It's all depths and deconstruction

In opposition to the more traditional approach, contemporary theories undermine the significance of the author on the basis that "the relationship between reader and author has now shifted, and the concept of authorial authority limits and delegitimises readers' interpretations". As literary texts are socio-cultural constructs, the argument is also put that what literature has to say represents the "views of groups in society that had the greatest influence".

The Queensland syllabus, when outlining the text-centred model, acknowledges the influence of deconstruction and post-structionalism and the belief that texts, instead of being coherent or unified, are full of "incoherences, contradictions and disunities". The task of the reader is to analyse the text in terms of "gaps, silences and contradictions".

Building on what is known as reader-response theory, the syllabus writers also argue that texts are not "stable, solid works with one determined reading", as individual readers bring their unique and highly personal character and background to the reading transaction.

In arguing that "multiple readings or meanings can be generated from the same text because of what each reader brings to the text", the emphasis is not on what the author intends to say or what the literary work is attempting to communicate but on the role of the individual reader in interpreting the work and giving it life.

The fourth model is the most politicised as it focuses on a marxist and a feminist analysis of texts, based on the question: "Whose interests are served by representations of the world in texts?"

More recent versions include post-marxist, post-colonial and contemporary feminist perspectives, all of which are based on the assumption that "texts play their part in upholding or challenging prevailing world views and compete with one another to persuade readers to accept the versions on offer. Readers may negotiate with or resist the ideologies and discourses of texts and use them strategically for their own purpose."

All texts are inherently political, so the argument goes, and readers are urged to read "against the grain" and to expose the ideological assumptions and beliefs inherent in a text and explain why certain voices and world views are privileged over others. Taken together, the four approaches explode the more traditional model of literature. The focus is no longer on reading with discrimination and understanding, valuing the aesthetic and moral value of literature or appreciating what literature can tell us about those existential challenges that define who and what we are.

As such, great literary works such as Macbeth, the poetry of Wordsworth and novels such as Hard Times are reduced to simply being one text among many and deconstructed as cultural artefacts.