Questions tagged [theory]
Questions related to literary theory, i.e. the body of frameworks, ideas and methods about how to interpret literature. This tag can be used for questions about literary terms and theories of literature, including the history of such concepts. For questions about existing interpretations and evaluations, use the [literary-criticism] tag.
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TV Tropes lists many story elements and devices referenced to Anton Chekhov - why, and are these widely used in literary theory?
This answer in another SE site mentions and links to Chekhov's Skill and that site for "TV tropes" includes references to Chekhov's "Gun", "Party", "News", &...
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Is there such a thing as "Syrian literature"?
Mohja Kahf's 2001 article "The silences of contemporary Syrian literature" opens as follows:
There is, of course, no such thing as Syrian literature. Certainly, citizens of the modern ...
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In what way were Stuart court masques examples of neoplatonic idealism?
In his introduction to Women Beware Women and Other Plays (Oxford University Press, 1999, page ix), Richard Dutton writes,
It seems unlikely that Thomas Middleton would have shared the neo-Platonic ...
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Manuals of structuralist text analysis [closed]
I have studied mathematics and philology. For years my main problem is to find a method -specific, strict and clear- of text analysis. In the context of my readings I was attracted to structuralism. I ...
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Examples of “canonical questions” in different cultures [closed]
This question will be rather odd.
I have been thinking about this topic for a while, and this is the type of question that really cannot be answered without hearing people from different backgrounds.
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Is a space within a work of fiction rendered 'off the page' (referred to but unseen/non-existent) part of the work's paratext?
For example, in A Streetcar named Desire Blanche and Stella's family's plantation 'Belle Reve' figures as an important space within the text, but isn't rendered directly in it - it is 'off the page', ...
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What is an inciting incident?
I've been struggling to find a clear definition of what exactly an inciting incident is.
According to Masterclass, an inciting incident is:
The inciting incident of a story is the event that sets the ...
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What is the strongest theoretical epistemology about literary (or cultural) “periods”?
Discussions of periods like “Romanticism” and general claims about what people were motivated by or what traits distinguished art in that time strike me as requiring a rigorous justification. If we ...
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What is “high literature”? [duplicate]
It is extremely common to hear people talk about “high art”, in the context of “literature”, to distinguish it from, say, “popular fiction”, and so on.
What justifies the idea that there is something “...
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Poet who asserted that poets lack personality and collect objects to give them one
In about the mid-90s I read part of a book of literary criticism by a poet (so focused mainly on poetry and poetic theory) where he said that poets lack a personality and often collect trinkets to ...
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Does Stanley Fish's essay How to Recognize a Poem When You See One devalue the interpretation of poetry?
Literary theorist Stanley Fish once wrote a famous essay about found poetry entitled How to Recognize a Poem When You See One. You can read it online here.
In short, Fish taught a class on linguistics ...
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What is the history of Kant and the concept of autonomous art in literature?
If you read around literary theory, you'll frequently come across the concept of autonomy in art, the idea that an artwork is a thing unto itself, independent from the artist. As far as I understand ...
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How do people learn to analyze literature?
How do students of English learn to analyze literature? How do they come up with new things to say about texts that everyone doesn't already know?
The essence of the question is given above, but ...
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Marxist reading of Gogol's "The Overcoat"?
The Wikipedia page about Gogol's short story "The Overcoat" is full of [citation needed] notices. The following sentence in particular caught my eye:
A Marxist reading of the text would ...
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What aspects of Roman Ingarden's theory of literature does Stanisław Lem criticise and how?
According to the Wikipedia article on Stanisław Lem's The Philosophy of Chance,
Lem criticizes the contemporary literary theory, in particular, Roman Ingarden's Literary Work of Art, and proceeds ...
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