LLiterary study is generally classified into two: literary criticism and literary
theory. Literary criticism is a study of the concrete literary works through
analysis, interpretation, explication or contextualization (Wellek, 1960;
Hawthorn,1987). It’s the oldest discipline in literary study as it goes at least as far
back as archaic Greece that begins around 800 BC (Habib, 2005; Ford, 2002).
Throughout the history of literary criticism, two strands of the discipline recur in
form of rhetorical criticism and grammatical criticism (Day, 2008). Literary
theory, on the other hand, concerns on theoretical principles and concepts that
form the foundation for practical methods and strategies used in literary criticism
(Castle, 2007).
In the old days, literary theory involved the general concern of the nature,
role, function of literature and conceptual schemes for evaluating literary works.
However, historical development shows that contemporary literary theory applied
to literature seems less interested just in focusing on the nature of literary works
itself and providing general schema for literary criticism. Contemporary literary
theories, such as structuralism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, feminism, new historicism, and postcolonialism, actually are not ‘literary’ theory in nature. The
theory derives from a non-literary system (Carter, 2006). For examples theory
derives from culture, language and linguistics, aesthetics, politics, history,
psychology, economics, gender, and so on applied to literary works in the
interests of a specific critical aim. Contemporary literary theory thus grows out of
this experimentation with concepts, terms, and paradigms taken from other
spheres of intellectual activity (Castle, 2007). Throughout the history of literary
theory, rises a whole range of theoretical approaches those focused on meaning
and form, those that are political and those that are seemingly a-political (Bertens,
2007).
These contemporary theorists pay attention to a broad array of fundamental
issues related to the reading, interpretative strategy, literature and culture,
nationalism, genre, gender, originality, intertextuality, social hegemony, authorial
intention, truth, representation and so on. Moreover, the contemporary theory has
challenged the status and value of literary scholarship by raising epistemological
objections to determine interpretations of literary texts (Shumway, 1985). Thus, it
raises many protests from humanist scholars who seek a return of literary studies
to traditional humanistic way. Many antitheorists claim that the theoretical
enterprise should come to an end. Antitheorists are wrong to call for the end of
theory and return to the unexamined literary traditions. Contemporary literary
theories play important role as means of inspecting the gaps and failure of critical
tradition and bringing self-aware scrutiny to the methods of literary study (Leitch,
2001). As claimed by Culler (2000) contemporary literary theory has radically
changed the nature of literary study and criticism.
