Syllabus - Semester 2

 Semester 2

 Paper VIII – Literary Theory 1 [6 hours/week]

 Course description - Topics to be covered

This course will enable the students to understand that:

1. Language is a system of signs.
2. There are certain fundamental structures underlying all human behaviour and production.
3. Meaning is not fixed; rather it is a fluid, ambiguous domain of human experience.
4. Human beings are motivated by desires, fears, conflicts and needs of which they are unaware.
5. Unconscious is the storehouse of painful and repressed emotions.
6. Unconscious is structured like language.
7. Cultural productions reinforce the economic, political, social and psychological oppression.
8. Reader’s response is pivotal in the analysis of literary texts.
9. Reader actively participates in creating the meaning of the text.

Module I: Theories of Structuralism

The basic principle of Structuralism is that language structures our perception of the world around us.  Literature and other cultural representations are manifestations of systems of signs that can be studied both synchronically and diachronically.

• Ferdinand de Saussure. Sections from Course in General Linguistics. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998. Pp. 76-90.

Module II: Theories of Deconstruction

Theories of Deconstruction rest on the belief that there is no transcendental signified and that there is nothing outside of the text. However, texts betray traces of their own instability, making the possibility of determinate meaning suspect.

• Jacques Derrida. “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences.” Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Ed. David Lodge. UK: Longman, 2000. Pp. 89-103.

Module III: Psychoanalytic Theories

The existence of the unconscious is central to all psychoanalytic theories. Individuals move through developmental stages early in life, and traumas or experiences during that process may have a lasting effect on personality. Literary and other cultural texts may have a psychological impact on readers or meet a psychological need in them. 

• Jacques Lacan. “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Foundation of I as Revealed in Psychoanalysis Experience.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998. Pp. 178-183.

Module IV: Feminist Theories

Language, institutions, and social power structures have reflected patriarchal interests throughout history; and this has had a profound impact on women’s ability to express themselves and the quality of their daily lives.  This combination of patriarchal oppression and women’s resistance to it is apparent in many literary and other cultural texts. 

• Elaine Showalter. “Towards a Feminist Poetics.”Women Writing and Writing about Women.  London: Croom Helm, 1979. Pp.10-22

Literary Theory 1 – Recommended reading:

1. Roman Jakobson. “Linguistics and Poetics”. Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Ed. David

Lodge and Nigel Wood. England: Pearson, 2007. Pp. 141-164.

2. Claude Levi-Strauss. “The Structural Study of Myth.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie

    Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998.

3. Jonathan Culler. Structuralist Poetics. Routledge, 1975.
4. Roland Barthes. “The Death of the Author.” Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader”. Ed. David

    Lodge and Nigel Wood. England: Pearson, 2007. Pp. 313-316.

5. Jean-Francois Lyotard. “The Postmodern Condition.”  Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie

Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998.

6. Madan Sarup. An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Post-modernism. Longman, 1993.
7. Sigmund Freud. “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and

Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998.

8. Gillez Deleuze and Felix Guttari. “The Anti-Oedipus.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie

    Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998.

9. Maud Ellman. Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism. Longman, 1994.
10. Luce Irigaray. “The Power of discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine.” Literary Theory: An

    Anthology.Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998.

11. Simone de Beauvoir. “Myth and Reality.” Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader” Ed. David

    Lodge and Nigel Wood. England: Pearson, 2007. Pp. 95- 102.

12. Mary Eagleton, ed. Feminist Literary Criticism. London: Longman, 1991.