Economics assignment essay on: Literary theories
The numerous changes have been brought into the field of literature and that has been possible Literary theory has many literary approaches under its umbrella. Through history there have been multiple theoretical movements in literature which have shaped the nature of the literary texts. One can bring out that these literary mutations have always been there and are in fact necessary. The traditional literary theories are seen as the foundation of the work. The theory is formed on the basis of the text that one has formed and the ones who are reading that text. The genre of the text and the time in which it was written related one to the ideology that the text follows. It can be very explicitly marked out when on related it to the famous texts like Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, it depicts a perspective of the Africans and their subjection to exploitation and the racism, this reflects the postcolonial theory and in case of another text Oedipus the King, the same invokes the Aristotle’s classical approach on poetics (Farnell, G. (2009)). This way one differentiates among the texts and the theory or the ideology that they possess. This configuration or the differentiation among the authors and their ideas become clear only when literature is able to draws itself among different historical movements and concepts that are prevailing in the society. At the same time it is important to believe that people change and so is the thinking, each moment in the history was at one time contemporary to its authors and thus brought the successive changes in the history (Culler, J. (2011)).
These changes in history are nothing but the change of the perspectives and they are visible in the contemporary literary theory which itself is a new school of thought. One can bring out that it was Sir Philip Sydney who in his ‘Apology for Poetry’ in 1580, elaborated upon the definition of literature that was first formulated by the Latin Poet Ovid. Sidney’s aim at that that time was to popularise the notion of literature to be the one that gives pleasure to its readers and thus is more interesting than any other medium of thought. But, according to the contemporary literary thinkers this notion would not be valid and thus be regarded as an unremarkable sentiment. One cannot mark these changes in the perspectives as the discouraging factors of the traditional critics but they deconstruct the prior thoughts and consider literature and all the discourses which it contains to be internally coherent and self-reflective (Barry, P. (2002)). In the literary domain the development in the traditional thought was further brought by Samuel Johnson in the 18th century. In his works Life of the poets and the Life of Shakespeare this detailed study that he provided in his works marked the way for ‘secular humanism’ and this was a unique thinking as yet only Bible was given the prime importance as the one divine inspiration. Moving away from the classical period the critical theories that can be found is the theory emerging in the mid-twentieth century. The movement was a part of the practical criticism again, and was led in France in the 1950s, called Structuralism. The literary precursor of this movement was Roland Barthes, where he elaborated upon the significance of the things around us and that how they do not exist in isolation but they exist in reference to something larger. The structures that one imposes on the concepts are due to the perception that one forms of something and not by the objects existing in the external world. This would promote the idea that it is an individual who assigns a meaning to the things and no meaning is contained within self. This turn in the existing thought process was again a matter of disagreement for the traditional critics. The fundamental movement of Structuralism did wonders for the language it introduced the system of sign and the signifier that added a new perspective to the texts.
The next theoretical invasion in the field of traditional criticism was by the theory of post-structuralism this movement took a shift further from structuralism towards a new perspective. Roland Barthes has in fact elaborated upon the same in his essay ‘Death of the Author’, and that literary theory was Post-structuralism. The essay speaks about the importance of a text in its individual sense. That if a text is just read in its historical sense then probably we are not letting the text to breathe probably. If the text is not parted away from its author then no new perspective can be added to locate the text. Therefore, Barthes bring that any literary piece should be immune to any confinement to the thoughts of a single author, or any monotonous intention which the author must have crafted t the time of creating the text. The essay seems a radical step, by asserting that it is not any intention or the context which defines a text but the understanding which the reader builds towards the text. Therefore, the text breathes only in the contemporary sense, and fits solely on the conditioning that the reader puts for the author. The main idea is that the death of the author is the birth of the reader and in the contemporary texts it is seen that the reader is the one who concludes the meaning and nothing is concluded solely on the basis of the Author’s experience. This post-structuralist theory thus paves the way for the thought that any text is the creation of the reader and not the author (PATEMAN, M. (2003)).
These changes can be applied to the field of the literary study as many other schools of thought also reside under the same domain. These mutations in the thoughts from the past to the present are necessary to be there, this can be further seen with reference to Joan Lindsay’s novel, Picnic at Hanging Rock, the novel stands different in its theme. Though it is a pure fiction but yet it doesn’t stick to any single sub-genre. The novel is about the trip of College girls to the hanging rock in the Macedon area of Victoria. The day is set as St. Valentine’s Day in the year 1900. The plot moves itself in a way that shows that the girls disappear from the setting gradually and later when they are found they have no memory of what happened to either them or the fellow girls. While climbing the same rock the teacher also vanishes but no valid reason is given at any point n the same novel. If it is read from the historical point of view then it can be easily marked out as irrelevant in its message and form as it could be accused of having no particular genre, but a more liberal approach in perceiving a text removed all the doubts in the contemporary context. In the context of this novel the attention is solely paid to the events that are occurring and the interpretation factor is open for the reader (Tilley, E. (2002)). Therefore, the reader himself gives the meaning to the text, which is in correspondence with the Barthes reflection upon the birth of the reader. The reader thus applied his/her own interpretation in order to analyse the most possible outcomes like sexual molestation, abduction or the murder.
It is important to reflect upon the constitution of the Contemporary literary theory. There occur many important theoretical approaches under the same and that require one’s eye for finding out the important signs and the signifiers and that how is language is deduced in a language that is by difference and not by ‘presence’. Thus, as a result of contemporary thinking in the context of Picnic at Hanging Rock, it can be said that different people had different interpretations of the consequences that were visible in the novel. The contemporary thinking is such that gives a fair chance to each reader to apply their analysis to the text and that can only be done by keeping the intentions of the authors away from the present condition of the text. The contemporary critics are off the view that there if no definite reality, thus everything strives on the probability. The interpretations might be multiple and are based on an individual’s cultural conditioning. The language also plays at every point whenever a reader reads through a written text (Miller and Allen, P. (2007)). Language is elusive and complex and thus the reading between the lines is what the contemporary critics demand of today. Thus, the interpretations cannot be just based upon the traditional approaches in literary theories. Thus the theoretical, semantic and the rhetorical roles of the language shall be measured in order to make a definite comment on a given text. In the text also one sees in the last chapter of the novel the dialogues between Irma and Miranda, they possess a level of absurdity in their language and are abstract in the way they have been interacting. There is a constant confusion which is seen between Literal and Figurative and the perceived and imagined. This symbolises the post-modern sensibilities in the same. The language, the form of the false document that dominates the novel is the result of the disrupted identities in the post-world war era.
Thus one can conclude that the changes that have taken place in the understanding of the texts earlier and the understanding according to the contemporary thinking is that it enriches the reading of the text. The literature or any piece having a literary sense is such in nature that it possesses the space to the text. The space can only occur when the reader is able to freely communicate with the text, i.e. in a subjective manner. On the one hand, the tradition shall retain itself so that a work can belong to a major ideology or a domain like a work having a postcolonial approach, or having a feminist approach, but then these limitations can only be put in terms of qualifying a scholarly level of the text but to manifest literature in the normal implications of the daily life, the reader is the one who should be given the fair chance to exercise their analysis. This way the stubborn traditional theoretical framework formulate themselves and paves the way for change like the shift from Liberal humanism, to secular humanism, then coming up of the structuralism and later post-structuralism and other school of thoughts which aren’t majorly reflected upon. But, these contemporary applications like the theories of deconstruction, structuralism and new criticism. The reference to Picnic at Hanging Rock is the one example of the contemporary text which is different in its form and a complete fictional story that rests upon facts (Lang, C. (2012)). This development in the field of the literature has therefore truly enriched the experience of reading because of the platform it provides to build multiple perspectives and analyse the maximum possibilities.
If you want Economics management Assignment Help study samples to help you write professional custom essay’s and essay writing help.
Receive assured help from our talented and expert writers! Did you buy assignment and assignment writing services from our experts in a very affordable price.
To get more information, please contact us or visit www.myassignmenthelp.Com
