1. Literary Criticism
An Introduction

2. What is literary criticism?
Think of it as a lens through which one views a text. Depending on the lens one uses, and the way in which that lens is focused, our attention is drawn to a particular aspect of the text more so than others.
Different schools of literary criticism offer different ways of seeing and interpreting a text.

3. Archetypal Literary Criticism

4. Historical Context
Based on works of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell (and myth itself)
Popular in 1950s and ‘60s due to Canadian, Northrop Frye

5. Definition
Archetypal critics believe that literature is based on recurring images, characters, narrative designs and themes.
Origins of western literature in Judeo-Christian scripture and Greco-Roman mythology

6. What is an archetype? Arche “first” and typos “form”
An original model or pattern from which copies are made

7. Fundamental Plot Archetype
THE JOURNEY
Protagonist moves from innocence to experience
Begins in familiar environment
Descent into danger
Battle “monsters” in underworld (task)
Return home (reunion, marriage)

8. Key Terms Anima Animus Collective Unconscious Persona Shadow
Anima - feminine aspect - the inner feminine part of the male personality or a man's image of a woman.
Animus - male aspect - an inner masculine part of the female personality or a woman's image of a man.
Collective Unconscious - "a set of primal memories common to the human race, existing below each person's conscious mind" (Jung)
Persona - the image we present to the world
Shadow - darker, sometimes hidden (deliberately or unconsciously), elements of a person's psyche

9. Common Archetypal Figures
The Child
The Hero
The Great Mother
The Wise old man
The Trickster or Fox

10. Frye vs Jung
Frye sees archetypes as recurring patterns in literature; in contrast, Jung views archetypes as primal, ancient images/experience that we have inherited.

11. Objections Limits personal interpretation
Only analyses one aspect of literature (archetypes

12. Story time
In the fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel are loved by their father but resented by their step-mother, who insists on a journey into the woods with the intent of losing them. In the woods, the children meet evil in the guise of a witch who tries to kill them. But they outwit her, kill her, and return to their father. Their step-mother in some versions dies mysteriously at the same time as the witch. Familiar order is restored.

13. Re-write
In groups of 3-4, write a modern version of this fairy tale. Make sure your modern tale does not alter the original theme or message. Note how you used the archetypes within this tale. Be prepared to present to the rest of the class.

14. Formalist Literary Criticism

15. History
1920s and 1930s one school of Formalist literary criticism developed called “New Criticism.” It is still the major form of literary criticism applied to analysing texts in secondary schools.

16. Definition
a form of literary criticism in which the text is viewed as a complete, isolated unit. Meaning is found by studying one or more key elements.

17. Explanation
It focuses on the elements of fiction and emphasizes how these elements work together to create, in a work of quality, a coherent whole: unity of plot, theme, and character, through use of tone, point of view, imagery, purposeful action, dialogue, and description.

18. Key Elements Language Imagery Point of View Plot Structure
Character Development and Motivation

19. Strengths
Reader does not need any additional knowledge other than what’s provided in the text for interpreting the work.

20. Weaknesses It ignores the author’s intentions
It assumes that “good” literature is “coherent” and that a text that is not coherent by its standards is not “good” literature.
it divorces literature from its larger cultural context
it assumes that readers can refrain from investing emotionally in their reading and can/should respond objectively to texts

21. Feminist Literary Criticism

22. History
Launched in the twentieth century with Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929)
1969 Kate Millett examined how women are represented in text by famous men in Sexual Politics

23. Feminist critics examine
How women write their own experiences and representations
How women read about themselves
How to make feminist readings visible to readers
How women writers have fared in given eras
How traditional texts by women are subversive of the social order

24. Key terms Ecriture Feminine: “women’s writing”
Patriarchy: male dominated power structures

25. Strengths
For centuries, women in literature, the roles of men and women, and how they were represented was not a focus in literary criticism

26. Weaknesses
If this is the only theory applied to a text, it can be very limiting

27. Archetypal Literary Criticism