Absurdist Theatre (or
Theatre of the Absurd)
Works of the
mid-twentieth century apparently dramatizing the idea that human life is absurd
and lacks meaning. Influenced by existentialism, such works, in
reality, hint at human responsibility in that absurdity, i.e. if life is absurd
and meaningless it is so because humans fail to exercise their own reason and
independence, to take charge of their own lives and create their own meanings.
Instead, characters in absurdist works are often seen caught in meaningless
routines and/or hopelessly expecting help from imaginary outside forces, putting
their faith in empty beliefs and problematic traditions. Representative authors
include Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet.
A philosophical
movement of the 19th and 20th centuries stressing individual freedom and human
choice; existentialism is based on the idea that human beings shape their own
existence and give meaning to it through their own choices and actions. The main
figure in existentialism was the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre
(1905-1980).
Existentialism /
Existential
A European movement in philosophy which became
particularly influential after the Second World War. Some of the leading proponents were Martin Heidegger
(1889-1976), Albert Camus (1913-1960), and Jean-Paul
Sartre (1905-1980). The existentialist world-view sees human existence as
ultimately meaningless - a situation which causes ‘angst’, or dread - but at the
same time emphasises the importance of each individual
taking responsibility for his or her own choices
concerning decisions and actions. Existentialism was a direct influence on the
dramatists of the Theatre of the Absurd, such as Samuel Beckett, and on
the British novelists Iris Murdoch, John Fowles, and Muriel Spark.
Feminist / womanist
Feminist writing and criticism highlights the
position of women in literature, society, and world culture, emphasising that the roles and experiences of women tend to
be marginalised by patriarchal societies. Feminist
writers and critics attempt to redress the balance by writing literature and
criticism from the point of view of women. A key feminist work from the modern
period is A Room of One’s Own (1929) by Virginia Woolf.
Gender Crticism
The term ‘womanist’ is sometimes used to refer to black feminists, to distinguish their approach from that of mainstream white middle-class feminism. Gender criticism An approach to literature that explores how ideas about men and women—what is masculine and feminine—can be regarded as socially constructed by particular cultures. Gender criticism expands categories and definitions of what is masculine or feminine and tends to regard sexuality as more complex than merely masculine or feminine, heterosexual or homosexual. See also feminist criticism, gay and lesbian criticism.
Formalism
An artistic and critical sensibility in American and
British literature and criticism which reached its greatest influence between
1930 and 1950, and which promoted a view of art as ‘objective’ - that is, that
the work in itself was more important than the subjective contexts of its
artistic production. In formalism, the proper focus of artistic creation and
criticism is the art object itself, rather than the author or artist’s thoughts,
intentions, or other personal sensibilities. In the case of literature,
formalism assumes that well-wrought form (the structure of the literary piece,
its constituent images, metaphors, and other ‘building blocks’) can carry the
most important dimensions of content from the author to the reader without
reference to contextual elements. Much of post-war literature in both Great
Britain and the United States can be seen as a reaction to this extreme view, as
poets and writers actively sought to reintroduce subjectivities into literary
production and study as a way of reclaiming the ‘personal’ in literary
experience. [
Intertext
A term used to denote a text referred to within a
text. The Bible, the works of Shakespeare, and Classical myths, for example, are
frequently found as intertexts in works of literature.
[Julie Ellam]
Intertextuality
A term which can refer to a text’s inclusion of intertexts, but is also a concept introduced by philosopher
and semiotician Julia Kristeva, and used in poststructuralist criticism, according
to which a text is seen as not only connecting the author to the reader, but
also as being connected to all other texts, past and present. Thus there is a
limit to the extent to which an individual text can be said to be original or
unique, and a limit to the extent to which an individual author can be said to
be the originator of a text. [Julie Ellam]
Irish Cultural Revival / Irish
Literary Revival
Also called Irish Literary Renaissance, Celtic
Renaissance, or Celtic Revival.
A revival of Irish literature in the late nineteenth century,
driven primarily by W. B.
Yeats. The aim was to create a distinctive Irish
literature by drawing on Irish history and folklore. In the 1880s the Gaelic
League attempted to revive the Irish language, but the use of Gaelic was not a
requirement of the revival led by Yeats in the 1890s. The movement developed
simultaneously with a rise in Irish nationalism, and a growth of interest in
Gaelic traditions.
Modern
Sometimes called ‘continuous
monologue’. Literary technique
developed in the 1920s, as part of Modernism which attempts to reproduce
the moment-to-moment flow of subjective thoughts and perceptions in an
individual’s mind. The technique was used by Dorothy Richardson, James
Joyce, and Virginia Woolf. The term was
originally coined by the American philosopher and psychologist William James in
Principles of Psychology (1890).
n’ can
apply to a wide variety of different historical periods in different contexts.
In the context of ‘modern literature’ it is generally taken to refer to the
period from 1914, the outbreak of the First World War, to the present day. When
capitalised, ‘Modern’ can refer to
Modernism.
Modernism /
Modernist
A movement in all the arts in
Some of the characteristic features of modernist
literature are: a drawing of inspiration from European culture as a whole;
experimentation with form, such as the fragmentation and discontinuity found in
the free verse of ‘The Waste Land’ by T. S. Eliot; the radical approach
to plot, time, language, and character presentation as seen in Ulysses by
James Joyce and the novels of Virginia Woolf; a decrease in emphasis on morality, and an
increase in subjective, relative, and uncertain attitudes; in poetry, a move
towards simplicity and directness in the use of language.
Dada, Surrealism, The Theatre of the Absurd, and
stream of consciousness are all aspects of Modernism.
Stream of
consciousness
Sometimes called ‘continuous
monologue’. Literary technique
developed in the 1920s, as part of Modernism which attempts to reproduce
the moment-to-moment flow of subjective thoughts and perceptions in an
individual’s mind. The technique was used by Dorothy Richardson, James
Joyce, and Virginia Woolf. The term was
originally coined by the American philosopher and psychologist William James in
Principles of Psychology (1890).
The New
Criticism
A movement in literary criticism which developed in
the
Postcolonial
literature
Literature written in the language of former colonisers by natives of their colonies. Usually, literature written in
English by writers from former colonies of
Postcolonial
criticism
Branch of literary criticism which focuses on seeing
the literature and experience of peoples of former colonies in the context of
their own cultures, as opposed to seeing them from the perspective of the
European literature and criticism dominant during the time of the
Empire.
Postcolonialism
A cultural,
intellectual, political, and literary movement of the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries characterized by the representation and analysis of the historical
experiences and subjectivities of the victims, individuals and nations, of
colonial power. Postcolonialism is marked by its
resistance to colonialism and by the attempt to understand the historical and
other conditions of its emergence as well as its lasting
consequences.
Postmodern /
Postmodernism
In a general sense, literature written since the
Second World War, i.e. after the Modernist era. In a more specific sense the concept of
postmodernism as a subject of study emerged in the 1980s, applying across many
disciplines, encouraging inter-disciplinary studies, and being interpreted in
many ways.
The postmodern outlook is associated with the erosion
of confidence in the idea of progress, as a result of such phenomena as the
holocaust, the threat of nuclear war, and environmental pollution.
In literature one of its manifestations is the
attempts by some writers to examine and break down boundaries involved in such
issues as race, gender, and class, and to break down divisions between different
genres of literature. Other aspects of the postmodernist outlook are: a spirit
of playfulness with the fragmented world, the awareness of fiction as an
artifice, and the creation of works as a pastiche of forms from the past.
Postmodern writers include Thomas Pynchon, John
Fowles, Angela Carter, and Salman Rushdie.
In literary criticism such approaches as
structuralism, poststructuralism, deconstruction, and
postcolonial criticism are postmodern methods.
Poststructuralism
A postmodern approach to literary criticism, and
other disciplines, growing out of structuralism. Like structuralism, it questions the relationship
between language and reality, and it sees ‘reality’ as something socially
constructed.
Postcolonialism
A cultural, intellectual,
political, and literary movement of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
characterized by the representation and analysis of the historical experiences
and subjectivities of the victims, individuals and nations, of colonial power.
Postcolonialism is marked by its resistance to
colonialism and by the attempt to understand the historical and other conditions
of its emergence as well as its lasting consequences.