There are two very basic ways in which we can read literature: we can read it appreciatively or we can read it critically. Appreciative reading is what happens when we simply "enjoy" a text by reading it entirely for "relaxation," "entertainment," and "diversion." When we read appreciatively we ask no questions of or about what we are reading, but instead simply accept what is presented to us: we allow ourselves to be "carried away by" what we read and to be "swallowed up within" the alternative world it creates for us. We do this, moreover, by and large without thinking about the fact that we are doing it; in appreciative reading we become willing accomplices in our own manipulation by what we read, and yet we do so largely unconsciously. 
 

Critical reading proceeds beyond simple appreciation. The critical reading of literature attempts to understand and explain what makes literature what it is. In other words, a critical reading of a work of literature attempts to explain what is involved in the construction of the literary work; how and why this work has been constructed as it has; and what kinds of impacts the literary work exerts and what kinds of effects it achieves, upon whom, when, where, how, and why. Critical reading asks many probing questions of and about what is being read. The critical reading of a work of literature is self-consciously aware of what it is doing; it is a reading which reflects not only upon what is the meaning and the significance of the text it is reading, but also upon how it is reading this text and why it is reading the text as it is. 
 

Critical reading is not altogether opposed to appreciative reading; what critical reading is opposed to is uncritical appreciation. Critical reading transforms uncritical appreciation into a more complex and sophisticated kind of critical appreciation. This is analogous to the kind of appreciation which is enjoyed by someone who is a fan of competitive sports while also knowing what is actually required to excel at these sports, or to the appreciation that is enjoyed by someone who loves movies and yet also knows what is necessary to produce a movie, or to the appreciation that is enjoyed by someone who likes to drive or race cars for fun and yet also knows what makes a car run. 
 

What then is involved in the critical reading of literature? Let us begin with three quick definitions: to "interpret" is to determine what something means, to "evaluate" is to determine what something is worth, and to "criticize" is to combine interpretation and evaluation. The basic objective of the critical study of literature is, therefore, to deepen our understanding of and appreciation for the meaning and value of literary texts. 
 

This may seem simple enough, but complexities set in once we consider the fact that there are many different approaches to the interpretation and evaluation of literature. For instance, in the various versions of "Critical Approaches to Literature" I have taught all of the following: Moral-Formalist, New Critical, and Pragmatic approaches; Phenomenological, Hermeneutical, Reception Aestheticist, and Reader-Response approaches; Russian Formalist, Structuralist, and Structuralist Semiological approaches; Deconstructionist approaches; Psychoanalytic approaches; Feminist approaches; Queer Approaches; Marxist approaches; Foucauldian, New Historicist, and Cultural Materialist approaches; and Postmodernist, Postcolonialist, and Multicultural approaches. How then, given the vast diversity of critical approaches to literature, should we begin to interpret what works of literature mean and how should we begin to evaluate what they are worth? What criteria and what methods should we use? 
 

Probably the best way in which to begin to make sense of what critical approaches we wish to employ is to classify available approaches in terms of what they enable us to know and understand about literature. There are many ways of doing this, and yet literary historians have found it especially useful to classify critical theories of literature in terms of the kinds of relations upon which they focus, and the orientations which these focuses provide. M.H. Abrams, for instance, in The Mirror and the Lamp (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953, 1974), famously classified critical theories into four different kinds, along exactly these lines: 
 

1. "Mimetic Theories" focus on the relation between the literary text and the extra-textual "universe" which provides the source and stimulus for what the literary text actually represents. Although calling these theories "mimetic" -- which means imitative -- is in part a sign of Abrams' relatively low regard for them, the key point here is that one kind of critical theory of literature focuses, in making sense of what literature means and what is significant about it, upon the relation between the literary text and the extra-textual contexts which the literary text reflects, refracts, refers to, responds to, represents, and/or transforms, in one way or another.
 

2. "Pragmatic Theories" focus on the relation between the literary text and the reader of the literary text. This kind of critical theory makes sense of what literature means and what is significant about it by focusing attention upon what kinds of impacts it exerts and what kinds of effects it has upon its readers. Abrams calls these kinds of theories "pragmatic" because he is drawing upon a history of classical rhetorical theory and criticism which studied literature, together with other kinds of speech and writing, in terms of how it could be deliberately constructed to achieve particular effects with particular audiences. Much ancient and classical literary theory understood literature as deliberately written to do something to and for its audience: for instance, as the Roman poet and critic Horace famously advises, in his Art of Poetry, to "teach and delight."
 

3. "Expressive Theories" focus on the relation between the literary text and the writer of the literary text. This kind of critical theory of literature, which only became prominent with the Romantic movement in the early 19th century, makes sense of the meaning and significance of literature by focusing upon what the literary text expresses about the thoughts and feelings of its writer -- or, in cases where it is not clear what the writer thinks and feels, about those of "the speaker" or "the narrator" "in the text."
 

4. "Objective Theories" focus on the relation between the literary text and its distinctively "literary" language, forms, and devices. This kinds of critical theory of literature, which became especially prominent in association with American New Criticism in the 1940s and 1950s, makes sense of the meaning and significance of literature by focusing upon the literary text in deliberate abstraction from its relations to its writer, its readers, and surrounding social-historical and political-ideological contexts; the aim here is to understand the literary work, as Abrams puts it, "as a self-sufficient entity constituted by its parts in their internal relations, and .  . .  to judge it solely by criteria intrinsic to its own being" (26). So-called "objective theories" are often called "art for art's sake" theories: they urge that art be understood and appreciated "for art's sake" alone, and, therefore, that literature, as one distinctive form of art, be appreciated "for literature's sake" alone. Accordingly, the critic is advised only to interpret and evaluate literature in relation to literary standards and criteria; she should not contaminate the process by bringing in extraneous matters that have nothing to do with "literature as literature."
 

While Abrams' classificatory schema continues to have its uses, it is now not only somewhat out-of-date, but also unnecessarily elaborate as a basic introduction to principal orientations among critical theories of literature. I suggest that both traditionally, and up through the present time, there have been two general kinds of approaches to literary criticism, based upon two general kinds of theories of literature: formalist approaches and sociological approaches. According to formalist theory, literature needs to be understood and appreciated "on its own terms," in abstraction from the historically and culturally specific conditions under which it is actually written and read -- in abstraction, in other words, from the historically and culturally specific conditions of its actual production, circulation, and consumption. From a formalist perspective, literary texts should be studied in relation to the way in which they deploy distinctively literary forms to become objects of eternal beauty that offer insight into universal truths. 
 

In contrast with the formalist position, sociological theory contends that literature needs to be understood and appreciated in relation to the historically and culturally specific conditions of its actual production, circulation, and consumption: it needs, in other words, to be understood and appreciated in relation to the particular place the writing and reading of literature occupies within particular kinds of societies, and, more precisely, within particular kinds of social relations and practices and within particular kinds of social institutions and enterprises. From a sociological perspective, standards of beauty and truth vary and change, and, therefore, what may seem to be eternal and universal standards are in fact likely only to be dominant standards. In addition, sociological theory contends that it is not only literary content but also literary form which is shaped and determined by historical and cultural forces, and, therefore, literary forms as well as literary contents vary and change across time and space. 
 

To illustrate the importance of these points, consider the following facts: 1. first, that up until very recently few works of literature by women dealing with women's experiences or by people of color dealing with the experiences of people of color were recognized as "good" and especially as "great" literature, and 2. second, that also up until fairly recently poems which did not follow very precise rhythmic patterns and rhyme schemes and stories which did not provide "realistic" accounts, in linear narratives, of the working through of a problem from an initial troubled beginning to a final conclusive end were considered "bad," or at least not as "good" as poems and stories which followed the more traditional forms.
 

This is not to say that formalist theory altogether neglects discussion of "social issues" or that sociological theory altogether neglects discussion of "formal issues." In formalist theory, the "society" which is discussed tends either to be that of "humanity in general" or of an equally universal "elite of all humanity." Accordingly, what a story, poem, or play represents, if it is truly an example of great literature, is considered either something that all human beings everywhere experience the same (and which, thereby, supposedly neither varies nor changes all that significantly from one culture to another), or something which only those with the most highly developed and refined sensibilities can relate to, understand, and appreciate. For example, according to a formalist approach, the poems of John Donne dealing with death, such as "Death Be Not Proud," are only truly significant as literature insofar as they express something absolute, and eternal about the relationship between human beings and death, something which is always and everywhere experienced the same, regardless of historical or cultural differences, at the least for those human beings with an elite sensibility. According to a formalist approach, Donne's poems about death are not important as manifestations of what the individual man John Donne thought and felt about death, and they are likewise not significant as reflections of what people from Donne's social class in 17th century England tended to think and feel about death. Given the assumption that truly great literature deals only with those social issues that are absolute and universal, or that address an elite minority with the most highly developed and refined sensibilities, the formalist critic can then focus his detailed attention upon interpreting how -- and evaluating how well -- the literary work achieves literary greatness by means of its use of "literary language," "literary devices," and "literary forms." 
 

In sociological theory, literary "forms" are understood as themselves social. This means that sociological theory understands that not only the contents but also the forms of literary works have their particular social-historical conditions of possibility and their particular social-historical forces of generation. For example, sociological theory is interested in explaining why the novel first emerged in the 18th century by inquiring into what had changed concerning the place of writing and reading in European societies at that time which made possible such a development by encouraging writers to innovate in this direction and readers to respond positively to this innovation. Many literary historians have associated the emergence of the novel with the rise to power of a new social class, the mercantile and industrial "middle class" (or the bourgeoisie), and, even more importantly than this, with the transformation of feudalism into capitalism. This new socio-economic system required, and its new dominant class encouraged, many new ideas and many new values which eventually effected considerable cultural change, including in what kinds of literature were written and read, how, why, when, where, and by whom. In sum, sociological approaches do not neglect the formal properties of the literary works they study, but instead try to make sense of literary forms (such as the novel itself, or particular kinds of novels, or particular ways of segmenting and organizing particular kinds of novels) by understanding their emergence, development, proliferation, variation, decline, and supersession in larger social contexts. 
 

As is likely already clear by this point, I myself approach literature from a sociological perspective. This means that I conceive of literary works as reflections of social conditions and as responses to social forces. I conceive of literary works as particular parts of societies that are effected by and in turn effect other particular parts of these societies. This means that I don't approach the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, or Hemingway as simply "the best and the brightest" achievements of "the human mind and the human heart" and that I don't approach these writers as those who have been able to capture for all times and all places what is essential to "the human condition." Instead, in interpreting and evaluating these and all other works of literature, I am concerned to inquire into 1. what social conditions make possible and what social forces generate the meanings and values of these literary works, and 2. what kinds of social uses these meanings and values have and what kinds of social effects they exert -- in particular, what kinds of social ends they advance and what kinds of social interests they serve. Particular definitions of what constitutes "the human condition" and of how to understand and appreciate it therefore advance particular social ends and serve particular social interests -- while simultaneously opposing other social ends and interests. Not every human condition is included -- at least not equally or fairly -- in these particular representations. 
 

Sociological theories of literature often propose that literature provides us knowledge of social reality, and, often, these theories suggest that literature provides us a particular kind of knowledge of particular aspects of social reality. Philosopher Louis Althusser has suggested that literature, and other art, does not simply represent social reality, in and of itself, but instead represents what it feels like, and what it looks like, to relate to particular kinds of social realities from particular kinds of social positions and perspectives ("A Letter on Art in Reply to André Daspre," Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971). The imaginary world that literature creates is therefore not a scientific representation of "the real world," but rather an artistic representation of how that real world can and does look, and feel, to real people, in the process of relating to it from the particular places they are at and the particular angles from which they are able to relate. In addition, literature provides us an understanding of what it looks and feels like to relate not simply to "the world as it truly is" but rather to the world as it is seen from the perspective and through the "lens" of particular ideologies, i.e. particular systems of values, attitudes, ideals, and beliefs which always shape and influence what we see, how we see it, and what we make of what we see as we look out upon the social world which surrounds us. For example, Franz Kafka's novel The Trial is not so much about the state, government, and the law in modern societies but rather about what it looks, and feels like, to relate to these entities, especially from the precarious and contradictory position of the professional-managerial middle class, and especially from the vantage point of a combination of "professionalist," "managerialist," "elitist," "puritanical," "ascetic," "solipsistic," "cynical," and "decadent" ideologies. 
 

As I have just suggested, I believe the meaning and value of literary works is best examined in relation to the ways in which these works function as ideology and as ideology critique. By ideology I mean a general philosophy of life and existence or of being and reality that supports and encourages particular ways of thinking, understanding, feeling, believing, communicating, interacting, acting, and behaving. By ideology critique I mean an attempt to demonstrate the problems and limitations of an ideology so as to oppose and discourage the particular ways of thinking, understanding, feeling, believing, communicating, interacting, acting, and behaving that the ideology in question supports and encourages. What this in sum means is that I encourage my students to inquire into the ways in which literary texts represent various ideologies in contestation with each other and thereby to inquire in turn into the ways in which these texts work both to support and oppose, and encourage and discourage particular ways of thinking, understanding, feeling, believing, communicating, interacting, acting, and behaving among those who read these texts. This enables us to ask, for instance, what effect do Hemingway's stories of male heroes living and dying according to codes of honor that are dependent upon (and reinforcing of) ruggedly individualistic kinds of highly "macho" values exert upon relations between men and women and upon social definitions of what "real" men and "real" women can and should be like? Or, to take another example, what effects upon our understanding of racial differences and racial conflicts do Faulkner's novels and stories of relations between Black and White exert when they oppose overtly racist forms of bigotry only to end up simultaneously depicting Blacks in a more subtly racist manner as nobly primitive savages who are marked by their superior ability to suffer and endure pain without distress or complaint?
 

Literature performs the work of ideology and of ideology critique in particular kinds of ways, ways which I suggest add up to the "formal resolution of social contradictions." In order to understand what I mean by this contention, let's break it down and define my key terms and then add these up to get a clearer picture of what I am claiming literature does. To begin, by "social" I mean anything happening within "society," and, most simply, anything involving a relation of any kind between two or more people. "Social contradictions" are therefore contradictions within and contradictions between various societal processes -- or, again most simply, contradictions in relations between people. More precisely, however, social contradictions involve contradictions in the various ways people interact and interrelate in the course of carrying out particular kinds of practices as part of particular kinds of relations with each other within the space of various institutions and enterprises that organize and regulate the ways these people live and work. Here, we could talk about the contradiction, for instance, between the promise, on the one hand, of "the American Dream," and the degradation and dehumanization, on the other hand, of enslavement to alienating work which offers not only little pay and little security but also little means either of personal fulfillment or social advancement -- a contradiction which shows up in many literary texts, including, to take just one example, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
 

By "contradiction" I mean any kind of relationship involving the uniting of any set of opposing forces or tendencies; it is these opposing forces or tendencies, moreover, which constitute the "poles of the contradiction" and it is the struggle between these poles that creates tensions and conflicts, causes problems and indeed even crises, and which therefore requires development and change so as to lead to "resolution." In Richard Wright's Native Son, for instance, we see played out the contradictions in the place of Black America within America as a whole -- a place of both inclusion and exclusion -- and we see how these create a climate in which racial violence becomes highly likely, if not inevitable. By "resolution of social contradictions" I of course mean the overcoming, solving, and ending of the tensions and conflicts, problems and crises that the struggle of opposing forces and tendencies has brought about by working through and past these to the point where they no longer exist or persist -- at least in the same form. To take Native Son as an example once again, the novel charts how an explosion of rage against oppression sets in motion not only a tremendous backlash but also a serious reexamination of what will be necessary if Black and White Americans are to live and work together in peace as part of one society. 
 

At the same time, however, I also mean "resolution" in another sense as well: that is, the sense of "resolution" involving the "clarification and illumination" of a thing by taking that thing apart -- by breaking it down into its constituent parts -- so as to reveal what this thing is made of, what makes it in other words what it is and what causes it to function as it does. Therefore by "resolution of social contradictions" I also mean the clarification and illumination of what precisely is involved -- and what precisely is at stake -- in these contradictions, what in other words makes them contradictions in the first place and what, in the second place, makes them the particular kinds of contradictions that they are. Native Son is a classic example of how a work of literature provides such a clarification and illumination of a significant social problem in its analysis and evaluation of the causes and effects of racist oppression of Black Americans. 
 

In order better to understand what I mean by "resolution" it is useful to contrast "resolution" with "dissolution." Resolution of social contradictions refers both to the clarification and illumination of what is involved in these contradictions and to the working through of these contradictions to the point in which they have been overcome, solved, and ended so that the oppositions at the root of these contradictions no longer exist or persist in the same form. Dissolution of social contradictions, in contrast, refers both, on the one hand, to a process of mystification or distortion of what is actually involved in these contradictions and, on the other hand, to an escape and a retreat rather than a working through of the tensions and conflicts, problems and crises that the struggle of opposing forces and tendencies has brought about. I would suggest that we can evaluate literature which works to "resolve" social contradictions more highly than literature which works merely to "dissolve" these -- the former kind provides us insight and assistance in understanding and working these contradictions through as they occur in society at large, whereas the latter instead hinders our understanding and causes us to retreat and escape rather than to confront and work through social contradictions. To illustrate an example of the dissolution versus the resolution of social contradictions consider how, unlike a novel like Native Son which confronts the depth and complexity of racist race relations for what this is, a television situation comedy episode might very often suggest that this same problem can be easily overcome by simply bringing Black and White people to live, go to school, and hang out together, and that there is no real barrier to racial harmony other than Black and White just not trying hard enough to get along. Or to take another example, think about how often these situation comedies suggest social problems can be solved within the space of loving families where the real problem seems to be that there are just not enough Keatons or Huxtables or Seavers or the like, and that if there were we all would be better off.
 

By "formal resolution of social contradictions" I mean a resolution of these contradictions that takes place within the partial and limited space and according to the peculiar dictates of what literary "forms" allow. A formal resolution of a social contradiction is one which is in an important sense "imaginary" rather than "real," and "symbolic" rather than "substantial." Resolution of social contradictions within literary works thus does not mean that these contradictions are simultaneously resolved within society at large; moreover, resolution of social contradictions on literary terms, according to what can and does happen within works of literature, is not the same as what is possible and what is necessary to resolve these in society at large. As an example, consider how often Dickens wrote novels which served in part as exposes of social problems such as poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, child labor, an unjust and inhuman legal and prison system, homelessness and vagrancy, etc. and yet at the same time how these problems are addressed and "solved" in his novels through typically melodramatic and sentimental accounts of individual heroism struggling and triumphing over individual villainy. And yet, at the same time, the peculiar way in which literary works resolve social contradictions can nonetheless provide, as I have indicated, useful insight and assistance in working to resolve these in society at large. The pressure Dickens' novels exerted on the public conscience of the time to support various social reforms is only one example of this influence. In fact, I would add to this the further point that the ways in which literary works formally resolve social contradictions are the ways in which these works act as ideology and as ideology critique and are thus in turn the kinds of ways in which they support and oppose, and encourage and discourage particular ways of thinking, understanding, feeling, believing, communicating, interacting, acting, and behaving among their readers. For instance, the social criticism contained within Dickens' novels supported liberal reforms and not radical transformations because his novels depicted these social problems as caused either simply by ignorance and backwardness or by individual greed, callousness, and corruption. 
 

If thinking of literary texts in terms of contradictions seems strange at first, this is probably because we are so often taught to look upon contradictions as simply bad things.  We are taught to think in ways which are inadequate to do justice to the complexity and dynamism of life.  In fact, contradictions are everywhere, and they are, moreover, the driving force of change.  To illustrate, let’s just take the example of an individual human being.  If we consider that individuals are always involved in multiple and complicated kinds of relationships at the one time, and are growing, developing, and changing over time, then we see it makes little sense to say that any individual simply is – and is not – one fixed thing.
 

 Let’s call our hypothetical individual Tom.  I am proposing, in short, that it makes perfect sense to say that Tom “is” the following:

1. A good student and a bad student.
2. Happy and sad.
3. Responsible and irresponsible.
4. Hard-working and lazy.
5. Concerned about his future and focused on the here and now.
6. A good friend and a bad friend.
7. In love and not in love.
8. Idealistic and cynical.
9. Respectful of women’s equality and not respectful of women’s equality.
10. Gentle and harsh.
11. Intelligent and ignorant.

And, of course, we could go on and on with this list.  The point is that Tom is in some ways the one side and in other ways the opposite side of each of these pairs; he is closer to one side in some situations, circumstances, or contexts, while he is closer to the opposite side in others; he is at one point in time in his life closer to the one side and at other points in his life closer to the other side (i.e., he changes); and he experiences each of these oppositions as internal tensions, as forces impelling him in opposing directions, as conflicting tendencies for who he will be and what he will do, as contradictions which he will have to work on, and through – i.e., resolve – as he proceeds forward.  Yet even as Tom resolves these contradictions, he will then encounter new ones.  This is inevitable as long as Tom lives in a world with other people, interacts with them, and is affected by the influence and impact of these others upon who he is and what he does.  Tom, for instance, may find going to college leads him to resolve a number of contradictions he experienced as a high school student while also creating new sets of contradictions, such as contradictions between pre-collegiate interests and outlooks and post-collegiate ones.

To make my point I hope even clearer -- and I hope at least a little less abstractly -- let me add that literature formally resolves social contradictions in advancing implicit or explicit arguments about and implicit or explicit critiques of past, present, and prospective future kinds of societies and of past, present, and prospective future kinds of social relations, practices, institutions, and enterprises. There are many ways in which these arguments and critiques are constructed but three common examples are as follows: 

1. The fictional re-imagination of what people conceive as existing, desirable, and possible kinds of society and of what they conceive as existing, desirable, and possible kinds of social relations, practices, institutions and enterprises -- as well as the fictional re-narration, by means of a fictional trans-formation, of the stories people tell each other everyday about what they conceive as existing, desirable, and possible. One example of this is the way in which almost any serious work of science fiction offers an at least implicit commentary upon and critique of the present -- and of our ideas about the present in relation to the past and the future -- simply by projecting other and future worlds where it either becomes possible to live life in very different kinds of ways, or where changes in technological levels of development have been unable in and of themselves to help overcome social conflicts, and in fact, only at times make it possible for human beings -- and other intelligent beings -- to act in even more brutally destructive ways towards each other. Another example is the way in which naturalistic novels such as Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie and Frank Norris' McTeague not only meticulously describe the rise and fall of their protagonists' fortunes, but also uses these plots to elaborate complex arguments about issues of freedom and determinism: these novels expound upon the fragility of human achievement in the face of the inexorable forces of nature and an impersonal society, and about the ways in which human beings inevitably, and yet usually unwittingly, simultaneously become the principal agents of these inhuman forces. 
 

2. The poetic crystallization and intensification of emotions and perceptions experienced in relation to what people conceive as existing, desirable, and possible kinds of society and of what they conceive as existing, desirable, and possible kinds of social relations, practices, institutions and enterprises. One example of this is how poems by Emily Dickinson suggest in both their very cryptic form and their very gloomy content the incarcerating limits of life's possibilities for many middle-class American women in the mid to late nineteenth century. Another example of this is how, on the other hand, poems by Walt Whitman suggest in both their very expansive form and their very exuberant content the hope and optimism of those who were caught up at the very same point in the mid to late nineteenth century in living out and carrying forward the vision of an "American destiny" to be a new nation at the highest level of civilized development which would offer a shining example to all of what a truly democratic society can and should be like. 
 

3. The dramatic illustration of what people conceive as existing, desirable, and possible kinds of society and of what they conceive as existing, desirable, and possible kinds of social relations, practices, institutions and enterprises by trans-forming these conceptions so that they can be staged and performed, often in ways which shift the historical time and place of the particular issues upon which the play is actually focused. One example of this is how Arthur Miller's The Crucible attempts to make sense of and to sharply oppose McCarthyism in 1950s America by returning to the 17th century to re-enact the Salem witch trials and to suggest how these trials show the very deep roots of a kind of puritanical intolerance in "the American character." Another example of this is how Bertolt Brecht's Galileo uses the events leading up to the recantation of his discoveries by the famous medieval scientist, Galileo, in response to the threat of torture and imprisonment issued by the Papal Inquisition, so as to comment, in the immediate aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, upon the question of the intellectual and ethical responsibilities of the scientist when subject to the authority of political regimes which command the scientist to pursue her work in the interest of the state, and to support its involvement in repression and destruction. 
 

All of this, once again, enables literature to act as ideology and as ideology critique: to support and oppose, and to encourage and discourage particular ways of thinking, understanding, feeling, believing, communicating, interacting, acting, and behaving among the readers of literary works. To take yet another example, Jack London's novels of animals standing in for men (and I mean "men," because women were not usually intended), such as Call of the Wild, that depict these animals engaged in harsh and continuous struggles for survival, support a vision of society as a constant struggle for survival in a kind of Hobbesian war of all against all where the strong will triumph and the weak fail, and where it is fatal to depend too much or too long on any other than oneself -- while these novels oppose, at the same time, contrary understandings of society as a harmonious whole in which it is possible for all to work together to take care of and to support one another. Dostoevsky's famous novel Crime and Punishment not only indicates the limitations of living solely according to the dictates of scientific rationalism, but also the impossibility and the "impurity" of even the attempt to do so, attesting to the overpowering and inescapable necessity of humility, mystery, and faith -- and thereby becoming an argument for a kind of Christian existentialism.
 

Of course, the effectiveness of literature as ideology and as ideology critique will depend upon what kinds of ideological positions readers already represent and bring to bear in their reading of literature and how critically versus uncritically appreciative these readers are prepared to be in their engagement with what literary texts have to say to them. This of course in turn depends upon what kinds of people, with what kinds of previous knowledge, and with what sets of convictions and values, are reading literary works, when, where, and especially why -- for what end and as part of meeting what requirement or need, interest or want. For instance, novels and stories by Virginia Woolf (such as "A Room of One's Own," Mrs. Dalloway, and To the Lighthouse) which depict how hard it is for a woman living in man's society to find either a place in which to truly "be herself" or a language in which to truly "express herself" are going to make different kinds of sense to those who can recognize, understand, and identify with this position versus those who cannot. Likewise, those who have little or no sense what it might look and feel like to occupy the social position of "invisibility" within their communities, societies, and cultures will likely respond to Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man differently than those who know very well what such a position looks, and feels like. 
 

As a result of the fact that how we interpret and evaluate literature will depend upon what we bring to bear as much as what these texts bring to bear upon us, I think it is important, next, to distinguish between the two principal ways in which one can approach the critical study of literature, from a sociological perspective, as ideology and ideology critique. First, we can read a literary work principally in relation to how it made sense at the time and in the space of its initial conception and its immediate reception. Second, we can read it principally in relation to how it makes sense here and now, as we and as others living today understand it. Although I certainly think it is important to study and to understand the past (and not the least of the reasons why I believe this is important is, as philosopher George Santayana has famously indicated, so that we not be doomed by our ignorance of the past merely to repeat it), I tend to emphasize the latter approach in teaching literature -- studying it in terms of how it makes sense to us and to others living today, and in terms of how we and other people today can and do make use of it today. I think approaching literature in terms of what kinds of impacts and influences it does and can have today (and beyond this also, in the immediately foreseeable future) tends to make studying literature a more vital, meaningful, and relevant experience than concentrating instead solely upon the past. In addition, I think it is very important that we ask questions about what ends are advanced and what interests are served today in reading, for instance, Shakespeare so as to learn about and so as to appreciate what sixteenth and seventeenth century England was like: to ask, in other words, what are the uses and effects upon today's readers of encouraging this kind of understanding of and appreciation for sixteenth and seventeenth century England? To formulate my question slightly differently, I want us to investigate what kinds of influences and impacts upon students today reading and studying classics from the past have -- or at least potentially can have -- upon the ways in which these students and other people living today think, understand, feel, believe, communicate, interact, act, and behave. I think this is particularly important if students are or have been predominantly taught (as is often the case) to appreciate these classics as exemplary of the most beautiful and insightful kinds of writing human beings have ever been able or ever will be able to achieve. Studying literature in relation to life and reality here and now forces us to ask very important questions about why certain kinds of literary texts are included in and others are excluded from textbook anthologies, why certain kinds of approaches to studying literature are taught at the expense of others, and even why literature is given such special attention and emphasis versus other kinds of writing which people today also find useful, valuable, beautiful, and insightful. 
 

In doing as I suggest it is not necessary to neglect making sense of a literary work in relation to either the social contexts in which they were initially created, or others which have intervened between the time of the work's inception and the present. However, we attempt to understand the past by comparing and contrasting it with the present, by reflecting upon the continuities and discontinuities between the past and the present, and by recognizing that we always approach the past from a position and a perspective in the present which determines what we recognize in the past and how we make sense and use of what we recognize. If we are self-consciously self-aware, and self-critical, of who we are and where we are at, we are less likely to imagine that our standards for interpretation and evaluation are simply natural and normal, absolute and universal, and eternal and unquestionable. A useful way to approach the process of interpretation and evaluation of literature which pays attention both to past and present, and which is both appreciative and critical, is to attempt to ask and answer the following questions:

1. What does the text present to us? How is this presented to us? 

2. How does the text encourage us to interpret and evaluate what it presents? What happens if we read the text as the text itself seems to invite us to read it? What kind of response does this text seem designed to elicit from us? What happens if we willingly accept and follow what the text proposes without question or challenge and respond to what it presents as it invites us to do? 

3. What ways of thinking, feeling, understanding, believing, communicating, interacting, acting, and behaving does the text tend to encourage and reenforce among those who accept the position that the text constructs for them in making sense of and responding to what it presents? 

4. In sum, what kind of impact and effect do you think the text is likely to achieve with an accepting reader? What, in other words, is the impact and effect of reading this text likely to be for an intelligent, interested, and careful first reader who nevertheless enters into the experience of reading the text with a "willingness to suspend disbelief" and to accept the guidance of the implied narrator or author of the text in making sense of, and responding to, what the text presents? 

5. Why might we wish to read this text differently than how the text itself seems to encourage us to do so? What other kinds of readings seem useful? How and why so?

6. What kinds of readers do you think have been, and are, more likely to question and challenge the reading of itself that the text offers? How do you think these kinds of people would read the text? 

7. Do you think that the way in which people have made sense of and responded to what the text presents has changed over time? If so, how so? Do you think that there have been changes over time as well in the ways that readers have sympathized and identified with what the text presents, and with how it presents this? In other words, do you think that the nature of the position of accepting reader of this text has changed with time? If so, how so?

8. Do you think that the way in which people have made sense of and responded to what the text presents has varied from place to place? If so, how so? Do you think that there have been variations across space in the ways that readers have sympathized and identified with what the text presents, and with how it presents this? In other words, do you think that the nature of the position of accepting reader has varied across space? If so, how so? 

9. What ways of responding to what the text presents to us, and to how it presents this, does the text itself seem to challenge? How and why does the text do this? Does the text seem designed to go further than challenging some kinds of readings -- by criticizing and even working to prevent others? If so, what kinds of reading are those which it seems to criticize and work to prevent? How and why does the criticize and work to prevent these kinds of readings? 

10. In what ways is this text an argument for a position? In what ways is this text an argument for a position by way of a critique of another argument for an opposing position? What positions are these? How effective do you find this text to be as an argument, and why so?

11. Do you find this argument to be compelling? Do you find this argument to be convincing? If yes, how and why so? If not, how and why not?

These questions are only one way of getting started, as there are many different ways to approach the critical reading of literature which also focus on relations between literature and history, society, politics, and ideology.
 

In fact, I think it is very important to study literary texts in direct relation to many other (kinds of) texts of culture, and especially in relation to other texts of contemporary culture. This follows the path laid out by many currents within contemporary literary theory. According to many literary theorists writing and working today, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to provide a hard and fast definition of "literature" that can account for what precisely distinguishes the kinds of written texts which have been traditionally and which continue conventionally to be described as "literary" from those which are described as "non-literary." About the best that can be done is to suggest that literature refers to "highly valued writing," and, in particular, to writing which is highly valued for its beauty as art and for its insight into life. This means therefore that what is and is not literature -- and especially what is and is not "good" versus "bad" literature and "good" versus "great" literature -- is a matter of conflict and struggle between those advancing one or another set of standards and criteria for determining "beauty as art" and "insight into life" versus those advancing another set. It means, moreover, that standards and criteria for determining what is literature versus what is not literature, what is good literature versus what is bad literature, and what is great literature versus what is good literature will vary considerably and change regularly and often. Different social ends will be advanced and different social interests will be served by different definitions of what constitutes "literary" "beauty" and "insight" and of what constitute various rankings of greater versus lesser kinds and degrees of literary beauty and insight. In other words, different conceptions of what constitutes beauty and insight and of rankings of greater versus lesser kinds of beauty and insight form the substance of different ideologies and thereby in turn support and encourage different ways of thinking, understanding, feeling, believing, communicating, interacting, acting, and behaving. Those who suggest, for instance, that only the great classics from the past constitute valuable and legitimate sources of important knowledge work from and for a very different ideological position than those who believe it is also necessary to take account of texts written today and to be critical as well as appreciative of the "greatness" of texts written in the past.
 

Finally, I also support an additional, albeit closely related, direction of contemporary literary theory in my teaching of college literature (i.e., besides its problematization of what "literature" means), and that is the reconceptualization within much of contemporary literary theory of "reading," "writing," and "textuality" such that any discrete thing can be conceived of as a "text" which has been "written" and which therefore can be and is "read." In other words, according to much of contemporary literary theory, we "read" whenever we interpret what something means and we "write" whenever we create something which others must interpret so as to determine what it means. This leads us to approach all products of culture as texts that are written and read insofar as they are meaningful, insofar as they are understood as possessing or bearing meaning. In my classes, I therefore encourage my students to relate their interpretation and evaluation of short stories, poems, and plays to interpretations and evaluations of films, television shows, music and video productions and performances, paintings and drawings, sculpture and architecture, sports, trends in clothing and fashion, and even to such mundane and profound "texts" as commercial advertisements, individual dreams and plans, buildings and rooms, kinds of food and drink, roads and vehicles, ceremonies and rituals, personalities and personal relationships.
 

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