Literary theory

Literary theory ( rare: Literature Philosophy ) is the scientific or philosophical justification literature interpretation, literary criticism, literary history and the concept of literature ( ' literariness ', ' poeticity ', the literary, its determination as poetry, poetry, etc. ) in general. Literary theory is a branch of literary studies and has particularly in comparative literature a central position.

Branches of literary theory are the traditional distinction literary aesthetics, literary stylistics, literary rhetoric. In addition to these text-immanent fields of analysis, however, numerous other points of view have been established, so today is distinguished cross between text, author, reader and context-oriented literary theories.

Inter- themes are those of the text, the author, the reader, the epoch of the canon and the ( fictional ).

Literary theory is sometimes used synonymously with poetics. Since poetological issues but even questioned again, compared, etc. can be systematized, and these practices, in turn, a theoretical foundation can be given, it is useful to separate the two departments each other. In English-speaking literary theory is often equated with ( literary ) criticism. Here the same applies: Try the interpretation of literature may itself be the object of theory again.

Methodology

An independent, literary studies ' method does not exist; However, a number of humanities tradition lines that have a historically strong relationship to literature. Literary theories must satisfy epistemologically, softer ' standards than those of the natural sciences. But fundamental and essential components are always:

• Interpretation theory: the claim can rise to any theory of literature, to be the basic model of comprehensible interpretations of individual literary texts.

• Modelling: Every theory has a number of more or less offer by which such interpretations can also lead to new hitherto unknown texts materialize repeatedly standardized procedures.

• Terminology: the results obtained in the model must be traceable to a number of general concepts.

A literary theory is generally valid only so long until a literary text emerges that no longer fits into the scheme. Then, the theory needs to be adapted to new circumstances. However, the literary theory still trying to come to statements that apply to all texts, so show ahistorical constants. Thus, for example, structuralism attempts to analyze narrative texts so that it is possible find criteria that apply to all narrative texts ( A narrator recounts a scene in which the narrator and the narrative together the basic structure of all narrative texts make up ). Other narrative theories see other elements typical of narrative texts (perspective, narrative situation, etc.).

The main task of literary theory, it is therefore, in principle, to give literary interpretation and history of a most general conceptual apparatus. These terminologies can be classified depending on which subject area the literature they refer, which according to the model of Jakobson either transmitter ( Author), message ( text ), receiver ( reader ), code or context can be a literary act of communication.

Typology

Text-oriented theories

All theories that understand the literary text as a specific, separate entity, ie not derive it from social contexts or conditions of origin. These include the theory of genres and their sub- types - narrative theory, plotting models, theory of drama, poetry theory - the theory of intertextuality, the formalism and its varieties ( Close Reading), hermeneutics, literary semiotics, and in more recent times the deconstruction, through their influence there has been a rapprochement between text and context-oriented theories.

Author oriented theories

This group includes, among others, biographical, psychological or psychoanalytical inspired approaches and production theories of empirical literature. In the foreground, often attempts to capture the intentions of a text correctly is ( what it wants us started saying '), by the author personality to the work (or vice versa) to conclude the assessment of the relationship between individual work and work as a whole and the representation recurrent motifs in such work contexts (, parallel passages method '). For quite some time is here separated between theories of the historical author, the implied author ( Wayne C. Booth ) and the author function ( Foucault). Here you can find transitions to Kontextheorien instead: what is considered to be an author, is historically variable.

Reader -oriented theories

All the theories that deal with effects or intended effects of the literature. Examples are rhetoric analytical models, reception aesthetics and reception of empirical research literature. In recent years, in conjunction with the cognitive science also emerged a neurologically sound branch of reader theory.

Context -oriented theories

All approaches to understand the texts primarily as expressions of historical and social contexts. Examples are the Marxist literary theory, New Historicism, cultural studies, gender- theoretical analysis of post-colonialism, the systems theory literature, the theory of the literary field and Ecocriticism.

In this area, numerous interdisciplinary approaches have emerged which include the social function ( sociology of literature ), the psychological function ( Literature Psychology ) and the anthropological literature of conditionality ask (literary anthropology ).

History

It is generally difficult, the history of literary theory separate from the philosophical aesthetics, poetics, hermeneutics and rhetoric. Literature Theoretical issues often arise in the ' waters ' of such units larger history of ideas, but are nevertheless of them abstracted.

General literary theory is locates in the classical Greek poetics and rhetoric; especially in the Gorgias, Plato and Aristotle. With safety standards are the religious interpretation of the text, as they represented the Mishnah (repeat) and Midrash ( interpretation ) of the Jewish Torah, important historical roots of modern literary theory. The first theory of poetry is commonly regarded Aristotle Poetics, which is influential to the 18th century. Up to this point, the poetics are usually books, standing in the rhetorical tradition for instructions on proper densities. Only with the emergence of the idea of ​​genius in the 18th century and the idealistic ideas of romantic poetry is seen no longer as clear responsibilities ( normative poetics ) bound activity, rather than individual performance. This has the consequence that later seal is analyzed as to how it works effectively and what does it do, not whether they adhere to prescribed norms and conventions.

Another early example is the treatise On the Sublime of Pseudo- Longinus. Elements of literature philosophy can be found in Cicero and Quintilian. Horace 's Poetics is devoted to questions of genre theory.

In the Middle Ages dominated the orthodox theory of the fourfold sense of Scripture, which strictly regulated the meaning of a statement in the Bible: it may be interpreted in a literal, allegorical, moral and anagogic ( salvation history ) ways.

Literary theory in the modern sense is operated only since 1915 by the Russian formalism, which represented the first school who asked decidedly then what was the Literary in a literary text ( literary nature ) as opposed to everyday language texts. From about 1930, the Russian formalism was further developed, as inspired by Ferdinand de Saussure, linguistic currents collided with the traditional academic philology and the project of structuralist literary research could be started, which began with the Prague literary structuralism and its peak in France in the 1950s and 1960s witnessed.

Since the 1970s, post-structuralist practice theorists ( Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Paul de Man) increasing influence on literary theory from.