History of Studies of Literature

We have already defined what is literature, but now the question is, 
how do literature has been studied? For answering this, continue the reading below.


Greeks: In the V Century, the first who investigated about this topic where the people of the Peloponnese region. For them, the key concepts about literature where the Ontology (study of existence) and Epistemology (study of limits of knowledge)

Romanticism: In the Early XIX Century, in Europe they thought about this topic as something strongly relationed with feelings, expressions. So the best way to fulfill this anxiety was through poetry with common language, so everyone could understand it.

Scientific Determinism: In the Mid XIX Century, the Sciences became very important to all aspects of life. Of course, literature was one of those aspects. So through science and observation, they tried to investigate literature.

New Criticism: In the Early XX Century, they focused on the text only. The author, history, etc, had no importance at all when studying a piece of literature.

Reader Response: Also in the Early XX Century, some people thought about the reader of the text as the important aspect of studying literature. The personal experience of the reader had a substancial role in the text study.

Structuralism: Also in this same period, other thought arised. This separated the "signified" (idea) of the "signifier" (word).

Post-Structuralism: In the Mid XX Century, this idea borned. This proposed that we know what something is because we know it isn't another thing.

Marxism: This idea said that every single text had "subtexts" inside of it, that had a relation with ideological conflicts or social classes, problems that were quite discussed in those days.

Feminism: It put women as object of study. Women's experiences in literature.


Cultural Poetics: History as body of knowledge.

Postcolonial Criticism: Approach to texts produced in colonized countries. Ethnicity, Nationalism, and others are the bases of this study.

As you can see, through almost all History of men, we have investigated and studied Literature, because it's something almost as inherent to humans as language itself. For me, the Reader Response study is the most correct, because not everyone can see what you can see in a text. Comment with which of them you agree the most.

Joke about Feminism