Literary Criticism and Critical Theory

Paper Code: 
ENG 321
Credits: 
04
Periods/week: 
05
Objective: 

  • The course will enable the students to:

    • Understand the principles of critical theory in the shaping of literature
    • Trace the historical development of literary theory and its role in English studies
    • Develop an enhanced ability to read, contextualize, and compare primary material by different literary theorists
10.00

Aristotle

Poetics

 

8.00
T. S. Eliot
Tradition and the Individual Talent
14.00

Poststructuralism: Roland Barthes      

 (pp. 72-76 from M.A.R. Habib)

 

Deconstruction: Jacques Derrida         

Extract from

“Derrida, Deconstruction and  Literary Interpretation” (from lib.kshs.kh.edu.tw/lib/journals/journals-94/P145.pdf)

 

12.00

Western Feminism:  Feminisms         

 (pp.82-90, 94-108 from Pramod K. Nayar)

 

Indian Feminism: A People Without a History? 

(pp. 1-10 & 23 from Jasbir Jain)

 

16.00

Psychoanalytic Criticism (pp. 63-73 from Pramod K. Nayar)

 

Postcolonial Theory (pp.153-72 & 175-78 from Pramod K. Nayar)

 

Source Books: 

Enright and Chickera eds. English Critical Texts. OUP, 1997.

Nayar, Pramod K. Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory: From Structuralism to Ecocriticism. Pearson, 2010.

 

SUGGESTED READINGS: 

Das, Bijoy and J.M. Mohanty. Literary Criticism: A Reading. OUP, 1989.

Olsen, Flemming. Eliot’s Objective Correlative: Tradition or Individual Talent: Contributions to the History of a Topos. Susan Academic Press, 2014.

Wilfred L. Guerin, et al: A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. OUP, 1999.

 

Academic Year: 
2019-2020