Literary Theory

1. Aestheticism

Definition
Often associated with Romanticism, a
philosophy defining aesthetic value as
the primary goal in understanding
literature.

2. Russian formalism
a school of literary criticism and

Proponents

Application
Art For Art's Sake

Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, Harold

Bloom
Boris Eichenbaum, Viktor
Shklovsky and Yury Tynyanov

The Theory of the Formal Method

literary theory having mainly to do with

structural purposes of a particular text

3. Deconstruction

4. Marxism

a strategy of "close" reading that elicits

the ways that key terms and concepts
may be paradoxical or selfundermining, rendering their meaning
undecidable
which emphasizes themes of class
conflict

Of Spirit
Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, J. Hillis
Miller, Philippe LacoueLabarthe, Gayatri Spivak, Avital Ronell

The Theory of the Novel

Georg Lukcs, Valentin
Voloshinov, Raymond
Williams, Terry Eagleton, Fredric
Jameson, Theodor Adorno, Walter
Benjamin

5. New Criticism

looks at literary works on the basis of

what is written, and not at the goals of
the author or biographical issues

Who Speaks for the Negro?

W. K. Wimsatt, F. R. Leavis, John
Crowe Ransom, Cleanth
Brooks, Robert Penn Warren