Application of Literary Theory: A Critical View on Kourosh Safavi’s Opinions

Some parts of Kourosh Safavi’s views in his works, especially in the book Âshnâyi bâ Nazariye Adabi, are related to the application of literary theories in literary criticism. Reviewing various theories and categorizing them based upon the six elements of Jacobson’s communication theory, he has emphasized their inefficiencies in literary criticism and accordingly, he has proposed an efficiency theory for criticism. Some of his most important criteria for the efficiency of a critical theory are: scientificity, comprehensivity (covering all components of Jacobson’s communication theory), applicability in criticism of various texts, etc. In this article, I have examined these issues to criticize the methodology of Kourosh Safavi’s views about the efficiency of literary theory in criticism. It can be said that the most important defect of his view is the reductionism in the perception of the application of theory. This reductionism has different aspects and consequences: selective perception and introduction of literary theories, ignoring the role of the critic in literary criticism, focusing on interpreting texts and ignoring other types of literary criticism, ignoring text selection, emphasis on patterns abstracted from literary theories and ignoring their other various aspects of them, assuming the homogeneity of theories and having close view about the combination of theories.