Trouble with Literary Theory

[A Loser]

I have a problem, and it has been bothering me to the point that I feel the need to ask strangers on the internet for their opinions. First, let me provide some background information.

I am currently in the final semester of my MA in Literature, a field I entered because I tended to write well in undergrad (I was a an English major, but at that time I was more into Creative Writing) and to have a knack for analyzing literature. My confidence, however, has begun to decrease.

In the Spring of 2016, I took a class on Literary Theory which severely shook my sense of self worth. Almost all of the primary sources that we read in that class were simply beyond my comprehension. Derrida, of course, was the most disheartening, and I cannot recall a single point he made in his lecture on Differance, which might as well have been word salad as far as I was concerned. Besides Derrida and Deconstruction, though, I struggled to understand pretty much everything. Marxism, New Historicism, Queer Theory, Feminist Theory, Postcolonial Theory, all of the scholars in every one of these fields wrote in such a way that I could not make any sense of their arguments. Psychoanalysis was only slightly more accessible, and only in the case of some of Freud's work (Lacan was as difficult as all the rest).

That class was a while ago, and I mostly forgot about my insecurities until recently. I am now taking a Feminist Film Theory course (with the same professor) and all of my fears are returning to me. Am I a complete moron? Am I a failure as a scholar of literature? I have recently come to the conclusion that I must be in the wrong field, and while I have always fantasized about a PhD, such a goal now seems utterly far fetched and futile.

TL;DR: Literary theory is hard, and I am a big stupid head.

[Dreamwoven]

I would urge you with all my might not to give up. You tried to understand Derrida and Deconstruction, that's tough, I don't know if I would understand that, and I'm a retired professor. You need to start with something simpler,, and not literary theory. No, you are not a big stupid head, don't tackle such hard topics, would be my advice.

[kev67]

I started reading The Literary Theory Handbook by Gregory Castle, which someone (Lokesenna I think) on this site recommended (only because I was interested, not because I am studying it). I am finding it a very hard read. Who is this Ezra Pound anyway? Who the heck is Lacan? Why is all this so complicated? It all seems to be social science and psychoanalysis more than about literature. I mean I've read Things Fall Apart and Mrs Dalloway, but would I understand any post-colonial or modernist theory written about those books?. It's as difficult as books on electronics I used to get my head around. When I was last at university, I once went to a discussion group where we discussed a Jacques Derrida paper. I just thought he was unfocused whinger about things in general. Given his reputation, I suppose he was a lot more than that, but I don't think he tried hard to clarify complicated ideas in ways understandable to the average reader. All I can recommend is to keep at it and maybe of bit of it will creep in.

[YesNo]

I don't know what literary theory is even a theory of, but I would take perhaps a more aggressive approach to texts that I don't understand. I would be looking for evidence, for any slip-ups the authors make, to critique those texts, that is, find errors in them, the bigger the better. Go beyond them and you will find a ground on which you can look at those texts and perhaps assess them. The ultimate goal would be to create an intelligent literary theory that other people would understand.

[Danik 2016]

I have a problem, and it has been bothering me to the point that I feel the need to ask strangers on the internet for their opinions. First, let me provide some background information.

I am currently in the final semester of my MA in Literature, a field I entered because I tended to write well in undergrad (I was a an English major, but at that time I was more into Creative Writing) and to have a knack for analyzing literature. My confidence, however, has begun to decrease.

In the Spring of 2016, I took a class on Literary Theory which severely shook my sense of self worth. Almost all of the primary sources that we read in that class were simply beyond my comprehension. Derrida, of course, was the most disheartening, and I cannot recall a single point he made in his lecture on Differance, which might as well have been word salad as far as I was concerned. Besides Derrida and Deconstruction, though, I struggled to understand pretty much everything. Marxism, New Historicism, Queer Theory, Feminist Theory, Postcolonial Theory, all of the scholars in every one of these fields wrote in such a way that I could not make any sense of their arguments. Psychoanalysis was only slightly more accessible, and only in the case of some of Freud's work (Lacan was as difficult as all the rest).

That class was a while ago, and I mostly forgot about my insecurities until recently. I am now taking a Feminist Film Theory course (with the same professor) and all of my fears are returning to me. Am I a complete moron? Am I a failure as a scholar of literature? I have recently come to the conclusion that I must be in the wrong field, and while I have always fantasized about a PhD, such a goal now seems utterly far fetched and futile.

TL;DR: Literary theory is hard, and I am a big stupid head.
Loser
It is difficult to form an opinion just based on internet posts, but I get the impression that your problem is with the way this particular professor presents his/her subjects. This feeling of ineptitude happens to almost every one in university. And this often can simply mean that certain professors have a difficulty in presenting their stuff in a more didactical way. Some theories are relly tough (Derrida is one. Lacan is another, but he conjugated Linguistics an Psychoanalysis, that´s why he became important for Literary Theory )and it is not easy to make them accessible to the students.
Here is a basic reference that may help you with the different theories. But maybe you know it already:
Literary Theory by Terry Eagleton

Maybe you should stick to classes and professors where you feel you are really learning something. Moreover if you intend to take your PhD you will have to chose one theory and stick to it for each one you named carries a world of references with it.

[EmptySeraph]

To imagine that there's someone yet naive enough to tackle such meaningless subjects as literary theory, which is, above all, insincere and insignificant—mostly done by non-entities, and not to go mad over it...

[OrphanPip]

One doesn't necessarily have to be an expert in theory to pursue a PhD in literature. I did my MA in Canada though, where the academic culture is more conservative and less enamoured of continental philosophy. If you have a passion for literature or film and you have something cogent to say about a subject that hasn't yet been addressed, you should pursue a PhD if that's what you want to do. Theory is more than just post-structural schools of thought anyway.

[Danik 2016]

For me Literary Theory provides reference frames when I want to look deeper into a text. One may want to study the aesthetics, the social aspects, the gender aspects of a text and so on... or several of these elements together. But you have theoretical studies of all the other forms of art too.

[WyattGwyon]

Read Bakhtin and the Russian formalists and structuralists. It will restore your faith in the possibility of coherently expressing important ideas about literature and how it works.

[Chrysophrase]

I understand your feeling so well. I'm in my last term of undergraduate and about to start an MA and constantly doubting whether I'm smart enough. I can honestly say that never have I understood more than half a sentence of Derrida. My worst enemies in life are Foucault and Kosofsky-Sedwick, I try to read them and start contemplating death immediately. But I know there are books/writers that are nowhere near as convoluted! And that doesn't mean that they ideas they are presenting are any less complex and sophisticated. I'm pretty sure that the unfortunate truth is that some scholars write like that on purpose to make themselves sound better and/or exclude and discourage people.

I would also say that Eagleton's book is great, and the Russian structuralists are a very good read (but a lot of their theories are falling out of fashion now, so be cautious about that). Also, a lot of it has to do with what field you're studying. Film theory does tend to attract that sort of pretentious discourse. An area which is really great is early modern studies, everything I've read from there is very straightforward and interesting!

Don't give up and remember that it's 98.7908% likely to be the professor / the texts (especially since this is the second time he/she is making you feel like that)

[Hereward]

You're not stupid at all but you're in a tough spot. Noam Chomsky sums it up extremely well:

“There are lots of things I don’t understand — say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat’s last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (1) I can ask friends who work in these areas to explain it to me at a level that I can understand, and they can do so, without particular difficulty; (2) if I’m interested, I can proceed to learn more so that I will come to understand it. Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. — even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest — write things that I also don’t understand, but (1) and (2) don’t hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven’t a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of ‘theory’ that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) … I won’t spell it out.”

I also believe that Foucault is different from the rest and not ridiculous; I also believe that alot of people can take useful things from the writers that Chomsky is criticising here - but I think that to 'bottle' those writers which you mention into the forms of theory you mention and attempt to teach them is going to be fraught with contradiction and ridiculousness. If you seriously study the theories you mention with a 'common sense' approach, and also observe how they are applied, it is clear that there are many problems with them, and that their teachers are often not sufficiently critical towards their subjects.

This goes from being an interesting, productive problem into being a terrible, unsolveable problem when the theories and the people teaching them tell you in no uncertain terms that they are also in a 'morally' right position, as feminism, postcolonial theory etc do. I think you can do the PHD with a critical angle towards the problematic areas of these theories.

Also, read this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair.

Basically, a physics lecturer made up some ridiculous bull**** with postmodern buzzwords and it got published in a journal.

[OrphanPip]

The Sokal Affair identifies problems with the peer review system, and similar hoaxes have been successfully perpetrated on science journals as well.

Regardless you really do not need to be deep into critical theory to advance with a Phd. My Phd dissertation project is about authorial personation in early eighteenth-century novels, it's a historical approach which is far more dominant a theoretical approach in literary studies outside of anything not contemporary or modern. Especially outside of American academia.

[A Loser]

Thank you for all of your responses, and I apologize for taking so long to respond (I have been very busy).

I was thinking that part of my problem might be that I do not have a background in philosophy, which seems to be so closely linked with literary theory. I don't know, though. I can't escape that feeling that my inability to process these theorists must mean that there is something wrong with me.

[Hereward]

The Sokal Affair identifies problems with the peer review system, and similar hoaxes have been successfully perpetrated on science journals as well.


Could you link these successful hoaxes? I would be interested to see how similar they are.

[Hereward]

Thank you for all of your responses, and I apologize for taking so long to respond (I have been very busy).

I was thinking that part of my problem might be that I do not have a background in philosophy, which seems to be so closely linked with literary theory. I don't know, though. I can't escape that feeling that my inability to process these theorists must mean that there is something wrong with me.

Friend it makes me sad that you are letting this get on top of you. If you have a talent for literary criticism you can do it in whatever medium you choose. Either choose academia and adopt an alternative sub-discipline as OrphanPip suggests (i.e. there will be traditions of analysis which are not tied up with late 20th century thinkers), or take a rebellious approach as I suggest.

Or, even more exciting, make your own media. I'm sure there's room for some popularly accessible literary analysis or exploration on youtube or wherever.

[OrphanPip]

Could you link these successful hoaxes? I would be interested to see how similar they are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_Afraid_of_Peer_Review%3F

These kinds of things don't really demonstrate that critical theory or peer review journals are non-reliable, but it does illustrate that there are failings and weaknesses in a system that relies on a handful of people to be the arbiters of quality scholarship. With the Sokal paper, someone didn't understand what they read but thought it was interesting, however this wouldn't be evidence that the larger community of scholars in critical theory would have accepted the nonsense paper. Just like open access science papers accepting a flawed paper on biochemistry is not evidence that all biochemical papers published in those journals are nonsense.

[Hereward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_Afraid_of_Peer_Review%3F


Well, that page identifies a financial reason why these new types of scientific journals would publish sub-standard articles. It implies that they do not have a peer review process at all.

Another big difference with the sokal hoax is that he directly lampoons ideas that were current at the time. He quotes real cultural theorists. His piece is an attack on the ideas themselves, not just the peer review process.

[OrphanPip]

Well, that page identifies a financial reason why these new types of scientific journals would publish sub-standard articles. It implies that they do not have a peer review process at all.

Another big difference with the sokal hoax is that he directly lampoons ideas that were current at the time. He quotes real cultural theorists. His piece is an attack on the ideas themselves, not just the peer review process.

At the same time the editors of Social Text noted to Sokal that the article was poorly written and published in deference to his credentials because they were looking for articles that fit their "Science War" issue. They published his article as a good faith attempt to include a scientist into the social studies debate. This was a failure of the peer review process at Social Text, who should have been more rigorous. Saying that Sokal's hoax was an attack on the ideas themselves is an overstatement, whether it demonstrate people's willingness to accept nonsense as serious comment is one thing, but it doesn't actually demonstrate the weakness of the concepts he criticizes in context. Sokal's hoax was an effective popular critique because of its simple digestible dissemination through the media. However, it is far from being an actual sophisticated rebuttal of those post-structuralist ideas. I'm by no means a fan of Irigaray or Lacan, and would never consider them seriously in my own scholarship, but Sokal didn't really do anything to address why they shouldn't be taken seriously through this hoax. He went to greater lengths in Fashionable Nonsense, but even then it's a bit weak and light. It's easy to quote things out of context and make fun. Irigaray in particular has a penchant for grand overstatements that sound ridiculous (which they often are anyway).

[kev67]

I have been ploughing through my book on literary theory and not understanding very much of it. It did remind me of a book by David Lodge called Nice Work. In that book, a young lecturer in English is assigned to shadow a managing director of a factory that makes metal things for other companies. It was like proper heavy industry. I don't know if there ever was a government scheme like this, but it sounded like the sort of thing they used to encourage back in the 80s and 90s. In the book the academic and the factory boss don't initially get along. She thinks his factory alienates the workers. He thinks her work is of precisely zero value. Anyway, the author, David Lodge, is a professor in English, so he understands literary theory a bit. There was one bit where the young lecturer deconstructs the the brand of cigarettes that the factory manager smokes (Marlborough). So maybe there is some commercial use to literary theory: advertising.

[Magnocrat]

I'm a self taught layman with no higher education. It tested my own IQ on line sensing my own limitations ; it was 105 or slightly above average. I still try to push my limits but I realise I will never make a research physicist.
Regarding literature , some I find unreadable and modern poetry leaves me cold most of the time. The same applies to music;stuff written after the romantic period means little or nothing.
Some tell me it is a matter of taste but I think graspability has a part to play.

[Jackson Richardson]

But maybe you know it already:
Literary Theory by Terry Eagleton


I read it, and like everything else by Terry found it amusing, highly intelligent and informed, elegantly written and readable.

The trouble was that after I'd finished it I found I had barely a clue about literary theory.

Since I read for my own amusement rather than to pass exams, I just get on reading.

I don't mean to condemn all literary theory. There are plenty of things in this world that I don't get and that's me.