yet, what more can be discerned from studying these dead white males? Obviously, something more, something different. And the recent scholarship on DuBois by erstwhile scholars of the Pragmaticism of Peirce has renewed focus on Harlem Rennaissance writers. The renewed scholarship on Peirce himself is evidence that the canon is beginning to, as Eliot claimed, shift.

Post-border analyses focus on transnational narratives. So where lit critics wouldn't have known how to read, say, "Dictee," by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (is it Asian American? Korean? Feminist? Postmodern pastiche?), and so didn't, now she's read in poetry classes, ethnic studies classes, East Asian studies classes...

There's a growing body of work on spoken word poetry, and not just descriptive, as well as analyses of " authorial interfacing" and internet fiction.

Are there names for this "cutting edge" scholarship? Post-pragmatism? Neo-postcolonialism? New Realism? I don't know. I'll have to wait for next year's MLA program. But I'll wager there are as many people who are excited about the possibilities as are turned off by the mere whimsy of this kind of litcrit. Will it last? If the work isn't driven by the passion to do it, then who cares, really?

[C.P. Snow wrote novels!]

There are scientific and non-scientific connotations for the word "theory." Is that really so hard to understand? Surely you've slinked away from the lab long enough to know that  words often carry different meanings depending upon the context and the company ... But I'll stop there before I'm accused of holding dangerously relativist notions about language and meaning...

[Theo Kipnis]

Thank you very much for your informative response and the compliment. I appreciate your affirmation of my observation, and your references to people approaching my area of interest.

I had hoped that the field of literary theory would have, to date, shed light on the question of core human needs in its own way, by noting all of the places when, for example, people turn a blind eye to the truth out of their need for love, or forego love (or truth, or trust) out of their need for a predictable world. However, this may not have been practical without the creation of a modern psychology “lens” through which to view literature. People carrying the banners for issues of race, gender, class, etc, in other fields have brought their own lenses to literary theory. The lens for psychology is still being ground, so to speak.

Even now, much work would need to be done within the field of psychology to establish a succinct model against which works of literature could be compared. Still, my bias is that it would be a fruitful direction for both fields. Thanks again for your reply.

[Josh]

Literary theory: the discourse of the jackass.