1. Literary Criticism Course code 3/336 Group 136/262 * 501/263. Level 6

2. What is literature and what is literary criticism? Literature is writing at its best. Literary criticism is commentary on literature that tries to judge, evaluate, comment or interpret and even analyze it in depth to make it more appreciated and understood by its readers. It criticizes literature and is about literature. It is writing on literature. Critics write on poetry, drama, fiction and prose or non fiction.

3. Who is a critic? The role of a critic. He reads literature properly. He has a great deal of knowledge. He can compare and contrast between texts/books and authors. He knows how to interpret texts in depth, analyze, criticize and evaluate justly. He knows how to write analysis well.

4. Humanist literary criticism In the West literary criticism starts with Greek criticism by writers like Plato and Aristotle. This is called classical literary criticism. Plato wrote moral/didactic criticism. What one wrote was important. Writing had to be education. Plato wrote the Republic. He wanted writers to teach people to be better citizens.

5. Plato’s theory According to Plato art or literature or writing was mimesis, meaning it was an imitation of the real that was an imitation of the ideal. Art is an imitation of an imitation. Platonism = ideal or perfect or true - to real or reality - to art or literature (mimetic)

6. Aristotelianism Aristotle wrote the Poetics. His is aesthetic criticism and not moral or didactic criticism unlike Plato’s. For him art or literature is an imitation of reality. He defined the epic poem, the lyric, tragedy, comedy etc. His main contribution was his theory of catharsis.

7. Aristotelianism Catharsis means purgation or purification of the emotions of pity and fear in or from the audience on watching a tragedy or the fall of a noble character due to hamartia or a tragic flaw or deficiency in his moral make up.

8. Revision What book did Plato write? The Republic. Which country did he live in? Greece. Plato and Aristotle are the main critics in the school of Grecian literary criticism. Plato’s criticism is called moral or didactic criticism. Plato wanted literature to teach or instruct or educate. He propounded the theory of mimesis. For him art is an imitation of an imitation, meaning of reality which imitates the ideal.

9. Revision - 2 Aristotle wrote The Poetics HE is also a Greek critic from Greece. He is not moral but aesthetic. He believed that art is for entertainment and not just for education. For him art is (only) an imitation of reality. His main contribution is his definition of tragedy and of catharsis and hamartia.

10. The scope of literary criticism Teaches to read literature Teaches to analyze literature Teaches to interpret literature Teaches to write on literature Teaches to understand life better through understanding literature Teaches to compare and contrast works of literature and authors, times, ideas, places etc. Gives knowledge and helps judge or evaluate literature Elevates and refines our sensibilities regarding literature.

11. The role of a literary critic A critic can mediate between the reader and the text, the reader and the author and between text and text. He can shape literary sensibilities He makes the reader aware of the complexities of literature and why some works are considered classics and others not. Most of all he makes others also into capable critics of their times and contexts and other times in terms of theory and analysis and practice.

12. A brief history of liberal humanist criticism in the West from Plato to the 20 th century’s beginning. Criticism in the West begins in Greece with Aristotle and Plato. Then it goes to Rome with Horace’s Ars Poetica and Longinus’s On the Sublime Italy and Dante brings in the rise of regional and vernacular languages. We then see criticism arise to aid literature in England, France, Russia and Germany but we are concerned only with England and English.

13. A brief history of liberal humanist criticism in England The first important critic is Sir Philip Sidney with his Apology for Poetry. He wanted poetry to delight and instruct through delight. He defended poetry against Stephen Gosson. (Elizabethan age) The neo classical age belonged to Alexander Pope and John Dryden with their prescriptive criticism based on Greece and Rome and their own criticism. Samuel Johnson also mattered with his Prefaces to Shakespeare and Lives of the Poets Then came the Romantic Age with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge with their great work returning English literature to inspiration which was The Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. The great critic of the Victorian age was Matthew Arnold with his Study of Poetry. The twentieth century saw the rise of the great critics like T.S. Eliot, F. R. Leavis and I. A. Richards, not to mention William Empson.

14. 20 th century literary criticism T.S. Eliot is known for his terms like “objective correlative”, “dissociation of sensibility” and his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent” as well as his study on metaphysical poetry etc. F.R. Leavis is known for his study of the novel. His book is “The Great Tradition.” I. A. Richards introduced close reading (lemon squeezer criticism) and new criticism and William Empson is noted for his book “Seven Types of Ambiguity.”