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Intro to Lit Final
Final
117
Literature
Undergraduate 3
12/07/2013

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Term
What is a Sign
Definition
A basic unit of meaning- a word, picture or hand gesture
Term
What is a Signifier
Definition
The perceptible aspect of a sign (the word car)
Term
What is a Signified
Definition
The conceptual aspect of a sign (the concept of a car)
Term
How are texts read with Structuralism?
Definition
Texts are read an an interrelated system of signs that refer to one another.
Term
What is structuralism?
Definition
An intellectual movement that made significant contributions to literary criticism, philosophy, anthropology and history.
Term
What is a Canon?
Definition
A group of works commonly regarded as central or authoritative to the literary tradition.
Term
What would cause the canon to evolve?
Definition
Works are added or subtracted based on their perceived value as it shifts over time.
Term
Why do feminist and post-colonial critics "attack" the concept of a canon of literature?
Definition
They feel that it is only "dead white men" and other authors are marginalized.
Term
What is discourse?
Definition
A post-structuralist term implicating that the meaning of works is as dependent on their surrounding context as it is on the content of the works themselves.
Term
What is intertextuality?
Definition
Structuralist and post-structuralist view on the relationships that texts have with other texts through indirect reference, borrow of themes or by reference.
Term
What do Structuralist and post-structuralist argue with regard to intertexuality?
Definition
Argue that texts relate primarily to each other, but not to an external reality.
Term
What is an "Oedipis complex"?
Definition
Freud's theory that a male child feels unconscious jealousy toward his father and lust for his mother.
Term
What is deconstruction?
Definition
A philosophical approach to reading that attacks the assumption that a text has a single, sable meaning.
Term
What did Derrida suggest was the interpretation of text?
Definition
All interpretation of a text simply constitutes further texts, which means there is no "outside the test."
Term
What affect did Derrida believe occurred when reading text?
Definition
That there is no "outside text" so it is impossible for a text to have stable meaning.
Term
What does the practice of deconstruction involve?
Definition
Identifying the contracitions within a text's claim to have a single, sable meaning, and showing that a text can be taken to mean a variety of things that differ significantly from what it purports to mean.
Term
What does the term feminist criticism represent?
Definition
It is an umbrella term for a number of different critical approaches that seek to distinguish the human experience from the male experience.
Term
What do feminist critics draw attention to?
Definition
They draw attention to the ways in which patriarchal social structions have marginalized women and male authors have exploited women in their portrayal of them.
Term
What is psychoanalytic criticism?
Definition
A form of literary criticism that uses some techniques of psychoanalysis in the interpretation of literature.
Term
Who were the three leading figures in developing psychoanalytic theory?
Definition
Frued, Jung, and Lacan
Term
What is Freudian Criticism?
Definition
The view of art as the imagined fulfillment of wishes that reality denies.
Term
How does Freud believe that artists divert their internal desires?
Definition
An artist's desires translated into their art.
Term
In what way does an audience respond to an artists work?
Definition
The audience will share the same desires as the artist.
Term
According to Freud, how would an artist's biography become useful?
Definition
The biography of an artist will help interpret their work.
Term
What other way is the term "Freudian Criticism" used?
Definition
To describe the analysis of Freudian images within a work of art.
Term
What does the term Marxist criticism represent?
Definition
An umbrella term for a number of critical approaches to literature that draw inspiration from the social and economic theories of Karl Marx.
Term
What impact did Marx feel that material production, or economics did to the course of history.
Definition
That it these determined the course of history and in turn influences social structures.
Term
According to Marx what held these social structures in place?
Definition
The dominant ideology which serves to reinforce the interests of the ruling class.
Term
How does Marxist criticism approach literature?
Definition
As a struggle with social realities and ideologies.
Term
How does New Criticism approach the interpretation of literary works?
Definition
Popular in the mid 20th century, but has since fallen out of favor, that encourages readers to discover the meaning of a work through a detailed analysis of the text itself.
Term
What approach does New Historicism take to examine tests?
Definition
This approach breaks down the distinctions between "literature" and "historical Context" and examines texts and reception based on the dominant social, political and moral expectations of the time.
Term
What other criticism is included in New Historicism?
Definition
New Criticism
Term
What does post-structuralism consist of?
Definition
A movement that was comprised of Deconstructionism, Lacanian criticism and Rokand Barthes and Michel Foucault.
Term
How did post-structuralism criticize structuralism?
Definition
For its claims of scientific objectivity, such as the assumption that language is stable.
Term
What claims did post-structuralist's make with regard to reading?
Definition
Reading always involves a degree of speculation, ideology, desire or power.
Term
What areas did post-structuralist's dismantle?
Definition
Certainties, assumptions, and hierarchies, conventions by exposing conflicting dynamic ideologies operating in language.
Term
In what way did Derrida extend on structuralism's binary opposites?
Definition
He noted how each is also a little hierarchy-one side privileged; and identifying how these binaries work. This will real the ideology that it promotes.
Term
What is postmodernism?
Definition
a broad and ill-defined cultural movement hosting a range of aesthetic tastes, artistic practices, philosophical beliefs, and social behaviors.
Term
What is the skepticism aspect of post-modernism?
Definition
Toward models of truth, value, history; rejection over over-arching explanatory themes (Grand narratives).
Term
With the skepticism aspect of post-modernism what approach is adopted?
Definition
A relativist approach; ironic works and skeptical interpretations of reason and the community, church, university government.
Term
How does post-modernism view the irreverence approach to texts?
Definition
They focus on artistic traditions; mix tactics of parody and kitsch (the conversion of works of art and important events in history into pop forms.
Term
How does a post-modernist view texts based with an emphasis on contemporary political and technical world processes?
Definition
They state that the world is governed by multinational capitalism, consumerism, media, globalization are the working forces of the world today. Based on a surface appearance, not reality.
Term
What is Queer theory?
Definition
A constructivist approach to gender and sexuality that asserts that gender roles and sexual identity are social constructions rather then "male" "female"
Term
How does Queer theory examine texts?
Definition
With an eye to the ways in which different authors in different eras construct sexual and gender identity.
Term
Where does Queer Theory draw its roots from ?
Definition
Certain branches of feminist criticism and traces back to the first volume of Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality.
Term
What is one of the characteristics of Modernism that deals with traditions?
Definition
A strong and intentional break with tradition, including being against established religious, political and social views.
Term
What do modernists believe about the world/
Definition
It is created in the act of perceiving it; it is what we say it is.
Term
How do modernists feel about "truth"?
Definition
It is not absolute, all things are relative.
Term
How do modernists create their experiences?
Definition
They feel that there is no connection with history or institutions, their experience is that of alienation, loss, and despair.
Term
Who do modernists champion?
Definition
Tthe individual and celebration of inner strength.
Term
What do modernists feel about life?
Definition
They feel that life is unordered.
Term
What is main concern for modernists?
Definition
They are concerned with the sub-conscious.
Term
Who is the father of Psychoanalysis?
Definition
Sigmund Feud (1856-1939)He developed theories about how the mind, the instincts and sexuality work.
Term
What is Psychoanalysis?
Definition
A form of therapy that aims to cure mental disorders by investigation interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the mind.
Term
What is the unconscious mind?
Definition
The part of the mind beyond consciousness which nevertheless has a strong influence upon our actions.
Term
What is repression?
Definition
Forgetting or ignoring of unresolved conflicts, desire or traumatic past event-they're forced out of conscious awareness and into the realm of unconscious.
Term
What are the three parts of the psyche?
Definition
1) Ego
2) Super-ego
3) Id
Term
What is the Ego?
Definition
The conscious, logical, rational mind; mediator between id and super-ego that tries to meet the needs of both yet is guided by morals and society; uses defense mechanisms such as denial, repression, or projection, to deal with the conflicting super-ego and id.
Term
What is the Super-ego?
Definition
Acts as our conscience; reflects beliefs of society, morals, and taboos; opposes the id. Represents the "Strict father figure"
Term
What is the Id?
Definition
"it": The unconscious, irrational, passionate mind. The pleasure-seeking, primal part of the mind concerned with self-survival. Said to be where the libido, or energy behind sexual desire, is located.
Term
What is dream work?
Definition
The process by which real events or desires are ransformed into dream images representing meanings through concrete embodiments of time, place or person. (latent vs manifest content)
Term
What are the two processes of dream work?
Definition
Condensation and dispalacement
Term
What is Condensation in dream work?
Definition
Many thoughts or subjects are reduced into one image.
Term
What is displacement in dream work?
Definition
A single object or person is represented as something else that happens to be connected to this object in some way.
Term
What did Freud believe about dreams?
Definition
It is an escape-hatch or safety-valve though which repressed desires, fears or memories seek an outlet into the conscious mind. Emotions are censored by the conscious mind and so has to enter the dream in disguise.
Term
What is repression?
Definition
One pushes, ignores, or forgets unpleasant feelings, traumatic events, or desires into the unsubconscious.
Term
What is sublimation?
Definition
A type of defense mechanism used to transform repressed material into something useful or positive.
Term
What is the purpose of devices?
Definition
Disguise the repressed fears and wishes contained in the dreams so that they can get past the censor which normally prevents their surfacing into the conscious mind. Fashioned into something which can be represented in a dream, (images, symbols and metaphors).
Term
How do dreams communicate?
Definition
Don't say things, they show things like literature
Term
What does Freudian Psychoanalytic critic do?
Definition
They give central importance in to the distinction between the conscious (overt content of literary work) and the unconscious (covert content of literary work) mind.
Term
Which is more "privileged" in Freudian criticism, covert or overt content?
Definition
The covert content as being what the work is "really" about.
Term
What do Freudian critics pay close attention to when analyzing content?
Definition
They play close attention to unconscious motives and feeling. They an be a)those of the author, b) those of the characters. Also classic psychoanalytic symptoms, conditions or phases.
Term
What is the "psycho-drama?
Definition
Conflict between generations or siblings or between desires within the same individual) is much more important than the "social drama" (conflict between social classes.
Term
What is an archetype?
Definition
innate, universal prototypes for ideas and may be used to interpret observations
Term
What is the collective unconscious?
Definition
Contains archetypes common to all human beings, answers to the fundamental questions of humanity; Life, death, meaning, happiness, fear, ect.
Term
What is the unconscious?
Definition
It is the most active part of the normal human psyche. Reliable communication between it and the conscious parts of the psyche is necessary for wholeness.
Term
What is the "shadow"?
Definition
The unconscious complex that is defined as the repressed and suppressed aspects of the conscious self.
Term
What are the two types of "shadow"?
Definition
constructive and destructive
Term
What is the constructive type of "shadow"?
Definition
It may represent hidden positive influences
Term
What is the destructive type of "shadow"?
Definition
Often represents everything that the conscious person does not wish to acknowledge within themselves.
Term
What is a metaphysical Poet?
Definition
Used to designate the work of 17th century writers who were part of the school of poets using similar methods and who revolted against the romantic conventionalism of Elizabethan love poetry.
Term
What is carpe diem?
Definition
Latin for "seize the day" It is about enjoying life in the moment because life is short.
Term
How was the concept of carpe diem expressed in writing?
Definition
Male speakers trying to persuade women to seize the day. They wrote poems of seduction. Typically associating women's sexuality and reproductive power with images of flowers and seasonal change.
Term
What is "The Pleasure Principle"?
Definition
Also known as the primary process, seeks continual enjoyment and gratification to maximize pleasure as the highest human value.
Term
What is the affect of "The Pleasure Principle" on society?
Definition
As it is principally egotistic and at odds with society, the world, norms, moral laws, ect. inits drive for gratification.
Term
What is the "Reality Principle?
Definition
Also known as the secondary process, forms as a psychic representative if this resistance on the part of the world.
Term
What is the appeal of the "Reality Principle?
Definition
It appeals to the rationality and common sense and invokes the principle of delayed gratification.
Term
What is the difference between "Reality" and the "Reality Principle?
Definition
It is the psychic representative of real existence not what is real. It is an internalization of the resistance afforded by the outside world. Appeals to rationality and common sense.
Term
What Ideology?
Definition
An identifiable set of aims or the body of doctrine, myth or belief that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group of people.
Term
What is denotative?
Definition
The literal or dictionary meaning of a word.
Term
What is a myth?
Definition
A story that attempts to explain how the world was created or why the world is the way that it is, passed down from generation to generation. Not a "falsehood" it is a story that continues to captivate the human race.
Term
What is connotation?
Definition
Associations and implications that go beyond the literal meaning of a word. (Puns, inuindo)
Term
What is mimesis?
Definition
The function of literature in its capacity to represent life. (imitated human action)
Term
What is reader response theory/
Definition
Their response will govern their response to the text.
Term
What is hegemony?
Definition
how dominant groups maintain their power
Term
What is latent content?
Definition
The appearance of manifest content that conceals a deeper truth
Term
What is binary opposition?
Definition
A pair of terms that although opposed to one another are necessarily bound together as each other's condition of possibility.
Term
What is the process of deconstruction?
Definition
It undermines both the philosophy it asserts and the hierarchical oppositions upon which it relies. As a reading strategy, deconstruction is particularly interested in identifying those aspects of a concept or text whose peculiar state of being is to be undecided, neither this thing nor that thing and not nothing either.
Term
How is Derrida's work described?
Definition
Often described as a critique of the philosophy of presence because he destabilizes the opposition between presence and absence, particularly with regard to the sign.
Term
According to Derrida what is a sign?
Definition
The sign as sign is a sign of something else, thus it is most fully itself when it is perceived as something else, but to remain a sign it must also continue to be perceived as different from the thing it represents.
Term
What is new criticism?
Definition
Also known as formalism, is a way to treat a work as if it were a self contained , self referenced object that stands alone.
Term
What is cultural studies?
Definition
Also known as cultural criticism, views the text as the locus and catalyst of a complex network of political and economic discourses.
Term
What is a patriarchal society?
Definition
Consists of a male-dominated power structure throughout organized society and in individual relationships.
Term
What is essentialism?
Definition
A generalization stating that certain properties possessed by a group (e.g. people, things, ideas) are universal, and not dependent on context.
Term
What is transcendental signified according to Derrida?
Definition
A dominant ideological discourse relies on the metaphysical illusion of a transcendental signified-an ultimate referent at the heart of a signifying system which is portrayed as `absolute and irreducible', stable, timeless and transparent-as if it were independent of and prior to that system. All other signifieds within that signifying system are subordinate to this dominant central signified which is the final meaning to which they point. Derrida noted that this privileged signified is subject to historical change, so that Neo-Platonism focused on `the Monad', Christianity focused on God, Romanticism focused on consciousness and so on. Without such a foundational term to provide closure for meaning, every signified functions as a signifier in an endless play of signification.
Term
What is Post-colonial criticism?
Definition
It is similar to cultural studies, but it assumes a unique perspective on literature and politics that warrants a separate discussion.
Term
What is displacement?
Definition
This term in linguistics refers to the ability of language to indicate or signify things not physically present.
Term
What is condensation?
Definition
The process by which a single symbol or word is associated with the emotional content of several, not necessarily related, ideas, feelings, memories, or impulses, especially as expressed in dreams.
Term
What is Classicism?
Definition
Defined as the principles or styles characteristic of the literature and art of ancient Greece and Rome that are generally associated with restraint, harmony and adherence to accepted standards of form and craftsmanship.
Term
What is Neo-Classicism?
Definition
of, relating to, or constituting a revival or adaptation of the classical especially in literature, music, art, or architecture.
Term
What is Recognition?
Definition
The point at which a character understands his or her situation as it really is. Sophocles' Oedipus comes to this point near the end of Oedipus the King; Othello comes to a similar understanding of his situation in Act V of Othello.
Term
What is Reversal?
Definition
The point at which the action of the plot turns in an unexpected direction for the protagonist. Oedipus's and Othello's recognitions are also reversals. They learn what they did not expect to learn.
Term
What is Catharsis?
Definition
The purging of the feelings of pity and fear that, according to Aristotle, occur in the audience of tragic drama. The audience experiences catharsis at the end of the play, following the catastrophe.
Term
What is decentering?
Definition
to cause to lose or shift from an established center or focus; especially To disconnect from practical or theoretical assumptions of origin, priority, or essence
Term
What is a doppelganger?
Definition
dream analysis, or archetypal symbolism, often figured as a twin, shadow, or mirror-image of the protagonist.
Term
Who was Aristotle?
Definition
He developed elements of organization and methods for writing effective poetry and drama known as the principles of dramatic construction.
Term
Who was the founder of deconstruction?
Definition
Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) ” he found a way of criticizing not only both literary and philosophical texts but also political institutions. Although Derrida at times expressed regret concerning the fate of the word “deconstruction,” its popularity indicates the wide-ranging influence of his thought, in philosophy, in literary criticism and theory, in art and, in particular, architectural theory, and in political theory.
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