Perceptions and Misconceptions of Literary Theories: An Analysis of Pedagogy of Literary Studies

Abstract

English Studies curriculum in Indian universities and colleges keeps expanding its ever- flexible boundaries from time to time. American Literature, Indian Writing in English, Commonwealth Literature, Comparative Literature, ELT & ESP courses, New Literatures in English, and Canadian Literature were introduced in the curriculum with generous support from the host countries or the UGC. When English Major was introduced at Oxford (1894) and Cambridge (1911), and still later at Harvard, the University authorities and academics alike resisted it on the ground that literature courses could not construct/impart/test the knowledge as social sciences and natural sciences did/could. Ironically, Indian academics and administrators with the colonized-and-yet-to be-decolonized-mind never perceive the introduction and expansion of English literature education as a problematic. When Literary Theory was introduced in the Anglo-American universities in 1990s, they could satisfactorily answer the question what knowledge literature programme could produce though the academics resisted Literary Theories in 1970s (Paul de Man). Thanks to the LPG phenomenon, Indian academics lost no time in recognizing Literary Theory, if not Literary Theories, as an integral part of teaching English literature at least at the postgraduate level. Since Literary Theories is the latest addition and since most of the present day educators did their literature education before its advent, there have been several gaps in their epistemological understanding of the subject and in their pedagogical implementation of the course. Confusion over its disciplinary boundaries, failure to understand its multi- disciplinary-outside-of-literature knowledge, failure to make a distinction between Literary theory and Literary Theory, Literary Theory or Literary Theories, Literary Theory and Literary Criticism, Literary Theory and Critical Approaches to Literature, Literary Theory and Critical Theory, and misconceptions about the contents, scope, and function of Literary Theories are some of the issues that need urgently the attention of the scholars and academics of English literature education in India. Paul de Man (2005: 333) rightly and succinctly remarks, “it is better to fail in teaching what should not be taught than to succeed in teaching what is not true.” This paper proposes to examine the academics’ understanding concerning the origin, definition, scope, and function of Literary Theories, the distinction between the term Literary Theory and the various other terms, the pedagogical feasibility and desirability of integrating Literary Theories with the teaching of literatures in English.