Reading literature through the looking glass of theory.
The Elementary Structures of Kinship by Claude Lévi-Strauss
When it comes to interpreting texts, poststructuralist theory loves to get its hands on anything and everything. But it especially loves taking on the power players of Western philosophy, politics,...
"The Purloined Letter" by Edgar Allan Poe
Poe's writings were translated into French by the poet Charles Baudelaire, who single-handedly established Poe's international reputation and made him readable by our two favorite Jacques, Lacan an...
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
Proust's multi-volume novel Remembrance of Things Past gives us every little detail of the life and times of its protagonist, the narrator. Like, every detail. He eats a pastry and it takes mu...
figurative language
Now that we've looked at three readings straight from the horses' mouths (erm...so to speak), it's time we ventured off into the uncharted wilderness. Let's take a look at a poem that the major pos...
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
We've talked a lot about how deconstructive and poststructuralist readings don't like to confine themselves to conventional "lit." So, for one more example, let's take a look at a text that folks l...