Approaches To Modern Literary Theories

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the literal level. Broadly, texts of literature would possess two levels of meaning - the literal and the super-literal. The super-literal meaning of texts of literature is the ideological implication of the same; which criticism attempts to resolve. The task of resolving the crisis engendered in literary texts is possible through the formulation of some principles, parameters and paradigms which are technically termed theories. Theories are meant to interpret and evaluate works of literature with the mind of revealing the in-depth implications of such works.

This chapter identifies and discusses some of these theories that have formed the canons for the proper understanding of literature in the modern times. Modernity in this context is with reference to those theories of criticism that have flourished from the twentieth century up to date.

Two periods (the early and modern theories) could be delineated in the development of theories of literature. However, the ...

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of literature as having no relationship intended or implied with its external world. That such a work is in its own 'world'. The critical theorists in this category are the Formalists, Structuralists and Post-structuralists or the Deconstructionists. In the modern times, William Golding, Sophocles and Ayi Kwei Armah are among the ardent disciples of this category of literary theories.

On the other hand, the extrinsically inspired literary theories tend to associate a literary piece with its external world. Here, there is a departure from the isolationist philosophy propounded by the ideologues of the intrinsically inclined criticism. Rather extrinsic criticism is homodiegetic; ...

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