Literary Theory: A Compass for Critics

Abstract

Why theory? The usual answer goes something like this: Literary theory tells us what we are doing when we read, teach, or write about literature. Knowing where we are and in which direction we are heading no doubt helps us reach specific destinations. In this essay, however, I am using the verbal metaphor of compass and the corresponding visual metaphor of four maps for another purpose. They are intended to show how theoretical awareness permits us to relate the particular critical landscape we traverse to other areas inviting more or less interdependent explorations. Let me start by observing that literary works, just like other verbal constructs, are capable of conveying information from one mind to another. Some critics prefer to approach texts as instruments of mimesis (words representing worlds), others as instruments of communication (messages from authors to readers). Yet literary works communicate and represent at the same time, and criticism as a whole should account for them both as utterances with potential appeal and as verbal signs representing worlds. Map 1 places the work at the meeting point of two axes of literature: the rhetorical axis of communication connecting author and reader and the mimetic axis of representation connecting language and information. But communication and representation are complementary aspects of meaningfully employed language both within and without the realm of literature. Thus speaker, speech event, and listener could be substituted for author, work, and reader.'