How to study Literature?

We have already stayed what is literature and what can be considered literature, but now after doing this it is an obligation to have a way to study and understand literature. The way Literature is analyse have changed through time with different theories like:


 Greeks: The Greeks thought that Literature was very related with human behaviour and its relationship with the physical world, society and ethics.  


Romanticism:The romantics believes in Literature as an expression of feeling, a reflection on every day life and nature expressed through common language and imagination. It is believe that literature is not focus on using elevated language or traditional values, rather, it expresses individual imagination in an accessible form as the writer focuses on every day individual.



Scientific determinism: When Charles Darwin publicated "The origin of the species" in 1859 this method to analyse literature became popular. Literary texts became object of scientific study using the scientific method, like careful observation, in order to uncover larger patterns and truths.


New Criticism: The new criticism consider a text as an autonomous, totally independent object from the author, the historical and cultural context, etc... Because of this, according to new criticism, only the text should give you all the relevant information to understand it.


Reader response: This theory consider that the experience of the reader to a particular text plays a very important part on the interpretation given to the text.


Structuralism: Structuralism, lead by Saussure, stated that a word is the sign and symbol we use to symbolise an object, here he makes the difference between the: signifier (Actual word) and the signified (Mental structure or image).Structuralism also said that texts always have a structure and rules.

Post Structuralism: The post structuralism established basically that we learn through differences on mental abstractions. This is that for example a dog is a dog and not a cat.


Marxism: Marxist  criticism starts  with the assumption that all texts have subtexts which are extensions or references to historical and ideological conflicts,  the same conflicts being played out by real societies.                                                                                                                                                                


Feminism: This theory is devoted to describe and interpretate the the women experiences and lives through literature



Cultural poetics: This theory said that History is the central  body of knowledge and Literature. It studies every part of society and its history.


Postcolonial Criticism: Is the approach to texts produced on colonised countries in reaction to European hegemony. It is based on many critical approaches like nationalism, language, history,ethnicity and how these issues are dealt when two cultures clash.