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| Post Graduate Diploma in Translation Studies |
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| UNIT 422-1: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY LITERARY THEORIES |
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| 422.1.2: LITERARY THEORY |
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| 422.1.2.1. GENERALIA |
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| Contemporary literary theory draws from and contributes to a large number of varied, complex and changing disciplines. There are clearly three identifiable areas of investigation here: first, the literary theory which is interested in discovering the general laws of creative writing or the structure of literature, and which arrives at hypotheses on development of literature. The second component could be identified as the history of literature which studies the literary past of a language. In particular, here the studies tell us about the stages of literary development, about the social and cultural forces behind literary creativity, and enlighten us about the literary past as a process giving rise to the present 'state' of writing. In the third place, we have what is conventionally called literary criticism which is more concerned on today's texts and identifying the current trends. |
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| These three aspects of literary appreciation are not so neatly separable in most case. All contemporary critics constantly draw from the literary histories for bringing in parallels and for tracing the genesis of a trend or for situating it in the socio-cultural context. Similarly, they both contribute to and borrow from literary theories. No theoretician can claim to work today without considering the wealth of information that is available in critical review and remarks. In the same fashion, all historians take contemporary critical works generated at different periods of time as the basic data and documents for writing or reconstructing literary histories. |
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| Besides, there are many minor disciplines that are related to the above three fields. They include philology, text analysis, paleography, bibliographical studies and heuristics etc. Similarly, there are many humanities and social science disciplines that contribute to literary studies: Philosophy and Aesthetics give it the much needed theoretical foundation, just as the humanistic considerations are provided by history, sociology and psychology. Literary studies go parallely with other fields such as folklore studies or art studies. |
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| Another very important part of literary studies is what is known as 'poetics' or the study of the structure of all works of an author, or an era, or a literary school or an epoch, or even that of an individual work. |
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| 422.1.2.2: LITERARY CRITICISM AND SPACE |
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| Any poem or a work of art that gives rise to creative criticism to start with, and eventually to critical theories, is actually occupying a given 'space' or a part thereof. If the space is finite, with no centrepoint in it, the object of creation could perhaps be described as occupying a space in its entirety. Whether a space is finite or infinite, it is indeed vast and is capable of absorbing many shocks and scathes, many theoretical positions and confabulations. It would, therefore, be taking only a decadent attitude to extol the virtues of any one position because the world of literary creativity is much bigger than what we often imagine it to be. |
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| Long back, Minkovski thought of the world - the literary world, having four dimensions. Like Aryabhatta, to the three-dimensional space, he added the dimension of time. This only emphasizes that it is important for us to think also in the dimension of time when we consider critical theories. |
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| Interestingly, even if atleast one dimension can properly be measured, the universe of creativity would seem not beyond the activity of measuring - which is what literary criticism is. An ideal process to measure a given dimension includes measuring a creative text in terms of smaller and divisible units. That way, even if one does not like a particular theoretical position, even if this position if fragmentarily illustrated through poetry and aesthetics of only a given space and time, it needs to be measured and understood. |
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