Making SPACE for methodology.potx

Making Space for
Methodology in
Literature
Soumia Bakezzi
People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
University of Oum El Bouaghi
Faculty of Letters and Languages
The First Online National Postgraduate Conference on RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY ESSIENTIALS: TIPS AND PRACTICAL GUIDLINES

Table of Contents
1. problem identification, Objectives and Argumentation.
2. Introduction.
3. Literature? Methodology?
4. More Than Just Literature: Deficiencies in The Pedagogy in Literary Studies.
5. Getting Started: Basics To Analyzing Literary Works.
6. Conclusion

“The whole history of modern poetry is a running
commentary on the following brief philosophical text: all art
should become science and all science art”
-F. Schlegel, Lyceum

1. Problem,
Objectives &
Argumentation
• By definition, literary studies do not have a methodology in the sense
that other more science leaning studies do. (role of literature as
subservient to other disciplines)
• The objective is to argue that literary studies do not equal literary
theories or the application thereof.
• Literature is a form is embedded and embodied practice, hence it is
implicitly methodized.
• We part from the assumption that literature can be exhausted by no
theory.
• Intended to serve a practical purpose: forming a confident reader &
critic.
• Ultimately, the aim of the analysis is not to make sense of literature
grounded in disciplinary knowledge but to approach the study of
literature as understanding the world via literature by way of the shapes
that such disparaged disciplinary knowledge takes.

2. Introduction
The idea that literary studies is demanding is widely accepted. Moreover, the fact that studying literature and the
practice of criticism is more than just the mastery of the instruments of formal analysis or analysis for content is
also widely acknowledged. However, what Jonathan Culler (1975) calls the literary competence (a competence that
is beyond transmission or spontaneity) is rarely brought to the researcher’s attention,. It follows that conducting a
research in literature, which is inherently a complex activity, is an implicit practice, and is one which is shrouded in
dogmatic leanings. Therefore, the issue of “the what” to choose and the order in which (not only in terms of
primary and secondary sources but also of the method), “the how” (the application of the interpretative
apparatus), and ‘the when” to use looms even larger in the practice (priority).
In the ever self-enclosed and disclosed field of literature and its myriad forms, literature has expanded to include
other arts such as media and film as arable and liminal spaces of contextualization and re-contextualization, of
working out new meanings that emerge with each reconfiguration. What this necessitates is the opening up to
different levels of reading and enabling divergent critical opinions. It is important to understand that because
literature notoriously draws us closer to self-knowledge, therefore, nearly everything within our disposal should be
capitalized on. In this sense, methodological pluralism is unquestionable. therefore, the question of methodology
in literature will always remain a moot one.
Reading is an experience, and in the words of Aragon, “the experience is not transmissible, only dogmatism is”.
All the while allowing the journey to be exploratory rather self-justified,
. Inductive
. exploratory
. Deductive
. explanatory

• The unscientific-ness leveled against literature
under the pretext that it is deferential and
accommodating, hence why its methodology is
blatantly implicit.
• Doing literature goes beyond textual practice.

3. Methodology? Literature?
• All kinds of research share similar defining characteristics. For any research to
be complete, the following must be accounted for
Research in literature : Rigorous and analytical reading of literary texts aimed
at constructing a world of meanings and interpretations.
Problem
Literature
review
hypothesis
Data
procession
Data
collection
methodol
ogy
results

What we talk about when we talk about methodology in literature?
Does literary studies have a methodology?
The methodology can be traced back to how literary works have been studied at different historical junctures (extratextual
matrix) and with what perspectives in mind had arrested the critic.
Additionally, the focus on either the work, the author or the reader have been of paramount importance.
In its broader sense, methodology in literature encompasses the framework(s) which allow the thing under study to receive
sustained consideration, captured in a coherent and organic manner. The framework is determined by the kind of questions we
raise initially.
The approach or framework “provide ways of marshalling the massive amount of detail” is contained in texts (Whitla, 2009 , 36)

Methodology in literature
Literature is a form of writing, a textual construction. To borrow Wittgenstein’s words, it is the “intensional semantic
construction”. Therefore, doing research in literature entails writing about writing. Thus, the double complexity of the
task.
The core of literature: discursive linguistic expression. Epistemic pursuit. It enlarges and trespasses the sensual and
conceptual sphere through a voluntary provision with a transcendental experience.
Formal analysis of multiple layers of complexity and a complexity that bears parallels to the real world. Transposition
from the fictional to the real and our role as navigating the tos and fros
Methodology in vogue: Gravitate towards prepackaged theories to cover for the methodology (only what is clearly
stated, however, there are other elements that factor in the practice of literature)
The methodology we prepose provides valuable critical instruments. It starts from asking foundational questions and
progresses to where to stop in the analysis, the right approach will necessarily emerge . Because it is in the start and
finish lines that the answer to the research questions are measured.
Q: How we organize our knowledge of literature? What interpretive keys we should use?

4. More Than Just Literature
• “There is more to criticism than understanding the text, [which] is where criticism begins, not where it ends”
(Guerin, Wilfred. Et al. 2005, p. 150). Entails that there is more to criticism than just subordinating one’s
study to the blueprint of any method.
• Philosophy creeps in in order to penetrate levels of meaning. Assists us with the rationale, e.g. necessity of
manifestation”= A thing that is emphasized on leaves distinctive imprints
• Working out our critical response to the literary work we set upon analyzing is not enough. Construct our own analysis.
• Make the work more intelligible through analysis
• Every work is the product of its age. Any work of art stretches as far back as to encompass what not only bears on the life
of the author but also on the human condition. Every work bears the stamp of its author’s distinguished style, his
assumptions, intellectual maturity, prejudices, his unresolved tensions, his making sense of the world (epistemic traces)…
among other things. Every work is underpinned by an intellectual legacy, and things that have already been discovered.
(associations and dissociations)Therefore, our analysis should touch upon those in various degrees and to the extent to
which we wish to answer the research questions previously raised. Vigilance over when and where to shift disciplinary
gears
• Philosophy allows for a critical distance, especially when we deal with large concepts. Saves us from the helpless
verbiage of uninformed (inventing the wheel, the exhaustibility of literature and the recycling of older forms of
knowledge that go as far back as to the ancient ancient)
• Every work of literature has an ontological function

The study of literature is done by espousing a more eclectic approach by the fusion of a variety of
techniques to probe and infiltrate levels of meaning that may otherwise go unnoticed.
Analyzing entails an oscillation between literal reading, hypothetical reading, analytical reading,
plurality of readings, and dealing with/reconciling the residues that emerge from such an
undertaking. (Inconsistencies are bound to arise); logical consistency and harmony should bee the
corollary.
Doing research in literature is to read synthetically, and synthesize the reading.

4.1. Deficiencies in The Pedagogy of Literary Studies
• What is conventional in literary studies is that literary theories which
come to stand as a sign of postmodernism seem to have firmly
established themselves as the legitimate one-way ticket to studying
literature, and the methodology par excellence in literary studies.
Results in the inevitable exposure to misinterpretation or truncated
interpretation.
• Unbridled embracement of theoretical criticism The “fallacy of
determinism” advertised by social theories.
• The permeability of literature to an array of proximate disciplines, and
the fluidity of these boundaries impossible to sustain the
labyrinthine nature of writing research about writing.
• Well trodden path of literary theories led to the subjects matters to be
fully consummate

5. Getting Started: Considerations for Analyzing Literary Works
the critic looks for “something as yet unknown which it will find , with
perceptions heightened and modified by the act of looking. For knowing is
qualitative and is profoundly affected by the reason for wanting to know”
(Frenstermaker & Altick, 1981, p. 4)
Thorough and ongoing analysis. The possession of a
literary competence should tell us where to start
and when and where to finish the analysis of the
formative elements of the work of art, in addition to
intrinsic and extrinsic considerations
Criticism is analysis for better understanding. Any ambiguous
words or experiences should be brought to light.
William Whitla (2009, p. 20) mentions
five preliminary aspects of literary
criticism:
• Literary scholarship
• Response
• Explication
• Analysis
• Interpretation

Approaching the author’s work:
• The hierarchy of interpretation:(preference or marginalization within a logical
consistency underpinning the choice). Criteria of truth and correspondence.
Different levels of reading. The ubiquitous notion, and rightly so, of the
incompleteness of the text calls for alternative readings, both the holistic and the
particular.
• Reading for content: Look for the indications from the text of important
information. The various relationships of the parts and the whole
• Reading for form (in the plural): Study aspects in language and stylistics such as
style, irony, setting, theme, point of view, plot, symbols…etc. New critics insisted
on the presence with the work of everything necessary for its analysis.
“the process of formalist approach is complete only when everything in the work
has been accounted for in terms of its overall form” p. 102
• The formal level involves how a text is organized, structured or patterned.
• Bring the analysis to the edge and back. Avoid fissures (logical or formal), bridge
the unconnected

The work is a form of “extensional referentiality”. We must have some degree of knowledge of the author, the words of
the text and what they denote, what they seem to be telling us.
Objects with symbolic values
How do the materials we pick (esp. secondary sources) work side by side in order to advance our understanding of the
literary work in a complementary way?
Admixture between comprehension (critical discourse), and appreciation (aesthetics)

6.conclusion
• Criticism is the informed reading of art. It is “the orderly arrangement of parts that
form a beautiful whole or organism”, hence, it doubly amplifies our sensual and
perceptual experience (reading + analyzing). Therefore, being a good reader of
literature requires close reading and intentional reading.
• We should remember the great sentence of Aragon when he said that experience is
not transmissible, only dogmatism is. If we want to unpack what critical reading is,
it is literary competence. Literary competence is, therefore, the accumulation of
various elements that factor in, sustain and support the thesis from the initial
stages of research, make the work intelligible in ways that wouldn’t otherwise be.
Such competence is beyond transmission or spontaneity
• Literary competence comprises a chain of functional elements of which philosophy
(knowledge of the philosophical theories, schools of thought, the precedence of
one over the other in the recollection of philosophies) , formal analysis, mythology
and archetypes, inter alia, which allow us to penetrate levels of meaningin a way
that would otherwise be missing.

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