Tristan, I wish so much you had been my high school English Lit teacher instead of the one who completely stifled any interest my shallow little adolescent mind might have had in literature in those days. So many years of reading time wasted to frippery and grocery store romance novels…. 😢😢 Now, in my 50s, I love reading classic literature and delving deeper and learning more. You are an inspiration and, as my husband jokingly grumbles, “an instigator into the danger of thinking.” 😂😂
I took a few New Testament courses in university from the same professor. The professor told me something that I have never forgotten and take with me to this day, and that is to truly understand the New Testament and the rest of the Bible, you have to read it from the point of view from the author writing it, the people he was writing for, and the time and place it was written. If you bring in your own modern baggage into the reading, you will never truly understand what the author was trying to say. I've taken this view into classical literature as well. It is so frustrating to so many literature professors injecting modern day identity politics into classical literature and how these Victorian writers we really writing about queer theory. Can you imagine one of these professors going back in time and meeting Emily Bronte and telling her the cane Heathcliff carries is a phallic symbol? She would probably spit on them.
It's called "death of the author". Look it up. Interpreting the work based on what you think the author meant is merely one model of interpretation (a messy one at that too). It is not the end all be all. The meaning of a text does not reside in what you suspect was in the author's head at the time of production. A text itself has no meaning whatsoever. The meaning of texts are generated immanently at the precise moment in which an interpreter engages with the text. The meaning is the outcome of that engagement. It's not something that just sits there waiting to be absorbed by a passive reader. A sort of information transfer. All interpretations are partial and no one has any legitimate claim to the correct one. No appeal to historical facts (which are also partial at best) or to mysteriously acquiring the author's intent is going to change that. Different theories exist to rigorously examine what a certain perspective may or may not generate. It is far more sophisticated than the typical historical approach which often assumes historical facts are scientific facts and that they map one on one with what the author intended. The height of hubris such approaches are.
@@PeebeesPet I knew anyone arguing against this would be quoting a French postmodernist like Roland Barthes, who also defended pedophilia. Sorry groomer, I prefer to hear what the author has to say instead of some ivory tower nonce professor that says we have to interpret the text through queer theory and critical race theory.
@@PeebeesPet Great point. When I was way younger I used to think that, positing my understanding of a text on what "the author" wanted or meant, was the way to approach literature and art in general. I've learned better since then. Foucault wrote the essay "The Death of the Author." I think I understood it decades after I read it, but I understand that my understanding is subjective.
The brain's entire job is to find patterns and make connections. Sometimes I feel like a lot of literary analysis is the university equivalent of seeing Jesus on a piece of toast.
This is so timely for me. I guide a Shakespeare reading group and our next play is Titus Andronicus. I have several women in the class who want to explore the theme of sexual abuse as raised in Titus through the lens of current politics. After watching this video, I feel better suited to help guide the group from wandering too far afield (just in case that happens). BTW: I would love for you to do a video on Titus. If you did, I would plan to stream it in our class.
This was great! I'm reminded of what Tolkien said about the difference between allegory and applicability. Allegory is when an author deliberately means for you to undersrand a specific equivalence: CS Lewis meant for us to understand that Aslan was Jesus. Applicability is when the reader can apply something to their own experience, even if the author didn't intend it. Tolkien specifically said he didn't intend the Ring to represent the atom bomb. But thinking about the danger of misusing power is still a valuable insight, as long as you don't think LotR is an allegory for WWII. I think you highlight what turns so many intelligent kids off about literature classes. I'm also reminded of Monty Python's satire of art critics: "People like me, who talk loudly in restaurants...Where is the ambiguity? The ambiguity is in the box."
I'm so glad I'm at the point in my life where I can enjoy these great works as they were meant to be enjoyed, as great reads which enrich my time and life. I read them on my own schedule or leisure without pressure, no worries about discussion points, or writing essays or term papers and forcing them to be something they're really not as seen through some theoretical or philosophical framework. But if that floats your boat go for it!
Very interesting indeed. You are completely right: sometimes our interpretation of books goes too far! This is of great help for us who aim to become better readers
Thank you for explaining this. I have often read literary theory that I thought sounded very strange, but then immediately thought there was something wrong with me for not seeing the same thing. I'd like to see some good examples of literary theory, if you wouldn't mind doing a video about that.
In small defense of all the literary lenses I experienced as an undergrad and graduate school, they have helped me in my career as an analyst, believe it or not! In my job I have to try to see through the lens of many different agencies.
Funny enough, Edward Said comes to my mind. Scholars have observed that his book "Orientalism" published in 1978 is a misrepresentation, even a distortion of the actual discipline of Oriental studies rooted in history, archaeology, and linguistics, among other things. They point to the short-sightedness of his geographic areas of discursive concerns, too confined to the Levant and not extending to actual, well-documented examples of cultural imperialism in countries like India. Or the fact that Said never bothered to point out, much less elaborate on the positive aspects of Orientalism in the academic literature. The word "Orientalist" in many respects has in fact become a crude term of dismissal, to de-legitimize alternative perspectives
Said got the simplest dates wrong, too. He was an ideologue and a fraud. I don't cut him any slack because he was not writing literature; he was not producing art. He pretended to be a historian and lied his way through academia, manufacturing the kind of history his envious, hateful brain desired.
Great video! I generally find this to be true with a lot of academic theory (literary, art, sociological, political, etc.). Some of it may offer some limited value as a lens in one's toolkit, but they can also really warp and distort (and limit) one's perspective.
This was super and so clearly put - it's a lens not a crystal ball. I have read a Freudian analysis of Hamlet and spent most of the time rolling my eyes 😂. Tolkien, talking about his dislike of allegory drew the distinction with applicability, saying one lies in the intention of the author and the other in the freedom of the reader..i think the reverse is also true. If a piece of literature is good enough, we will be able to find applicability whether from our own experiences or through a particular critical lens. But that doesn't mean that's what the author intended. I know there is a modern tendency to discount authorial intention which is not a balanced approach: the magic happens in the space where the author and the reader meet.
I really enjoyed this video. I remember some of of my University courses were centred on Psychoanlytical readings of films and texts. It was undoubtedly fascinating but you could also find something oedipal in literally everything. I think the way you explained it, that Literary Theory is only a lense, not the image itself, really explains why it's not a good idea to forget the story, the text and the historical context. Thank you for this video and I hope to join you on Patreon at some point (when my reading list allows it...)
I once asked an academic friend of mine -- a university english teacher -- about what was going on with all these crazy throries. Her take was that straightforward interpretations of classics had been done to death, so queer theory, Marxist, and feminist takes gained some traction in the quest for advanced degrees. When you have to have something new to say, it can get silly.😊
Yea it's the jumping the shark problem. In order to justify their position as a researcher on a topic that has already been squeezed dry a hundred times over they have to keep inventing ever increasingly bizarre interpretations. It's a conflict of interest between professional self preservation and earnest engagement with the material.
We do the same in film analysis at times, where we zero in on one component of the film, be it the mise en scene, the lighting, the set or the costume. Sometimes the dialog, supporting cast, film angles, etc. I love to analyze Hitchcock and other black and white film, no matter the genre of the film. Although Hitchcock, he loved that people studied his films. He even mentioned it regarding on ‘Strangers on a Train’, he said:”One can study it forever.” It also reminds me of some lit theory of Tolkien, from the trench warfare of WWI.
You really have explained it clearly. The theorists have sprung to light thanks your engaging, Honest video. You always delve into original facets and so awakening.
I was surprised when I watched BBC Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I had never been taught that Anne Bronte was talented like her two sisters were. But I saw that she was and and would be worth reading. The number of all the Bronte sisters' novels is small and they are all very good.
"...fondling of their great intellectual senses some people reduce great works of literature, whether it's for their own pride of being smarter than everybody else, ... but they reduce great works of literature to complete mundane meaningless, dull, tiresome, discanting on their own ideologies." What a line! Love it! Thanks Tristan. I believe this can also be said of so many simplistic interpretations of history and social movements these days leading to unadulterated ugliness.
In college the instructor discussed a serious academic paper on the Freudian sexual motivations of characters revealed in a 1930's Disney cartoon. The professor was ridiculing the paper and the class all had a good laugh.
Love this! I was an English major in college and loved reading great books and then deconstruction and feminism asserted themselves. Everything became a symbol of oppression or sex. The worst was children's literature. I cringe thinking about what those professors did to some of those fairy tales. Thankfully I did have some wonderful professors who were like you -- articulate lovers of the beautiful who had a passion for inspiring others to read, write, and reflect, and most of all to enjoy great books in their own right.
What is the literary theory methodology that analises books through the lens of the pursuit of the beautiful, the good and the sacred? To search in the books clues about how to live a better life, either by knowing the good or the bad in humanity. To learn about the eternal struggle between virtue and vice. Are there any viewpoint that considers those questions rather than gender, class, race, sexuality or psychological sexuality?
Excellent video. I still cringe when I remember teachers telling me ‘what this passage is really saying is …’ and goes off into some wild theory. I wonder if any of these people ever enjoyed a good read.
Sometimes I wish I could time travel historical figures here and talk to them. With Jane Austen, don't you wish you could send her anonymously to coffee shops, bookstores, university cafeterias, etc., and have her people watch? I'd also give her a book budget and have her watch BookTube. I wonder what she'd make of those experiences?
I agree with most of your points, but barely with any of the conclusions. First of all, I don't think authorial intent is the end all and be all of art. The author can very much add details that point to one thing while thinking nothing of it or lying about what they're doing in letters to the editor to get it passed censorship, etc. While I do think it's important to take into account, I don't think it's a sort of rulebook for determining the "correct" or "objective" big picture idea of the artwork. Secondly, this might be postmodernist of me (I get the impression you don't like that), but I don't think there really *is* an objective reading of a book. There's always going to be some difference in how you understand the word "bird" and how I do (eg., you might imagine a songbird while I picture a hawk), and when you expand that from one word to 80,000 or so, there's going to be some disagreement. Of course, if someone's picturing a butterfly instead, then we can say that they have much worse evidence for their claim, and I would say it's very likely wrong. Thirdly, about your comments on A Tenant of Wildfell Hall, I disagree with almost everything. No, I don't think this is an objectively feminist text (see point two), but I think it's wrong to disregard it entirely and say Anne Brontë's main concern was with the raising of boys. I think it's quite clear that she's contrasting Helen's sheltered life with Arthur's exposed one and trying to find a good middle ground. In chapter three, Helen is very clear about thinking boys and girls should, on the whole, be exposed to similar amounts of vices and given the same support to turn away from them. On top of that, the discussion of battered women and the dissolution of marriage is very much a feminist issue, as well as the troubles Helen go through trying to support herself post-flight. Fourthly, I think there's something to say about how often theorists use a lens as a tool simply to discuss a subject as a whole, not to definitively declare that the work in question is feminist or post-structuralist or whatever. I know I have had some moments when I read the foreword of a book, kept their reading in the back of my mind while reading it, and realised that I think it's a (among many) correct lens, but the wrong conclusion. Overall I guess I agree with you that some readings say more about the analyst than the art itself, but I also think you yourself are applying some lenses without really noticing. That's fine, because people can get different things out of the same book. I suppose I just thought this video would be about some of the more out-there readings, more in line with the Freudian readings of Hamlet. I will share one I came across a while ago. It was in the preface of a translated Frankenstein I came across in a local library, after having alreadly read several other versions. This analyst argued that the moral of the story was that fathers are useless and terrible because both Victor and Alphonse failed their offspring. Additionally, they argued that Mary Shelley's intention was to warn the patriarchy of how the world will end if anyone tries to shut women out of reproduction. Finally, they drew the conclusion that the best childhood is one with one or two mothers and no father, and that gay couples and single dads shouldn't be allowed. I think the analyst in question was a man, too, so it was all very confusing. Actually, I will post this now (halfway through the video) because I dont want to accidentally delete it. I might write more when I've watched the rest.
Ok, I hav finished the video, and I have to say that your closing remarks resonated better with me. I also abhor the hoity-toityism of literature, and I want to invite more people to share in it. I just think that this concept of yours of "just sitting there and letting the author tell you" doesn't really lend itself to that. I think we are all just naturally going to absorb slightly different things from a book, even if we approach it withour any preconceptions, based on who we are as people and what we're currently going through. Additionally, I think that teory has the possiblilty (even though it's rarely actually put in use) to bridging those gaps. You (general you) can use a marxist lens to understand your friend who was invested in the class relationships in P&P even when you yourself didn't pick up on that at all. Exploring several different lenses should be a more structured way for people of many walks of life to explore why something resonated with them and to share that with others who might not understand. It's not that I think a marxist analysis of Jane Austen (to use your example) would be very useful to understand Austen herself, it's that I think it's a curious way to explore the relationships between the characters. I very much agree that Jane Austen was not thinking of Marx, but she's very clearly thinking of money and class, and there's several threads to explore there. Although I must agree that there's many other lenses I'd choose before that one for most works, and especially such old ones. We can at least agree that there is some use to theory. Honestly, some of our disagreements might be that you have seen more bad takes within academia, and I have seen more outside of it? I do also think I should aknowledge that you did touch on my fourth point from the first comment when you spoke of feminist analysis of Treasure Island, so I've got to give you that, too. That's another thing we somewhat agree on.
@TheNutmegStitcher Oh, I'm sorry I used too many words to engage with the points in a 33-minute video. Nobody could be expected to read on a channel about books, could they?
The video itself has some serious errors but also some good points. However the commentators are unbelievably ridiculous. Using whatever negative that was said as a weapon to decry their hatred of theorists and of English majors and finally to push right wing ideological views on the mythical sjws. Their comments are reactionary at best and outright malicious at worst.
It's quite absurd the effort you put into this engagement all in order to be ignored by the poster whilst he merrily responds to superficial repetitive comments instead. Doesn't seem like he likes being challenged even after being complimented.
In my postgraduate years, during the 90s, I used to keep running into students who had read a great deal of literary theory concerning Shakespeare, but almost no actual works written by Shakespeare. This appeared to have been a trend then. They were more interested in Shakespeare as a product of Logocentrism or coloniality or something like that than his actual work.
I remember reading an intro to "Wuthering Heights" where the writer described the symbolism of fires in the novel relating to sexual desire and it made me laugh!
Fire and sex/passion/desire have a long history in literature, and the English language. Burning with desire, flames of passion, love burns long or burns quick and then burns out, at first there are sparks, rekindling is needed sometimes, sometimes there’s fire in their eyes, or in the loins. There are tons of references to fire, in all its states, for sex and love. I have not read the intro, and I do not doubt your conclusion ( mine would be similar, I think) but it’s not unheard of for authors to use fire for symbolism or as an analogy for sexual desire.
In the Wordsworth edition, the intro talks about Heathcliff's cane being a phallic symbol and all the doors and windows he breaks through as being vaginas. I really wish there was a time machine so I could send these people back in time to Emily Bronte, and they can tell her about their interpretations, and then watch Emily spit on them.
The purpose of applying any literary theory is to provide a framework that helps identify a unifying thread of thought throughout a novel. Engaging with these theories does not require adhering to a specific ideology, such as feminism or Marxism. As you become a more seasoned reader of works like The Brothers Karamazov, you'll realize that there is no central thread. Instead, you'll learn to appreciate these complex texts one page at a time, gradually uncovering their richness and depth.
You should take a look at author Gene Wolfe. The amount of interpretation and reinterpretation of his works in the science fiction community is truly astonishing. The one that is currently up is a discussion of Wolfe’s “Book of the New Sun” series. I suspect Wolfe wrote a book making fun of the literary theorists, who would impose their own interpretations, by writing about an “unreliable narrator”. As a side note Roger Zelazny’s “9 Princes in Amber” has the greatest metaphor of the “filter” of the mind since Kant’s transcendental idealism. The subject of 9 Princes was parallel worlds.
Sir, I believe you should also make videos about the tonality of voice or musicality of the language. That will help people who are on the path of acquiring the language skills. Because music of the language should gravitate the interested learners.
Am I a fool? But when I read I just read. I never think of Darwin or Marx. I enjoy the plot and the characters. Your videos are amazing and I enjoy them for what they o9ffer. Thank you.
Thank you for your wonderful vlogs. I enjoyed this exploration and critique of literary theory. My academic background is in the domain of science ( in Aus), so may i ask whether UK Universities teach such an open and cautious approach to the application of different lenses, or is one 'doomed' to having to produce Marxist or Feminist or Postconstructionist interpretations of everything, simply because one attended a particular Uni or College within a University? What does this mean then, for the validity of academic literary theory discourse? Is it all 'a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury ( and closeminded bias), signifying nothing'? ( humble apologies to Mr W Shakespeare)
Very good, Tristan. Also, this concept of placing an interpretation upon a text, whether it be intellectual or from personal bias, can be seen in the viewpoints presented by many, many BookTubers. Thank goodness, not you. BookTubers clutch onto the idea of being able to influence others through their videos, hence the term "social influencer". However, like the literary theorists who overstep the mark, anyone who attempts to influence readers through their channel is guilty of this same indiscretion. Some people are more controlled by their ego than their common sense. So while literary theorists can erroneously overlay an interpretation of a text by allowing their personal ego to color their ideas, so can this be seen with many BookTube providers. I long for the days when Adam of mementomori spoke of books he had read in inelegant language, filled with personal opinion and clothed in honesty rather than with a desire to exert power through influence. BookTube died for me the day one still current BookTuber stated that all white male writers in the United States should be placed on an iceberg and pushed out to sea.
Quite clear and useful video. Lit-crit major here, so I will limit myself to just this: all literary theory is personal, that is, all literary theory represents the personal tastes of the critic; just like literature is personal, so is lit-crit. Now, we must be very careful because this always gets muddled, so I will present it immediately and bluntly: The intention of the author doesn't matter; the point that the author wanted to make doesn't matter. In fact, the critic's opinion doesn't matter. All that matters is MY opinion, MY reading of the text, what I get out of it. So, you are wrong when you state so adamantly that looking at Hamlet from a Freudian perspective is to miss the point of the play because that was not Shakespeare's intention. Pardon me, but who cares about Shakespeare's intention? Even if he wrote it down in a letter to a friend, it's irrelevant. Once artists give their works of art to the world, they belong to the world. Writers telling me "You should interpret my novel under my prism" are wasting their time. I will interpret their work the way or ways I want to interpret it, not according to some authorial bias, but according to MY biases. Remember, lit-crit is as personal as literature itself. And this is valid for all of art, not just literature. Once we understand this point, we can see that lit-crit can be liberating, sobering, educational, unthreatening, and even entertaining, as long as we use what we want from it. Freudian POVs are useful sometimes for me. They mean nothing to others. Big shrug. A Darwinian perspective on Great Expectations is intriguing and quite an eye-opener... for me and I believe for you, too. Others will disagree. Nobody will be missing any points. My main problem with Lit-crit professors at UCI, many years ago, was that they had pet theories and authors they favored and hated theories and authors they loved to trash, a sort of professorial attitude of the French students of 1968: "With Sartre even if he's wrong, but not with Aron even if he's right." I had to read plenty of Marxist theory because my profs loved them, but most of them disliked Jurgen Habermas, whom I like. Everyone detested Ayn Rand, which was a positive. And ALL of it was subjective, including my opinions. All of it is personal. Some of it can be ridiculously banal (for me). Some can be atrociously idiotic. I will end with this, which I have written elsewhere: Susan McClary wrote in 1987 that Beethoven's 9th Symphony, 1st Movement, represented "the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release," I kid you not. Criticism is, at the end of the day, opinion, and we all know what that great American philosopher, Harry Callahan, said about opinions. We take from those opinions what we like or find useful, and move on. But I insist on this point: there is no "missing the point" with Hamlet or any other work of art, and the author's intentions are as valid as my opinion, or yours, or the neighbor's.
@@sid1gen I completely agree with your post. I 100% agree that the author's opinions on their art is the most important thing and their intentions are the thing we need to decode the text. Great post!
@@mikesmithz Hello. I thought you had misunderstood what I wrote but, based on some other opinions you have written on this general thread, you're just playing games. Whatever floats your boat, mike.
@sid1gen I'm not playing games, I'm just interpreting your post the way I want to interpret it. Who cares about what you think? All that matters is my opinion of your post; your opinion of what you wrote is irrelevant. It was clear to me that you were being ironic with your post, that you were poking fun at post modernism, so I agreed completely with you. You are a genius,
Is the meaning and interpretation of a work independent of the author’s intention? From this video, I would assume your position is that it is not. Personally, I could argue either side. It’s an interesting topic.
Read Death in the Afternoon, but 1st, The Sun Also Rises re Lady Brett & the young bullfighter. Hemingway has no heroes. People endure with some changes if they are not stuck in their selfness.
Literary theories are interesting but more often than not, too many people try to force a text that was written years/decades/centuries ago, into the very specific and narrow constraints of more modern lenses. It can be interesting to look at something from Victorian times via a feminist lens, but very little can truly to garnered when it comes to the perspective of the writer, because said theories simply hadn't been so much as postulated back when the author put pen to paper. The same goes for Maxist theory. Of course the issue of rich people versus the poor is as old as time itself, but the strictures of actual Marxist thought may well have been codified in Victorian times (lending the framework some greater credence than feminist theory for instance) but the school of thought as we recognise it in schools and universities today, are a later development, constructed out of Marxist thought (don't even get me started on how the Marxist dialect is basically just a repackaging of Hegelian dialect) and as such not really a truly authentic way of sifting through the original text. I think you've covered this well by discussing the 'imposition' of a certain person's ideological bent upon a classic text. But unfortunately, universities will reward students for trying to pull together the strands of literary theory, in an attempt to seem clever, insightful and delightfully woke. To give a wry nod to a "quote" that has been famously misattributed to Freud "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Inasmuch as anything written in years gone by is often exactly what it is appears to be. We try to get too clever at times when we're looking for the secret-sauce that we hope to be able to detect in what we believe to be the literary "mise en place" present in a classic author's writing. Literary theories are fun and should really only be applied by those who know them well enough to know when they ought to be treated at amusing, mildly entertaining, ways in which we can stand back and appreciate the actual meaning of a text (as per the author) whilst also noting the potential for parallels that we are only now aware of because of our own place in time and the knowledge we are blessed enough to be party to, because of our ability to access not only classic literature but the various textual analyses that exist entirely in our modern minds. I would be wary of trying to encourage a textual analysis via literary theory, in anyone who isn't already a well-read, intelligent and capable reader, who knows when to see that the text itself may well lend itself to an amusing parlour game of "what if's", whilst also understanding that each book is a product of it's time and place both in geography and artistic endeavour. To impress our predisposition toward the literary theory of our choice, upon everything that has ever been laid down in writing since the Egyptians impressed hieroglyphics into the resting places of their beloved dead, is shallow, reductive and incredibly revealing when it comes to showing exactly what is motivating certain readers in their journey to the central conceit of a text. That we allow young people who haven't even read a lot of these books outside of an academic environment, is not just a crying shame, but a terrifying look into how classic literature will be viewed for years to come. Miss me with that reductionist sheet! Bex
This is one of the most humane and reasonable discussions of the pitfalls of another point of view that I have seen online. Good job!
Tristan, I wish so much you had been my high school English Lit teacher instead of the one who completely stifled any interest my shallow little adolescent mind might have had in literature in those days. So many years of reading time wasted to frippery and grocery store romance novels…. 😢😢 Now, in my 50s, I love reading classic literature and delving deeper and learning more. You are an inspiration and, as my husband jokingly grumbles, “an instigator into the danger of thinking.” 😂😂
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
But who is qualified to say with certainty what side of the -sometimes- the cigar is on?
Quite right.
😂😂😂
"The curtains were f-ing blue."
I took a few New Testament courses in university from the same professor. The professor told me something that I have never forgotten and take with me to this day, and that is to truly understand the New Testament and the rest of the Bible, you have to read it from the point of view from the author writing it, the people he was writing for, and the time and place it was written. If you bring in your own modern baggage into the reading, you will never truly understand what the author was trying to say. I've taken this view into classical literature as well. It is so frustrating to so many literature professors injecting modern day identity politics into classical literature and how these Victorian writers we really writing about queer theory. Can you imagine one of these professors going back in time and meeting Emily Bronte and telling her the cane Heathcliff carries is a phallic symbol? She would probably spit on them.
Exactamundo.
It's called "death of the author". Look it up.
Interpreting the work based on what you think the author meant is merely one model of interpretation (a messy one at that too). It is not the end all be all.
The meaning of a text does not reside in what you suspect was in the author's head at the time of production.
A text itself has no meaning whatsoever. The meaning of texts are generated immanently at the precise moment in which an interpreter engages with the text. The meaning is the outcome of that engagement. It's not something that just sits there waiting to be absorbed by a passive reader. A sort of information transfer.
All interpretations are partial and no one has any legitimate claim to the correct one. No appeal to historical facts (which are also partial at best) or to mysteriously acquiring the author's intent is going to change that.
Different theories exist to rigorously examine what a certain perspective may or may not generate. It is far more sophisticated than the typical historical approach which often assumes historical facts are scientific facts and that they map one on one with what the author intended. The height of hubris such approaches are.
@@PeebeesPet I knew anyone arguing against this would be quoting a French postmodernist like Roland Barthes, who also defended pedophilia. Sorry groomer, I prefer to hear what the author has to say instead of some ivory tower nonce professor that says we have to interpret the text through queer theory and critical race theory.
@HakuYuki001 that sounds like a load of post-modern bollocks to me.
@@PeebeesPet Great point. When I was way younger I used to think that, positing my understanding of a text on what "the author" wanted or meant, was the way to approach literature and art in general. I've learned better since then. Foucault wrote the essay "The Death of the Author." I think I understood it decades after I read it, but I understand that my understanding is subjective.
The brain's entire job is to find patterns and make connections. Sometimes I feel like a lot of literary analysis is the university equivalent of seeing Jesus on a piece of toast.
This is so timely for me. I guide a Shakespeare reading group and our next play is Titus Andronicus. I have several women in the class who want to explore the theme of sexual abuse as raised in Titus through the lens of current politics. After watching this video, I feel better suited to help guide the group from wandering too far afield (just in case that happens). BTW: I would love for you to do a video on Titus. If you did, I would plan to stream it in our class.
This was great! I'm reminded of what Tolkien said about the difference between allegory and applicability.
Allegory is when an author deliberately means for you to undersrand a specific equivalence: CS Lewis meant for us to understand that Aslan was Jesus.
Applicability is when the reader can apply something to their own experience, even if the author didn't intend it. Tolkien specifically said he didn't intend the Ring to represent the atom bomb. But thinking about the danger of misusing power is still a valuable insight, as long as you don't think LotR is an allegory for WWII.
I think you highlight what turns so many intelligent kids off about literature classes. I'm also reminded of Monty Python's satire of art critics: "People like me, who talk loudly in restaurants...Where is the ambiguity? The ambiguity is in the box."
I'm so glad I'm at the point in my life where I can enjoy these great works as they were meant to be enjoyed, as great reads which enrich my time and life. I read them on my own schedule or leisure without pressure, no worries about discussion points, or writing essays or term papers and forcing them to be something they're really not as seen through some theoretical or philosophical framework. But if that floats your boat go for it!
Very interesting indeed. You are completely right: sometimes our interpretation of books goes too far! This is of great help for us who aim to become better readers
Glad you enjoyed it! It's true of all of us to take a novel Idea too far.
A few cases of shaping the facts to fit the theory, instead shaping the theory to fit the facts.
Beautifully put.
Thank you for explaining this. I have often read literary theory that I thought sounded very strange, but then immediately thought there was something wrong with me for not seeing the same thing. I'd like to see some good examples of literary theory, if you wouldn't mind doing a video about that.
`When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.' Eric Cantona, Footballer, Actor, Philosopher.
An epic intellectual and premier league moment!
Oh, I remember when the papers were full of discussion about what this meant for a couple of weeks.
In small defense of all the literary lenses I experienced as an undergrad and graduate school, they have helped me in my career as an analyst, believe it or not! In my job I have to try to see through the lens of many different agencies.
This makes so much sense to me! I know someone who studied literature and is now an analyst, and can see how he’s able to apply exactly this skill.
Funny enough, Edward Said comes to my mind. Scholars have observed that his book "Orientalism" published in 1978 is a misrepresentation, even a distortion of the actual discipline of Oriental studies rooted in history, archaeology, and linguistics, among other things. They point to the short-sightedness of his geographic areas of discursive concerns, too confined to the Levant and not extending to actual, well-documented examples of cultural imperialism in countries like India. Or the fact that Said never bothered to point out, much less elaborate on the positive aspects of Orientalism in the academic literature. The word "Orientalist" in many respects has in fact become a crude term of dismissal, to de-legitimize alternative perspectives
Said got the simplest dates wrong, too. He was an ideologue and a fraud. I don't cut him any slack because he was not writing literature; he was not producing art. He pretended to be a historian and lied his way through academia, manufacturing the kind of history his envious, hateful brain desired.
Great video! I generally find this to be true with a lot of academic theory (literary, art, sociological, political, etc.). Some of it may offer some limited value as a lens in one's toolkit, but they can also really warp and distort (and limit) one's perspective.
This was super and so clearly put - it's a lens not a crystal ball. I have read a Freudian analysis of Hamlet and spent most of the time rolling my eyes 😂. Tolkien, talking about his dislike of allegory drew the distinction with applicability, saying one lies in the intention of the author and the other in the freedom of the reader..i think the reverse is also true. If a piece of literature is good enough, we will be able to find applicability whether from our own experiences or through a particular critical lens. But that doesn't mean that's what the author intended. I know there is a modern tendency to discount authorial intention which is not a balanced approach: the magic happens in the space where the author and the reader meet.
"... but not in Treasure Island." Tristan, you're so funny!
🤭🤭🤭
I really enjoyed this video. I remember some of of my University courses were centred on Psychoanlytical readings of films and texts. It was undoubtedly fascinating but you could also find something oedipal in literally everything. I think the way you explained it, that Literary Theory is only a lense, not the image itself, really explains why it's not a good idea to forget the story, the text and the historical context.
Thank you for this video and I hope to join you on Patreon at some point (when my reading list allows it...)
Yes, a good writer can write a character that has nothing to do with themselves , some people seem to not know that any longer.😂
I once asked an academic friend of mine -- a university english teacher -- about what was going on with all these crazy throries. Her take was that straightforward interpretations of classics had been done to death, so queer theory, Marxist, and feminist takes gained some traction in the quest for advanced degrees. When you have to have something new to say, it can get silly.😊
Yea it's the jumping the shark problem. In order to justify their position as a researcher on a topic that has already been squeezed dry a hundred times over they have to keep inventing ever increasingly bizarre interpretations. It's a conflict of interest between professional self preservation and earnest engagement with the material.
We do the same in film analysis at times, where we zero in on one component of the film, be it the mise en scene, the lighting, the set or the costume. Sometimes the dialog, supporting cast, film angles, etc. I love to analyze Hitchcock and other black and white film, no matter the genre of the film. Although Hitchcock, he loved that people studied his films. He even mentioned it regarding on ‘Strangers on a Train’, he said:”One can study it forever.” It also reminds me of some lit theory of Tolkien, from the trench warfare of WWI.
You really have explained it clearly. The theorists have sprung to light thanks your engaging, Honest video. You always delve into original facets and so awakening.
Really enjoy your videos. Have you read Wimsatt and Beardsley’s ‘The Intentional Fallacy’?
I was surprised when I watched BBC Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I had never been taught that Anne Bronte was talented like her two sisters were. But I saw that she was and and would be worth reading. The number of all the Bronte sisters' novels is small and they are all very good.
The brontes really are good.
"...fondling of their great intellectual senses some people reduce great works of literature, whether it's for their own pride of being smarter than everybody else, ... but they reduce great works of literature to complete mundane meaningless, dull, tiresome, discanting on their own ideologies." What a line! Love it! Thanks Tristan. I believe this can also be said of so many simplistic interpretations of history and social movements these days leading to unadulterated ugliness.
I love this video! I love deep thoughts and discussions, but most of the time I read for enjoyment.
I try to pit myself in the writer's time when I read classics. And I find it the only way to grasp the themes in them..
In college the instructor discussed a serious academic paper on the Freudian sexual motivations of characters revealed in a 1930's Disney cartoon. The professor was ridiculing the paper and the class all had a good laugh.
It's funny how academics can be brilliant or totally without self awareness!😂
Love this! I was an English major in college and loved reading great books and then deconstruction and feminism asserted themselves. Everything became a symbol of oppression or sex. The worst was children's literature. I cringe thinking about what those professors did to some of those fairy tales.
Thankfully I did have some wonderful professors who were like you -- articulate lovers of the beautiful who had a passion for inspiring others to read, write, and reflect, and most of all to enjoy great books in their own right.
As Freud said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." 😂
So refreshing to see/ hear some sanity for a change!
What is the literary theory methodology that analises books through the lens of the pursuit of the beautiful, the good and the sacred? To search in the books clues about how to live a better life, either by knowing the good or the bad in humanity. To learn about the eternal struggle between virtue and vice. Are there any viewpoint that considers those questions rather than gender, class, race, sexuality or psychological sexuality?
Beautifully explained. Top work!
The academic industry of PhDs etc thrives on people spending years analysing minutiae (angels on pinheads) to get plaudits from each other.
As someone trying to do a part time PhD (in philosophy of all thing) I can vouch for this 😂
Theory in the end has a tendency to be reductionist. Some critics even have the gumption to think that what they do is creative, not interpretation...
Excellent video. I still cringe when I remember teachers telling me ‘what this passage is really saying is …’ and goes off into some wild theory.
I wonder if any of these people ever enjoyed a good read.
That would be a fun guessing game--guessing a book based on a made up or not made up off-the-wall literary theory about it.
Sometimes I wish I could time travel historical figures here and talk to them. With Jane Austen, don't you wish you could send her anonymously to coffee shops, bookstores, university cafeterias, etc., and have her people watch? I'd also give her a book budget and have her watch BookTube. I wonder what she'd make of those experiences?
Tristan, I love the new look🙌
Fantastic! Great common sense, thank you!
I agree with most of your points, but barely with any of the conclusions.
First of all, I don't think authorial intent is the end all and be all of art. The author can very much add details that point to one thing while thinking nothing of it or lying about what they're doing in letters to the editor to get it passed censorship, etc. While I do think it's important to take into account, I don't think it's a sort of rulebook for determining the "correct" or "objective" big picture idea of the artwork.
Secondly, this might be postmodernist of me (I get the impression you don't like that), but I don't think there really *is* an objective reading of a book. There's always going to be some difference in how you understand the word "bird" and how I do (eg., you might imagine a songbird while I picture a hawk), and when you expand that from one word to 80,000 or so, there's going to be some disagreement. Of course, if someone's picturing a butterfly instead, then we can say that they have much worse evidence for their claim, and I would say it's very likely wrong.
Thirdly, about your comments on A Tenant of Wildfell Hall, I disagree with almost everything. No, I don't think this is an objectively feminist text (see point two), but I think it's wrong to disregard it entirely and say Anne Brontë's main concern was with the raising of boys. I think it's quite clear that she's contrasting Helen's sheltered life with Arthur's exposed one and trying to find a good middle ground. In chapter three, Helen is very clear about thinking boys and girls should, on the whole, be exposed to similar amounts of vices and given the same support to turn away from them. On top of that, the discussion of battered women and the dissolution of marriage is very much a feminist issue, as well as the troubles Helen go through trying to support herself post-flight.
Fourthly, I think there's something to say about how often theorists use a lens as a tool simply to discuss a subject as a whole, not to definitively declare that the work in question is feminist or post-structuralist or whatever. I know I have had some moments when I read the foreword of a book, kept their reading in the back of my mind while reading it, and realised that I think it's a (among many) correct lens, but the wrong conclusion.
Overall I guess I agree with you that some readings say more about the analyst than the art itself, but I also think you yourself are applying some lenses without really noticing. That's fine, because people can get different things out of the same book.
I suppose I just thought this video would be about some of the more out-there readings, more in line with the Freudian readings of Hamlet.
I will share one I came across a while ago. It was in the preface of a translated Frankenstein I came across in a local library, after having alreadly read several other versions. This analyst argued that the moral of the story was that fathers are useless and terrible because both Victor and Alphonse failed their offspring. Additionally, they argued that Mary Shelley's intention was to warn the patriarchy of how the world will end if anyone tries to shut women out of reproduction. Finally, they drew the conclusion that the best childhood is one with one or two mothers and no father, and that gay couples and single dads shouldn't be allowed. I think the analyst in question was a man, too, so it was all very confusing.
Actually, I will post this now (halfway through the video) because I dont want to accidentally delete it. I might write more when I've watched the rest.
Ok, I hav finished the video, and I have to say that your closing remarks resonated better with me. I also abhor the hoity-toityism of literature, and I want to invite more people to share in it. I just think that this concept of yours of "just sitting there and letting the author tell you" doesn't really lend itself to that. I think we are all just naturally going to absorb slightly different things from a book, even if we approach it withour any preconceptions, based on who we are as people and what we're currently going through. Additionally, I think that teory has the possiblilty (even though it's rarely actually put in use) to bridging those gaps.
You (general you) can use a marxist lens to understand your friend who was invested in the class relationships in P&P even when you yourself didn't pick up on that at all. Exploring several different lenses should be a more structured way for people of many walks of life to explore why something resonated with them and to share that with others who might not understand. It's not that I think a marxist analysis of Jane Austen (to use your example) would be very useful to understand Austen herself, it's that I think it's a curious way to explore the relationships between the characters. I very much agree that Jane Austen was not thinking of Marx, but she's very clearly thinking of money and class, and there's several threads to explore there. Although I must agree that there's many other lenses I'd choose before that one for most works, and especially such old ones.
We can at least agree that there is some use to theory. Honestly, some of our disagreements might be that you have seen more bad takes within academia, and I have seen more outside of it? I do also think I should aknowledge that you did touch on my fourth point from the first comment when you spoke of feminist analysis of Treasure Island, so I've got to give you that, too. That's another thing we somewhat agree on.
And so on and so forth and...
@TheNutmegStitcher Oh, I'm sorry I used too many words to engage with the points in a 33-minute video. Nobody could be expected to read on a channel about books, could they?
The video itself has some serious errors but also some good points.
However the commentators are unbelievably ridiculous.
Using whatever negative that was said as a weapon to decry their hatred of theorists and of English majors and finally to push right wing ideological views on the mythical sjws.
Their comments are reactionary at best and outright malicious at worst.
It's quite absurd the effort you put into this engagement all in order to be ignored by the poster whilst he merrily responds to superficial repetitive comments instead. Doesn't seem like he likes being challenged even after being complimented.
In my postgraduate years, during the 90s, I used to keep running into students who had read a great deal of literary theory concerning Shakespeare, but almost no actual works written by Shakespeare. This appeared to have been a trend then. They were more interested in Shakespeare as a product of Logocentrism or coloniality or something like that than his actual work.
I remember reading an intro to "Wuthering Heights" where the writer described the symbolism of fires in the novel relating to sexual desire and it made me laugh!
Fire and sex/passion/desire have a long history in literature, and the English language. Burning with desire, flames of passion, love burns long or burns quick and then burns out, at first there are sparks, rekindling is needed sometimes, sometimes there’s fire in their eyes, or in the loins. There are tons of references to fire, in all its states, for sex and love. I have not read the intro, and I do not doubt your conclusion ( mine would be similar, I think) but it’s not unheard of for authors to use fire for symbolism or as an analogy for sexual desire.
In the Wordsworth edition, the intro talks about Heathcliff's cane being a phallic symbol and all the doors and windows he breaks through as being vaginas. I really wish there was a time machine so I could send these people back in time to Emily Bronte, and they can tell her about their interpretations, and then watch Emily spit on them.
The purpose of applying any literary theory is to provide a framework that helps identify a unifying thread of thought throughout a novel. Engaging with these theories does not require adhering to a specific ideology, such as feminism or Marxism.
As you become a more seasoned reader of works like The Brothers Karamazov, you'll realize that there is no central thread. Instead, you'll learn to appreciate these complex texts one page at a time, gradually uncovering their richness and depth.
excellent points made in this vid!!!
You should take a look at author Gene Wolfe. The amount of interpretation and reinterpretation of his works in the science fiction community is truly astonishing. The one that is currently up is a discussion of Wolfe’s “Book of the New Sun” series.
I suspect Wolfe wrote a book making fun of the literary theorists, who would impose their own interpretations, by writing about an “unreliable narrator”.
As a side note Roger Zelazny’s “9 Princes in Amber” has the greatest metaphor of the “filter” of the mind since Kant’s transcendental idealism. The subject of 9 Princes was parallel worlds.
Fascinating discussion.
Sir,
I believe you should also make videos about the tonality of voice or musicality of the language.
That will help people who are on the path of acquiring the language skills.
Because music of the language should gravitate the interested learners.
Am I a fool? But when I read I just read. I never think of Darwin or Marx. I enjoy the plot and the characters. Your videos are amazing and I enjoy them for what they o9ffer. Thank you.
Thank you for your wonderful vlogs. I enjoyed this exploration and critique of literary theory. My academic background is in the domain of science ( in Aus), so may i ask whether UK Universities teach such an open and cautious approach to the application of different lenses, or is one 'doomed' to having to produce Marxist or Feminist or Postconstructionist interpretations of everything, simply because one attended a particular Uni or College within a University? What does this mean then, for the validity of academic literary theory discourse? Is it all 'a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury ( and closeminded bias), signifying nothing'? ( humble apologies to Mr W Shakespeare)
Very good, Tristan. Also, this concept of placing an interpretation upon a text, whether it be intellectual or from personal bias, can be seen in the viewpoints presented by many, many BookTubers. Thank goodness, not you. BookTubers clutch onto the idea of being able to influence others through their videos, hence the term "social influencer". However, like the literary theorists who overstep the mark, anyone who attempts to influence readers through their channel is guilty of this same indiscretion. Some people are more controlled by their ego than their common sense. So while literary theorists can erroneously overlay an interpretation of a text by allowing their personal ego to color their ideas, so can this be seen with many BookTube providers. I long for the days when Adam of mementomori spoke of books he had read in inelegant language, filled with personal opinion and clothed in honesty rather than with a desire to exert power through influence. BookTube died for me the day one still current BookTuber stated that all white male writers in the United States should be placed on an iceberg and pushed out to sea.
Thanks....brilliant.
When Beckett was asked if Godot was God, he replied ''I prefer to let the text speak for itself.'' So take from that what you will.
Great video Tristan
Quite clear and useful video. Lit-crit major here, so I will limit myself to just this: all literary theory is personal, that is, all literary theory represents the personal tastes of the critic; just like literature is personal, so is lit-crit. Now, we must be very careful because this always gets muddled, so I will present it immediately and bluntly: The intention of the author doesn't matter; the point that the author wanted to make doesn't matter. In fact, the critic's opinion doesn't matter. All that matters is MY opinion, MY reading of the text, what I get out of it. So, you are wrong when you state so adamantly that looking at Hamlet from a Freudian perspective is to miss the point of the play because that was not Shakespeare's intention. Pardon me, but who cares about Shakespeare's intention? Even if he wrote it down in a letter to a friend, it's irrelevant. Once artists give their works of art to the world, they belong to the world. Writers telling me "You should interpret my novel under my prism" are wasting their time. I will interpret their work the way or ways I want to interpret it, not according to some authorial bias, but according to MY biases. Remember, lit-crit is as personal as literature itself. And this is valid for all of art, not just literature. Once we understand this point, we can see that lit-crit can be liberating, sobering, educational, unthreatening, and even entertaining, as long as we use what we want from it. Freudian POVs are useful sometimes for me. They mean nothing to others. Big shrug. A Darwinian perspective on Great Expectations is intriguing and quite an eye-opener... for me and I believe for you, too. Others will disagree. Nobody will be missing any points. My main problem with Lit-crit professors at UCI, many years ago, was that they had pet theories and authors they favored and hated theories and authors they loved to trash, a sort of professorial attitude of the French students of 1968: "With Sartre even if he's wrong, but not with Aron even if he's right." I had to read plenty of Marxist theory because my profs loved them, but most of them disliked Jurgen Habermas, whom I like. Everyone detested Ayn Rand, which was a positive. And ALL of it was subjective, including my opinions. All of it is personal. Some of it can be ridiculously banal (for me). Some can be atrociously idiotic. I will end with this, which I have written elsewhere: Susan McClary wrote in 1987 that Beethoven's 9th Symphony, 1st Movement, represented "the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release," I kid you not. Criticism is, at the end of the day, opinion, and we all know what that great American philosopher, Harry Callahan, said about opinions. We take from those opinions what we like or find useful, and move on. But I insist on this point: there is no "missing the point" with Hamlet or any other work of art, and the author's intentions are as valid as my opinion, or yours, or the neighbor's.
@@sid1gen I completely agree with your post. I 100% agree that the author's opinions on their art is the most important thing and their intentions are the thing we need to decode the text. Great post!
@@mikesmithzDo you feel proud of yourself for being a bold face liar?
@@PeebeesPet "bold face liar"? Care to elaborate?
@@mikesmithz Hello. I thought you had misunderstood what I wrote but, based on some other opinions you have written on this general thread, you're just playing games. Whatever floats your boat, mike.
@sid1gen I'm not playing games, I'm just interpreting your post the way I want to interpret it. Who cares about what you think? All that matters is my opinion of your post; your opinion of what you wrote is irrelevant. It was clear to me that you were being ironic with your post, that you were poking fun at post modernism, so I agreed completely with you. You are a genius,
Is the meaning and interpretation of a work independent of the author’s intention? From this video, I would assume your position is that it is not. Personally, I could argue either side. It’s an interesting topic.
Excellent!
Would Hemingway present Joe Dimaggio as an authentic American hero or, as an example of American media icons misleading other cultures?
Read Death in the Afternoon, but 1st, The Sun Also Rises re Lady Brett & the young bullfighter. Hemingway has no heroes. People endure with some changes if they are not stuck in their selfness.
Literary theories are interesting but more often than not, too many people try to force a text that was written years/decades/centuries ago, into the very specific and narrow constraints of more modern lenses. It can be interesting to look at something from Victorian times via a feminist lens, but very little can truly to garnered when it comes to the perspective of the writer, because said theories simply hadn't been so much as postulated back when the author put pen to paper. The same goes for Maxist theory. Of course the issue of rich people versus the poor is as old as time itself, but the strictures of actual Marxist thought may well have been codified in Victorian times (lending the framework some greater credence than feminist theory for instance) but the school of thought as we recognise it in schools and universities today, are a later development, constructed out of Marxist thought (don't even get me started on how the Marxist dialect is basically just a repackaging of Hegelian dialect) and as such not really a truly authentic way of sifting through the original text.
I think you've covered this well by discussing the 'imposition' of a certain person's ideological bent upon a classic text. But unfortunately, universities will reward students for trying to pull together the strands of literary theory, in an attempt to seem clever, insightful and delightfully woke. To give a wry nod to a "quote" that has been famously misattributed to Freud "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Inasmuch as anything written in years gone by is often exactly what it is appears to be. We try to get too clever at times when we're looking for the secret-sauce that we hope to be able to detect in what we believe to be the literary "mise en place" present in a classic author's writing.
Literary theories are fun and should really only be applied by those who know them well enough to know when they ought to be treated at amusing, mildly entertaining, ways in which we can stand back and appreciate the actual meaning of a text (as per the author) whilst also noting the potential for parallels that we are only now aware of because of our own place in time and the knowledge we are blessed enough to be party to, because of our ability to access not only classic literature but the various textual analyses that exist entirely in our modern minds.
I would be wary of trying to encourage a textual analysis via literary theory, in anyone who isn't already a well-read, intelligent and capable reader, who knows when to see that the text itself may well lend itself to an amusing parlour game of "what if's", whilst also understanding that each book is a product of it's time and place both in geography and artistic endeavour. To impress our predisposition toward the literary theory of our choice, upon everything that has ever been laid down in writing since the Egyptians impressed hieroglyphics into the resting places of their beloved dead, is shallow, reductive and incredibly revealing when it comes to showing exactly what is motivating certain readers in their journey to the central conceit of a text.
That we allow young people who haven't even read a lot of these books outside of an academic environment, is not just a crying shame, but a terrifying look into how classic literature will be viewed for years to come. Miss me with that reductionist sheet!
Bex
PS. #FeminismIsCancer.
I loved your hilarious interpretations of the same book 😊😊😊
Tee hee. I'm pleased you enjoyed it ☺️
Tristan - I think you labour the point a bit. A theory is only an idea. 😢