Raman Selden
Book summaries for books written by Raman Selden
Quotes
Theory is not so much a set of axioms as a practice, a way of reading and interpreting texts.
One of the principal aims of literary theory is to make the implicit assumptions underlying our reading explicit.
The meaning of a text is not inherent, but produced in the interaction between reader and text.
Structuralism insists that meaning is relational, not inherent in an isolated sign or word.
Post-structuralism challenges the idea of fixed meaning, emphasizing the instability of language.
The author is not the final authority on the meaning of a work.
Feminist criticism seeks to expose the patriarchal assumptions embedded in literary texts.
Psychoanalytic criticism explores the unconscious motives and desires underpinning literary texts.
Marxist theory views literature as both a product of and a response to historical and social conditions.
Deconstruction reveals the contradictions and ambiguities within a text.
Reader-response critics argue that meaning emerges in the act of reading, rather than residing solely in the text.
New Historicism examines the interplay between literary texts and the historical contexts in which they are produced.