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Sunday, June 13, 2010

V Semester Literary theory class notes 1

07 JUNE 2010


INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY THEORY

People have been writing for many years, writings also referring to what cave men did on walls of their caves.

Anything that records human thought on a surface is writing, which also includes paintings. One example of pictorial writing is the Chinese script.

Till 19th century there was a separate category of writers. Before which there was nothing called ‘Literature’.

It was only in the 20th century that it became a discipline. And because it became a discipline it had to form boundaries and rules. It has to be defined under a category.

The need for English Literature was felt after the First World War. Primarily because of nationalist reasons, which had become a major concept. And hence things like passports and visas came into existence. Boundaries became more rigid than ever. And yet nations exist only in imagination.
People and government became strongly conscious of their identity.
This lead to the birth of Literature.

Till now throughout England only German writings and philosophies were studied in universities. Therefore it was impossible to generate hate towards Germany and a sense of nationalism and patriotism when the majority population loves and appreciates the works of German men.
For these reasons German works were displaced by English Literature. Hence Literature evolved on the death bed of philosophy. Literature borrows its tools from theology and philosophy.
However in the selection of texts there was a clear bias for the aristocracy and their writings. All the prescribed texts were from the higher class of the society. All the great ideas were a part of a marketing strategy.

Now some texts were treated as special and some not special. The one’s treated as special were prescribed and appreciated. However what made them special had no logic to it.

Pinto, Anil. Class lecture. Introduction to Literary Theory. Christ University. Bangalore, India. 07 June 2010.


2 comments:

Satya said...

Hopefully useful! :)

acrula said...

I have subscribed to this feed as I am a teaching (Secondary school, English)student from Newcastle, Australia and am currently studying The Critical Tradition. This is ongoing as critical literacy is an important part of our English curriculum.

We also have to use and create Digital Literacy Objects, one of which is blogging, for future use in the classroom. I am a beginner in this respect,but am learning.

regards, acrula