Introduction
THIS brief series is meant to conscientise critics of the need to centre their appreciation of any text.
Although theories are not explicitly demanded by the syllabus requirements, they are integrally embedded.
You cannot be an effective assessor if you are not aware of angles that inform a literary work.
This series is therefore key before we embark on textual analysis of new set books.
Literary theories were developed as a means to understand the various ways people read texts.
The proponents of each theory believe their theory is ‘the’ theory, but most of us interpret texts according to the ‘rules’ of several different theories at a time. All literary theories are lenses through which we can see texts.
In the final analysis you are better off interpreting texts from a variety of philosophical and ideological positions than from a particular single perspective.
This unit introduces critical theory to you
Simplifying literary theory
Perhaps the main entry point to an understanding of the dynamic relationship between text and reader is to analyse the central role of theory in the construction and interpretation of texts.
Granted, literary theory is at the centre of any literary criticism, whether applied consciously or unconsciously.
To conceptualise theory fully there is need to explore the dynamic relationship between literary criticism and informing ideologies (theories) of both writer and reader as they interact with the text, as writer and interpreter respectively.
According to Webster (1990: 9) literary criticism is basically the process and product of appreciating different forms of literature, where literature refers “to oral, written and/or visual forms of art.”
Historically, literary criticism established itself first as the main activity associated with the academic study of literature.
It was associated with the reading, interpretation and commenting on specific texts by professional critics; professional in the sense that they had been trained in the application of literary theory on literary texts; a practice they passed on to students of literature at various academic levels.
Over the years this view made criticism the sole domain of scholars and their mentors.
The 19th century poet and cultural critic, Matthew Arnold (1967), used the term ‘criticism’ with this emphasis.
Similarly, Richards (1982) used the term ‘practical criticism’ with the same emphasis on formal teaching and assessment activities.
Many other famous critics such as F R Leavis followed in this particular tradition.
Literary theory is the centre from which any work of art is perceived; while literary criticism is the resultant ‘imposed’ meaning on the text.
The discourse of literary theory is a double-edged weapon: It can be used to explain or demystify values or assumptions implicit in literary texts; it can also challenge or affirm the ‘truths’ which emerge from this theoretical exercise (criticism) i.e. it can be used by other critics to critique the critiques of other critics.
This inevitably results in a ‘potentially infinite activity of appraisal and re-appraisal of terms and judgement or values they (texts and critics)] convey’ (ibid: 6).
Such continuous self-consciousness or self-reflexivity on the part of critics is centred mostly on the language which constitutes the text and the language which is brought to bear on the text by the critics.
Theory is a systematic body of knowledge used by critics to analyse text.
It helps to define the action space for both the writer/sculptor/orator/painter/musician (etc) and the critic.
Theory is expected to provide information that should guide the practice of criticism (appreciation).
In doing so, theories condition the way both writers and critics perceive social problems and how they choose solutions to those problems.
The way we understand theory determines the choice of questions we ask, hence theory controls the worldviews of both artists and critics.
A worldview is a view of the world (the entire cosmos) from a particular position (Achebe: 1990).
A worldview is one’s mental picture of the world, what one makes of the world (meaning), projected from a particular position.
To view the world, one requires centredness; to be rooted in a particular operating system of ideas that determines how you see and interpret what you see.
An African worldview is therefore a view of the world from an African perspective (ie centredness).
Put simply, a perspective is a position or angle that yields a particular view of the world.
To comprehend worldview fully we need to understand the creative force behind it. Ideology is that creative force.
It is a term associated more with some scholars than others although its essence defies such appropriation.
Different scholars place different emphases on its meaning.
Marx (in Feur: 1989: 39) calls it ‘an instrument of social reproduction’ by which he implies that ideology is used by the ruling group to legitimise the status quo through widespread teaching and social adoption of ruling class ideas, controlling the consciousness of the people in such a way that the subject accept the way things are as ‘natural’.
Gramsci (1972: 22) calls this shaping of people’s cognitive and affective interpretation of their world and existence, ‘hegemony’.
Hegemony implies the “dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force” (1bid).
‘Hegemony’ was most likely derived from the Greek ‘egemonia’, whose root is ‘egemon’, meaning ‘leader, ruler, often in the sense of a state other than his own’; and since the 19th century ‘hegemony’ has commonly been used to indicate political predominance, usually of one state over another.
This is made possible through the establishment of power structures such as the state, the school, the church and the state-controlled mass media.
As such hegemony results in the empowerment of the beliefs and practices of the dominant group while those of the subject group are systematically sub-merged or completely excluded.
Marx’s and Gramsci’s definitions of ideology emerge from the same perspective, a European socialist subculture challenging the emerging social relations of capitalism.
This socialist position, being antithetic to capitalism, sees ideology only in the context of negative application, i.e. to oppress the subject class.
Such an understanding of ideology cannot apply wholesale to Africa where social relations are more culturally determined than class-based.
Ideology in Africa generally refers to a system of shared ideas which determine how we see and interpret the world.