Between the Lines

"I have Jane Austen's diary at the time of writing Sense and Sensibility!" New Critic: "Not interested." "I have William Thackeray's annotated manuscript of Vanity Fair!" NC: "Am I bothered though?" "I have a time machine in which I can travel back to the early 1600s and ask Shakespeare about Hamlet!" NC: "Talk to the hand." This is how one can imagine a conversation with a New Critic may take place. Prior to the 20th century, literary analysis was was very much centered in a romanticist tradition which had its focus on the artist. It wanted to appreciate the intellect and the creative genius of the person who produced the text. After the turn of the century, there was a strong reaction against these old forms, that wanted to put the text back at the forefront of analysis. This movement was known as formalism, and its aim was to remove a text from the historical context of its production, and appreciate it for t...

Does a text have an author? At face value this may seem an absurd question. Surely the author of a text is the person who wrote it? That may seem a perfectly sensible answer, but it is one deeply problematic to literary theory.  If a text has an author then they are the authority over said text and preside over its meaning. The task of textual analysis becomes the process of deciphering the author's intention, and the author's intention is the definitive meaning.  Taking our lead from the skeptical thinkers in my last blog , we know we can undermine the author's authority by claiming that the writer is unaware of their own thought process. We can claim there are sociological, psychological, and historical factors that influence the texts meaning. The author's choice of language may give insights into the unconscious, the ideologies of society, or several other influences that the writer is unaware of at the time of writing. Furthermore, to give the writer a...

I am very happy to have been offered the opportunity to study a masters in English Literary Studies at the University of Exeter. During the course, I will be specialising in an area that has always engaged me during my undergraduate degree; that of literary theory and criticism. Literary theory can be a daunting world of abstract thoughts and philosophies; so I thought I would begin a series of blogs in which I will break down this broad area of literary studies into easily digestible guides. In these guides I intend to provide an overview of the paradigms and debates that make up literary theory; providing the reader with a good basic introduction, and myself the opportunity to consolidate my own knowledge. Literary theory is a difficult term to pin down. It is a term that incorporates elements of cultural, philosophical and sociological studies, and is made of numerous different approaches, many of which will feature in future blogs. Essentially literary theory is the study o...

What's behind the cheeky smile? My three year old nephew is absolutely obsessed with the anthropomorphic trains of Thomas and Friends. He can’t get enough of the TV show, the songs, and the, rather pricey, range of toys.  I have seen more than my fair share of the children’s show for a man of my age, and this has led to me questioning some of the values the show perpetuates. It seems evident that the series is threaded with a conservative ideology of imperialism, rigid class structures and racial overtones. The way in which Sodor functions is very much a hierarchical class system. At the top of the pyramid is fat cat boss, Sir Topham Hatt, also known as The Fat Controller. He embodies the values his name implies: aristocratic wealth, exuberance and importance. Below him are the lower-middle class steam engines. They take orders directly from Hatt and have far greater authority over the diesel engines, trucks and carriages of the bottom class.  The steam engines m...