Literary Theory [Under Construction]
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Crakespeareanism
This new school of literary criticism employs any method necessary in order to prove that Shakespeare's plays are crappy.
As with New Historicism, the critic is free to bring any element into examination. However, unlike the New Historicist, the Crakespeareanist is fortunate enough to have amlpe textual evidence that directly supports the main precepts of Crakespeareanism.
The following Crakespeareanist readings of Shakespeare's plays will help illustrate the Crakespeareanist method. See Crakespeareanist reading of: Romeo and Juliet; Henry V; Richard III; Titus Andronicus; Othello; King Lear.
Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare has been very generous with textual evidence of fundamental crappiness in this text, so we needn't delve too deeply into the play to prove our assertion. In fact, the Crakespeareanism of the entire play is revealed in a single speech, given by the nurse upon the discovery of Juliet's supposed death:
O woe! O woful, woful, woful day!
Most lamentable day, most woful day,
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!
Never was seen so black a day as this:
O woful day, O woful day! (4.5.49-54)
It is hardly necessary to analyze this quotation, but I shall do so just in case its inherent crappiness has escaped the reader. As Crakespeareanists, we can apply the methods of any literary criticism theory. Let's start with Russian Formalism. Such an approach would lead us to examine Shakespeare's use of repetition and manipulation of vowel sounds. As the quotation above illustrates, these literary devices—though they can be used very effectively in moderation—are applied to unreasonably excess here. This speech is reminiscent of the play put on by the rude mechanicals in A Midsummer Night's Dream:
Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
Now am I dead,
Now am I fled;
My soul is in the sky:
Tongue, lose thy light;
Moon, take thy flight:
Now die, die, die, die, die. (5.1.305-11)
In this case, the extreme repetition is intended to highlight the general ass-ness of Bottom and the other rude mechanicals in their performance. In essence, such repetition is a device of comedy, and does not suit the tragic nature of Romeo and Juliet (especially in 4.5, where Juliet is believed to be dead). I might also point out that nobody in their right mind would speak as the nurse does here; the unreality and over-the-top nature of the speech is an overwhelmingly present failing of Shakespeare's work in general.
Henry V
A simple survey of Henry V turns up a wealth of crap-factors:
- Number of times the phrase "look you" is used
- in entire play: 26
- by character Fluellen: 24
- in a single sentence: 3 (there are two such sentences in the play)
- Number of times the phrase "the humour of it" (or some variant thereof) is used
- in entire play: 6
- by character Nym: 6
- in Act 2 scene 1: 5
The following are textual examples of the above statistics. I have emphasized the relevant parts.
1
Captain Macmorris, I beseech you now, will
you voutsafe me, look you, a few disputations with
you, as partly touching or concerning the disci-
plines of the war, the Roman wars, in the way of
argument, look you, and friendly communication;
partly to satisfy my opinion, and partly for the sat-
isfaction, look you, of my mind, as touching the
direction of the military discipline; that is the point. (3.2.96-103)
2
I will cut thy throat, one time or other, in fair
terms, that is the humour of it. (2.1.72-3)
That now I will have: that's the humour of it. (2.1.100)
Well, then, that's the humour of't. (2.1.119)
Pray thee, corporal, stay. The knocks are too
hot; and, for mine own part, I have not a case of
lives. The humour of it is too hot; that is the very
plain-song of it. (3.2.3-6)
Let us abandon this scientific approach before we are overcome with annoyance. Instead, we shall examine the six interjections of the Chorus. The following is a summary of each of these speeches, reduced to the basic points that Chorus is making and stripped of as much Crakespasm as possible.
1.0
"It would be nice if we could actually portray this in a realistic manner, but we're kind of limited by our resources here. Try to imagine it. King Henry is so great, he's like some sort of warlike god. We'll just go ahead and spend the rest of the play trying to get across just how awesome he was when he invaded France for no good reason. By the way, my name is Chorus and I'll be giving you a running commentary of the action. Now enjoy Act 1."
2.0
"So now all the English are excited about invading France. I just want to take this opportunity to reiterate that King Henry is so awesome. You know what they say, 'Henry V is the mirror of all Christian kings.' (True, he's going to war for no good reason, but we all know you can use religion to justify this sort of thing.) Those effeminate Frenchmen are all very scared [lapsura's note: remember, this is Shakespeare talking—through Chorus—not me!]. England is so great, except her only weakness is those traitorous conspirators who are planning to betray Henry; but never fear, because pious Henry will kill them first. Again, try to imagine what it would really look like, because our acting is pretty pitiful compared to the real war. By the way, we're going to be switching scenes between England and France for a while. You'll know when it's the French court because of the crude French accents. Back to the play."
3.0
"Now I need you to imagine that Henry and his army have sailed across the channel and are just outside the city of Harfleur. And when you're imagining that, make sure you imagine Henry's navy as being really really big and strong. And then imagine that the French have offered Princess Katharine and her dowry to Henry if he'll leave them alone, but that Henry refuses (don't worry, he'll get Katharine in the end, he just wants to bash some Frenchmen first). Act 3 now."
4.0
"The French and English camps are just waiting out the night so that they can go to battle in the morning. The Frenchmen are just playing games with dice, but the English (let's all pity them, poor things!) are patiently waiting, tired after all their tough battling so far. King Henry—need I repeat how awesome he is?—is going around incognito among his troops, giving them all courage. You'll soon see that some of them don't think the King has any real reason for going to war, but Henry will avoid their criticism deftly. Enjoy Act 4."
5.0
"Imagine, now, that the King has gone to Calais, and then gone back to England, where everybody greets him as a hero. Henry—great man that he is—isn't vain or proud and ascribes all his glory to God. Henry's so awesome; he's like Julius Caesar—or, to point out a contemporary example, like Essex coming back from Ireland (except Henry's way more popular than Essex). One more Act to go."
Epilogue
"Again, I apologize for our modest rendition of this history. I'd also like to make some token apologies, at this point, for the poor scripting (because even though our playwright knows he's so great, he feels obliged to make a display of modesty). I'll remind you now that Henry V is a pretty great King, even if his dad did usurp the crown from Richard II. Being Englishmen, you all probably realize that Henry V's son (Henry VI) went and lost the French kingdom that Henry V worked so hard to gain. If you didn't know that, you should look into the other tetralogy that our esteemed playwright wrote before (because they chronologically come after the events of this play). You're free to go now."
This summary of Chorus' speeches ascertains that Henry V, like Richard III, is fundamentally a propagandist project. The main purpose of the play is to extoll Henry V as the ideal King, but also acknowledging the general pointlessness of—and the lack of public support for—his invasion of France.
back to topRichard III
back to topTitus Andronicus
back to topOthello
back to topKing Lear
back to topCultural Materialism
back to topDeconstructivism
back to topFeminism
back to topMarxism
incomplete
Obviously, the key Marxist thinker was Marx. **will complete Marx rant later**
Another key thinker was Gramsci, whose theory of hegemony is all that we need from him. Here's what the Wikipedia has to say about hegemony:
Hegemony controls the ways that ideas become "naturalized" in a process that informs notions of common sense.
So basically, the dominant ideology of a society makes people think that the way things are is great, or at least necessary. It tells a peasant that hard work and honesty will pay off, and if he just works hard and is honest, he will be fulfilling his role. It makes him think, "I'm a peasant, and I deserve to be a peasant, because that's the way things must be, so I'm going to be the best damn peasant I can be!"
back to topNew Criticism
back to topNew Historicism
back to topPostmodernism
back to topPsychoanalysis
incomplete
This section will mostly be a summary of fallacies that we can all blame on Freud. I don't think that a lot of Freud's ideas apply to real life, but it is worth pointing out that Freud does provide useful language for talking about literature. However, I would also like to point out that if I were a writer, I would be very annoyed if someone like Freud assumed that my scone-fixation is obviously an indication of my fundamental penis-envy (which he very likely would).
back to topRussian Formalism
Russian Formalism (closely associated with New Criticism), emphasizes the impact of form on literature. According to this school of criticism, form largely determines content. If you were to ask a Russian Formalist what makes art "art," they would point towards the form. If I have a pen, it's just a pen (though probably a pretty good one). But if I put that pen in a frame and hang it on a wall, suddenly it becomes art. The content has not changed (i.e. still a pen) but the frame/form makes all the difference. The same applies to literature.
Defamiliarization: A Russian Formalist technique (or at least one that they tend to focus on in literature) that makes the familiar strange. It portrays a familiar concept or object in a new way, making it strange or unfamiliar to the reader in order to gain a better understanding of it. Here's an example from Elizabeth Bishop's "At the Fishhouses":
The big fish tubs are completely lined
with layers of beautiful herring scales
and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered
with creamy iridescent coats of mail, 25
with small iridescent flies crawling on them.
The way the poet describes the fishscales (beautiful) and the flies (iridescent) defamiliarizes them, since we probably don't normally think of them in such a poetic way. Defamiliarization can also work in the reverse direction.
Russian Formalists are interested in things like literary devices and techniques (such as rhythm, syntax, repetition, alliteration, metaphor, etc.), the autonomy of language resources (i.e. independence of sounds from their prosaic meanings), and form.
back to topSpeech Act Theory
There are many types of utterances: descriptive sentences, imperative commands, performative sentences, and so on. Speech Act Theory is concerned with the performative power of words; a sentence can be an act. For example, take the following phrase:
"I, ____, take you ____, for my lawful wife/husband..."
The idea is that in saying the words, you are actually doing the act that you are speaking. So, there is no other way to take somebody to be your wife other than saying that you take her to be your wife.
J. L. Austin proposed the use of the term performative sentence in his book How To Do Things With Words (1962), and he seems to be an authority on Speech Act Theory, so I'll base a lot of this section on his work.
There are various types of performative sentences. For example, contractual performatives are of the "I bet" variety. Declaratory performatives would be used in instances such as "I declare war."
Let's complicate my earlier example of a speech act by imagining the following three situations:
- "I, ____, take you ____, for my lawful wife/husband..." uttered in a church by a man and a woman
- The same words quoted above, as uttered on a stage by a man and a woman before an audience during the performance of a play
- The line "Reader, I married him" in Charlotte Brontė's Jane Eyre
**will finish**