Gender studies

The Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement started in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It deals with lesbian and gay writing and analyzes how their life and experience were distorted in history. There are a lot of words to describe different orientations but nobody would define a heterosexual. We create labels and expect certain stereotypes like a masculine lesbian with short hair, hating men. But there are women falling in love with women who do not claim they are lesbian because they hate that label. The term queer covers everybody from LGBTQUA (o) – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer, undecided, allies and (others) who do not want to be labelled.

Feminist criticism

The Feminist criticism started in 1970s, closely connected with civil rights movement. There was nothing like that before and the only female writers thought in schools were Jane Austen, Mary Anne Evans, Emily Dickinson and Willa Cather as school canon was overwhelmingly male, although declared universal. From the 18^th century, women started to attempt the pen. Banished from education and public life, they found refuge in literary forms despised by men, in diaries, letters and sentimental fiction.

Mythological criticism

It started as anthropological approach close to psychological criticism because it is also concerned about behaviour but mainly deals with religion, mythology and anthropology. JOSEPH CAMPBELL in his work Masks of God deals with mythology of primitive tribes, researching animal behaviour he discovered with freshly hatched chickens who, although fresh-born, are afraid of hawks, even the artificial model of a hawk but do not react to other birds = assumption we are born with certain common pre-knowledge which shows also in literature as motifs that appear in all cultures.

Psychoanalytical criticism

This approach is based on Sigmund Freud’s therapeutic practice and methodology called psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytical literary critics analyze the piece of art based on personality of an author which is an exact opposite of Formalist method. They understood a literary work as a manifestation of the author's own neuroses and interpreted it accordingly. However, the problem is that they would take seriously even texts written for fun (like Poe’s The Philosophy of Composition on Raven).

Postmodernism

Post-modernism started during 1960s but term came later in 1980s. Modernists still believed in social order and science but the Postmodernists did not believe in anything, often used parody and collage. Both used typical fragmentation but whereas Modernists needed some artistic purpose and believed art can change something (moralistic attitude to art), Post-modernists wanted to show that nothing makes sense and you cannot even communicate (Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot - words have empty meaning, no sense). Modern period started with belief in progress but nothing is truthful in post-modernism. Like with Derrida’s theory, nothing can be definite.

Post-structuralism

This movement originated around 1967 in Paris from Structuralism, represented by JULIA KRISTEVA, and others. They did not believed in what JEAN-FRANCOIS LYOTARD called grand narratives = an ideology/science according which people should behave because these lost their validity and been replaced by “micro stories.”

Structuralism

Structuralism derived from Formalism and flourished during 1950-1960s. Unlike Formalism that studies mainly poetry, Structuralism more tends to analyze prose as they need to trace larger structures of text. This approach tries to find the conventions of a particular literary genre or how it breaks the rules, a network of intertextual connections (allusions to other works), establish a model of a universal narrative structure and look for reoccurring patterns and motifs.

Formalism

Formalism indicates various approaches that started in 1920-30s and in America were influential during 1940s-1950s. It is still a valid approach even today and started mainly as a reaction to literary criticism used until 1920s when critics were interested in outside issues of the text like life of an author and historical context. Formalism placed the study of literature on a scientific basis through objective analysis of the motifs, devices, techniques and other aspects that comprise the literary work.

The beginning of literary criticism

The term criticism comes from the Greek krisis which means selection, separation, judgment = judgment that helps to choose books we want to read because the study of literature forces the reader to choose this work or that.