Literary Theory Quotes

• Literary theory has become a parody of science, generating its own arcane jargon. In the process, tragically, it discourages love of literature for its own sake.

  Nancy Pearcey

  Literature, Jargon, Sake

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• The ambition of much of today's literary theory seems to be to find ways to read literature without imagination.

  Charles Simic

  Ambition, Imagination, Literature

  Charles Simic (2013). “The Monster Loves His Labyrinth”, p.63, Copper Canyon Press

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• Any attempt to define literary theory in terms of a distinctive method is doomed to failure.

  Terry Eagleton

  Method, Term, Doomed

  Terry Eagleton (2011). “Literary Theory: An Introduction”, p.172, John Wiley & Sons

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• Literary theories will not make a writer write.

  Allen Wier

  Writing, Theory

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• If the masses are not thrown a few novels , they may react by throwing up a few barricades.

  Terry Eagleton

  May, Throwing Up, Mass

  Terry Eagleton (2011). “Literary Theory: An Introduction”, p.21, John Wiley & Sons

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• After all, if you do not resist the apparently inevitable, you will never know how inevitable the inevitable was.

  Terry Eagleton

  Apathy, Inevitable, Know How

  "Why Marx Was Right". Book by Terry Eagleton, 2011.

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• It is capitalism, not Marxism, that trades in futures.

  Terry Eagleton

  Marxism, Trade, Capitalism

  "Why Marx Was Right". Book by Terry Eagleton, 2011.

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• You can tell that the capitalist system is in trouble when people start talking about capitalism.

  Terry Eagleton

  Talking, People, Trouble

  "Why Marx Was Right". Book by Terry Eagleton, 2011.

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• First literature came to refer only to itself, the literary theory.

  Mason Cooley

  Literature, Firsts, Theory

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• What was needed was a literary theory which, while preserving the formalist bent of New Criticism, its dogged attention to literature as aesthetic object rather than social practice, would make something a good deal more systematic and 'scientific' out of all this. The answer arrived in 1957, in the shape of the Canadian Northrop Fryes mighty 'totalization' of all literary genres, Anatomy of Criticism .

  Terry Eagleton

  Literary Genre, Practice, Criticism

  Terry Eagleton (2011). “Literary Theory: An Introduction”, p.79, John Wiley & Sons

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• Writers who teach tend to prefer literary theory to literature and tenure to all else. Writers who do not teach prefer the contemplation of Careers to art of any kind.

  Gore Vidal

  Art, Writing, Careers

  Gore Vidal (1991). “A view from the diners club: essays 1987-1991”

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• Modern literary theory sees a similarity between walking and writing that I find persuasive: words inscribe a text in the same way that a walk inscribes space. In The practicse of Everyday Life, Michel de Certeau writes, 'The act of walking is a process of appropriation of the topographical system on the part of the pedestrian; it is a special acting-out of the place...and it implies relations among differentiated positions.' I think this is a fancy way of saying that writing is one way of making the world our own, and that walking is another.

  Geoff Nicholson

  Writing, Thinking, Space

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• In my profession more generally, it's not an exaggeration to say that masculinity is viewed as the root of all evil. If you were to take a literary theory course, you might think it would be about literature, but it's really not. It's about all the various forms of oppression on earth and how we can see them playing out in literary works. And behind all these forms of oppression is a guy.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Thinking, Roots, Evil

  "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.

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• As for me, my literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one main idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I am, in brief, a libertarian of the most extreme variety, and know of no human right that is one-tenth as valuable as the simple right to utter what seems (at the moment) to be the truth

  H. L. Mencken

  Simple, Ideas, Libertarian

  H. L. Mencken (2000). “H.L. Mencken's Smart Set Criticism”, p.24, Regnery Publishing

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• He [Aristotle] pointed out that people who had become initiates in the various mystery religions were not required to learn any facts 'but to experience certain emotions and to be put in a certain disposition.' Hence his famous literary theory that tragedy effected a purification (katharsis) of the emotions of terror and pity that amounted to an experience of rebirth.

  Karen Armstrong

  People, Tragedy, Facts

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• I am someone who values truth - actual truth as opposed to "truthiness." I am also someone who has been trained in deconstruction in the literary theory department of Yale University, so I am someone who is tempted to believe that no absolute truth is possible.

  John Hodgman

  Believe, Yale, Truth Is

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. October 21, 2008.

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• I read a lot of literary theory when I was in graduate school, especially about novels, and the best book I ever read about endings was Peter Brooks' 'Reading for the Plot. '

  Lev Grossman

  Reading, Book, School

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• I do not know whether to be delighted or outraged by the fact that Literary Theory: An Introduction was the subject of a study by a well known U.S. business school, which was intrigued to discover how an academic text could become a best-seller.

  Terry Eagleton

  School, Facts, Study

  Terry Eagleton (2011). “Literary Theory: An Introduction”, p.10, John Wiley & Sons

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• I used to teach at Yale, which was at one time a center of postmodernist literary theory. Derrida was there. Paul de Man was there.

  Harry Frankfurt

  Men, Yale, Derrida

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