Literary criticism

LITERARY CRITICISM
(Digested)
BY: CHELDY SYGACO ELUMBA-PABLEO,MPA,JD,LPT

THE RELATIONSHIP TO LITERATURE
TO LITERARY THEORY
• TRADITIONALLY, it is regarded as
homogenous body of works with similar
characteristics which are read in similar ways
by an undifferentiated audience.
• TODAY, with impact of literary theory of
the study of literature, the latter is seen as an
area in a state of flux.

THE RELATIONSHIP TO LITERATURE TO
LITERARY THEORY
• LITERATURE, as a body of writing together with its
moral and aesthetic qualities, can be seen as a site of
struggle where meanings are contested rather than
regarded as something possessing timeless universal
values and truths.
• LITERARY THEORIES can offer various ways of
reading, interpreting and analyzing literature, but they do
not offer any easy solutions as to what literature is, or
what its study should be.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF LITERARY
CRITICISM TO LITERARY THEORY
• LITERARY CRITICISM involves the
reading, interpretation and commentary
of a specific text or texts which have
been designated as literature.

• 2 conventions/assumptions which tend to be inherent
in its practice are:
1. That criticism is secondary to literature itself and
dependent on it.
2. The interpretations or judgements seem to assume
that the literary text which they are addressing is
unquestionably literature.

• If literary criticism involves the reading, analysis, explication, and
interpretation of text which are designated as literary, then theory
should do 2 things:
1. It ought to provide the readers with a range of criteria for
identifying literature in the first place,
2. Make us aware of the methods and procedures which we employ
in the practice of literary criticism, so that we not only interrogate the
text, but also the ways in which we read and interpret the text.

• LITERARY CRITICISM is best
understood as the application of a
literary theory to specific texts.
• It also involves the understanding and
appreciation of literary text.

• 2 primary questions of literary
criticism:
1. Why does a piece of literature have
the precise characteristics that it has?
2. What is the value of literature?

UNDERSTANDING THE
DIFFERENT LITERARY
THEORIES/APPROACHES

I. CLASSICAL LITERARY THEORY
• This theory is premised on the idea that literature is
an imitation of life. It is interested in looking at
literature based on:
1. MIMESIS (Plato)- is the Greek word for
“imitation”. We try to see whether a piece of
literary work shows an imitation of life or reality
as we know it. How the imitation is done? Is it
good or bad imitation?

CLASSICAL LITERARY THEORY
• MIMESIS (Plato) –EXAMPLE: carpenter and a chair.
• EXPLANATION: The idea of ‘chair’ first came in the mind of
carpenter. He gave physical shape to his idea out of wood and created
a chair. The painter imitated the chair of the carpenter in his picture of
chair. Thus, painter’s chair is twice removed from reality. Hence, he
believed that art is twice removed from reality. He gives first
importance to philosophy as philosophy deals with the ideas whereas poetry
deals with illusion – things which are twice removed from reality.

2. FUNCTION (Horace)- it refers to
whether a piece of literary work aims to
entertain (dulce) or to teach or to instruct
(utile).

3. STYLE (LONGINUS) – Style refers to
whether the literary work is written in a low (take
the form of blogs, humor, advertisements, and instant
messaging), middle (word choice, sentence structures,
and delivery) or high style (heightened emotional tone,
imposing diction, and highly ornate figures of speech).
• It even suggested four style which he called
sublime (grandeur of thought, emotion, and spirit).

KEY PARTS OF LITERATURE’S STYLE
1. Diction: the style of the author’s word choice
2. Sentence structure: the way words are arranged in a sentence
3. Tone: the mood of the story; the feeling or attitude a work
creates
4. Narrator: the person telling the story and the point-of-view it
is told in
5. Grammar and the use of punctuation
6. Creative devices like symbolism, allegory, metaphor, rhyme, and
so on

4. CATHARSIS (Aristotle) – refers to
purgation, purification, clarification, or
structural kind of emotional cleansing.
• Aristotle’s view of catharsis involves
purging of negative emotions, like
pity, and fear.

5. CENSORSHIP (PLATO) – is an issue for Plato for
literary works that show bad mimesis.
• Literary works that shows bad mimesis should be
censored according to Plato.
• EXAMPLE: The enemy of the people by Henrick
Ibsen- wrote it in response to the public outcry against his previous
play, Ghosts, which challenged the hypocrisy of 19th-century morality.

THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE
THEME:
• An Enemy of the People tells the story of one man's quest to
stick to his principles no matter what the cost. The protagonist,
Dr. Stockmann, sacrifices everything for his beliefs.
HOW DOES IT ENDS?
• By the end of An Enemy of the People, Dr. Stockmann's
position has changed several times. Sometimes he seems to be
proud that he is "an enemy of the people," but early in Act V he
says that the words wound him and are lodged in his heart.

II. HISTORICAL-BIOGRAPHICAL AND
MORAL-PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES
• HISTORICAL-BIOGRAPHICAL
APPROACH sees literary work
chiefly, if not exclusively, as a
reflection of its author’s life and times or
the life and times of the characters in
work.

HISTORICAL-BIOGRAPHICAL AND
• EXAMPLES OF HISTORICAL-
BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH NOVELS:
1. Last of the Mohicans- by James Fenimore
Cooper
1. Tales of the two cities- by Charles Dicken
2. Ivanhoe- by Sir Walter Scott
3. Grapes of wrath- by John Steinbeck

LAST OF THE MOHICANS-SUMMARY/THEME
by James Fenimore Cooper
• The last members of a dying Native American tribe, the Mohicans --
Uncas (Eric Schweig), his father Chingachgook (Russell Means), and
his adopted half-white brother Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) -- live in
peace alongside British colonists. But when the daughters (Madeleine
Stowe, Jodhi May) of a British colonel are kidnapped by a traitorous
scout, Hawkeye and Uncas must rescue them in the crossfire of a
gruesome military conflict of which they wanted no part: the French
and Indian War.
• THEME: deals with the theme of love and friendship of two
different races.

TALES OF THE TWO CITIES-SUMMARY/THEME
by Charles Dicken
• A Tale of Two Cities takes before and during the French
Revolution. Jarvis Lorry is traveling to Paris to reunite
Dr. Manette with his long-lost daughter Lucie. Dr.
Manette has been living in hiding in Paris, awaiting his
rescuers who will return him to England.
• THEME: deals with the major themes of duality,
revolution, and resurrection. It was the best of times, it
was the worst of times in London and Paris, as economic
and political unrest lead to the American and French
Revolutions.

IVANHOE- SUMMARY/THEME
by Sir Walter Scott
• Ivanhoe is the story of one of the remaining Anglo-Saxon noble
families at a time when the nobility in England was
overwhelmingly Norman. It follows the Saxon protagonist, Sir
Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who is out of favor with his father for his
allegiance to the Norman king Richard the Lionheart.
• THEME: (Patriotisms): patriotism in this novel often comes
across as negative and intolerant. Cedric and Ulrica loathe all
Normans. (To be fair, we can see why: they have seen terrible
violence in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest.) This strong
sense of Saxon pride and anti-Norman hatred leads Cedric to
disinherit his son and Ulrica to lose her mind with bitterness,

GRAPES OF WRATH- SUMMARY/THEME
by John Steinbeck
• John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad
and his family are forced from their farm in the
Depression-era Oklahoma Dust Bowl and set out
for California along with thousands of others in
search of jobs, land, and hope for a brighter future.
• THEME: is the dehumanizing nature of
capitalism. Throughout the novel, many characters
are forced to act against others for their own
economic interests.

• MORAL-PHILOSOPHICAL
APPROACH emphasizes that the
larger function of literature is to
teach morality and to probe
philosophical issues.

• EXAMPLES OF MORAL-PHILOSOPHICAL
APPROACH NOVELS:
1. Scarlet’s Letter- by Nathaniel Hawthome ( seen
as the study of the effects of the human soul)
2. Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening-
by Robert Frost (suggests that duty takes
precedence over beauty and pleasure)

SCARLET’S LETTER- SUMMARY/MORAL
by Nathaniel Hawthome
• The novel is set in a village in Puritan New England.
The main character is Hester Prynne, a young woman
who has borne a child out of wedlock (commits
adultery). Hester believes herself a widow, but her
husband, Roger Chillingworth, arrives in New England
very much alive and conceals his identity.
• MORAL STORY: punishment and the importance of
truth and the sin and its effects.

STOPPING BY THE WOODS ON A SNOWY
EVENING-SUMMARY/THEME
by Robert Frost
• What Happens in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening? One
evening, the speaker stops to watch the snow falling through the trees.
His horse seems anxious to keep going, but the speaker stays a while
longer, studying the beautiful woods. The speaker stops his horse
outside a wood that he thinks belong to a local man.
• THEME: On the surface, this poem is simplicity itself. The speaker
is stopping by some woods on a snowy evening. He or she takes in
the lovely scene in near-silence, is tempted to stay longer, but
acknowledges the pull of obligations and the considerable distance yet
to be traveled before he or she can rest for the night.

III. ROMANTIC THEORY
• WILLIAM WORDSMITH explained his idea on romanticism
in his preface to the second edition of the Lyric Ballads that
poetry should:
1. Have a subject matter that is ordinary and commonplace.
2. Use simple language, even aspiring to the language of prose.
3. Make use of imagination.
4. Convey a primal (simple, uncomplicated) feeling.
5. Present similitude is dissimilitude ( similarities in differences)

THE YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN- THEME
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
This short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne features
Goodman (which is an old-fashioned way of saying
mister) Brown who lives with his wife of three months,
Faith in Salem village during the time of the Puritans. He
tells her that he must go on a journey, and he heads into
the woods. The main message of the story Young
Goodman Brown, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is the fight
between good and evil under the scope of detouring from
one's faith and succumbing to the evils of life

IV. AMERICAN NEW CRITICISM/ NEW
CRITICISM
• This theory believes that literature is an
organic unity.
• It is interdependent of its author or the time when
it was written or the historical context.
• It is concerned solely with the “text itself”, with
its language and organization.

AMERICAN NEW CRITICISM/ NEW
CRITICISM
• It is a critical movement that propagates the idea of ‘art for art’s sake’.
• New Critics intentionally ignore the author, the reader, and the
social context.
• Made popular in the 20th century that evolved out of formalist
criticism.
• New Criticism coined by John Crowe Ransom’s The New
Criticism in 1941, came to be applied to a theory and practice
that was prominent in American literary criticism until late in the
1960s.

AMERICAN NEW CRITICISM/ NEW
CRITICISM
• To use this theory, one proceeds by looking into the
following:
1. The persona
2. The situation
3. The central metaphor
4. The multiple meanings of words
5. The addressee
6. What the persona says
7. The central irony

IN A STATION OF THE METRO
by Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
The apparition of these faces in the crowd
Petals on a wet, black bough

READINGS FOR NEW CRITICISM
1. A Formalist Reading of Sandra Cisneros’s
“Woman Hollering Creek”
2. Sound in William Shakespeare’s
3. The Tempest by Skylar Hamilton Burris
4. The Force of Poetry by Christopher Ricks
(1987).

WOMAN HOLLERING CREEK- SUMMARY/THEME
by Sandra Cisneros
• Woman Hollering Creek,” Cisneros describes the experiences of
an ideal Mexican wife, Cleófilas. Having grown up with her father,
six brothers, and no mother, Cleófilas learns how to be a woman
by watching telenovelas on television. She learns to expect that
passion will fill her life.
• THEME: The theme of love as power is most apparent in some
of the "Woman Hollering Creek" stories, but it appears even in
Mango Street, in the lives of Esperanza's acquaintances and in her
own youthful experience. Another important theme in both books
is the individual's feeling of alienation or displacement.

READINGS FOR NEW CRITICISM
1. Practical Criticism: a Study of Literary Judgement
by IA Richard (1929).
2. The Well Wrought Urn by Cleanth Brooks (1947).
3. British Poetry Since 1960 by Michael Schmidt and
Grevel Lindop (1972).
4. Eight Contemporary Poets by Calvin Bendient
(1974).
5. Nine Contemporary Poets: A Critical Introduction
by P.R. King (1979).

V. PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
• This theory applies the ideas of Freudian psychology to
literature. Freud sees the component parts of the psyche as
three groups of function:
1. Id – directly related to the instinctual drives (pleasure)
2. Ego – an agency which regulates and opposes the drives
(reality)
3. Superego – another part of the ego with a critical judging
function (conscience)

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
• Encourages the readers/critic to be creative in speculating
about the character’s or author’s motivations, drives, fears or
desires.
• It is a theory that is regarded as a theory of personality
organization and the dynamics of personality that guides
psychoanalysis.
• The goal of psychoanalysis was to show that behavior which was
caused by the interaction between unconscious and
unconsciousness.

THE SICK ROSE
by William Blake
O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy;
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

THE SICK ROSE - INTERPRETATION
by William Blake
• Published: 179
• Collection: Songs of Experience
• This is a short poem of two quatrains in which the speaker addresses a
rose that is sick as an “invisible“ worm has wriggled its way in and infected
it. The “dark secret love” of this worm is destroying the rose’s life. The
Sick Rose is regarded as one of the most enigmatic poems in the English
language. There are numerous interpretations of the poem and many
critics interpret it as a poem related to sex. Others consider the worm in
the poem to be an agent of corruption and regard it as the direct
equivalent of Man. The Sick Rose remains one of the most popular
poems of Blake for its perplexing symbolism and various interpretations.

VI. MYTHOLOGICAL/ARCHETYPAL
APPROACH
• This approach to literary study is based on Carl
Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious.
• Archetype- is a typical character, an action, or a
situation that seems to represent universal patterns of
human nature.
• It is also known as “universal symbol,” may be a
character, a theme, a symbol, or even a setting.

MYTHOLOGICAL/ARCHETYPAL
APPROACH
• Repeated or dominant images or patterns of
human experience are identified in the text
such as:
a) The changing seasons
b) The cycle of birth
c) Death and rebirth
d) Heroic quest or immortality

APPROACH
• This approach also uses NORTHROP FRYE’S ASSERTION that literature
consist of variations on a great mythic theme that contains the following:
1. The creation and life in paradise: garden
2. Displacement or banishment from paradise: alienation
3. A time of trial and tribulation, usually a wandering: journey
4. A self-discovery as a result of struggle: epiphany
5. A return to paradise: rebirth/resurrection

APPROACH EXAMPLES
1. Lam-ang- archetype of immorality
2. Superman (in the movie Superman Return) –
death and rebirth archetype
3. Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings – wise old man
4. Odysseus – hero of initiation
5. Aeneas- hero of the quest
6. Jesus Christ- sacrificial scapegoat

BIAG NI LAM-ANG- SUMMARY
by: Pedro Bucaneg
• is a pre-Hispanic epic poem of the Ilocano people of the
Philippines. The story was handed down orally for
generations before it was written down around 1640
assumedly by a blind Ilokano bard named Pedro
Bucaneg.
• THEME: the epic revolves around the bravery and courage
of the main character portrayed by Lam-ang, who was gifted
with speech as early as his day of birth, who embarked on a
series of adventures which culminated in his heroic death and
subsequent resurrection.

SUPERMAN RETURN- SUMMARY
by: Jerry Siegel (comic)/Michael Dougherty(screen writer)
• MOVIE: While Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) plots to destroy him
once and for all, the Man of Steel (Brandon Routh) returns after a
long absence to a much-changed world. Lois Lane (Kate
Bosworth) has moved on with her life, and society has learned to
survive without him. Superman must find a way to reconnect with
her and find his place in a world that may no longer need him.
• The film tells the story of the title character returning to Earth
after a five-year absence. He finds that his love interest Lois Lane
has moved on with her life, and that his archenemy Lex Luthor is
plotting a scheme that will destroy both Superman and America.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS –SUMMARY
by: J. R. R. Tolkien
• The future of civilization rests in the fate of the
One Ring, which has been lost for centuries.
Powerful forces are unrelenting in their search for
it. But fate has placed it in the hands of a young
Hobbit named Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood), who
inherits the Ring and steps into legend. A daunting
task lies ahead for Frodo when he becomes the
Ring bearer - to destroy the One Ring in the fires
of Mount Doom where it was forged.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS
Character Analysis Gandalf the Grey
• The Shire knows Gandalf the Grey as a funny old man who
puts on fantastic fireworks displays. Frodo knows him as a
friend and a mentor, full of wisdom and humor. Théoden
and Denethor both accuse him of meddling, of
manipulating the lives of men and affairs of state.
• Gandalf is often described as quick to anger, and equally
quick to laugh. His deep wisdom clearly derived from the
patience he learned in Valinor, just as his care for all
creatures of good will must have come from his strong
sense of pity for the weak.

THE ODYSSEY- SUMMARY
by: Homer
• Homer's epic poem The Odyssey tells the story of
Odysseus' ten-year struggle to return home to Ithaca
after the Trojan War. In Odysseus' absence, his wife
Penelope is plagued by suitors, who have been eating
Odysseus' food and destroying his estate.
• :THEME In this epic poem, there are three major
themes: hospitality, loyalty, and vengeance.

THE AENEID- SUMMARY
by: Virgil
• Aeneas, mythical hero of Troy and Rome, son of the goddess
Aphrodite and Anchises. Aeneas was a member of the royal line
at Troy and cousin of Hector. He played a prominent part in
defending his city against the Greeks during the Trojan War,
being second only to Hector in ability.
• He suffers as did the other Trojans from the wrath of Juno, after
the judgment of Paris favored Venus [and the desecration of her
temple]. The book begins with the Trojan fleet sailing from Sicily
and now near Carthage, 7 years after the fall of Troy.

LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST-SUMMARY
• The Luke and Matthew accounts of the birth of Jesus have a
number of points in common; both have Jesus being born in
Bethlehem, in Judea, to a virgin mother. In the Luke account
Joseph and Mary travel from their home in Nazareth for the
census to Bethlehem, where Jesus is born and laid in a manger.
• Jesus is Son of God and the second Person of the Holy Trinity.
Christians believe that through his crucifixion and subsequent
resurrection, God offered humans salvation and eternal life. He is
believed to be the Jewish messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible
and Christian Old Testament.

VII. STRUCTURALIST LITERARY
THEORY
• This theory draws from the linguistic
theory of Ferdinand de Saussure. (Language is
a system or structure.)
• Its emphasis is on “ How’s a text means,
instead of what the text means”.
• Structuralism aims to identify the general
principles of literary structure and not to
provide interpretations of individual text.
(Vladimir Propp and Tzevetan Todorov)

STRUCTURALIST LITERARY THEORY
• The structuralist approach to literature assumes 3
dimensions in the individual literary text.
1. The text as a particular system or structure in itself.
(naturalization of a text)
2. The text unavoidably influenced by other text in terms of both
their formal and conceptual structures (part of the meaning of
any text depends on its intertextual relation to other text)
3. The text is related to the culture as a whole (binary opposition)

JABBERWOCKY
by Lewis Carroll
Hetookhisvorpalswordinhand;
Longtimethemanxomefoehesought—
SorestedhebytheTumtumtree
Andstoodawhileinthought.
And,asinuffishthoughthestood,
TheJabberwock,witheyesofflame,
Camewhifflingthroughthetulgeywood,
Andburbledasitcame!
’Twasbrillig,andtheslithytoves
Didgyreandgimbleinthewabe:
Allmimsyweretheborogoves,
Andthemomerathsoutgrabe.
“BewaretheJabberwock,myson!
Thejawsthatbite,theclawsthatcatch!
BewaretheJubjubbird,andshun
ThefrumiousBandersnatch!”
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe

DECONSTRUCTION
• this theory questions texts of all kinds and
our common practices in reading them.
• It exposes the gaps, the incoherencies, the
contradictions in a discourse and how a
text undermines discourse and then
revealing the hidden articulations.

DECONSTRUCTION
• In deconstructing a text calls for a careful reading and
a bit of creativity. The text say something other
than what it appears to say.
• The belief that language always betrays the speaker
(especially when there is a metaphor)
• A deconstructive critic deals with the obviously major
features of a text, and then he vigorously explores
its oppositions, reversals, and ambiguities.

HOW TO DO DECONSTRUCTION
1. Identify the oppositions in the text
2. Determine which member appears to be
favored or privileged and look for
evidence that contradicts that favoring or
privileging
3. Expose the text’s indeterminacy

PRISON
by Mila D. Aguilar

RUSSIAN FORMALISM
• The Russian formalists, led by Voktor Shklovsky, aimed
to establish a science of literature – a complete
knowledge of the formal effects (devices, techniques etc.)
which together make up what is called literature.
• The formalist read literature to discover its literariness—
to highlight the devices and technical elements introduced by the
writer in order to make language literary.

RUSSIAN FORMALISM
(The key ideas in this theory)
1. BARING THE DEVICE – refers to
the presentation of devices
• Examples: Foreshortening, skipping,
expanding, transposing, reversing,
flashback and flash-forward

RUSSIAN FORMALISM
2. DEFAMILIARIZATION – this means making strange.
Everything must be dwelt upon and described for the first
time.
• Ordinary language encourages the automatization of
our perceptions and tends to diminish our awareness of
reality.
• It simply confirms things as we know them (e.g. the
leaves are falling from the trees; the leaves are green)

RUSSIAN FORMALISM
3. RETARDATION OF THE NARRATIVE - the
technique of delaying and protracting actions (familiar
actions are defamiliarized by being slowed down)
• It is when the director hides or chooses not to show
something important to the audience that would help
them understand the narrative.
• It is used to make the audience think and also to
create mystery.
Writer

RUSSIAN FORMALISM
4. NATURALIZATION – we refuse to allow a
text to remain alien and stay outside our frames of
reference – we insist on naturalizing it.
• Refers to how we endlessly become inventive in
finding ways of making sense of the most
random or chaotic utterance or discourse.

RUSSIAN FORMALISM
5. CARNIVALIZATION – the term Mikhail Bakhtin uses
to describe the shaping effect of carnival on literary texts.
• The festivities associated with the Carnival are collective
and popular; hierarchies are turned on their heads (fools
become wise; kings become beggars); opposites are
mingled (fact and fantasy, heaven and hell); the sacred is
profaned; the rigid or serious is subverted, mocked or
loosened.

OLD AGE STICKS
By E.E. Cummings

MARXIST LITERARY THEORY
• This theory aims to explain literature in relation to society.—
that literature can only be properly understood within a
larger framework of social reality.
• Marxist believe that any theory treats literature in isolation
(for instance, as pure structure, or as a product of the
author’s individual mental processes) and keeps isolation,
divorcing it from history and society, will be deficient in
its ability to explain what literature is.

• Marxist literary critics start by looking at the
structure of history and society (literature are
mere products of history) and then see whether the
literary work reflects or distorts this structure.
• It is through the theories of class struggle,
politics and economics that Marxist literary
criticism emerged.

• Marxist literary criticism maintains that a
writer’s social class and its prevailing
ideology (outlook, values, tacit assumptions)
have a major bearing on what is written
by a member of the class.
• The writers are constantly formed by
their social contexts.

THE FARMER'S SON
by Alfredo Navarro Salanga
There is great power in reason
It comes like so much rain
Or like strong wind in a dry month
My father was bent
by work
his shoulders were bend
by words
in a contract
he never understood
While I was still
a young man
he send me off
to school
and bid me walk
with straight shoulders
Learn, he said
learn words
that you may pry off
these letters
that have made me
old and bent
I came back
many years later
with the words
I knew he wanted
but by then
it was too late
I listened to him
die with words:
you are lucky
to have learned words
they will keep you
from having bent
shoulders
By his deathbed
I cried
and spat out
letter's while
my shoulders bent
with grief

FEMINIST CRITICISM
• This is a specific kind of political discourse; a critical and
theoretical practice committed to the struggle against
patriarchy and sexism.
• Broadly, there are two kinds of feminist criticism:
1. One is concerned with unearthing, rediscovering or re-
evaluating women’s writing
2. And the other with re-reading literature from the point
of view of women

FEMINIST CRITICISM
• It is concerned with how women’s lives have changed
throughout history and what about women’s experience is
different from men.
• FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM studies literature by
women for how it addresses or expresses the particularity of
women’s lives and experience (the theory focuses on
analyzing gender inequality).
• It also studies the male-dominated canon in order to
understand how men have used culture to further their
domination of women.

FEMINIST CRITICISM
• Critics like Simone de Beauvoir, Mary Ellman
and Kate Millett—were among the 1st to reveal
that throughout literary history women have been
conceived of as “other”, as somehow abnormal or
deviant. As a result, female literary characters
have been stereotyped as bitches, sex goddesses,
old maids.

TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME
by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are
warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and
worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

POSTCOLONIAL CRITICISM
• POSTCOLONIALISM refers to the historical
phase undergone by 3rd world countries after the decline
of colonialism.
• Among the many challenges facing postcolonial
writers are the attempts both to resurrect their
culture and to combat the preconceptions about
their culture.

• Postcolonial criticism deals with politics
and literature (include but not limited to
issues of identity, culture and economics).
The literature is based on colonial works
and colonial powers produced by the
people who are or were colonized.

• Language become the site of struggle for
postcolonial literatures since one of the main
features of imperial oppression is control over
language.
• HOMI K. BHABHA—postcolonial theory involves
analysis of nationality, ethnicity, and politics with
poststructuralist ideas of identity and indeterminacy,
defining postcolonial identities as shifting, hybrid
constructions.

POSTMODERN LITERARY THEORY
• POSTMODERN is a term used to refer to the
culture of advanced capitalist societies.
• This culture has undergone a profound shifting
the structure of feeling.
• A whole new way of thinking and being in the
world emerged—a paradigm shift in the cultural, social
and economic order

• Postmodern literature is literature
characterized by reliance on narrative
techniques such as fragmentation, paradox, and
the unreliable narrator; and is often (though
not exclusively) defined as a style or a trend
which emerged in the post–World War II era.

• Following World War II, a new kind of society began to
emerge, variously called post-industrial society,
multinational capitalism, consumer society, media
society.
• This society is characterized by:
1. New type of consumption
2. Plan obsolescence (uselessness)
3. More rapid rhythm of fashion and styling changes

4. Penetration of advertising, television, and the
media
5. Replacement of old tension between city and
country, center and province, by the suburb and
by universal standardization
6. The growth of the great networks of
superhighways and the arrival of the
automobile culture.

• The term postmodern has been
applied to a style or a sensibility
manifesting itself in any creative
endeavor which exhibits some
elements of self-consciousness and
reflexivity.

• POSTMODERNISM is a general and wide-
ranging term which is applied to literature,
art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and
cultural and literary criticism, among others.
• It is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of
scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality.

POSTMODERN TEXT
COMMON FEATURES:
1. Fragmentation 7. Ludism
2. Decentring 8. Heterogeneity
3. Plurality 9. Discontinuity
4. Parody 10. Dislocation
5. Intertextuality 11. Metafictionality
6. Indeterminacy 12. Pastiche

POSTMODERN LITERARY WORKS
EXAMPLES:
1. The works of Andy Warhol
2. The poetry of Ailen Ginsberg, Haryetta Mullen, Susan
Howe
3. The novels of Don de Lillo, Jasper Florde, Thomas
Pynchon, William Gibson
4. Movies like Moulin Rouge, Matrix, Vanilla Sky, Inception,
Adjustment Bureau, Stranger then Fiction, Mamma Mia
5. The works of Michel Foucault

READER RESPONSE CRITICISM
• It is a school of literary theory that focuses on the
reader or "audience" and their experience of a
literary work, in contrast to other schools and
theories that focus attention primarily on the
author or the content and form of the work.
• Can be seen as a reaction in part to some
problems and limitations perceived in New
Criticism.

• In writing a response you may
assume the reader has already read
the text.
• Thus, do not summarize the
contents of the text at length.

• The Purpose of Reader-Response
1. why you like or dislike the text;
2. explain whether you agree or disagree
with the author;
3. identify the text's purpose; and.
4. critique the text.

• Reader response stresses the importance
of the reader's role in interpreting texts.
• Because all readers bring their own
emotions, concerns, life experiences,
and knowledge to their reading, each
interpretation is subjective and unique.

• For the believers of reader-response theories –
(ROSENBLATT, BLEICH, FISH) the object of
observation appears changed by the act of observation.
• “Knowledge is made by people, not found” according to David
Bleich (1978).
• Writing about literature should not involve suppressing
readers’ individual concerns, anxieties, passions, and
enthusiasm.

• A response to literary work always
helps to find out something about ourselves.
• Readers undergo a “process of negotiation”
with a community of readers to seek a
common ground.

• LOUISE ROSENBLATT (1978) –called for criticism
that involved a “personal sense of literature, an unself-
conscious, spontaneous, and honest reaction”, but this
should be checked against the text and modified in a
continuing process.
• The focus is on the “transaction” between the text and the
reader. (e.g. a poem is made by the text and the reader
interacting)

• STANLEY FISH (1980, 1989) – moves
away from the ideal reader who finds his
activity marked out, implied, in the text, and
he moves toward the idea of a reader who
creates a reading of the text using certain
interpretative strategies.

• 3 important questions need to be asked by
the reader:
1. How do I respond to this work?
2. How does the text shape my response?
3. How might other readers respond?

FIRE AND ICE
by Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

NEW HISTORICISM
• NEW HISTORICISM is a literary theory
based on the idea that literature should be studied
and interpreted within the context of both the history of
the author and the history of the critic.
• The New Historicist also acknowledges that his
examination of literature is "tainted" by his own
culture and environment.

NEW HISTORICISM
• It thinks in new ways about history, texts, and the
role of scholars.
• HISTORICISM is “history after the fall from
innocence.”
• Historical criticism, also known as the historical-
critical method or higher criticism, is a branch of
criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts in
order to understand "the world behind the text".

NEW HISTORICISM
• Consider traditional and new approaches to
the Tempest by Shakespeare or Florante
at Laura by Francisco Balagtas– both could
be seen from new historical analysis, as play
situated in a period of social anxiety; the
former in the context of Elizabeth era (depict
it as the golden age in English history).

NEW HISTORICISM
• New Historicism, then, sees
statements in texts not as ideas or as
timeless universals, but as made in
particular places and times by people
located in social and cultural matrix.

TEMPEST
by Shakespeare
• PLOT SUMMARY. A ship carrying
Alonso King of Naples, his son Ferdinand,
Antonio, and other nobles, is wrecked in a
storm created by the spirit Ariel, under the
magic art of Prospero. Prospero's daughter
Miranda, afraid for the voyagers, is told they
are safe.

TEMPEST
by Shakespeare
• THEME. Forgiveness and repentance are the
prime themes of the play The Tempest.
Antonio, his brother, wronged him by
dethroning and banishing some twelve years
ago. Antonio was supported by Alonso and
Sebastian. These all three corrupted people are
the culprit of Prospero and are rightful to get
punished by him.

Thank you for reading!
CHELDHAYE

Literary criticism

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