Need to study for Dr. Oxindine's literary terms and theory exam? These notes should help, but don't blame me if something's wrong.
New Criticism: also known as formalism. Prominent from the 1940s to 60s. 1) Focus on the text and not other factors. 2) Focus on words, figures of speech and symbols. 3) Formalists do explication or close readings.
First person: limits narrative to what the first person narrator knows or experiences.
Second person: narrator addresses someone as “you”; the person addressed may be the reader, someone else or even the narrator
Third person: narrator reports actions in a story using “he,” “she” and “they”
Omniscient point of view: narrator knows everything about characters and events in story
Limited point of view: narrator uses third person but stays in confines of what one character knows
Oedipus complex: repressed desire of boys for their mothers and to get their fathers out of the way
Id: unconscious part of psyche that incorporates libidinous and other desires
Superego: internalization of external standards of morality and propriety
Ego: the predominantly conscious and rational “I” which manages conflicts between the id, the superego and reality
Lacan: added language to Freud’s theories of psyche and gender
Imaginary stage: pre-oedipal, pre-verbal stage of development in which there is no distinction between self and others
Mirror stage: second stage of development, in which the child starts to develop a sense of self
Symbolic stage: oedipal stage in which child develops language and sees gender differences; child sees binary oppositions in language and learns about patriarchial privilege
North American feminists: encourage resisting readers to see patriarchial values in works; want to recover lost female voices
British feminists: interested in class, cultural and other differences among women
French feminists: more concerned with how language shapes gender than real world oppression
Resisting readers: should notice and reject bias (particularly gender) in classic texts by male authors
Essentialists: believe that women are essentially different from men even before any socialization (e.g. women are naturally nurturing)
Constructionists: believe differences between men and women are constructed by society not nature
Sex: anatomically male or female
Gender: traits considered masculine or feminine by society
Phallogocentric: idea that our language is male-dominated with the phallus as its center and privileged signifier
Semiotic: pre-linguistic, pre-oedipal stage centered on the mother, from which women and some men can write
Symbolic: father-centered, syntactically ordered and logical language
New Historicists: believe that literature and history are not separate but mixed together
Referentiality: belief that literature refers to and is referred to by things outside itself
Base: economics is the infrastructure that creates the superstructure of culture
Superstructure: culture (law, politics, philosophy, religion and art) created on the base of economics
Marxist critics: believe that consciousness is the product, not the creator, of economics and society
Hegemony: idea that a social class achieves dominance by making its views so pervasive that the oppressed unwittingly participate in their own oppression
Deconstructionists: point out already existing contradictions in texts to show one cannot be certain of any one meaning
Logocentrism: discourse predominante in Western culture that is centered around an original word or reason that orders everything else
Différance: words are understood through difference but complete understanding of meaning is deferred
Metonymy: comparision of two things of which one is a part; White House to refer the government
Signifier: a word used to represent an object or concept
Signified: an object or concept represented by a word
Aporia: deadlock of contradictory meanings which cannot be broken or resolved
Ambiguity: tension caused by paradox but still regarded by formalists as part of a unified whole
Undecidability: imcompatible meanings in a text seen as unreconcilable by deconstructionists