Literary Theory

Paul H. Fry
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This is a survey of the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. Lectures will provide background for the readings and explicate them where appropriate, while attempting to develop a coherent overall context that incorporates philosophical and social perspectives on the recurrent questions: what is literature, how is it produced, how can it be understood, and what is its purpose? This course was recorded in Spring 2009.

  1. 01/13/2009

    1 – Introduction

    In this first lecture, Professor Paul Fry explores the course’s title in three parts. The relationship between theory and philosophy, the question of what literature is and does, and what constitutes an introduction are interrogated. The professor then situates the emergence of literary theory in the history of modern criticism and, through an analysis of major thinkers such as Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, provides antecedents for twentieth-century theoretical developments.

  2. 01/15/2009

    2 – Introduction (cont.)

    In this second introductory lecture, Professor Paul Fry explores the interrelation of skepticism and determinism. The nature of discourse and the related issue of discursivity is read through two modern works, Anton Chekov’s Cherry Orchard and Henry James’ The Ambassadors. Exemplary critical focus on literary authority is located in Michel Foucault’s “What Is an Author” and Roland Barthes’ “The Death of the Author,” both of which are read with an emphasis on their historical contexts. Objections to the approach and conclusions of the two theorists are examined, particularly in light of the rise of cultural studies.

  3. 01/22/2009

    3 – Ways In and Out of the Hermeneutic Circle

    In this lecture, Professor Paul Fry examines acts of reading and interpretation by way of the theory of hermeneutics. The origins of hermeneutic thought are traced through Western literature. The mechanics of hermeneutics, including the idea of a hermeneutic circle, are explored in detail with reference to the works of Hans-George Gadamer, Martin Heidegger, and E. D. Hirsch. Particular attention is paid to the emergence of concepts of “historicism” and “historicality” and their relation to hermeneutic theory.

  4. 01/27/2009

    5 – The Idea of the Autonomous Artwork

    In this lecture, Professor Paul Fry explores the origins of formalist literary criticism. Considerable attention is paid to the rise and subsequent popularity of the New Critics and their preferred site of literary exploration, the “poem.” The idea of autonomous art is explored in the writings of, among others, Kant, Coleridge, and Wilde. Using the work of Wimsatt and Beardsley, the lecture concludes with an examination of acceptable categories of evidence in New Criticism.

  5. 01/29/2009

    6 – The New Criticism and Other Western Formalisms

    In this second lecture on formalism, Professor Paul Fry begins by exploring the implications of Wimsatt and Beardsley’s theory of literary interpretation by applying them to Yeats’s “Lapis Lazuli.” He then maps the development of Anglo-American formalism from Modernist literature to the American and British academies. Some time is spent examining the similarities and differences between the works of I. A. Richards and his protegé, William Empson. The lecture finally turns to a discussion of Cleanth Brooks’s conception of unity.

  6. 01/25/2009

    4 – Configurative Reading

    The discussion of Gadamer and Hirsch continues in this lecture, which further examines the relationship between reading and interpretation. Through a comparative analysis of these theorists, Professor Paul Fry explores the difference between meaning and significance, the relationship between understanding and paraphrasing, and the nature of the gap between the reader and the text. Through Wolfgang Iser’s essay, “The Reading Process,” the nature of textual expectation and surprise, and the theory of their universal importance in narrative, is explained. The lecture concludes by considering the fundamental, inescapable role that hermeneutic premises play in canon formation.

  7. 02/03/2009

    7 – Russian Formalism

    In this lecture, Professor Paul Fry explores the works of major Russian formalists reviewed in an essay by Boris Eikhenbaum. He begins by distinguishing Russian formalism from hermeneutics. Eikhenbaum’s dependency on core ideas of Marxist and Darwinian philosophies of struggle and evolution is explained. Formalism’s scientific language and methodical aspirations are discussed. Crucial formalist distinctions between plot and story, practical and poetic language, and literature and literariness are clarified.

  8. 02/05/2009

    8 – Semiotics and Structuralism

    In this lecture, Professor Paul Fry explores the semiotics movement through the work of its founding theorist, Ferdinand de Saussure. The relationship of semiotics to hermeneutics, New Criticism, and Russian formalism is considered. Key semiotic binaries–such as langue and parole, signifier and signified, and synchrony and diachrony–are explored. Considerable time is spent applying semiotics theory to the example of a “red light” in a variety of semiotic contexts.

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This is a survey of the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. Lectures will provide background for the readings and explicate them where appropriate, while attempting to develop a coherent overall context that incorporates philosophical and social perspectives on the recurrent questions: what is literature, how is it produced, how can it be understood, and what is its purpose? This course was recorded in Spring 2009.

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