Monday, 13 December 2010

Literary Criticism in the age of information

The literary theories and criticism has witnessed several shifts in 20th Century. Beginning with 'New Criticism', it ran through 'Reception Theory', 'Stylistics', 'Russian Formalism', 'Structuralism', 'Marxism', 'Psycho-analytical school', post-structuralism', 'Feminism'; along with voices of Modernism, Post-modernism, post-colonialism, cultural studies, new historicism . . . and what not.

What is the reason of such turns and twists in the 'studies' of the study of literatures?

Well, what John Wain (though said with some other context) wrote in 'Strength and Isolation: Pessimistic Notes of a Miltonolater' in Frank Kermod's The Living Milton (1960: Routledge) may have some answer to this shifting paradigms of 20th century.
He wrote: "The modern sensibility works in naturally with a medium like the cinema, with its endless fading in and fading out, its tracking, panning and all the rest of the devies for keeping dimension and angle in a continually shifting state . . . Symbolism on the one hand, the cinema on the other; concentration and discontinuity ..."

How far can we blame cinematic habit to these scenario is a debatable issue. But if it has a grain of truth, then what can we think about the sensibility of the man in the age of information - in an era of internet - amidst flood of information and constantly changing world? And what sort of theories and critical practices are we to confront in the 21st century?

Any idea? Please share by commenting . . .

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