What is Literary Theory?
What is Literary Theory?
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Literary theory refers to the various school of thoughts that shape and affect our interpretations of a literary work. From LiteraryTheory.com.
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"A very basic way of thinking about literary theory is that these ideas act as different lenses critics use to view and talk about art, literature, and even culture. These different lenses allow critics to consider works of art based on certain assumptions within that school of theory. The different lenses also allow critics to focus on particular aspects of a work they consider important.
For example, if a critic is working with certain Marxist theories, s/he might focus on how the characters in a story interact based on their economic situation. If a critic is working with post-colonial theories, s/he might consider the same story but look at how characters from colonial powers (Britain, France, and even America) treat characters from, say, Africa or the Caribbean. " From Purdue Online Writing Lab, Literary Theory & Schools of Criticsm.
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"Literary theories were developed as a means to understand the various ways people read texts. ... All literary theories are lenses through which we can see texts." From Deborah Appleman.
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A reasoned account of the nature of the literary artifact, its causes, effects, and distinguishing features. So understood, literary theory is part of the systematic study of literature covered by the term ‘criticism’, which also includes interpretation of literary works, philology, literary history, and the evaluation of particular works or bodies of work. - Credo Reference: "literary theory".
Adapted from MS State LibGuide, West TX LibGuide, Saint Francis Univ LibGuide.
Searching for Literary Theory Sources
Steps to Search for Literary Theory Sources
Step 1: Know your Theory! Find similar terms or keywords for your selected theory. For example, for Postcolonial Criticism, you may search using other keywords like "colonies", imperialism, nationalism, etc.
Use these sources to find similar terms, known authors, and phrases:
Step 2: Build a search using your keywords using AND/OR or wildcard options.
Using AND
Shakespeare AND Hamlet AND postcolonial = results will have everything that has those two words together in a single source, but not appearing in a resource individually.
Using OR
postcolonial OR imperialism = results will include everything that includes the words together or individually in a resources
Using Wildcard/Truncation
Using Truncation is known as a 'Wildcard' search. By adding an asterisk (*) to find resources containing all spelled variations of a word or other endings to the root of a word. Be careful because some truncation will give you everything, meaning more than you bargained for.
Good Example: femin* theory = results will include feminist theory, feminine theory, & feminism theory
Adapted from MS State Research Guide,
Library Databases for Literary Theory
Gale Literature includes literary criticism, biographies, primary sources, reference books, periodicals, and multimedia sources.
You will not be likely to find criticism about the novels selected for this assignment (with a few exceptions). Instead, focus on finding an article about the literary theory you would like to apply to the novel you have selected.
1. Enter one or multiple keywords related to your chosen research topic.
2. Limit to peer-reviewed journals and publication date based on the date your novel. 
JSTOR contains back files of academic journal articles in full text (does not include the last 3-5 most recent years.)
1. In JSTOR Advanced Search, experiment with field selection in the drop down menu. Enter a different concept or keyword in each search box.
2. Once you find a source you like, Download PDF to view full text.
ProQuest's Literature Databases feature hundreds of titles covering Art, Architecture, Design, History, Philosophy, Music, Literature, Theatre and Cultural Studies. Make sure to select peer reviewed scholarly journals, and note that book reviews are NOT appropriate sources to use for this assignment.
1. In Advanced Search, enter keywords and select "Anywhere except full text" from the drop down menu for the most relevant menu.
2. Select "peer-reviewed" or "Scholarly journals" from the Limit to options to get credible, scholarly sources from the results.
Proquest Dissertations and Theses can give you access to pages of relevant citations for related theories and ideas. DO NOT READ THE WHOLE THING! Skim read the abstract/summary to make sure it talks about your theory. If it does talk about your theory, just skip to the bottom for the References or Works Cited section. You can also do a CTRL+F or CMND+F to find your theory in the text.
1. Open the Proquest database. Select "Dissertations and Theses" from the Basic Search options.
2. Type in your theory, author name, or novel title. Try different combinations if you don't get any results.
- OneSearchLocate books, articles and more in the Glendale College Libraries.
Use OneSearch Discovery (Advanced Search) to find materials in the Glendale College Library. You can search the OneSearch by author, title, keywords, or subject.
Examples of subject headings for general Literary Theory and specific theory:
- Literature -- History and Criticism -- Theory, etc.
- Criticism
- English literature -- History and Criticism
- Postcolonialism
- Feminist literary criticism
Salem Literature contains full text of the Critical Insights series, including literary criticism. Use the Advanced Search to look for theories, well known authors and texts, and similar terms.
