Introduction to

Literary Studies and

Cultural Studies

Prof. Nabil MORCHID (PhD)

[email protected]
What is literature ?
Prof. Nabil MORCHID

There exist many definitions of literature that are sometimes unduly framed in
such way as to alleviate the complexities surrounding the provisions and practices
of literature. The fact is that some definitions of literature premeditatedly overlook
instances of oral literature that meet the same imperatives of form and content
that are observed in written forms. The term literature has traditionally been
defined as:
• Literature, a body of written works […] applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose
distinguished by the intentions of their authors and the perceived aesthetic excellence of their
execution (Britannica, 2021).

• Literature can be defined as ‘pieces of writing that are valued as works of art, especially novels,
plays and poems’. (Oxford Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary).

• Literature designates written artistic works, especially those with a high and lasting artistic
value (Cambridge,2021)

• “Literature is the body of written works produced in a particular language, country, or age, or
the body of writings on a particular subject (scientific, art, etc.)” (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary
and Thesaurus).
The term literature is constantly undergoing a great widening of
meanings, and it has come to mean ‘anything in print’. A treatise on
astronomy or Chemistry or Physics is called literature, a travel brochure
or a time table is called literature; nay even a leaf-let giving the
description of a radio-set receives the denomination of literature. But
literature in the sense of dramas of Shakespeare, of poems of
Wordsworth or novels of Dickens is completely a different thing.
Literature in the true sense of the term is that
kind of writing which is charged with human
interest, and characterized by permanence,
colouring of imagination, and artistic
embellishment. It deals with the life of man and
his destinies on Earth. It expresses thoughts,
feeling, emotions and attitudes towards life,
which are permanent and universal-which, in
other words do not change with the change of
time and place. It is this permanence and
universality which distinguishes literature from
‘journalism or advertisement, which sometime
contains brilliant pieces of description, and
thoughtful discussions.
Qualities of literature
Life-likeness
While reading a poem, or a novel or a drama we should feel that
the feelings or ideas expressed in it to correspond to our own. We
feel pleasure in reading a piece of literature, because in it we find
the reflection of our own joys and sorrows, love and hate. To quote
Hudson,”Literature is a vital record of what men have seen in life,
what they have experienced of it, what they have thought and felt
about those aspects of it which have the most immediate and
enduring interest for all of us. It is thus fundamentally an
expression of life through the medium of language.”
Name a work of litearture that reciprocates with your own joys and
sorrows, and explain how it artistically mirrors your life.
Sincerity
Another quality we expect to find in good literature is entire
sincerity to oneself, to one’s experience of life, and to the truth of
things as one has seen it. A writer, if he wants to live must write of
what lies at his own doors and must report faithfully only which he
has lived through,seen, thought, felt and known for himself.
Without sincerity nothing great can be accomplished in literature.
Streams of writers come and go; but few live forever for their
utmost sincerity.
1) Explain the following quote:
“The merit of originality is not novelty,it is sincerity.”

2) Give an example of an original work of literature that has the value of sincerity.
Suggestiveness
The third quality of good literature is its suggestiveness-
its power to appeal to our emotions and imagination
rather than to our intellect. It is not much what it says as
what it suggests to us that constitutes the charm of
literature.
A suggestive piece of literature relies on emotional power to
convey nuances, symbolism, implied meanings, imagery and
messages. Provide an example of a work of literature that inspires
and provokes thoughts and understanding beyond the actual
words written on the page.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.”
Shakespear-Mackbeth
Universality
It appeals to everyone regardless of culture, race, sex, and time which are
considered significant. Universality describes a piece of writing that
appeals to the hearts and minds of almost any reader. The appeal is
considered universal due to its ability to cross gender, racial and cultural
barriers, regardless of the time it’s written.
Explain why shakespear’s literary works appeal to different people
regardless of the imperatives of gender, race, ethnicity and culture.
Artistry
It has an aesthetic appeal to everyone and thus
possesses a sense of beauty. Artistry describes
literature that is aesthetically appealing and reveals
or conveys hidden truth and beauty. This type of
literature appeals to broad audiences and possesses a
sense of beauty in the writing that could even feel poetic.
Why is aesthetics an imperative in all literary genres?
Intellectual Value
It stimulates critical thinking that enriches the mental
processes of abstract and reasoning, making man
realizes the fundamental truths of life and its nature.
Intellectual value takes readers into a bit of a gray
area as they may have different opinions about
what qualifies as intellectual, but from an academic
point of view, intellectual works are relevant to society
and thought provoking.
Literature with intellectual value promotes critical thinking that
enhances both abstract and reason-based thought processes and
makes readers focus on the fundamental truths of life and nature.
Explain how Animal Farm causes the reader to engage in processes of
abstract reasoning.
Permanence
Permanence is determined by a written work’s ability to stand the test
of time, which makes it impossible to determine at the moment of
writing. Novels that continue to be read over and over again across
decades, either for enjoyment or for fresh insights and ideas, meet this
criteria. Many novels enjoy initial popularity but ultimately fade into
obscurity with time, failing the permanence test.
Use your knowledge of what you have learned in section to answer
the following:
Why do the views and thoughts expressed in newspapers exhaust their utility
and relevancy in a year or two while those of literature go on appealing to man
through the corridors of time?
Oral Literature
Most definitions of literature seem to equivocate the legitimacy of oral
expression while there is no reason for doing so. The interplay between orality
and illiteracy does not necessarily perjure the oral traditions in literature. The
artistic merits of literature may exist beyond and above the most common
associations linking orality to illiteracy. In preliterate societies, people were not
incapacitated by illiteracy, and as such writing was not the precondition for
creativity. The oral genres in literature known as folk tales, folk songs, and folk
drama abide by the logic of aesthetics in terms of form and content.
Practitioners of oral literature do not have the freedom to make their own
rules or transcend the preexisting norms for distinct literary genres. In this
module, the term literature is used to designate oral or written accounts in
which form and content synchronize into a coherent and aesthetic whole.
Before probing into the literary genres earlier mentioned in the course
description, it is more sensible for us to expose the oral genres in literature
that have long existed and considered a source of inspiration for subsequent
literary genres.
The basic characteristics of oral literature
Oral literature is by definition dependent on a performer who formulates it in
words on a specific occasion—there is no other way in which it can be realized as a
literary product. In the case of written literature a literary work can be said to have
an independent and tangible existence in even one copy. The actual creation of a
written literary form and its further transmission are two separate processes. The
case of oral literature is different. There the connection between creation and
transmission is a much more intimate one, and questions about the means of
actual communication are of the first importance. Without its oral realization and
direct rendition by singer or speaker, an unwritten literary piece cannot easily be
said to have any continued or independent existence at all.
Amaago, won’t you look?
Won’t you look at my face?
When you are absent, we ask of you.
You have been away long: your children are waiting for you
(Nketia 1955: 184)
The printed words alone represent only a shadow of the full actualization of the
poem as an aesthetic experience for poet and audience. For, quite apart from the
separate question of the overtones and symbolic associations of words and
phrases, the actual enactment of the poem also involves the emotional situation of
a funeral, the singer’s beauty of voice, her sobs, facial expression, vocal
expressiveness and movements (all indicating the sincerity of her grief), and, not
least, the musical setting of the poem.
A further essential factor is the audience, which, as is not the case with written
forms, is often directly involved in the actualization and creation of a piece of oral
literature. There is no escape for the oral artist from a face-to-face confrontation
with his audience, and this is something which he can exploit as well as be
influenced by. Sometimes, she chooses to involve his listeners directly, as in story-
telling situations where it is common for the narrator to open with a formula which
explicitly arouses his audience’s attention; he also often expects them to
participate actively in the narration and, in particular, to join in the choruses of
songs which he introduces into the narrative.
Even in less formalized relationships the actual literary expression can be greatly
affected by the presence and reactions of the audience. For one thing, the type of
audience involved can affect the presentation of an oral piece—the artist may tend,
for instance, to omit obscenities, certain types of jokes, or complex forms in the
presence of, say, children or missionaries (or even foreign students) which he would
include in other contexts.
Oral Literature Genres
Folktales
A folktale may be described as a story handed down from mouth to ear
among people generally in fact illiterate. necessarily so, for even in the
academic world the stories told from man to man of such great
characters as Jowett or Robinson Ellis or J.E.B, Mayor are in fact a
local folklore, and none the less so as many of these anecdotes have
from time to time strayed from the conversation of Commoners into
the publicities of print. For indeed the folktale need not to have been
all through its history oral. People tell stories that they may well have
read in books; all they ask is that it be a good story.
Folk Songs
In his work A folk song history of America, Forcucci (1984) describes folk songs as “the songs of the
people” (p.16). Those songs are creations of one or more individuals, and the creative process can
be collective, individual, or a mixture of both. It is the use of human expression in order to describe
one’s way of life (Forcucci, 1984). Because the purpose of folk song is to describe human
experiences, it is not surprising that a variety of folk songs exist. Perhaps there is no consensus on
how folk songs should be categorized among cultures, but below are some examples of different
types of folk songs including: work songs, love songs, drinking songs, cradle songs, play songs, and
songs of mourning, etcetera. The way folksongs are created or categorized varies, but the way they
are transmitted is almost always the same: it is “passed on from person to person, group to group,
generation to generation” (Forcucci, 1984, p.16). How folksongs are transmitted directly impacts the
songs themselves: Because folk songs are orally transmitted, they are easy to modify and to adapt
to one’s personal taste and/or to a particular situation. Moreover, when the songs are sung, some
words or part of the tune can be misheard or forgotten. Therefore, folksongs are not fixed in time;
they evolve and change through the transmission. In the same way, folksongs “are ordinarily the
product of an unknown person or group of persons” (Forcucci, 1984, p.18). Together, folksongs are
a way in which people recount their everyday experiences and worries through their most intimate
instrument; their own voice.
Folk drama
Theatre , as we perceive it today, is the function of an oral tradition that had long existed
before the emergence of literate societies around the world. It is sometimes difficult to
draw a distinction between drama and ritual; indeed, the origins of drama in Europe lie in
religious and ritual performances. The occurrence of secular drama in oral cultures is not
well attested and is peripheral. Nevertheless, (folk) plays of a more or less secular kind do
occur in the popular culture of literate societies, such as the mumming plays of the
European tradition, which stand in opposition to the written plays of the elite theatre.
There are aspects of folk drama that have captured the interest of folklorists regularly
across the decades. There always has been a concern with the relationship of folk drama
to other cultural forms, particularly ritual and festival. Early presumptions were that folk
drama originated in ritual and festival, and it remains true that folk drama often occurs in
religious or celebratory events, such as the Spanish Christmas or Passion plays (Flores
2008) or African American religious productions (Wiggins 1978). It also may perform
ritual functions and exist alongside other related activities such as dance, masking, music,
speech and song.
2. Elements of the Novel as a Literary Genre
 •As noted earlier in this module, the term literature must
designate oral or written works where form and content synchronize
into a coherent and aesthetic whole. For this same reason, you were
exposed to oral genres in literature that have long existed and
considered a source of inspiration for subsequent literary genres. The
intent of today’s lecture is to introduce you to the elements of the
novel as a literary genre.
2.1 The novel as literary genre
“A novel is normally a prose work of quite some length and complexity which
attempts to reflect and express something of the equality or value of human
experience or conduct. From the previous explanation, the writer concludes that
novel is also closely related to human experience or author alignments against
certain community.” (Taylor, 1981)

“A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images.” Albert Camus

“The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent
life.” Henry James
• 2.2 The history of the Novel

• People have been telling stories from the beginning of time. Some of earliest written literary
works available are written as epics--long narrative poems that focus on a heroic or
mythological person or group of people. The earliest example of an epic is The Epic of
Gilgamesh which comes from the ancient Sumerians (2000 B.C.). The later, but arguably the
most famous and well-known epics in Western Civilization, were written by Homer sometime
in the 8th or 7th century B.C.
• The epic is generally considered the ancient forerunner to the novel, which is comparatively a
much more recent literary innovation. The earliest novels were picaresque which meant that
like epics, they focused on the adventures of a certain character. Unlike the epic and other
romantic poetry, these stories celebrated adventure for its own sake. The Adventures of Don
Quixote (1615) by Cervantes is one such picaresque novel and it is generally considered the
first modern novel.
The novel gained popularity in England throughout the 18th century with influential writers
such as Daniel Defoe (The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe in 1719), Samuel Richardson (Pamela
in 1740), and Henry Fielding (Joseph Andrews in 1742). These writers helped to define the
English novel for the next several hundred years. Today the novel is one of the most widely
read and enjoyed literary form across the world.
The enabling factors of the Novel as a literary genre
The rise of the English novel occurred primarily in the 18th century;
This century was called the ‘century of Light’ or the ‘Century of Reason.’
By this, you can tell that several idiosyncrasies were changed from
being accepted as the norm. The 18th century marked the period
where novels were distributed on a large scale, and a certain level of
demand arose among English readers. This demand is also due to
people’s desire for reading about everyday events.
The life cycle of drama as high-flag literary genre was over.
The novel was popular because it could reach a larger audience, even
those who could not afford a ticket into a theater. It is also important to
note that during this period, drama had begun to decline in England.
The growth of the novel can also be attributed to the need of
individuals to create something new, something different.
The rise of the middle class
The rise of the middle class in the 18th century have a direct effect on
the rise of novels. David Daiches, a historian said, the novel “was in a
large measure the product of the middle class, appealing to middle-
class ideals and sensibilities, a patterning of imagined events set against
a clearly realized social background and taking its view of what was
significant in human behavior from agreed public attitudes.”
The Print Press
Another factor responsible is the Print Press. The teeming popularity of
newspapers in the 18th century and the growth of periodicals and
bulletins gave people something tangible to look forward to. One of the
repercussions of the Print Press is the novel Pamela by Samuel
Richardson, which was created to be a collection of letters. Still,
somehow maturated into the novel, it became eventually.
Literacy
There was an increase in education. The only way novels became a
thing was because people could read them and talk about them.
Leisure
Another factor that aided the growth of the English novel came from
the leisure a lot of folks then started to experience. The
industrialization that gave rise to the middle class’s economic and
financial status also afforded them options.
2.3 The five Elements of Fiction
2.3.1 The Plot
How the author arranges events to develop the basic idea; it is the sequence of
events in a story or play. The plot is a planned, logical series of events having a
beginning, middle, and end. The short story usually has one plot so it can be read in
sitting. There are five essential parts of plot:
It is also essential to know that there exist many types of plot in literature: episodic
plots, complex plots, and plots that focus on character. The events in episodic
plots may belong independently of one another as they do not necessarily relate to
or build on one another. Complex plots stretch over more than one storyline. This
type of plot, the story is long and complicated with many conflicts and resolutions.
In addition, there exist many strategies used for organizing the events that make the
plot: Narrative (order of occurrence or order of telling), Chronological (time
sequence), Comparison and contrast, Cause and effect, Inductive (specific to
general), Deductive (general to specific).
Backdrop setting
Have you ever read a story, but found it difficult to figure out what time in
which the story was written or where it is? The story probably had a
backdrop setting. The story is timeless and can happen at any point in history
or anywhere. The focus is on the lesson or message being delivered. Many
fairy tales and children’s stories have backdrop settings.

Integral setting
With an integral setting (integral means to be a part of or important to), the
time and place are important to the story. For example, a story dealing with
ahistorical setting will have a direct impact on the plot.
• 3 Characters:
A character is a person, animal, being, creature, or thing in a story. Writers use characters
to perform the actions and speak dialogue, moving the story along a plot line. There are
two ways novelists describe the characters in a story—through direct characterization and
through indirect characterization.
• Direct characterization is the information clearly stated about a character. The author
simply tells you what he/she wants you to know about a character. “Julia was nice”
would be an example of direct characterization.
• Indirect characterization is material that gives the reader clues about a character’s
personality through examples. “Julia noticed that Sarah seemed sad, so she put a kind
note in Sarah’s locker and ate with Sarah at lunch.” This would be an example of
indirect characterization. In this passage, the author never directly tells us that Julia is
nice, but in describing Julia’s behavior to Sarah, the author shows the reader that Julia
is a nice person.
Types of Characters
Major characters are the most important characters in the story. There are two
types, of which there may be a couple for each.

1. The protagonist is the main character, around which the whole story revolves.
The decisions made by this character will be affected by a conflict from within,
or externally through another character, nature, technology or society.
1. The antagonist causes the conflict for the protagonist. However, the antagonist
could be the protagonist, who is torn by a problem within. Most times,
something external is causing the problem.
Minor characters are the other characters in a story. They are not as important as the major
characters, but still play a large part in the story. Their actions help drive the story forward. They
may impact the decisions the protagonist or antagonist make, either helping or interfering with the
conflict. Minor characters can have different traits and fulfil different roles in a novel.
1. Foil – A foil is a character that has opposite character traits from another, meant to help highlight
or bring out another’s positive or negative side. Many times, the antagonist is the foil for the
protagonist.
2. Static – Characters who are static do not change throughout the story. Their use may simply be to
create or relieve tension, or they were not meant to change. A major character can remain static
through the whole story.
3. Dynamic – Dynamic characters change throughout the story. They may learn a lesson, become
bad, or change in complex ways.
4. Flat – A flat character has one or two main traits, usually only all positive or negative. They are the
opposite of a round character. The flaw or strength has its use in the story.
5. Round – These are the opposite of the flat character. These characters have many different traits,
good and bad, making them more interesting.
6. Stock – These are the stereotypical characters, such as the boy genius, ambitious career person,
faithful sidekick, mad scientist, etc.
4. Theme
A literary theme is the main idea or underlying meaning a writer attempts to explore
in a novel. Writers may choose to explicit about the underlying themes in their
literary works, but they can also choose be implicit about the central theme in their
artistic productions. Most novels, due to their length and complexity, have more than
one theme and these themes can be interpreted in numerous ways. To find the
theme in a literary work, there are a number of questions the reader can ask: What
do I think the author was trying to say about life when he wrote this book? What
ideas are emphasized frequently? What lessons do the main characters learn (or what
lesson should they learn)? What questions does this story make the reader ask about
society or the world we live in?
Major and Minor Themes:
Major and minor themes are two types of themes that appear in
literary works. A major theme is an idea that a writer repeats in is
literary work, making it the most significant idea in the work. A minor
theme, on the other hand, refers to an idea that appears in a work
briefly, giving way to another minor theme.
Narration or Point of View (POV)
Every novel has a narrator, someone who tells the story. The narration
can take different forms of directions.
Novel Types
Historical Novel
Picaresque Novel:
• The picaresque novel (Spanish: 'picaresco', from 'picaro', for 'rogue' and 'rascal')
is a popular genre of novel that originated in Spain. The word ‘Picaresque’ is
defined as ‘belonging or relating to rogues or knaves.
• It becomes evident that picaresque novel is the life-story of a rogue or picaro, a
clever and amusing adventure of a low social class person who earns his
livelihood by tricks and roguery rather than by hounourable industry. The story is
usually told by the picaro in the first person, as an autobiography. Episodic in
nature, the plot consists of a series of thrilling incidents only slightly connected
and strung together with organic relationship.
• In picaresque novel, the ‘rogue’ is the hero. The rogue may be defined as one
who lives by his wits. Living by wits implies knowledge of the world, a sharp
insight into responses that may be played upon advantageously.
Science fiction (Sci-fi) novels
Fantasy novels
A fantasy novel is a genre of literature that features magical and supernatural
elements that do not exist in the real world. Although some writers juxtapose a real-
world setting with fantastical elements, many create entirely imaginary universes
with their own physical laws and logic and populations of imaginary races and
creatures. Speculative in nature, fantasy is not tied to reality or scientific fact.
Detective Fiction
The Novel of Sensibility
The Novel of Incidence
Novel of Character
A novel of character is novel that emphasizes character rather than
exciting episode, as the in the Novel of Incident, or unity of plot. A
novel of character always focuses on the protagonist’s motives for what
he/she does and how he/she turns out.
Examples: Jane Austen’s Emma.
Novel of manners

• Novel of manners, work of fiction that re-creates a social world,

conveying with finely detailed observation the customs, values, and
mores of a highly developed and complex society.
• The conventions of the society dominate the story, and characters are
differentiated by the degree to which they measure up to the uniform
standard, or ideal, of behaviour or fall below it.
Check your progress
Use the concepts and terms you studied in this module to write a literary appreciation of a
novel of your choice.
 Which type of plot would you say best describes the novel you chose? Provide specific
examples.
 Summarize the main conflict of this novel and explain its motifs.
 List the major characters and minor characters in the novel.
 Whom would you consider the antagonist and protagonist in the novel?
 In what ways do the protagonist and the antagonist clash?
 When and where does the novel take place? How do time and place influence the
characters’ lives? What major events are happening in the world at this time?
 What do you consider to be the novel’s theme?
 What type of narration is used in the novel?
 Provide at least two specific quotes from the novel with page numbers and explain what
these tell us about the type of narration used in this novel.
 How does the type of narration used in this novel affect the story?
POETRY AS A LITERARY GENRE
As with all literary genres, poetry has its own set of elements that we may assess
to determine the total impact of any given poem on the reader. The intent of this
lesson is not to make of you professional poets, but to give you balanced and
enlightened practice in what determines the quality of a poem. The fact is that the
imperatives of poetry mean different things for different people under different
circumstances. S4 students’ academic knowledge of poetry may not qualify them
to probe all elements of form and content associated with the practice poetry, at
least for the time being, but this should not be a reason not to learn the basic skills
involved in the academic appreciation of poetry. By the end of this lesson, you
should be able to produce critical essays that show your capacity to emphasize the
intrinsic and extrinsic elements of distinct poems.
Poetry is not only associated with excessive emphasis on
sound, form and imagery , but with a very compact use of
language. Poems often require less space to express a diverse
range of meanings than is the case with other literary genres.
This is probably due to the creative use of language in poetry.
2. Poem types:
Acrostic poems are called “name poems,” acrostic poems spell out a name,
word, or phrase, with each letter beginning each new line of your poem.
The ode is amongst the oldest traditions in poetry, and it is also very
straightforward. Any poem written in praise of something or someone
can be referred to as an ode.
The sonnet originates from the Italian word “sonetto,” which literally means
“little sound” or “little song.” There are different types of sonnets, but the most
common one is the English sonnet, also known as the Shakespearean sonnet.
The English sonnet is a single stanza, with 14 lines that consist of three
quatrains (four rhyming lines) and a final rhyming couplet.
The pantoum started as a Malaysian folk poem and grew and changed
as it was adapted by Western writers. This type of poem can be as long
or short, and is composed of three four-line stanzas, where the second
and fourth lines of each stanza become the first and third lines of the
next stanza. Often, the last line of the pantoum is the same as the first
line of the poem.
The ghazal is an Arabic form of verse poem that was adopted by
medieval Persian poets like Hafez and Rumi, but has been written in
many languages, including Hindi, Turkish, and Hebrew. Often associated
with, the form consists of a series of no fewer than five “syntactically
and grammatically complete couplets” where both lines of the first
couplet end in the same word, and second line of each following
couplet also ends on that word. Traditionally, the final couplet included
a proper name — usually the poet’s, though not always.
A Haiku is a three-lined Japanese verse poem that describes something in
nature . The first and third lines each have five syllables and the second
line has seven.
A duplex is a subversion of the sonnet that takes cues from the ghazal, the
duplex was invented by poet Jericho Brown. The poem is 14 lines,
separated into couplets. The last line or words of each couplet becomes
the first line (or part of the first line) of the following couplet, and the very
first line of the poem should also be present as the last line of the poem.
A limerick a humorous poem consisting of five lines. The first, second,
and fifth lines must have seven to ten syllables. The third and fourth
lines should only have five to seven syllables.
A concrete is a poem that is shaped to look like its subject. The poet
creates a picture on the page.
Dramatic Poetry presents a drama in verse. The action is told through
the words the characters speak.
An epic is lengthy narrative poem involving a time beyond living
memory in which extraordinary men and women are involved in
complicated events.
A ballad is Song that tells a story, often deals with adventure or romance.
Many ballads have a refrain, much like the chorus of modern songs
The Lyric type of Poetry expresses the thoughts and feelings of a single
speaker, often in musical verse.
The narrative types of poetry tells a story, contains elements similar to
a short story, such as plot and characters.
Free Verse is one type of poetry that does not have a strict structure. It
has no regular meter, rhyme, fixed in length, or specific stanza pattern.
3. Basic elements of poetry:
3.1 The speaker is the voice or persona of the poem. The speaker is not
necessarily always the poet. Sometimes, the poet creates a speaker
that is non-human or even an inanimate object.
3.2 Form refers to external patterns of a poem, including the way lines and
stanzas are organized. Every form of poetry has its own structure.

 Lines- Poetry is divided into lines or groups of words.

 Stanzas – Lines that are organized units of meaning.
 Couplet – Two-lined stanza
 Tercet – Three-lined stanza
 Quatrain – Four-lined stanza
 Stanza break – A blank line, signals that one stanza has ended and a new
stanza is beginning.
 Refrain – Lines or group of lines that are repeated at regular intervals in a
poem or song. In a refrain, the poet reminds readers and listeners of a key
idea, event or image. Often, a refrain is repeated at the end of each stanza
3.3 Imagery is the function of descriptive language used to
represent objects, feelings and thoughts. It often appeals to
one or more of the five senses: sight, touch, hearing, taste
and smell. There exist many types of imagery: Visual imagery,
auditory imagery, gustatory imagery, olfactory imagery,
tactile imagery, organic imagery, internal imagery, and
kinesthetic imagery. Imagery is the painting of pictures in the
reader’s mind through the use of language. When analyzing
imagery, it is very important to avoid simply listing the images
that the poet uses, but probing the intention of the speaker
convey meaning beyond and above what is said, or written.
• The autumn leaves are a blanket on the ground.
• Her lips tasted as sweet as sugar.
• His words felt like a dagger in my heart.
• My head is pounding like a drum.
• The kitten’s fur is milky.
• The siren turned into a whisper as it ended.
• His coat felt like a velvet curtain.
• The houses look like frosted cakes in winter.
• The light under the door looked buttery.
• I came inside because the house smells like a chocolate brownie.
• Here are some famous examples of imagery in Shakespearean works. Extract examples of imagery from the
examples below:
• “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep.” Romeo and Juliet
• “There’s daggers in men’s smiles.” Macbeth
• “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,-
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.” Much Ado About Nothing
• “If I be waspish, best beware my sting.” The Taming of the Shrew
• “Good-night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” Hamlet
• “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.” A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” The Tempest
• “And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stol’n out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.” Richard III
• “By heaven, me thinks it were an easy leap, To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon” Henry IV
• “If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.” Twelfth Night
3.4 Figurative Language
3.4.1 Simile is a comparison using like or as.
3.4.3 Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which one part stands for the
whole. Ex. I know those voices.
3.4.4 Metonymy is a figure of speech in which something is used to
represent something related to it.
• Crown. (For the power of a king.)
• The White House. (Referring to the American administration.)
• Dish. (To refer to an entire plate of food.)
3.4.5 Personification gives an object or animal human qualities. Ex. The
lion yelled my name.
3.4.6 Analogy is a rhetorical device used for creating a comparison and
drawing a conclusion by showing how two seemingly different entities
are alike. Ex. Life is like a box of chocolates—you never know what
you're gonna get.”
3.4.7 Allusion is a direct or implied references to people, places, events,
literary works, or artworks. Ex. Is there an Einstein in this class?
3.4.8 Hyperbole designates the use of exaggeration or overstatement
to make a point. It may be used for emphasis, for humor, or for poetic
intensity. Ex. I have read a mountain of books.
3.4.9 Irony is an expression in which the speaker’s meaning is quite
different (often the opposite) from what is literally said. Irony, as a
matter of tone, occurs most frequently in prose as a technique for
humor, satire, or contrast.
3.4.10 Oxymoron is a figure of speech that has two contradictory or
opposite words appearing side by side. Ex. “My life is pretty ugly.”
1. What is the main theme of The Raven?
2. What are the elements that constitute the dark atmosphere of the poem?
3. Is there any momentary good mood in the poem?
4. Why does the speaker panic and tell the bird to go back to the night's
"Plutonian shore”?
5. Expalin why stanza 17 might be interpreted as an important turning point
within the poetic narration.
6. Provide evidence from the poem that proves that the speaker resigns
himself to a life in the shadow of the Raven Nevermore.
7. Define alliteration and explain how it is used in the poem, and explain
what the repetition of the 'mb' sound recalls in : 'Ah, distinctly I
remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember
wrought its ghost upon the floor’.
1) Name the literary devices usezd in the following examples:

“And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming.”
“Quoth the Raven “Nevermore”
“Perched upon a bust of Pallas”
“On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before”

2) Provide more examples of the different literary devices used in

the poem.
The Short Story as a Literary Genre
Traditionally referred to as “Flash Fiction, Sudden Fiction, Micro
Fiction, Micro-Story, Postcard, Blaster, Snapper, Mini Fiction, Fast
Fiction, Skinny Fiction, and Quick Fiction”, the short story has always
been considered a polemic genre in view of the multiple debates on its
nature and origin.
For many critics the short story genre is a hybrid genre, which mixes poetic
condensation with the fictional narrative language of the novel. The short story seems
less concerned with the generic boundaries that are applicable to other literary genres.
The art of story telling is inherent to human nature though some people excel in it
more than others. Short stories date back to oral story-telling traditions which
originally produced epics such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. The generic identity of
the short story genre can be traced back to the oral story-telling tradition. Perhaps the
oldest form of the short story is the anecdote which was popular in the Roman
Empire. At the time, the anecdotes functioned as a kind of parables in the Roman
Empire. Anecdote is a brief realistic narrative that embodies a point. Another form
close to the short story is the fable, which is a concise tale with an explicit moral. The
short story is a literary genre which presents a single significant event or a scene
involving a limited number of characters. Short stories have no set length. In terms of
word count, there is no official boundary between an anecdote, a short story, and a
novel. Rather, the form’s limits are given by the rhetorical and practical context in
which a given story is produced and considered, so that what constitutes a short story
may differ between genres, countries, eras, and commentators.
For a long time, many practioners of literature have tried to demystify, or
probably oversimplify the generic identity of the short story. The classic
definitions of a short story are presented as follow:
 In Edgar Allan Poe’s essay “The philosophy of Composition”, a short story is
defined as one that could be read in one sitting.
 William Faulkner posits that a short story character driven and the writer’s job is
“… trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to
put down what he says and does.
 Somerset Maugham reckons that a short story must have a definite design, which
includes a point of departure, a climax and a point of test, in other words it must
have a plot”.
 Anton Chekov seems to refute the imperative of a plot in a short story emphasizing
that a short tory needs to be “a slice of life presented suggestively”.
The multiple perspectives and takes on the singular character of the short story are
themselves evidence of the impossibility of a firm definition of the short story.
Instead of probing the convenience of an impossible definition of the short story
genre, we can choose to capitalize on the intrinsic qualities that constitute the
legitimacy the short story as a literary genre. In this module, we have been used to
determine the literary elements of distinct literary genres, and you surely have
remarked how the same constructs would help unravel the embedded structures of
different types of fiction. The elements of the short story as a literary genre are
recurrent constructs in the literary discourse as they transcend the generic
boundaries separating distinct literary genres. Should we repeat all that we shared
about the significance of plot, character, theme and setting in literature or go
beyond that? Of course, we need to do more. In this lesson, you are invited to
discover how the imperatives of the short story genre cause the elements of plot,
character, theme and setting to attract new meanings.
Development of Subject
Development of Subject:
The subject of a story must be one that can be adequately and effectively
developed within the prescribed limits. On this point, the reader’s own feeling
of satisfaction or dissatisfaction will provide a sufficient test. Whatever may be
the theme and object of a story, it should leave us with the conviction that
even if nothing would have been lost, at least nothing should have been
gained by further elaboration. It should impress us as clear in outline, well
proportioned, full enough for the purpose yet without the slightest suggestion
of crowding and within its own framework complete. For example, all the
prescribed short stories show the development of the subject with the proper
ending
Unity
Unity of motive, purpose, action, and impression is a fundamental
characteristic of a short story. A short story must contain one and only
one idea and this idea must be worked out to its logical conclusion with
absolute singleness of aim and directness of method. The perfection of
workmanship in a short story – the complete adaptation of means to end
- gives peculiar aesthetic pleasure to the thoughtful reader. The short
story “The Home-coming” keeps the perfect unity of logical
development of action and gives the aesthetic pleasure
Brevity or Economy
Brevity or economy is the soul of a short story. The short story must
present minimum number of events and character. It means that a short
story must cover only a small chunk of human life. There should be no
sub plot as far as possible. Unnecessary characters should be avoided.
The protagonist must be given weightage. “The Cherry Tree” gives a
message to love plants through its fine balance of characters. “The
Lumber Room” expresses the feelings of Nicholas by using the
minimum events and characters.
Conflicts
In a short story, there is generally a problem or struggle of some kind
called a conflict. Conflict is the soul of story. It is the most important
element in a plot. A conflict can be external or internal. In a story, there
may be a single conflict or there may be several related conflicts.
The End
End: The end of the short story is vital in its structure. An unexpected
shock or surprise at the end makes the story interesting. A good short
story must end in an impressive way.
The Title
The title is expected to lead us to this central issue in the story. Title can
be attractive by its contrast, suggestion, meaning etc. It is an inseparable
part of a short story.
The short story fulfils its obligations towards the reader when it combines proper
plot, setting, theme, and characters. In the same way, it must be accompanied with
attractive title, effective language, clear point of view, and excellent end. Most of
the famous short stories are capable of satisfying the readers at minimum cots.
DRAMA AS A LITERARY GENRE
The Elements of Drama as a Literary Genre
The practice of drama has always been the function of artistic temperament, critical
sensitivity and scholarly activity. The fact is that drama as a literary genre belongs
dependently of rules and conventions that must guide and ease the practice of
dramatic art. Aristotle is credited for the first explicit thoughts on the essential
elements of drama. In Poetics, Aristotle manages to systemize the practice of
literature and pinpoint the methods of literary analysis. Aristotle’ s Poetics divides
the art of poetry into verse, also referred to as drama with distinct subgenres known
as comedy, tragedy, and satyr. Lyric poetry, and epic poerty are genres on their own
that share the function of mimesis, or imitation of life, but differ in relation to
music, characterization and narration.
Playwriting and Dramaturgy
You need to know that artists of the classical age were explicit about
the literary architecture of distinct literary genre and drama was no
exception. Dramaturgy must not be confused with playwriting.
Dramaturgy is the practice of dramatic composition and the reinvention
of drama on stage while playwriting is exclusive to dramatic writing. A
dramaturge and playwright work towards one common goal but they
perform different roles and tasks.
In modern theatre, individuals of different profiles are called upon to
execute distinct tasks in terms of playwriting and directing. For this
reason, in this lesson, we need to go beyond Aristotle’ six essential
elements of drama and consider other elements of drama that have
made their way to modern theatre. In particular, in this lesson, you will
receive experience in three major areas in connection with the
essential elements of drama: literary elements, technical elements
and performance elements.
The Six Aristotelian Elements of Drama
Plot designates the sequence of dramatic actions that promote the
development of the story and the relationships of the people
involved.
Character refers to the person, animal, object or idea portrayed by the
actor(s) in the play. Characters move the action, or plot,
of the play forward.
Thought is the central idea or theme of the play, used by the playwright to
illustrate some truth.
Diction/ language, in drama, refers to the particular manner of verbal
expression, the diction or style of writing, or the speech or
phrasing that suggests a class, a profession or a type of character.
Melody refers to everything the audience hears from the play, including the
words, music and sound effects.
Spectacle denotes the visuals of the play: lights, costumes, and set up
Literary Elements
Character, plot, theme and dialogue remain the same, but the following
additions are also considered essential elements of
drama:
• Convention encapsulates the techniques and methods used by the
playwright to create the desired stylistic effect.
• Genre refers to the type of play. Some examples of different genres include
comedy, tragedy, mystery and historical play.
• Audience is the group of people who watch the play. Many playwrights and
actors consider the audience to be the most important element of drama, as
all of the effort put in to writing and producing a play is for the enjoyment of
the audience.
Technical Elements
Scenery (set): The theatrical equipment, such as curtains, flats, backdrops, or
platforms, used in a dramatic production to
communicate environment
• Costumes: Clothing and accessories worn by actors to portray character and
period.
• Props: Short for properties; any article, except costume or scenery, used as
part of a dramatic production; any moveable
object that appears on stage during a performance, from a telephone to a train
• Lights: The placement, intensity, and color of lights to help communicate
environment, mood, or feeling
• Sound: The effects an audience hears during performance to communicate
character, context, or environment
• Makeup: Costumes, wigs, and body paint used to transform an actor into a
character
Performance Elements
Acting: Use of face, body, and voice toPportray character and the
capacity to portray feelings
Character motivation: The reason for a character’s behavior; an
incentive or inducement for further action for a character
Peaking: The mode of expression or delivery of lines
Breath control: Proper use of the lungs and diaphragm muscle for
maximum capacity and efficiency of breath for speaking
Vocal expression: How an actor uses his or her voice to convey
character
Inflection: Change in pitch or loudness of the voice.
Projection: How well the voice carries to the audience
Speaking style: The mode of expression or delivery of lines
Diction: Selection and pronunciation of words; clarity of speech.
Tragedy
Tragedy depicts the downfall of a noble hero or heroine, usually through
some combination of hubris, fate, and the will of
supernatural forces. The tragic hero's powerful wish to achieve some goal
inevitably encounters limits, usually those of human frailty (flaws in
reason, hubris, society), the gods (through oracles, prophets, fate), or
nature. Aristotle says that the tragic hero should have a flaw and/or make
some mistake (hamartia). The hero need not die at the end, but he/she
must undergo a change in fortune. In addition, the tragic hero may
achieve some revelation or recognition (anagnorisis--"knowing again" or
"knowing back" or "knowing throughout" ) about human fate, destiny, and
the will of the gods. Aristotle quite nicely terms this sort of recognition "a
change from ignorance to awareness of a bond of love or hate."
Aristotle’s Elements of Tragedy
"Tragedy, then, is a process of imitating an action which has serious
implications, is complete, and possesses magnitude; by means of
language which has been made sensuously attractive, with each of its
varieties found separately in the parts; enacted by the persons
themselves and not presented through narrative; through a course of
pity and fear completing the purification (catharsis[*], sometimes
translated "purgation") of such emotions.“
(From the Poetics of Aristotle [384-322 BC])

Extract from the above definition of tragedy the necessary elements of tragedy as
a literary genre.
a) "imitation" (mimesis)[*]: Contrary to Plato, Aristotle asserts that the artist does not just copy the
shifting appearances of the world, but rather imitates or represents reality itself, and gives form and
meaning to that reality. In so doing, the artist gives shape to the universal, not the accidental.
Poetry, Aristotle says, is "a more philosophical and serious business than history; for poetry speaks
more of universals, history of particulars."
b) "an action with serious implications": serious in the sense that it best raises and purifies pity and
fear; serious in a moral, psychological, and social sense.
c) "complete and possesses magnitude": not just a series of episodes, but a whole with a
beginning, a middle, and an end. The idea of imitation is important here; the artist does not just
slavishly copy everything related to an action, but selects (represents) only those aspects which give
form to universal truths.
d) "language sensuously attractive...in the parts": language must be appropriate for each part of
the play: choruses are in a different meter and rhythm and more melodious than spoken parts.
e) tragedy (as opposed to epic) relies on an enactment (dramatic performance), not on "narrative“
(the author telling a story).
f) "purification" (catharsis): tragedy first raises (it does not create) the emotions of pity and fear,
then purifies or purges them. One scholar, Gerald Else, says that tragedy purifies "whatever is 'filthy'
or 'polluted' in the pathos, the tragic act" (98). Others say that the play arouses emotions of pity and
fear in the spectator and then purifies them (reduces them to beneficent order and proportion) or
purges them (expels them from his/her emotional system).
Aristotle’s Tragic Hero
Aristotle’s Plot in Tragedy
Comedy
Aristotle’s elements of comedy
According to Aristotle (who speculates on the matter in his Poetics), ancient
comedy originated with the komos, a curious and improbable spectacle in
which a company of festive males apparently sang and danced while being
explicit about their sexuality (phallic rituals). The linking of the origins of
comedy to some sort of phallic ritual or festival of mirth seems both plausible
and appropriate, since for most of its history--from Aristophanes to Seinfeld--
comedy has involved a high-spirited celebration of human sexuality and the
triumph of Eros. As a rule, tragedies occur on the battlefield or in a palace's
great hall; a more likely setting for comedy is the bedroom or bathroom. It
should be noted that Aristotle divides the substance of comedy into the same
six elements that are discussed in regard to tragedy in the Poetics: plot,
character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle.
The comic hero
Aristotle suggests that comic figures are mainly "average to below
average" in terms of moral character, perhaps having in mind the wily
servant or witty knave who was already a stock character of ancient
comedy. He also suggests that only low or ignoble figures can strike us
as ridiculous. However, the most ridiculous characters are often those
who, although well-born, are merely pompous or self-important
instead of truly noble. The characters of comedy, according to
the Tractatus, are of three kinds: the impostors, the self-deprecators,
and the buffons. The Aristotelian tradition from which
the Tractatus derives probably provided a fourth, the churl, or boor.
Check your progress

1. What are the subdivions within the art of poetry according to Aristotle?
2. According to Aristotle, how is poetry different from history?
3. In what way is tragedy superior to comedy?
4. What does Aristotle means by “universal truths”?
5. How is the catharsis process shaped in tragedy?
LITERARY CRITICISM AND THEORY
Within the discipline of literary studies, literary theory is often
referred to “critical theory,” “theory,” or “cultural theory”. Literary
theory designates the set of intellectual assumptions on which rests
the work of explaining or interpreting literary texts. Literary theory
refers to any principles derived from internal analysis of literary
texts or from knowledge external to the text that can be applied in
multiple interpretive situations.
What is critical theory needed for?
All critical practice regarding literature depends on an underlying structure of ideas in at
least two ways:
Theory provides a rationale for what constitutes the subject matter of criticism—”the
literary”—and the specific aims of critical practice—the act of interpretation itself. For
example, To argue, as does Chinua Achebe, that Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness
fails to grant full humanity to the Africans it depicts is a perspective informed by a
postcolonial literary theory that presupposes a history of exploitation and racism. Critics
that explain the climactic drowning of Edna Pontellier in The Awakening as a suicide
generally call upon a supporting architecture of feminist and gender theory. The
structure of ideas that enables criticism of a literary work may or may not be
acknowledged by the critic, and the status of literary theory within the academic
discipline of literary studies continues to evolve. For the purpose of this module which is
intended to introduce you to the basics of literary and cultural studies.
Traditional Literary Theory
Traditional criticism requires a critic, or analyst, to examine a
text in regards to both the author's history and the relevance of
the original text to those who read it during the time period it
came out. This criticism ignores Reader-Response (how a
reader interprets a text) and, instead, focuses upon the author,
time period, and text alone. Essentially, traditional criticism
places the text back into the period which it came from in order
for the reader to better understand the intent of the author.
When examining a text using traditional criticism, one must
examine how the life of the author is represented in the text
itself. By doing this, one can find how the author's life,
ideologies, and the times influenced his or her work. Also, by
examining a text this way, one can come to conclude an
author's biases towards life, gender, and societal influence.
Formalist theory
Shklovsky’s famous definition of literature as ‘the sum total of all stylistic
devices employed in it’ sums up well the basics of formalism. The Formalists
were after a theory of literature concerned with the writer’s technical
prowess and craft skill. They avoided the proletarian rhetoric of the poets
and artists, but they retained a somewhat mechanistic view of the literary
process.
The rationale for formalistic theory
What distinguishes literature from ‘practical’ language is its constructed quality. Poetry was
treated by the Formalists as the quintessentially literary use of language: it is ‘speech
organized in its entire phonic texture’. Its most important constructive factor is rhythm.
Consider a line from Donne’s ‘A Nocturnall upon St Lucies Day’, stanza 2:
For I am every dead thing.
A Formalist analysis would draw attention to an underlying iambic impulse (laid down in the
equivalent line in the first stanza:
The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks’.
In the line from stanza 2, our anticipation is frustrated by a dropped syllable between ‘dead’
and ‘thing’; we perceive a deviation from the norm, and this is what produces aesthetic
significance. A Formalist would also note finer differences of rhythm produced by syntactical
differences between the two lines (for example, the first has a strong caesura, the second
none).
Poetry exercises a controlled violence upon practical language, which is thereby
deformed in order to compel our attention. It is the special task of art to give us back
the awareness of things which have become habitual objects of our everyday
awareness. It must be stressed that the Formalists, unlike the Romantic poets, were
not so much interested in the perceptions themselves as in the nature of the devices
which produce the effect of ‘defamiliarization’. The purpose of a work of art is to
change our mode of perception from the automatic and practical to the artistic. In
‘Art as Technique’ (1917), Shklovsky makes this clear:

The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar’, to make forms difficult,

to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the
process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be
prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object;
the object is not important. (Lemon and Reis, 1965, p. 12)
While the Symbolists had viewed poetry as the expression of the Infinite or some
unseen reality, formalists adopted a down-to-earth approach, seeking to define the
techniques which writers use to produce specific effects. Formalists called one of
their most attractive concepts ‘defamiliarization’ (ostranenie: ‘making strange’).
They argued that we can never retain the freshness of our perceptions of objects;
the demands of ‘normal’ existence require that they must become to a great extent
‘automatized’

In his monograph on Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, Shklovsky draws attention to the

ways in which familiar actions are defamiliarized by being slowed down, drawn out
or interrupted. This technique of delaying and protracting actions makes us attend
to them, so that familiar sights and movements cease to be perceived automatically
and are thus ‘defamiliarized’.
The Russian Formalists had a more revolutionary concept of plot than Aristotle. The plot is not
merely the arrangement of story-incidents but also all the ‘devices’ used to interrupt and delay
the narration. Digressions, typographical games, displacement of parts of the book (preface,
dedication, etc.) and extended descriptions are all devices to make us attend to the novel’s
form. In a sense, ‘plot’, in this instance, is actually the violation of the expected formal
arrangements of incidents.
Check your progress.
If formalist theoy were a magnifying glass, what would be its focal
point?
Explain the principle of défamiliarisation.
In what way are formalists different from romantic poets?
In what way do the Russian formalists revolutionise Aristotle’s idea
of plot?
The Bakhtin School
The so-called Bakhtin School arose in the later period of formalism, although it
was never, in fact, part of that movement. The School may be considered
formalist in its concern for the linguistic structure of literary works. The Bakhtin
School was not interested in abstract linguistics of the kind which later formed
the basis of structuralism. They were concerned with language or discourse as a
social phenomenon.
The rationale for the Bakhtin school
Voloshinov’s central insight was that ‘words’ are active, dynamic social signs,
capable of taking on different meanings and connotations for different social
classes in different social and historical situations. He attacked those linguists
(including Saussure) who treated language as a synchronic (unhistorical) and
abstract system. He rejected the whole notion of ‘The isolated, finished,
monologic utterance, divorced from its verbal and actual context and standing
open not to any possible sort of active response but to passive understanding’.
The Russian slovo may be translated ‘word’ but is used by the Bakhtin School
with a strongly social flavour (nearer to ‘utterance’ or ‘discourse’). Verbal
signs are the arena of continuous class struggle: the ruling class will always
try to narrow the meaning of words and make social signs ‘uni-accentual’, but
in times of social unrest the vitality and basic ‘multi-accentuality’ of linguistic
signs becomes apparent as various class interests clash and intersect upon
the ground of language. ‘Heteroglossia’ is a fundamental concept, most
clearly defined in Bakhtin’s ‘Discourse in the Novel’ (written 1934–5). The
term refers to the basic condition governing the production of meaning in all
discourse. It asserts the way in which context defines the meaning of
utterances, which are heteroglot in so far as they put in play a multiplicity of
social voices and their individual expressions.
 How does the Bakhtin School depart from the formalist tradition to endorse
a divergent approach to literary criticism?
What is the difference between synchronic and asynchronic approaches to
language?
What is the difference between uniaccentuality and multiaccentuality?
Feminist Theory
Women writers and women readers have always had to work ‘against the grain’.
 Aristotle declared that ‘the female is female by virtue of a certain lack of
qualities’, and St Thomas Aquinas believed that woman is an ‘imperfect man’.
 When John Donne wrote ‘Air and Angels’ he alluded to (but did not refute)
Aquinas’s theory that form is masculine and matter feminine: the superior,
godlike, male intellect impresses its form upon the malleable, inert, female
matter.
 In pre-Mendelian days men regarded their sperm as the active seeds which give
form to the waiting ovum, which lacks identity till it receives the male’s impress.
 In Aeschylus’s trilogy, The Oresteia, victory is granted by Athena to the male
argument, put by Apollo, that the mother is no parent to her child.
The victory of the male principle of intellect brings to an end the reign of the
sensual female Furies and asserts patriarchy over matriarchy. Throughout its long
history, feminism (for while the word may only have come into English usage in
the 1890s, women’s conscious struggle to resist patriarchy goes much further
back) has sought to disturb the complacent certainties of such a patriarchal
culture, to assert a belief in sexual equality, and to eradicate sexist domination in
transforming society.
History of feminism
Feminism in general, of course, has a long political history, developing as a substantial
force, in America and Britain at least, throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. Feminist criticism of the earlier period is more a reflex of ‘first-wave’
preoccupations than a fully fledged theoretical discourse of its own. The ‘second
wave’ of femenism is marked by the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine
Mystique in 1963, which, in its revelation of the frustrations of white, heterosexual,
middle-class American women – careerless and trapped in domesticity – put
feminism on the national agenda, substantively and for the first time.
The rationale for feminism
Five main foci are involved in most discussions of sexual difference: biology;
experience; discourse; the unconscious; and social and economic conditions.
Arguments which treat biology as fundamental and which play down
socialization have been used mainly by men to keep women ‘in their place’. The
old Latin saying ‘Tota mulier in utero’ (‘Women is nothing but a womb’)
established this attitude early. If a woman’s body is her destiny, then all
attempts to question attributed sex-roles will fly in the face of the natural order.
On the other hand, some radical feminists celebrate women’s biological
attributes as sources of superiority rather than inferiority, while others appeal
to the special experience of woman as the source of positive female values in
life and in art. Since only women, the argument goes, have undergone those
specifically female life-experiences (ovulation, menstruation, parturition), only
they can speak of a woman’s life.
A woman’s experience includes a different perceptual and emotional life;
women do not see things in the same ways as men, and have different ideas
and feelings about what is important or not important. An influential example
of this approach is the work of Elaine Showalter (see below, pp. 126–9) which
focuses on the literary representation of sexual differences in women’s writing.
Discourse has received a great deal of attention by feminists. Dale
Spender’s Man Made Language (1980), as the title suggests, considers that
women have been fundamentally oppressed by a maledominated language.
If we accept Michel Foucault’s argument that what is ‘true’ depends on who
controls discourse (see Chapter 7, p. 178ff ), then it is apparent that men’s
domination of discourse has trapped women inside a male ‘truth’. From this
point of view it makes sense for women writers to contest men’s control of
language rather than create a separate, specifically ‘feminine’ discourse.
The opposite view is taken by the female socio-linguist Robin Lakoff (1975),
who believes that women’s language actually is inferior, since it contains
patterns of ‘weakness’ and ‘uncertainty’, focuses on the ‘trivial’, the
frivolous, the unserious, and stresses personal emotional responses. Male
utterance, she argues, is ‘stronger’ and should be adopted by women if they
wish to achieve social equality with men.
Most feminists, however, consider that women have been brainwashed by this type of
patriarchal ideology, which produces stereotypes of strong men and feeble women. The
psychoanalytic theories of Lacan and Kristeva have provided a fourth focus – that of the
unconscious. Some feminists have broken completely with biologism by associating the
‘female’ with those processes which tend to undermine the authority of ‘male’ discourse.
Whatever encourages or initiates a free play of meanings and prevents ‘closure’ is regarded as
‘female’.
The psychoanalytic theories of Lacan and Kristeva have provided a fourth focus –
that of the unconscious. Some feminists have broken completely with biologism
by associating the ‘female’ with those processes which tend to undermine the
authority of ‘male’ discourse. Whatever encourages or initiates a free play of
meanings and prevents ‘closure’ is regarded as ‘female’. Female sexuality is
revolutionary and subversive.
 The fifth focus concerns itself with Ideological indoctrination as much as
economic inequality is the cause of women’s oppression. This argument opened
up second-wave thinking about reproduction, sexuality and representation
(especially verbal and visual ‘images of women’, and particularly pornography).
Millett’s title, Sexual Politics, announces her view of ‘patriarchy’, which she sees
as pervasive and which demands ‘a systematic overview – as a political
institution’. Patriarchy subordinates the female to the male or treats the female
as an inferior male, and this power is exerted, directly or indirectly, in civil and
domestic life to constrain women.
 Millett borrows from social science the important distinction between ‘sex’ and
‘gender’, where sex is determined biologically but ‘gender’ is a psychological
concept which refers to culturally acquired sexual identity, and she and other
feminists have attacked social scientists who treat the culturally learned ‘female’
characteristics (passivity, etc.) as ‘natural’. She recognizes that women as much
as men perpetuate these attitudes, and the acting-out of these sex-roles in the
unequal and repressive relations of domination and subordination is what Millett
calls ‘sexual politics’.
Expalain the following quote:
“ it is apparent that men’s domination of discourse has trapped women
inside
a male ‘truth’”
Marxist Theory
Two well-known statements by Marx provide sufficient substance for
understanding the fundamentals of Marxism:
 “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the
contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.”
 “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is
to change it.”
By contradicting widely accepted doctrines, Marx was trying to put people’s
thought into reverse gear. First, philosophy has been merely airy
contemplation; it is time that it engaged with the real world. Secondly, Hegel
and his followers in German philosophy have persuaded us that the world is
governed by thought, that the process of history is the gradual dialectical
unfolding of the laws of Reason, and that material existence is the expression
of an immaterial spiritual essence. Marx reverses this logic and argues that
argues that all mental (ideological) systems are the products of real social and
economic existence. The material interests of the dominant social class
determine how people see human existence, individual and collective. Legal
systems, for example, are not the pure manifestations of human or divine
reason, but ultimately reflect the interests of the dominant class in particular
historical periods. Marx described this view in terms of an architectural
metaphor: the ‘superstructure’ (ideology, politics) rests upon the ‘base’ (socio-
economic relations). To say ‘rests upon’ is not quite the same as saying ‘is
caused by’. Marx was arguing that what we call ‘culture’ is not an independent
reality but is inseparable from the historical conditions in which human beings
create their material lives; the relations of exploitation and domination which
govern the social and economic order of a particular phase of human history
will in some sense ‘determine’ the whole cultural life of the society.
Marxist literary theories tend to focus on the representation of class conflict as well
as the reinforcement of class distinctions through the medium of literature. Marxist
theorists use traditional techniques of literary analysis but subordinate aesthetic
concerns to the final social and political meanings of literature. Marxist theorist often
champion authors sympathetic to the working classes and authors whose work
challenges economic equalities found in capitalist societies. In keeping with the
totalizing spirit of Marxism, literary theories arising from the Marxist paradigm have
not only sought new ways of understanding the relationship between economic
production and literature, but all cultural production as well. Marxist analyses of
society and history have had a profound effect on literary theory and practical
criticism, most notably in the development of “New Historicism” and “Cultural
Materialism.”
Structuralist Theory
Structualist theories to literature challenged some of the most cherished beliefs of the
ordinary reader.
 The literary work, we had long felt, is the child of an author’s creative life, and
expresses the author’s essential self.
 The text is the place where we enter into a spiritual or humanistic communion with
an author’s thoughts and feelings.
 A good book tells the truth about human life – that novels and plays try to ‘tell
things as they really are’.
However, structuralists have tried to persuade us that the author is ‘dead’ and that
literary discourse has no truth function.
 Structuralism sought to bring to literary studies a set of objective criteria for analysis and a new
intellectual rigor.

 “Structuralism” can be viewed as an extension of “Formalism” in that that both “Structuralism” and
“Formalism” devoted their attention to matters of literary form (i.e. structure) rather than social or
historical content; and that both bodies of thought were intended to put the study of literature on a
scientific, objective basis.

 “Structuralism” relied initially on the ideas of the Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure. Like Plato,
Saussure regarded the signifier (words, marks, symbols) as arbitrary and unrelated to the concept,
the signified, to which it referred. Within the way a particular society uses language and signs,
meaning was constituted by a system of “differences” between units of the language. Particular
meanings were of less interest than the underlying structures of signification that made meaning
itself possible, often expressed as an emphasis on “langue” rather than “parole.”

 “Structuralism” was to be a metalanguage, a language about languages, used to decode actual

languages, or systems of signification. The work of the “Formalist” Roman Jakobson contributed to
“Structuralist” thought, and the more prominent Structuralists included Claude Levi-Strauss in
anthropology, Tzvetan Todorov, A.J. Greimas, Gerard Genette, and Barthes.
Poststracturalist Theory
At some point in the late 1960s, structuralism gave birth to ‘poststructuralism’.
Some commentators believe that the later developments were already inherent
in the earlier phase. One might say that poststructuralism is simply a fuller
working-out of the implications of structuralism. But this formulation is not
quite satisfactory, because it is evident that poststructuralism tries to deflate
the scientific pretensions of structuralism. If structuralism was heroic in its
desire to master the world of artificial signs, poststructuralism is comic and
anti-heroic in its refusal to take such claims seriously. However, the
poststructuralist mockery of structuralism is almost a self-mockery:
poststructuralists are structuralists who suddenly see the error of their ways.
Poststructualists posit that if signifier and signified are both cultural concepts, as they are in
“Poststructuralism,” reference to an empirically certifiable reality is no longer guaranteed by
language. “Deconstruction” argues that this loss of reference causes an endless deferral of meaning, a
system of differences between units of language that has no resting place or final signifier that would
enable the other signifiers to hold their meaning. The most important theorist of “Deconstruction,”
Jacques Derrida, has asserted, “There is no getting outside text,” indicating a kind of free play of
signification in which no fixed, stable meaning is possible. Structualists believe that ‘subjects’ are
produced by linguistic structures which are ‘always already’ in place. A subject’s utterances belong to
the realm of parole, which is governed by langue, the true object of structuralist analysis. This
systematic view of communication excludes all subjective processes by which individuals interact with
others and with society. The poststructuralist critics of structuralism introduce the concept of the
‘speaking subject’ or the ‘subject in process’. Instead of viewing language as an impersonal system,
they regard it as always articulated with other systems and especially with subjective processes. This
conception of language-in-use is summed up in the term ‘discourse’.
Post-colonial Theory
A further movement which draws on the more radical implications of
poststructuralism is the study of colonial discourse, or what is usually termed
‘postcolonial criticism’. Analysis of the cultural dimension of colonialism/imperialism
is as old as the struggle against it; such work has been a staple of anti-colonial
movements everywhere. It entered the agenda of metropolitan intellectuals and
academics as a reflex of a new consciousness attendant on Indian independence
(1947) and as part of a general leftist reorientation to the ‘Third-World’ struggles for
emancipation.
 From a postcolonial perspective, Western values and traditions of thought and literature,
including versions of postmodernism, are guilty of a repressive ethnocentrism. Models of
Western thought (derived, for example, from Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche and
Freud) or of literature (Homer, Dante, Flaubert, T. S. Eliot) have dominated world culture,
marginalizing or excluding non-Western traditions and forms of cultural life and expression.
 Ethnic Studies,” sometimes referred to as “Minority Studies,” has an obvious historical
relationship with “Postcolonial Criticism” in that Euro-American imperialism and colonization in
the last four centuries, whether external (empire) or internal (slavery) has been directed at
recognizable ethnic groups: African and African-American, Chinese, the subaltern peoples of
India, Irish, Latino, Native American, and Philipino, among others.
 “Ethnic Studies” concerns itself generally with art and literature produced by identifiable ethnic
groups either marginalized or in a subordinate position to a dominant culture. “Postcolonial
Criticism” investigates the relationships between colonizers and colonized in the period post-
colonization. Though the two fields are increasingly finding points of intersection—the work of
bell hooks, for example—and are both activist intellectual enterprises, “Ethnic Studies and
“Postcolonial Criticism” have significant differences in their history and ideas.
1. How does the traditional literary theory interrogate the relationship between author and work?

2. How does “literariness” shape the formalistic thinking?

3. Why do Marxist approaches to literature require an understanding of the primary economic and
social bases of society?
4. Why does feminist theory analyse the production of literature and literary representation within
the framework that includes all social and cultural formations as they pertain to the role of
women in history?
5. How is formalistic theory different from structualist theory?

6. What is the particularity of structuralism in comparison with poststructualism?

INTRODUCTION TO
CULTURAL STUDIES
 Over a ten-week period, you received practice in the essential features of distinct literary
genres, and you learned about the different traditions in literary and criticism. The intent of
this lecture is to introduce you to the field of Cultural Studies. The fact is that Cultural Studies
is not extrinsic to the practice of literary criticism. The two fields of study are reciprocal and
mutually inclusive. With cultural Studies, the emphasis is on how cultural practices relate to
everyday life, history, knowledge, ideology, economy, politics, technology and the
environment. This lecture aims to expose the history of Cultural Studies, the rationale for
Cultural Studies and the influential concepts in Cultural Studies.
The history of Cultural Studies
 Discussion on Cultural Studies have gained currency with the establishment of
Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in England in 1968 with such scholars
as Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall, and Raymond Williams. Cultural studies later became a well-
established field in many academic institutions, and it has since had broad influence in
sociology, anthropology, historiography, literary criticism, philosophy, and art criticism.
Among its central concerns are the place of race or ethnicity, class, and gender in the
production of cultural knowledge. A thriving cultural studies scene has existed in Australia
since the late 1970s, when several key CS practitioners emigrated there from the UK, taking
British Cultural Studies with them, after Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the UK
in 1979. A school of cultural studies known as cultural policy studies is one of the distinctive
Australian contributions to the field, though it is not the only one. Australia also gave birth to
the world's first professional cultural studies association (now known as the Cultural Studies
Association of Australasia) in 1990. In Africa, human rights and Third-World issues are among
the central topics treated. Cultural Studies journals based in Africa include the
Journal of African Cultural Studies.
The rationale for cultural studies
 A key concern for cultural studies practitioners is the examination of the forces within and
through which socially organized people conduct and participate in the construction of their
everyday lives.
 Cultural Studies attempts to understand culture in all its complex forms and to understand the
social and political context within which culture manifests itself.
 Cultural Studies aims to understand the structures of dominance in different contexts.

 Cultural Studies is interested in the process by which power relations organize cultural artefacts
such as food habits, music, cinema, sport events. It looks at popular culture and everyday life,
which had been dismissed as “inferior” and unworthy of academic study. Cultural Studies’
approaches: 1) transcend the confines of a particular discipline such as literary criticism or history
2) are politically engaged 3) reject the distinction between “high” and “low” art or “elite” and
“popular” culture 4) analyse not only the cultural works but also the means of production.
 Cultural studies has a commitment to an ethical evaluation of modern society.

 Cultural Studies believes that we cannot “read” cultural artefacts only within the
aesthetic realm; they must be studied within the social and material perspectives. For
example, a novel must be read not only within the generic conventions and history of
the novel, but also in terms of the publishing industry and its profit, its reviewers, its
academic field of criticism, the politics of awards and the hype of publicity machinery
that sells the book.
 Cultural Studies views everyday life as fragmented whole, where meanings are
hybridized and contested. For example, identities that were more or less homogeneous
in terms of ethnicities and patterns of consumption, are now completely hybrid,
especially in the metropolis. With the globalization of urban spaces, local cultures are
linked to global economies, markets and needs, and hence any study of contemporary
culture has to examine the role of a non-local market/ money which requires a
postcolonial awareness of the exploitative relationship between the First World and the
Third World even today.
Issues and concepts in cultural studies
 The theory of cultural construction

The theory posits that many influential social and cultural characteristics are
not inherent but are constructed by people. From the Cultural Studies
perspective, things like gender, race, disability do not really exist but are instead
concepts or beliefs that people have created in order to organize their cultures
and societies.
 ASSESSMENT

Cultural construction is the idea that some characteristics only have meaning because they are
constructed by people and interpreted in a certain way by society. Think of three characteristics of
people that could be considered cultural constructions, in that they have no meaning outside of social
systems. For example, the gendered idea that male babies have blue-colored toys and nursery
decoration, but female babies have pink-colored toys and nursery decoration, is a cultural
construction. There are biological differences between boys and girls , of course, but these differences
have no meaning outside of a societal context. Write a two to three paragraph essay with three
examples of characteristics of human beings and explain why they could be considered cultural
constructions.
 Media Culture

Media studies and its role in the construction of cultural values, circulation of
symbolic values, and its production of desire are central to Cultural Studies today.
Cultural Studies of the media begins with the assumption that media culture is
political and ideological, and it reproduces existing social values, oppression and
inequalities. Media culture clearly reflects the multiple sides of contemporary
debates and problems. Media culture helps to reinforce the hegemony and power of
specific economic, cultural and political groups by suggesting ideologies that the
audience, if not alert, imbibes. Media culture is also provocative because it
sometimes asks us to rethink what we know or believe in. In Cultural Studies, media
culture is studied through an analysis of popular media culture like films, TV
serials, advertisements etc.- as Cultural Studies believes in the power of the popular
cultural forms as tools of ideological and political power.
 Homi Bhabha’s Concept of Hybridity

 One of the most widely employed and most disputed terms in postcolonial theory, hybridity commonly refers
to the creation of new transcultural forms within the contact zone produced by colonization. As used in
horticulture, the term refers to the cross-breeding of two species by grafting or cross-pollination to form a
third, ‘hybrid’ species. Hybridization takes many forms: linguistic, cultural,political, racial, etc. The term
‘hybridity’ has been most recently associated with the work of Homi K. Bhabha, whose analysis of
colonizer/colonized relations stresses their interdependence and the mutual construction of their
subjectivities. Bhabha contends that all cultural statements and systems are constructed in a space that he
calls the ‘Third Space of enunciation’ (1994:37). Cultural identity always emerges in this contradictory and
ambivalent space,which for Bhabha makes the claim to a hierarchical ‘purity’of cultures untenable. For him,
the recognition of this ambivalent space of cultural identity may help us to overcome the exoticism of cultural
diversity in favour of the recognition of an empowering hybridity within which cultural difference may
operate. It is the ‘in-between’ space that carries the burden and meaning of culture, and this is what makes
the notion of hybridity so important. Hybridity has frequently been used in post-colonial discourse to mean
simply cross-cultural ‘exchange’. This use of the term has been widely criticized, since it usually implies
negating and neglecting the imbalance and inequality of the power relations it references. The idea of
hybridity also underlies other attempts to stress the mutuality of cultures in the colonial and post-colonial
process in expressions of syncreticity, cultural synergy and transculturation. The criticism of the term referred
to above stems from the perception that theories that stress mutuality necessarily downplay oppositionality,
and increase continuing post-colonial dependence.
 Cultural Hegemony

The Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci developed the concept of cultural hegemony out of
Karl Marx’s theory that the dominant ideology of society reflects the beliefs and interests of the
ruling class. Gramsci argued that consent to the rule of the dominant group is achieved by the
spread of ideologies—beliefs, assumptions, and values—through social institutions such as
schools, churches, courts, and the media, among others. These institutions do the
work of socializing people into the norms, values, and beliefs of the dominant social group. As
such, the group that controls these institutions controls the rest of society. Cultural hegemony is
most strongly manifested when those ruled by the dominant group come to believe that
the economic and social conditions of their society are natural and inevitable, rather than created
by people with a vested interest in particular social, economic, and political orders.
 Cultural Materialism

Coined by Marvin Harris in his 1968 text, The Rise of Anthropological Theory, cultural materialism embraces three
anthropological schools of thought: cultural materialism, cultural evolution and cultural ecology (Barfield 1997: 232).
Emerging as an expansion of Marxism materialism, cultural materialism explains cultural similarities and differences as well as
models for cultural change within a societal framework consisting of three distinct levels: infrastructure, structure and
superstructure. Cultural materialism promotes the idea that infrastructure, consisting of “material realities” such as
technological, economic and reproductive (demographic) factors mold and influence the other two aspects of culture. The
“structure” sector of culture consists of organizational aspects of culture such as domestic and kinship systems and political
economy, while the “superstructure” sector consists of ideological and symbolic aspects of society such as religion.
Therefore, cultural materialists believe that technological and economic aspects play the primary role in shaping a society.
Cultural materialism aims to understand the effects of technological, economic and demographic factors on molding societal
structure through strictly scientific methods. As with other forms of materialism, cultural materialism emerged in the late
1960s as a reaction to cultural relativism and idealism. At the time, much of anthropological thought was dominated by
theorists who located culture change in human systems of thought rather than in material conditions (i.e. Durkheim and Levi-
Strauss). Harris critiqued idealist and relativist perspectives which claimed that comparisons between cultures are non-
productive and irrelevant because each culture is a product of its own dynamics. Marvin Harris argued that these approaches
remove culture from its material base and place it solely within the minds of its people. With their strictly emic approach,
Harris stated that idealists and relativists fail to be holistic, violating a principal tenet of anthropological research (see Key
Concepts) (Harris 1979; 1996: 277). By focusing on observable, measurable phenomena, cultural materialism presents an etic
(viewed from outside of the target culture) perspective of society. Cultural materialism also differs from Marxism in its lack of
class theory. While Marxism suggests that culture change only benefits the ruling class, cultural materialism addresses
relations of unequal power recognizing innovations or changes that benefit both upper and lower classes (Harris 1996: 278).
 Stephen Greenblatt’s Poetics of Culture

In Stephen Greenblatt’s hermeneutical enterprise Poetics of Culture (1987), he proposes that since poetry and
history are both forms of poiesis, a creative energy that inspires all imaginative human activities, a literary work
must be contextualised in its sociohistorical environment to which it belongs and from which it acquires its
meaning. The economic, political and socio-cultural conditions of a specific time frame serve to create the
identity of the individuals that constitute a historical environment. The artistic representations of human lives
and their interactions in a society capture the identity of an age. Its author is also shaped by the context in which
he exists and by which his artistic creation is also fashioned. Hence, artistic creations are inseparable from the
human lives and histories involved in their creation and consumption.Greenblatt is one of the founders of new
historicism, which is also known as cultural poetics. New Historicism acknowledges that any criticism of a work is
colored by the critic's beliefs, social status, and other factors. Many New Historicists begin a critical reading of a
novel by explaining themselves, their backgrounds, and their prejudices. Both the work and the reader are
affected by everything that has influenced them. New Historicism thus represents a significant change from
previous critical theories like New Criticism, because its main focus is to look at many elements outside of the
work, instead of reading the text in isolation.
 Edward Said’s Orientalism

 Coined by by Edward Said, Orientalism is the Western attitude that views Eastern societies as exotic, primitive,
and inferior. It should be noted that before Edward Said published Orientalism in 1978, the terms "Orientalism"
and "Orientalist" had been used for centuries simply to denote the academic study of Asian and Middle Eastern
language, history, and culture. For instance, a famous scholar of the eighteenth century, Sir William Jones, who
wrote a grammar of the Persian language and translated legal documents from Arabic and Sanskrit, was widely
known as "Orientalist Jones." Then, Said's book came to redefine the term "Orientalism" as something
pejorative and patronizing. He wrote that the East, which appears in Orientalist discourse, was a series of racist,
belittling representations of an exoticized "Orient" which had presented the Western world with stereotypes to
justify its own Imperialism. Islam, for instance, had been depicted for centuries as "a threatening
Other...fanatical, violent, lustful, irrational." Edward Said’s Orientalism came to discern the manner in which
cultural hegemony is maintained. The intention of Said was to provoke, and thus to stimulate ‘a new kind of
dealing with the Orient. In practice, the imperial and colonial enterprises of the West are facilitated by
collaborating régimes of Europeanized Arab élites who have internalized the fictional, and romanticized
representations of Arabic culture. The idea of the "Orient" was conceptualized by French and English
Orientalists during the 18th century, and was eventually adopted in the 20th century by American Orientalists.
[10][11] As such, Orientalist stereotypes of the cultures of the Eastern world have served, and continue to
serve, as implicit justifications for the colonial ambitions and the imperial endeavors of the U.S. and the
European powers. In that vein, about contemporary Orientalist stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims.
 Cultural Imperialism

Cultural imperialism, in anthropology, sociology, and ethics, the imposition by one usually politically or
economically dominant community of various aspects of its own culture onto another non-dominant
community. The theory of cultural imperialism has its roots in critical communication scholarship and was used
to describe the growing influence of the United States and its commercial media system around the world,
specifically in the context of the Cold War, after the Second World War, when the United States and the Soviet
Union were attempting to compel and persuade other countries to adopt their respective socioeconomic
systems. The theory specifically focused on the ways in which US culture was being spread to and sometimes
imposed upon developing nations by US communications and media corporations, by specific media products
and their imagery and messages, and by the expansion of the private model of the media system. The critical
edge to the theory was its staunch criticism of the strategies and tactics used by the United States in this
regard and how the US communications and media system expanded and maintained the asymmetrical
economic, political, and cultural power relations between the United States and other countries in the world
system. Correspondingly, the theory was also used as a basis for arguing that those people who were subjected
to cultural imperialism ought to be granted the right to develop their own sovereign national media systems.
The struggle to develop those systems occurred within the context of national liberation struggles against the
remnants of Western territorial colonialism and the new de-territorialized imperialism of both the US and
Soviet empires. However, the theory was challenged on at least a couple different fronts.
Postmodernism
Roughly occured between 1890-1960, Postmodernism marked a radical shift in
emphasis from Modernism and it became a visible happening in Literature, Art,
Philosophy and Architecture. One of the things that characterize postmodernism
is the breaking down of ground between high culture and low culture.
Postmodernism is oriented towards the democratization of collective consciousness
and also postmodernism signifies the triumph of individuality.
Elements of postmodernism
 Skepticism: A new, radical form of skepticism emerged in the last half of the
20th centur under the spell of postmodernism. This view questioned whether
there can be any rational, objective framework for discussing intellectual
problems, or whether instead the intellectual frameworks that people use are
inherently determined by their life situations. Pastiche (mixing genres) as an
homage to or a parody of past literary styles
 Irony, absurdity, playfulness & black humour : treating serious subjects as a joke, sometimes with
emotionally distant authors. Playfulness is central to postmodernism; it reinforces the idea that there is
no organizing principle in a chaotic world.
 Metafiction: making the artificiality of writing apparent to the reader, i.e. deliberate
strategies to prevent the usual suspension of disbelief, drawing attention to the
conventions of literature in a way that continually reminds readers to be aware that
they are reading or viewing a fictional work. In this context, metafiction is
frequently used as a form of parody to undermine literary conventions and explore
the relationship between literature and reality, life, and art
 Hyperreality in postmodernism designates the incapacity of consciousness to distinguish reality from a
fantasy in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter an original event or
experience. Hyperreality is seen as a condition in which what is real and what is fiction are seamlessly
blended together so that there is no clear distinction between where one ends and the other
begins. Some famous theories of hyperreality include Jean Baudrillard author of Simulacra and
Simulation. Baudrillard posits that in postmodern culture our society has become so reliant on models
and maps that we have lost all contact with the real world that preceded the map. Reality itself has
begun merely to imitate the model, which now precedes and determines the real world: "The territory
no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that precedes the territory
—precession of simulacra—that engenders the territory." Baudrillard is not merely suggesting that
postmodern culture is artificial, because the concept of artificiality still requires some sense of reality
against which to recognize the artifice. His point, rather, is that we have lost all ability to make sense of
the distinction between nature and artifice.
Maximalism and minimalism: Where minimalism is all about making things neat, tidy,
and low key, maximalism goes against the grain by embracing excess. Levey provides an
early definition of maximalism as “writing that values the pursuit of detail, specificity and
comprehensiveness above other functions novels might be thought to have” . Such
writing is, in contrast to commonly held notions about realist description, not mimetic;
Levey writes that “it is not what is being represented that counts in the maximalist text,
so much as the activity of representing” . Indeed, the emphasis is on originality.
 Historiographic metafiction is a term coined by Canadian literary theorist Linda
Hutcheon in the late 1980s. The term is used for works of fiction which combine the
literary devices of metafiction with historical fiction. Works regarded as historiographic
metafiction are also distinguished by frequent allusions to other artistic, historical and
literary texts (i.e. intertextuality) in order to show the extent to which works of both
literature and historiography are dependent on the history of discourse.
 Fraction is the mixing of actual historical events with fictional
events without clearly defining what is factual and what is
fictional.
 Symbolism orients the practice of literature among postmodernist
writers who infuse objects, people, places and events with significant
meanings. The idea of a poem as a riddle to be cracked had its beginnings
in the Modernist period. Symbolism was not a new concept in literature,
but the Modernists' particular use of symbols was an innovation. They left
much more to the reader's imagination than earlier writers.
Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. It is the
interconnection between similar or related works of literature that reflect
and influence an audience's interpretation of the text. Intertextuality is
the relation between texts that are inflicted by means of quotations and
allusion.
Modernism and Post modernism
Postmodernism can be seen as a reaction against the ideas and values
of modernism, as well as a description of the period that followed
modernism's dominance in cultural theory and practice in the early and
middle decades of the twentieth century. The term is associated with
scepticism, irony and philosophical critiques of the concepts of
universal truths and objective reality.
 Modernism Postmodernism
Reason and science provide accurate, objective Reason and science are ideologies in the Nietzschean or
and reliable foundation of knowledge. Marxist sense, simply myths created by men.
Reason transcends and exists independently of Cultural Relativism: Reason itself is a specific Western
our existential, historical, cultural contexts; it is tradition (ideology) competing with other traditions, like
universal and “true”. faith and other cultural means of knowing.
Freedom in the form of democracy and free Cultural Relativism: Democracy and capitalism are specific
markets are the natural extension of universally Western traditions (ideology) competing with other
true, reasonable beliefs. "We hold these truths traditions (China and Russia especially challenge this
to be self evident...." assumption.
Also, democracy and capitalism, like all ideologies, are often
used to colonize foreign cultures (ie Belgian Congo, Viet
Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan) or subjugate women etc.

Reason will lead to universal truths all cultures “…no eternal truths, no universal human experience, no
will embrace. universal human rights, overriding narrative of human
progress” (Faigley, 8).
Language is transparent; a one to one anguage is fluid and arbitrary and/or rooted in
relationship between signifier (word) and Power/Knowledge relations. Meaning is fluid and arbitrary.
signified (thing or concept). Meaning is “messy”.
Focuses on central themes and a united vision Sees human experience as unstable, internally contradictory,
in a particular piece of literature. ambiguous, inconclusive, indeterminate, unfinished,
fragmented, "jagged," with no one specific reality possible.
Modern authors guide and control the reader’s Postmodern writers create an "open" work in which readers
response to their work. must supply their own connections, work out alternative
meanings, and provide their own (unguided) interpretation.
Modernist novels mourn the loss of a coherent Postmodern novels celebrate and rebel in the chaos of an
world. incoherent world.
Truth exists independently of human Truth may exist independently of human consciousness but
consciousness and can be known through the there is no objective means of nailing it down. All
application of Reason. Postmodern conclusions lead from this assumption.

Existence of stable, coherent “self”, The “self” is a myth and largely a composite of one’s social
independent of culture and society. experiences and cultural contexts.
Identity is static: one either is one's racial, Identity is fluid and performative. There is no true definition
ethnic, national or gender identity (the of self or even gender; we put on identities as masks or
traditional view) or one has an innate identity perform our "selves" exactly as do actors on a stage.
which should be separated from social
influences (Rousseau's romantic view).
Storytelling should mimic a Lockean ideal of realism is no more "real" than fantasy. Game of Thrones or
how we experience the natural world. the Xmen is no more fantastic or fictional than The Office
Breaking Bad.
Modernism attempts to create a coherent Postmodernism attempts to remove the difference between
world view. low culture and high culture.

Faith in "Grand Theory" (totalizing explanations Rejection of totalizing theories; pursuit of localizing and
in history, science and culture) to represent all contingent theories.
knowledge and explain everything.
Faith in, and myths of, social and cultural unity, Social and cultural pluralism, disunity, unclear bases for
hierarchies of social-class and ethnic/national social/national/ ethnic unity.
values, seemingly clear bases for unity.
Master narrative of progress through science Skepticism of idea of progress, anti-technology reactions,
and technology. neo-Luddism; new age religions.
Sense of unified, centered self; "individualism," Sense of fragmentation and decentered self; multiple,
unified identity. conflicting identities.
Idea of "the family" as central unit of social Alternative family units, alternatives to middle-class
order: model of the middle-class, nuclear marriage model, multiple identities for couplings and
family. Heterosexual norms. childraising. Polysexuality, exposure of repressed
homosexual and homosocial realities in cultures.
Hierarchy, order, centralized control. Subverted order, loss of centralized control, fragmentation.
Faith in the "real" beyond media, language, Hyper-reality, image saturation, simulacra seem more
symbols, and representations; authenticity of powerful than the "real"; images and texts with no prior
"originals." "original". "As seen on TV" and "as seen on MTV" are more
powerful than unmediated experience.
Mass culture, mass consumption, mass Demassified culture; niche products and marketing, smaller
marketing. group identities.
Art as unique object and finished work Art as process, performance, production, intertextuality. Art
authenticated by artist and validated by agreed as recycling of culture authenticated by audience and
upon standards. validated in subcultures sharing identity with the artist.
Centering/centeredness, centralized knowledge Dispersal, dissemination, networked, distributed knowledge.
and authority.
Sense of clear generic boundaries and Hybridity, promiscuous genres, recombinant culture,
wholeness (art, music, and literature) intertextuality, pastiche.
Clear dichotomy between organic and Cyborgian mixing of organic and inorganic, human and
inorganic, human and machine. machine and electronic.
Phallic ordering of sexual difference, unified Androgyny, queer sexual identities, polymorphous sexuality,
sexualities, exclusion/bracketing of mass marketing of pornography, porn style mixing with
pornography. mainstream images.
Check your progress
1. Pinpoint more instances of divergence between modernism and post modernism.

Modenism Postmodernism

2. What are the potential problems with postmodernism?

Prof. Nabil MORCHID