US
US United StatesAU AustraliaBR BrazilCA CanadaDE GermanyIN IndiaIE IrelandJP JapanMX MexicoNZ New ZealandPH PhilippinesZA South AfricaUK United Kingdom
Literary Theory podcast artwork
Education

Literary Theory

by Paul H. Fry
Share this ranking Claiming needs an RSS feed. Contact us.
Listen on Apple Podcasts

Chart positions today · United States

Not on the United States charts we track today.

If you like Literary Theory, try…

About the show

This is a survey of the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. Lectures will provide background for the readings and explicate them where appropriate, while attempting to develop a coherent overall context that incorporates philosophical and social perspectives on the recurrent questions: what is literature, how is it produced, how can it be understood, and what is its purpose? This course was recorded in Spring 2009.

Latest episodes

  • 12 – Freud and Fiction

    February 19, 2009 · 51 min

    In this lecture, Professor Paul Fry turns his attention to the relationship between authorship and the psyche. Freud’s meditations on the fundamental drives governing human behavior are read through the lens of literary critic Peter…

  • 11 – Deconstruction II

    February 17, 2009 · 53 min

    In this second lecture on deconstruction, Professor Paul Fry concludes his consideration of Derrida and begins to explore the work of Paul de Man. Derrida’s affinity for and departure from Levi-Strauss’s distinction between nature and…

  • 10 – Deconstruction I

    February 12, 2009 · 52 min

    In this lecture on Derrida and the origins of deconstruction, Professor Paul Fry explores two central Derridian works: “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences” and “Différance.” Derrida’s critique of structuralism and…

  • 9 – Linguistics and Literature

    February 10, 2009 · 50 min

    In this lecture on the work of Roman Jakobson, Professor Paul Fry continues his discussion of synchrony and diachrony. The relationships among formalism, semiotics, and linguistics are explored. Claude Levi-Strauss’s structural…

  • 8 – Semiotics and Structuralism

    February 5, 2009 · 52 min

    In this lecture, Professor Paul Fry explores the semiotics movement through the work of its founding theorist, Ferdinand de Saussure. The relationship of semiotics to hermeneutics, New Criticism, and Russian formalism is considered. Key…

  • 7 – Russian Formalism

    February 3, 2009 · 49 min

    In this lecture, Professor Paul Fry explores the works of major Russian formalists reviewed in an essay by Boris Eikhenbaum. He begins by distinguishing Russian formalism from hermeneutics. Eikhenbaum’s dependency on core ideas of Marxist…

  • 6 – The New Criticism and Other Western Formalisms

    January 29, 2009 · 50 min

    In this second lecture on formalism, Professor Paul Fry begins by exploring the implications of Wimsatt and Beardsley’s theory of literary interpretation by applying them to Yeats’s “Lapis Lazuli.” He then maps the development of…

  • 5 – The Idea of the Autonomous Artwork

    January 27, 2009 · 46 min

    In this lecture, Professor Paul Fry explores the origins of formalist literary criticism. Considerable attention is paid to the rise and subsequent popularity of the New Critics and their preferred site of literary exploration, the “poem.”…