2024年2月20日发(作者：苹果5s多少寸)

Unit 2 Literary Theory and Criticism

The practice of literary theory has historical roots that run as far back as ancient

Greece and it became a profession in the 20th century. This unit will give you a brief

introduction to literary theory and some of the major schools of literary criticism,

which is often informed by literary theory.

Part I Text A

Lead-in

What is literary theory? What is literary criticism? And why do we need them? Write

down your answers before reading Text A.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now read Text A and compare your answers with the author’s analysis.

The reading process and literary theory1

Charles E. Bressler

The relationship between literary theory and a reader’s personal worldview is best

illustrated in the act of reading itself. When reading, we are constantly interacting

with the text. According to Louise M. Rosenblatt2’s text The Reader, the Text, the

Poem (1978), during the act or event of reading,

A reader brings to the text his or her past experience and present personality.

Under the magnetism of the ordered symbols of the text, the reader

marshals his or her resources and crystallizes out from the stuff of memory,

thought, and feeling a new order, a new experience, which he/she sees as

the poem. This becomes part of the ongoing stream of the reader’s life

experience, to be reflected on from any angle important to him or her as a

human being.

Accordingly, Rosenblatt declares that the relationship between the reader and the text

is not linear, but transactional; that is, it is a process or event that takes place at a

particular time and place in which the text and the reader condition each other. The

reader and the text transact, creating meaning, for meaning does not exist solely

within the reader’s mind or within the text, Rosenblatt maintains, but in the

transaction between them. To arrive at an interpretation of a text (what Rosenblatt

calls the poem), readers bring their own “temperament and fund of past transactions

to the text and live through a process of handling new situations, new attitudes, new

personalities, [and] new conflicts in value. They can reject, revise, or assimilate into

the resources with which they engage their world.” Through this transactional

experience, readers consciously and unconsciously amend their worldview.

Because no literary theory can account for all the various factors included in

everyone’s conceptual framework, and because we as readers all have different

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literary experiences, there can exist no metatheory – no one overarching literary

theory that encompasses all possible interpretations of a text suggested by its readers.

And too, there can be no one correct literary theory, for in and of itself, each literary

theory asks valid questions of and about a text, and no one theory is capable of

exhausting all legitimate questions to be asked about any text.

The valid and legitimate questions asked about a text by the various literary

theories differ, often widely. Espousing separate critical orientations, each theory

focuses primarily on one element of the interpretative process, although in practice

different theories may address several areas of concern in interpreting a text. For

example, one theory may stress the work itself, believing that the text alone contains

all the necessary information to arrive at an interpretation. This theory isolates the text

from its historical or sociological setting and concentrates on the literary forms found

in the text, such as figures of speech, word choice, and style. Another theory may

attempt to place a text in its historical, political, sociological, religious, and economic

setting. By placing the text in historical perspective, this theory asserts that its

adherents can arrive at an interpretation that both the text’s author and its original

audience would support. Still another theory may direct its chief concern toward the

text’s audience. It asks how the readers’ emotions and personal backgrounds affect

each reader’s interpretation of a particular text. Whether the primary focus of concern

is psychological, linguistic, mythical, historical, or from any other critical orientation,

each literary theory establishes its own theoretical basis and then proceeds to develop

its own methodology whereby readers can apply the particular theory to an actual text.

Although each reader’s theory and methodology for arriving at a text’s

interpretation differs, sooner or later groups of readers and critics declare allegiance to

a similar core of beliefs and band together, thereby founding schools of criticism. For

example, critics who believe that social and historical concerns must be highlighted in

a text are known as Marxist critics, whereas reader-response critics concentrate on

readers’ personal reactions to the text. Because new points of view concerning literary

works are continually evolving, new schools of criticism – and therefore new literary

theories – will continue to develop. One of the more recent schools to emerge in the

1980s and 1990s, New Historicism or Cultural Poetics, declares that a text must be

analyzed through historical research that assumes that history and fiction are

inseparable. The members of this school, known as New Historicists, hope to shift the

boundaries between history and literature and thereby produce criticism that

accurately reflects what they believe to be the proper relationship between the text

and its historical context. Still other newly evolving schools of criticism, such as

postcolonialism3, African American studies, and gender studies, continue to emerge

and challenge previous ways of thinking about and critiquing texts.

Because the various schools of criticism (and the theories on which they are

based) ask different questions about the same work of literature, these theoretical

schools provide an abundance of options from which readers can choose to broaden

their understanding not only of texts but also of their society, their culture and their

own humanity. By embracing literary theory, we learn about literature, but importantly,

we are also taught tolerance for other people’s beliefs. By rejecting or ignoring

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theory, we are in danger of canonizing ourselves as literary saints who possess divine

knowledge and who can therefore supply the one and only correct interpretation for a

given text. When we oppose, disregard or ignore literary theory, we are in danger of

blindly accepting our often unquestioned prejudices and assumptions. By embracing

literary theory and literary criticism (its practical application), we can participate in

that seemingly endless historical conversation about the nature of humanity and of

humanity’s concerns as expressed in literature. In the process, we can begin to

question our concepts of ourselves, our society, and our culture and how texts

themselves help define and continually redefine these concepts. (972 words)

New Words and Expressions

magnetism / / n. a quality that makes sth./ sb. very attractive 吸引力, 魅力

marshal / / vt. to bring together or organize people or things in order to achieve a

particular aim 集结；排列

crystallize / / v. to become definite or easily understood, or to make sth. definite or

easily understood 使（思想、计划等）具体化

linear / / a. involving ideas or events that are directly connected and follow one after

the other 通过单独的若干阶段来发展

amend / / vt. to make changes to a document, law, agreement, etc. esp. in order to

improve it 修正

metatheory / / n. 超理论(用以阐明某一或某类理论而本身又更高超的一种理论)

overaching / / a. most important, because including or affecting all other areas

首要的

encompass / / vt. to include, especially different types of things 包含

legitimate / / a. fair and reasonable 合情合理的

espouse / / vt. to become involved with or support an activity or opinion 支持，拥护

adherent / / n. a supporter of a set of ideas, an organization, or a person

支持者，拥护者

linguistic / / a. connected with language or the study of language 语言的；语言学的

allegiance / / n. strong loyalty to a person, group, idea or country 忠诚

critique / / vt. to express one’s opinion about sth. after examining and judging it

carefully and in detail 对……发表评论

embrace / / vt. to accept sth. enthusiastically 信奉

canonize / / vt. to announce officially that someone is a saint

正式宣布（某人）为圣徒

Notes

1. This text is taken from Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice

(2003), by Charles E. Bressler, a professor of English at Houghton College.

2. Louise M. Rosenblatt (1904-2005): an influential scholar of reading and the

teaching of literature. She was an emeritus professor of English education at New

York University

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3. postcolonialism: a specifically intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to,

and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism.

Critical Reading and Thinking

Task 1 Overview

Summarize the main idea of each paragraph of Text A.

Paragraph Main Idea

1

2

3

4

5

Task 2 Points for Discussion

Discuss the following questions with your classmate(s) and referring to the speaking

strategies in Part V might be helpful.

1. According to Louise M. Rosenblatt, how do the readers interact with the text?

2. What does a literary theory account for? Why do we need a theory?

3. What is a metatheory? According to Text B, is there any metatheory?

4. What is the relationship between literary theory and literary criticism?

5. What are the major concerns of the following schools of criticism: Marxist

criticism, reader-response criticism, New Historicism, postcolonialism, African

American studies and gender studies?

Language Building-up

Task 1 Specialized vocabulary

The following terms are selected from Text A. Translate them either from Chinese to

English or from English to Chinese.

1. 文学理论 ________________________________

2. 文学批评 ________________________________

3. 批评流派 ________________________________

4. 修辞 ________________________________

5. 选词 ________________________________

6. Marxist critics ________________________________

7. New Historicism _______________________________

8. Cultural Poetics ________________________________

9. Postcolonialism ________________________________

10. African American studies __________________________

11. gender studies ________________________________

Task 2 Signpost languages (cause and effect)

There are various expressions and patterns indicating a cause and effect relationship.

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The following sentences are taken from Text A, and all the sign-post languages

indicating cause and effect have been removed. Complete the sentences and then

compare your answers with the original sentences in Text A.

1. The reader and the text transact, creating meaning, _________ meaning does not

exist solely within the reader’s mind or within the text, Rosenblatt maintains, but

in the transaction between them. (Paragraph 1)

2. _________ no literary theory can account for all the various factors included in

everyone’s conceptual framework, and _________ we as readers all have different

literary experiences, there can exist no metatheory – no one overarching literary

theory that encompasses all possible interpretations of a text suggested by its

readers. (Paragraph 2)

3. … there can be no one correct literary theory, _________ in and of itself, each

literary theory asks valid questions of and about a text, and no one theory is

capable of exhausting all legitimate questions to be asked about any text.

(Paragraph 2)

4. _________ new points of view concerning literary works are continually evolving,

new schools of criticism – and _________ new literary theories – will continue to

develop. (Paragraph 4)

5. The members of this school, known as New Historicists, hope to shift the

boundaries between history and literature and _________ produce criticism that

accurately reflects what they believe to be the proper relationship between the text

and its historical context. (Paragraph 4)

6. By rejecting or ignoring theory, we are in danger of canonizing ourselves as

literary saints who possess divine knowledge and who can _________ supply the

one and only correct interpretation for a given text. (Paragraph 5)

Task 3 Formal English

The following sentences are selected from Text A. Change the underlined formal

words into forms that are neutral or less formal.

1. There can exist no metatheory – no one overarching literary theory that

encompasses all possible interpretations of a text suggested by its readers.

2. Espousing separate critical orientations, each theory focuses primarily on one

element of the interpretative process …

3. This theory asserts that its adherents can arrive at an interpretation that both the

text’s author and its original audience would support.

4. Whether the primary focus of concern is psychological, linguistic, mythical,

historical, or from any other critical orientation, each literary theory establishes

its own theoretical basis and then proceeds to develop its own methodology

whereby readers can apply the particular theory to an actual text.

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5.

Although each reader’s theory and methodology for arriving at a text’s

interpretation differs, sooner or later groups of readers and critics declare

allegiance to a similar core of beliefs and band together, thereby founding

schools of criticism.

Part II Text B

Literary criticism has probably existed for as long as literature, and great critics can

be as entertaining and stimulating as great poets and novelists. In this essay, a critic

reflects on the meaning of his work.

The Will Not to Power, but to Self-Understanding1

Adam Kirsch

If you are writing poetry, or even fiction, the best response to the “absence of

echo” is probably indifference. The echoes that creative work provokes are generally

too quiet and internal to be measured by indexes like sales figures. Things are

somewhat different for a critic, since the critic is necessarily more conscious than

other writers of his own will, of what he wants to happen in the world as a result of

his writing. As Alfred Kazin2 puts it, “He writes to convince, to argue, to establish his

argument.”

But if this were a critic’s only purpose, his will would merely be a will to power.

And a critic who writes primarily out of a will to power (they do exist; they could be

named) is never a great critic, or a lasting one. Increasingly, I feel that argument is

only the form of criticism, not the substance, just as passing judgment on a particular

book is only the occasion of criticism, not the goal. It’s better — certainly it’s better

for the critic — not to see criticism as a means of making things happen, of rewarding

and punishing, or of becoming what Kazin calls a “force.” The critic participates in

the world of literature not as a lawgiver or a team captain for this or that school of

writing, but as a writer, a colleague of the poet and the novelist. Novelists interpret

experience through the medium of plot and character, poets through the medium of

rhythm and metaphor, and critics through the medium of other texts.

This is my definition of “serious criticism,” and I think it’s essentially the same

today as it was 50 years ago: a serious critic is one who says something true about life

and the world. The critic’s will is not to power, but to self-understanding,

self-expression, truth. A review by Edmund Wilson3 in The New Yorker might once

have had the power to drive a book’s sales up or down, but that’s not why we continue

to read “The Wound and the Bow4.” Lionel Trilling5 never had that kind of concrete

power, but that doesn’t stop us from continuing to read “The Opposing Self6.” These

books are classics of criticism because they each show a mind working out its own

questions — about psychology, society, politics, morals — through reading. In this

sense, Wilson and Trilling and other critics in their tradition, of whom Frank

Kermode7 might have been the last example, show us what reading can be: a way of

making one’s self, one’s soul.

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Of course, this is an ideal. Most of the time, depending on the kind of piece she is

writing, the critic also has other responsibilities. She is a journalist: a review is, in part,

a news story about a new book and why it matters. She is a consumer advocate, giving

the reader enough information to decide whether to buy the book. At times — as we

saw recently in the discussion of Jonathan Franzen’s8 “Freedom” — she is a social

commentator, trying to determine what the success (or failure) of a particular book

says about America at large, how the nation lives or thinks or imagines.

In this way, the role of the critic can shade into that of the public intellectual, and

of course many great critics have been intellectuals, too. (So have many novelists and

poets — look at George Eliot9 and T. S. Eliot10.) Trilling wrote about Jane Austen11,

but also about the Kinsey Report12; Kazin wrote about Blake13, but also about John F.

Kennedy14. This kind of widening of the purview of criticism is natural, because

thinking about literature eventually means thinking about society and politics. For

Matthew Arnold15, the inability of his contemporaries to write in what he called the

“grand style” led him to a general critique of Victorian society, which he saw as

addicted to materialism and utilitarianism.

I’m not sure if anyone is writing this kind of criticism today — certainly, the most

admired literary critics aren’t — and the reason is probably the one Kazin cited: “the

growing assumption that literature cannot affect our future, that the future is in other

hands.” This development, whose beginnings he saw 50 years ago, has now come to

pass. It is difficult to recapture the old sense, which Arnold had, that the literary critic

is the critic par excellence, that the study of literature gives you the best vantage point

from which to understand an entire society.

Perhaps this loss of centrality accounts for my own inclination to put the

emphasis in the phrase “literary criticism” on the first word, not the second. If you are

primarily interested in writing, then you do not need a definite or immediate sense of

your audience: you write for an ideal reader, for yourself, for God, or for a

combination of the three. If you want criticism to be a lever to move the world, on the

other hand, you need to know exactly where you’re standing — that is, how many

people are reading, and whether they’re the right people. In short, you must worry

about reaching a “general audience,” with all the associated worries about

fragmentation, the decline of print, and the rise of the Internet and its mental

groupuscules.

Like everyone, I wonder whether a general audience, made up of what Virginia

Woolf16 called “common readers,” still exists. If it does, the readership of The New

York Times Book Review is probably it. But measured against the audience for a new

movie or video game, or against the population as a whole, even the Book Review

reaches only a niche audience. Perhaps the only difference between our situation and

Arnold’s is that in Victorian England, the niche that cared about literature also

happened to constitute the ruling class, while in democratic, mass-media America, the

two barely overlap.

What this displacement takes from the critic in terms of confidence and authority,

it perhaps restores to him in terms of integrity and freedom. Or maybe it’s just that, as

a poet, I am all too used to making excuses for the marginality of a kind of writing

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that I continue to feel is important. Whether I am writing verse or prose, I try to

believe that what matters is not exercising influence or force, but writing well — that

is, truthfully and beautifully; and that maybe, if you seek truth and beauty, all the rest

will be added unto you. (1069 words)

New Words and Expressions

purview / / n. the limit of someone's responsibility, interest or activity

（活动、理解能力等的）范围；权限

utilitarianism / / n. the system of thought which states that the best action or decision

in a particular situation is the one which brings most advantages to

the most people 功利主义

come to pass to happen, to take place 发生

par excellence to a degree of excellence 最卓越，超群

vantage point a place, especially a high place, which provides a good clear view of

an area 有利位置

lever / / n.杠杆

groupuscule / / n. a small, activist group or faction 小团体；小派别

niche audience relatively small audience with specialized interests, tastes, and

backgrounds 一小部分有特殊兴趣、品味的读者、（听）观众

displacement / / n. the process of forcing sth. out of its position or space 移位

marginality / / n. the property of not being central 边缘性

unto / / prep. (now used only in antiquated, formal, or scriptural style) to

Notes

1. A version of this article appeared in print on January 2, 2011, on page BR10 of the

Sunday Book Review. Adam Kirsch is the author of several books of poetry and

criticism, as well as a biography, Benjamin Disraeli.

2. Alfred Kazin (1915 - 1998): an American writer and literary critic.

3. Edmund Wilson (1895 - 1972): an American writer and literary and social critic and

noted man of letters.

4. The Wound and the Bow: a collection of seven essays on literary themes by

Edmund Wilson.

5. Lionel Trilling (1905 - 1975): an American literary critic, author, and teacher.

6. The Opposing Self: a collection of nine essays in criticism, by Lionel Trilling.

7. Frank Kermode (1919 - 2010): a highly regarded British literary critic best known

for his seminal critical work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of

Fiction, published in 1967 (revised 2000).

8. Jonathan Franzen (1959 - ): an American novelist and essayist. His most recent

novel, Freedom, was published in August 2010.

9. George Eliot (1819 - 1880): an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one

of the leading writers of the Victorian era.

10. T. S. Eliot (1888 –1965): an American-born English poet, playwright, and literary

critic, arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century.

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11. Jane Austen (1775 - 1817): an English novelist. Her works of romantic fiction

earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature.

12. Kinsey Reports: two books on human sexual behavior, published in 1948 and

1953. Kinsey was a zoologist at Indiana University.

13. (William) Blake (1757 – 1827): an English poet, painter, and printmaker.

14. John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963): the 35th President of the United States, serving

from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.

15. Matthew Arnold (1822 - 1888): a British poet and cultural critic.

16. Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941): an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of

short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the

twentieth century.

Critical Reading and Thinking

Task 1 Major views

Decide whether the author of Text B agrees with the following statements or not.

______1. The goal of criticism is making judgment and convincing others.

______2. In some sense, a critic’s work is the same as a novelist’s.

______3. A critic is also a journalist and a consumer advocate.

______4. Literature can affect our future.

______5. People are now more interested in watching movies and playing video

games than in reading books.

______6. In modern America, the ruling class isn’t interested in literature.

______7. What matters in writing verse or prose is exerting influence.

Task 2 Points for discussion

Discuss the following questions with your classmate(s) and referring to the speaking

strategies in Part V might be helpful.

1. How do you understand the title The Will Not to Power, but to Self-Understanding?

2. Why does the author put emphasis on the first rather than the second word of

“literary criticism”?

3. What this displacement takes from the critic in terms of confidence and authority, it

perhaps restores to him in terms of integrity and freedom. (Line )

What does this sentence mean?

Researching

Read one book review from the latest newspaper and try to understand the critic’s

purpose.

Part III Text C (For Your Information)

First wave of feminist criticism: Woolf and de Beauvoir1

Charles E. Bressler

In 1919, the British scholar and teacher Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) laid the

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foundation for present-day feminist criticism in her seminal work A Room of One’s

Own2. In this text, Woolf declares that men have and continue to treat women as

inferiors. It is the male, she asserts, who defines what it means to be female and who

controls the political, economic, social, and literary structures. Agreeing with Samuel

T. Coleridge3, one of the foremost nineteenth-century literary critic, that great minds

possess both male and female characteristics, she hypothesizes in her text the

existence of Shakespeare’s sister, one who is equally as gifted as a writer as

Shakespeare himself. Her gender, however, prevents her from having “a room of her

own”. Because she is a woman, she cannot obtain an education or find profitable

employment. Her innate artistic talents will therefore never flourish, for she cannot

afford her own room, Woolf’s symbol of the solitude and autonomy needed to seclude

one’s self from the world and its social constraints in order to find time to think and

write. Ultimately, Shakespeare’s sister dies alone without any acknowledgement for

her personal genius. Even her grave bears not her name, for she is buried in an

unmarked grave simply because she is female.

This kind of loss of artistic talent and personal worthiness, says Woolf, is the

direct result of society’s opinion of women: to wit, that they are intellectually inferior

to men. Women, Woolf argues, must reject this social construct and establish their

own identity. Women must challenge the prevailing, false cultural notions about their

gender identity and develop a female discourse that will accurately portray their

relationship “to the world of reality and not to the world of men.” If women accept

this challenge, Woolf believes that Shakespeare’s sister can be resurrected in and

through women living today, even those who may be “washing up the dishes and

putting the children to bed” right now. Regrettably, the Great Depression of the 1930s

and World War II in the 1940s focused humankind’s attention on other matters and

delayed the development of such feminist ideals.

With the 1949 publication of The Second Sex by the French writer Simone de

Beauvoir (1908 - 1986) 4, however, feminist interests were once again surfacing.

Heralded as the foundational work of twentieth-century feminism, Beauvoir’s text

declares that French society (and Western societies in general) are patriarchal,

controlled by males. Like Woolf before her, Beauvoir believed that the male in these

societies defines what it means to be human, including, therefore, what it means to be

female. Since the female is not male, Beauvoir asserted, she becomes the Other, an

object whose existence is defined and interpreted by the male, the dominant being in

society. Always subordinate to the male, the female finds herself a secondary or

nonexistent player in the major social institutions of her culture, such as the church,

government, and educational systems. Beauvoir asserts that a woman must break the

bonds of her patriarchal society and define herself if she wishes to become a

significant human being in her own right and defy male classification as the Other.

She must ask herself, “What is a woman?” Beauvoir insists that a woman’s answer

must not be “mankind”, for such a term once again allows men to define woman. This

generic label must be rejected, for it assumes that “humanity is male and man defines

woman not in herself as relative to him.” (576 words)

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New Words and Expressions

seminal / / a. highly original and influential 对以后发展有巨大影响的

to wit that is to say 即,就是

resurrect / / vt. to make sth. exist again 使复活

herald / / vt. to welcome or announce sb. or sth. with enthusiasm 欢迎;欢呼

patriarchal / / a. relating to or characteristic of a culture in which men are the most

powerful members 由男人统治或控制的

Notes

1. This text is taken from Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice

(2003) by Charles E. Bressler. Simone de Beauvoir (1908 - 1986) was a French

philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist.

2. A Room of One’s Own: an essay based on Woolf's lectures at a women's college at

Cambridge University in 1928. In this essay, Woolf raises the question of whether

or not a woman could produce art of the high quality of Shakespeare and

elaborates her viewpoints on "the question of women and fiction".

3. Samuel T. Coleridge (1772 – 1834): an English poet, literary critic and

philosopher.

4. The Second Sex (1949): one of the best-known works of Simone de Beauvoir. It is

a work on the treatment of women throughout history.

Exercise

Translate Paragraph 2 of Text C into Chinese.

Part IV Listening: Interview

You will hear an interview of three critics, who talk about why criticism matters.

Before that, read the following strategies about listening comprehension carefully.

Finding major points

To be an effective listener, you should learn to find the major

points made by the speaker. Here are some clues that might help you

pick out important ideas.

1. The speaker often pauses before starting an important point;

2. The speaker often uses repetition to emphasize a point;

3. The speaker may change the pitch, volume and rhythm of

his/her voice for emphasis;

4. The speaker often uses introductory phrases to precede an

important idea. For instance, “It is essential for you to

know …”, “Remember that ….”

5. Some speakers use facial gestures or body movement when

they are emphasizing a point.

Task 1 Pre-listening

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Before listening to the clip, think about the following question:

What are the functions of literary criticism?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Task 2 Post-listening

Listen to the interview twice, record the most important information by taking notes

and then answer the following questions.

1. What did the interviewer emphasize about the modern reading culture?

2. Why does Katie want to write serious text-based criticism?

3. According to Adam, why do we still want to read the works of the best critics

even though we disagree with them?

4. According to Sam, what is the difference between writing scholarly prose and

critical prose? Which one does he prefer?

Task 3 Post-listening

Roleplay the interview with your classmates.

Part V Speaking: Discussion/Seminar

How to take turns

In a discussion or seminar, an interruption at the wrong moment can be rude, and

it is not polite for two people to talk simultaneously. However, there are times when

interrupting may be acceptable. For example, you do not hear or understand

something the speaker has said or you want to add a quick comment. Then how can

you get your turn at speaking and also give others a chance to speak?

Here are some expressions you can use to interrupt politely and take your turn.

•

If I could just come in here.

•

May I …

•

Excuse me, but …

•

Could I please just finish my point?

•

As I was saying …

•

Sorry to interrupt, but ...

•

I'd just like to say that ...

•

What do you think about …?

Sometimes even making some “English” noise like “um ... um ... um ...” can

serve the purpose well.

Task

Have a group discussion about at least two schools of literary criticism. You are

expected to introduce their major assumptions, methodologies and representatives,

and make a comparison. Employ the above strategies in your discussion.

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Part VI Writing: Research paper project

Writing an introduction

A research paper typically consists of the following sections: title, author,

acknowledgements, abstract, introduction, research methods, results, discussion,

conclusion and references.

At this point we will focus on the introduction part, which aims to catch the

readers’ attention and get them prepared for the subject. It sets the stage for the paper

and puts your topic in perspective. In the introductory parts, you need to:

1. clearly identify your research topic, that is, what you are going to study or what

your study is going to accomplish;

2. establish the context of your research by summarizing the published literature

on this topic;

3. briefly explain your approach and rationale;

4. state the significance of your study.

Task

You are supposed to have chosen a topic for your research paper. Now you are

required to write an introduction with the help of the above writing strategies.

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

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Part VII Key Terms and Websites for Further Study

metatheory 超理论

schools of criticism 批评流派

Marxist criticism 马克思主义批评

reader-response criticism 读者反应批评

New Historicism 新历史主义

Cultural Poetics 文化诗学

Postcolonialism 后殖民主义

African American studies 非美研究

Gender studies 性别研究

feminist criticism 女权主义文学批评

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