Literary Theory Quotes:

Literary theories will not make a writer write.

- Allen Wier

topic: Writing, Literary Theory, Theory

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

- Terry Eagleton

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

topic: Literary Theory, Talking, People

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

- Terry Eagleton

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

topic: Literary Theory, Marxism, Trade

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

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

topic: Literary Theory, Literary Genre, Practice

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

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

topic: Art, Writing, Literary Theory

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

- Mason Cooley

topic: Literary Theory, Literature, Firsts

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

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

topic: Simple, Literary Theory, Ideas

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

topic: Literary Theory, People, Tragedy

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

topic: Literature, Jargon, Sake, Literary Theory

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

- Charles Simic

topic: Ambition, Imagination, Literature, Literary Theory

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

- Terry Eagleton

topic: Method, Theory, Term, Literary Theory

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

- Terry Eagleton

topic: May, Throwing, Mass, Barricades, Throwing Up

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

- Terry Eagleton

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

topic: Apathy, Inevitable, Literary Theory

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

source: "The Lost Art of Walking: The History, Science, and Literature of Pedestrianism". Book by Geoff Nicholson, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 20, 2008.

topic: Writing, Thinking, Space, Appropriation, Literary Theory

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

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

topic: Thinking, Roots, Evil, Literary Works, Literary Theory

I am someone who values truth - actual truth as opposed to 'truthiness.'

- John Hodgman

topic: Values, Deconstruction, Literary Theory, Yale University

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

topic: Reading, Book, School, Graduate School, Literary Theory

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

topic: School, Facts, Study, Literary Theory, Best Sellers

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

topic: Men, Yale, Derrida, Literary Theory