1. Introduction to Literary Criticism

2. Look at these pictures

3. Is this beautiful? Why/Why Not? The Kiss - Gustav Klimt

4. Is this good art? The Potato Eaters - Vincent Van Gogh

5. Is this art? Postmodern Garden - Yue Minjun

6. Freddy Linsky

7. Eyes in the Heart - Jackson Pollock

8. Reader Response What does the story mean to you? Which character do you relate to most? Does it matter if your opinion is different from another person’s?

9. Archetypal Criticism Are there other stories that you can think of that are similar to this one? Is this story original? If not, is any story truly original?

10. Feminist Criticism What are the genders of the characters in this story? What evidence is there of their genders being male or female? Does gender matter in a story?

11. Marxist Criticism What might be the reason the wolf is oppressing the pigs? Is he poor? Are there other reasons two of the pigs might not be building their houses with stone?

12. Post-structuralism Do you side with the wolf or the pigs? Must you side with the pigs? Can we reinterpret the story from the pig’s point of view?

13. Structuralism How might the time the story was written in affect our understanding? When was the story, or film, first made? Can you guess? Does it matter when a story is written?

14. Formalism Do we need more information to understand this story properly? If the story was translated, could any person in the world understand it without background information. Should we find out about the authour’s background before accepting whether the story is true or not?

15. 1) get together with the people who are researching your school and study it together 2) prepare a PPT for it –Summary of school –Questions the school asks –Examples from familiar texts –Strengths and weaknesses 3) Present on Friday 4) Thursday you will meet with a partner group who have read the same text.

16. What is Literary Criticism? Literary Criticism asks the questions we might ask: –What is literature? –What is the meaning of a text? –Who determines the meaning of a text? –Are there different ways of understanding a text? –Do some people consistently misinterpret texts?