Literary Criticism Introduction & Difference Literature Criticism and Theory
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Introduction to Literature Criticism and Theory
Technically, to see, this sort of view regarding theory is right as because the theory is, in fact, the modern development in understanding literature and its practices, but, in a real sense, both stands way different from each other.
From classical times to now, Criticism never borrowed any idea from other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, political sciences, etc., but literary theory’s fundamental pillars are found in other disciplines; for example, feminist reading of a text could not have become possible without sociology. Therefore, literary theory has bridged the gap that various disciplines have.
Literary theory has made the understanding and readings of literature multi/inter-disciplinary. However, there is a wide range of scholars who don’t consider literary theory important. The one reason for such reaction would be, as M A R Habib has written: “The reaction of many literary scholars against modern literary and cultural theory is often underlain by a distrust of philosophy, of technical jargon, and a lack of familiarity with the great philosophical systems.“
Difference Between Literary Theory & Criticism
Literary Theory is a systematic explanation of practice or a situation of practice in a broader framework; theory brings to light the motives behind our practice; it shows us the connection of practice to ideology, power structures, our own unconscious, our political and religious attitudes, our economic structures; above all, theory shows us that practice is not something natural but is a specific historical construct.
Literary criticism deals only with the literary text in terms of its form, prosody, characterization, etc. It hardly touches upon the politics of the text, and, at the point of politics, literary theory comes into action. Literary theory is not only about politics.
There are various schools of thought which completely negate the idea of putting a text into a political framework and insist on only reading the structure, figure, etc. in the text. One such school is “New Criticism’.
It is said that a literary critic—one who operates on the literary text—is always a critic. S/he is never a literary theorist. Literary theorists beget theories which are applied to the text to draw particular perspectives, and the one who applies is a critic.
This is to also say that criticism is a practical application of the theory. So, a Marxist reading of a text would be called Marxist Criticism and the one who reads according to Marxist theory would be called a Marxist Critic.
