An academic trifle to most, literary theory is a deceptively consequential issue in American education. In English classrooms, students are supposed to encounter great works of literature, sharpening and honing their own view of the world. And so it matters not just what books we choose to read with students, but how we read them.
The National Council of Teachers of English recently released a policy brief titled Culturally Responsive Approaches to the Teaching of Literature in Secondary English Classrooms. In it, they at once criticize traditional approaches to literary theory and espouse “critical theory,” a progressive, postmodern approach to reading. In each case, “regardless of the text,” the brief encourages teachers to “model and instruct students on how to read through a critical lens across a range of literary theories (e.g., postcolonial criticism, Black feminist criticism, Chicana feminist criticism).”
This approach is fundamentally flawed. Where it asks students to read through a “lens,” critical theory proves to be a muddied, distorted one. At best, it’s a literary parlor trick, encouraging books to chirp and squawk about themes their authors never intended. At worst, it’s a nefarious little way to slip political, even radical ideas into the English classroom, where they have no place.
Broadly speaking, there are three dominant literary theories. “Traditional theory”—under which falls New Criticism, formalism, and other subcategories—sees literature, even fiction, as definitive statements to be unearthed. A book means what it means. A more popular approach, and arguably the approach most common within the general population, is reader-response theory: A book means what it means to you; our own subjective perceptions matter most. Finally, critical theory treats a book more as a cultural artifact, reflective of the worldviews and “systems of oppression” in which it exists.
In short, traditional theory allows a book to speak to the reader, emphasizing the text itself. Reader-response prizes our own interpretations, emphasizing the person reading the book. Critical theory forces an interpretation onto any text, emphasizing a progressive view of the world.
Within the broader critical theory are various “lenses” through which readers can interrogate a book—feminist, Freudian, Marxist, critical race, anti-racist, post-colonial, and plenty more. In each case, what a text actually has to say matters less than what it reveals about oppression in society, be it racial, gendered, or even subconscious in origin.
Thus, were students to read Romeo and Juliet through a feminist lens, gone would be Shakespeare’s varied perspectives on love—Friar Laurence’s religious idealism, Romeo’s passion, or Mercutio’s flippancy—or the Bard’s pessimistic fatalism, as man is powerless before the whims of the Gods or strictures of society. Instead, this play becomes a story of gender oppression and class conflict. These are important discussions, surely, but the story then repeats itself with Hamlet, Sherlock Holmes, or any other work of literature.
T.S. Eliot, a seminal figure of New Criticism, believed that the ideal author removed himself and his emotions from his work to present to the reader ideas themselves. Books are more than a cultural artifact. They are almost arguments to be considered. Dostoyevsky forces readers to reckon with the haunting emptiness of a Godless world. Orwell presents the horrors of authoritarian governments and the covert ways in which they poison a society. Wordsworth lauds the salutary effects of nature and man’s corruption of man.
Conversely, critical theory acts like a photo filter, distorting and coloring every book until each text displays much the same message no matter the author’s original intent.
The NCTE statement rightly champions literature because it “presents students with various ethical systems, moral perspectives, and literal and figurative worlds that expand and deepen students’ awareness and imagination.” For healthy identity development, adolescents need to play around with ideas—beliefs about everything from gender to God, their own possible life trajectories, and more. Traditional theories accomplish these goals. Critical theory muffles the voice of the author, encourages deconstruction, and where it provides alternatives, it is almost cultish in its repetition of one message over and again. There is no consideration of “various ethical systems,” but a deconstruction of all and subsequent presentation of one progressive system.
The policy brief is light on concrete application and recommendations. It laments the “top-down” nature of traditional theory and gestures at the supposed ability of critical theory to disrupt and deconstruct various power relations. The brief lists a few example units built upon critical theories: comics-style essays for final projects, watching documentaries about current events, using Taylor Swift songs and Beauty and the Beast to “analyze toxic masculinity in The Great Gatsby.” Hardly a stirring call for a rigorous English classroom.
This is not to suggest that feminism, racism, colonialism, or other such themes have no place in the classroom. These are important discussions and debates that have shaped our country. But teachers and curriculum developers ought to select books and texts that have something definitive to say about them, such as “Letter from Birmingham Jail” or Beloved rather than forcing such messages from books selected at random. But if you’re reading Romeo and Juliet through a feminist lens, you’re doing it wrong.
