Literary Theory. So far: So far: concentrating on the literary work itself: its form, shape, structure, its categorization by genre or period Now: the.

Slides:



Advertisements
Similar presentations
INTRODUCTION TO HUMANITIES
Advertisements

Writing an Extended Literary Analysis
Critical Reception and Reputation Nathaniel Hawthorne, Frank Norris, and Edith Wharton.
English Composition II: ENGL 112 Tuesday, February 22, 2011.
Aristotle On art and poetry. Aristotle From Makedonia ( ) Studied in Plato’s Academy Founded his own school, Lykeion Wrote: –Socratic dialogues.
Introduction to Criticism
An introduction to Romantic lyrical poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge: ( ) Grew up in Devonshire Known as one of the founding authors of Romantic.
Picturing Reading as a Process Laurence Musgrove Associate Professor of English Department of English and Foreign Languages Saint Xavier University, Chicago.
Stylistics ENG 551 Lecture 2.
Definition, Approaches, History, Examples
GENRES OF LITERATURE. GENRE, TEXT,& DISCOURSE GENRE: three classical forms of the literary tradition Text type is a broader term that is also applicable.
The theory can focus on the text itself, with no regard to the outside audience. According to this view, reading and interpretation are limited to the.
ARCHETYPES REVIEW Western Literature October 6 & 7, 2014.
M.Hosseinzadeh EDC Translation Art or Skill Session.
22/11/’09 Riccardo Biffi 5C The Preface to Lyrical Ballads By William Wordsworth.
Romanticism  Literary movement in England began in 1798 with the publication of the poetry collection Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge o Initially.
Basic Approaches to Literary Interpretation
How to “Get” What You Read --Dr. Suess. Writing comes in many textual forms; this means reading needs to happen in just as many ways. ELA 20 Reading Texts.
By Lillianie T. Millan ENGG 630 Prof. Evelyn Lugo
Warm Up #9 Write a short poem in the style of Romanticism (remember: not romance, but the ideas of the Romantic Movement) about any topic you want.
INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY CRITICISM LITERARY CRITICISM Literary criticism is the art of judging and commenting on the qualities and character of literary.
Psychoanalytic criticism By: Linda D’Alessandro. Psychoanalytic literary criticism refers to literary criticism which, in method, concept, theory, or.
Learning Targets for 8/25: Today, I will: Examine the differences between AP Language and AP Literature by comparing and contrasting the exams, reading.
PAPER 1 REVIEW English A Language and Literature.
First Things First ~ You will be taking notes Take out a sheet of paper Take out a pencil.
Introduction to Literary Criticism Part One Goals: -define Literary Criticism -define and describe Reader Response Criticism -define and describe Formalism.
LITERARY CRITICISM The paradigms and the possibilities…
Psychoanalytical Literary Criticism Or, why all characters, authors, and readers have issues.
Literary Theory. Three Perspectives THE AUTHOR Three Perspectives THE AUTHORTHE TEXT.
FFocuses on language, structure, and tone IIntrinsic Reading vs. Extrinsic FFormalists study relationship between literary devices and meaning.
Northrop Frye Archetypal Criticism
What is literary analysis? Interpreting a text and presenting an argument for how it might be understood. What is rhetorical analysis? Analyzing the means.
Reviewing how to analyze rhetorically for all genres.
LITERARY THEORY 101.
Geovanny J. Berríos. New Criticism  Is a type of formalist current of literary theory that dominated Anglo- American literary criticism in the middle.
By: Fiona, Sonny, and Caroline. Psychoanalysis attempts to understand the workings and source of unconscious desires, needs, anxieties, and behavior of.
How to make an In-Text Citation Sandwich Students exhibit both desirable and undesirable behaviors for a reason (Scheuermann & Hall, 12). If one is able.
BBL 3103 LITERARY THEORY FROM PLATO TO T. S. ELIOT DR. IDA BAIZURA BAHAR.
Purposes of Art Theory of Knowledge.
Moulay Ismail University Faculty Of Letters And Humanities English Department Master program Communication in contexts Approaches To Criticism Prof.
Written Assignment NOTES AND TIPS FOR STUDENTS.  MarksLevel descriptor 0The work does not reach a standard described by the descriptors below. 1–2The.
Introduction to Literary Criticism Part One Goals: -define Literary Criticism -define and describe Reader Response Criticism -define and describe Formalism.
| Sontag The Saussure Example A note on the use of theory in this class GoPost – how did it go? – responses Sontag – Impressions – GoPost style.
What is Literary Criticism? Distinct methods of reading, interpreting, and commenting on literature. Thinking CRITICALLY doesn’t necessarily mean criticizing.
The Age of Anxiety Disillusionment following the First World War Psychological shock Generation gap Dissolution of the British Empire Failure of positivism.
The dominated literary theory in 1940s was New Criticism. It was almost a reaction toward Biographical and Traditional Historical criticism, which was.
PSYCHOANALYSIS BY HANNAH WILLIAMS, JORDAN MULVEY AND JO ABERNETHY.
Literary Criticism Course code 3/336 Group 136/262 * 501/263. Level 6.
Chapter 12. Criticism = assessment Theory = lens of assessment.
Understanding Literary Theory and Critical Lenses
AP Literature & Composition Quarter 4 Independent Reading Project AP Literature & Composition Quarter 4 Independent Reading Project ASSIGNMENT: Read one.
Romantic criticism. 1. Romantic criticism ignores rules whether of Aristotle or Horace or of the French and emphasizes that works of literature are to.
Literary Theory Reader-Response Criticism. Subjective vs. Objective When we refer to something as “subjective” we mean that it pertains to the individual.
Intentional Fallacy INTRODUCTION Intentional fallacy, (a false idea that many people believe is true) term used in 20th- century literary criticism to.
Abrams’ Quaternity of Critical Approaches to Literature
Introduction to Literary Criticism
Introduction to Criticism
RESEARCH METHOD IN LITERATURE
Literature Theory English 10.
A Movement Across the Arts
Literary Criticism An Introduction.
John Dryden.
New Criticism A poem must not mean/ But be” (Archibald McLeish) - “It’s never what a poem says which matters, but what it is” (I. A. Richards) (Formalism,
Psychological/Psychoanalytical Approach to Literature
The Preface to Lyrical Ballads
INTRODUCTION TO CRITICISM
Being Brilliant in English
New Criticism Theory and Principles.
Introduction to English 9- Unit 0
Presentation transcript:

Literary Theory

So far: So far: concentrating on the literary work itself: its form, shape, structure, its categorization by genre or period Now: the work in relation to the world the audience the author

The literary work in relation to: UNIVERSE WORK OF ART AUTHOR AUDIENCE

The literary work in relation to: Work of art – universe: How art reflects / mirrors / represents the world e.g., realism (or the effect of the real) Work of art – in itself: What it is like (formal, structural analyses)

The literary work in relation to: Work of art – artist: How the artist creates, what it is the artist expresses Work of art – audience What effect the work of art has / should have

M.H. Abrams, “Orientation of critical theories” mimetic theories objective theories expressive theories pragmatic theories

Mimetic theories Mimesis and imitation rather: representation Aristotle’s Poetics: dramatic plot as imitation of an action Coleridge: imitation of nature in being an organic unity Realistic imitation: recognizable (it is like what the reader knows) Aristotle: imitation: an internal relation of form to content, vs an external relation of copy and original You are aware of the resemblance of tragic action to human behaviour and you are aware of the conventions of tragic drama as different from other forms

Pragmatic theories 1970s: reader-response criticism, Literary Pragmatics: reader’s contribution to text reading actualizes potential meaning 18 th century: art has to be useful "The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing,“ (Samuel Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare) Follows classical theory of rhetoric (= art of persuasion) 5 part process: invention, arrangement, style, memory, delivery

Expressive theories Art as an expression of feelings: “For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” William Wordsworth in “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” (1800) Art as an expression of the personal subconscious Sigmund Freud, “The Interpretation of Dreams” (1900) → psychoanalytical criticism Art as an expression of the collective unconscious C.G. Jung, archetypes, archetypal images

Objective theories The work of art studied in itself, as a closed system: internal structure, form, internal consistency - its "intrinsic" rather than "extrinsic" qualities. art for art’s sake (l’art pour l’art) No one theory can explain all works (The essay is an introduction to his book on the Romantics: The Mirror and the Lamp, 1953

textual criticism The editorial art - establishing the text “The aim of a critical edition should be to present the text, so far as the available evidence permits, in the form in which we may suppose that it would have stood in a fair copy, made by the author himself, of the work as he finally intended it.” W. W. Greg, The Editorial Problem in Shakespeare (rev. edn. Oxford 1954)

authorial intention A design or plan in the author's mind: “We argued that the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art, and it seems to us that this is a principle which goes deep into some differences in the history of critical attitude.” “The Intentional Fallacy” by W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley (1946) In: The Verbal Icon: studies in the meaning of poetry (also In: Lodge's 2Oth c. Literary Criticism)

impressionistic criticism Recreate the poem while writing about the poem. “The Affective Fallacy is a confusion between the poem and its results (what it is and what it does) [...] It begins by trying to derive the standard of criticism from the psychological effects of the poem an ends in impressionism and relativism. [...] Plato's feeding and watering of the passions was an early example of affective theory, and Aristotle's countertheory of catharsis was another” “The Affective Fallacy” by W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley (1949) In: The Verbal Icon: studies in the meaning of poetry (also In: Lodge's 20th c. Literary Criticism)

value judgements “Literary criticism has in the present day become a profession, - but it has ceased to be an art. Its object is no longer that of proving that certain literary work is good and other literary work is bad, in accordance with rules which the critic is able to define. English criticism at present rarely even pretends to go so far as this. It attempts, in the first place, to tell the public whether a book be or be not be worth public attention; and, in the second place, so to describe the purport of the work as to enable those who have not time or inclination for reading to feel that by a short cut they have become acquainted with its contents. Both these pojects, if fairly well carried out, are salutary.” Anthony Trollope, Autobiography (1883), ch. xiv

interpretation “Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art... The temptation to interpret Marienbad should be resisted. What matters in Marienbad in the pure, untranslateable, sensuous immediacy of some of its images, and its vigorous if narrow solution to certain problems of cinematic form... In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art.” Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation (1967)

Literary criticism as a systematic study “It is clear that criticism cannot be a systematic study unless there is a quality in literature which enables it to be so. We have to adopt the hypothesis, then, that just as there is an order of nature behind the natural sciences, so literature is not a piled aggregate of 'works' but an order of 'words'.” Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (1957)

The language of literary criticism “A statement may be used for the sake of the reference, true or false, which it causes. This is the scientific use of language. But it may also be used for the sake of the effects in emotion and attitude produced by the reference it occasions. This is the emotive use of language.” I.A. Richards, “The two uses of language” (ch. 34 from The Principles of Literary Criticism (1924) also in Lodge's 20th Century Literary Criticism

Deconstructing interpretations We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things. (Montaigne) Quoted in Jacques Derrida, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” [1967], Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (London: Routledge Classics, 2001) page :351.