Precritical Response

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Precritical Response
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Benefits of Literary Criticism?

• Susan Sontag
• Contemporary criticism usurped the place of a
  work of art
• Art free, uninhibited
• Criticism intellectual operation, dull dry
  reduced it to content to be interpreted

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• Leslie Fiedler
• Advocated ecstatics (ekstatis) as response to
  literature
• Emotional response instead of a dull analysis
• feeling instead of intellect
• Caused reader to go out of head

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• Terry Eagleton
• Believes Marxist theory can explain ANY literary
  work

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• Literary analysis has its proper place.
• Should not be used to the extreme.
• Analysis can be taken too far to make it
  unreasonable and even dull.
• Number of feminine rhymes in Rape of the Lock
• Number of trochees in Book 4 of Paradise Lost
• Hamlets weight problem

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Precritical Response

• Essential for fullest appreciation of literature.
• Knowledge is not in and of itself a deterrent to
  the enjoyment of literature.
• Intelligent application of several interpretive
  techniques can enhance the pleasure that a common
  reader can derive from a piece of literature.
• Not an inferior response

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Four Levels of Reading

• Breaking the Code
• Understanding the Idea
• Reacting Emotionally
• Critically Thinking

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Basic Elements of Analysis

• Setting
• The where
• How we respond to setting
• May enjoy exotic settings
• May enjoy familiar settings
• If we arent familiar with setting, we may not
  gain full appreciation of work
• Antebellum South Huckleberry Finn
• 11th Century Denmark Hamlet

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Basic Elements of Analysis

• Plot
• The what
• Conflict involving the antagonist protagonist
• Man vs. Man
• Man vs. Nature
• Man vs. Society
• Man vs. Fate
• Man vs. Self

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Basic Elements of Analysis

• Character
• The who
• May be stereotypes or complex characters
• Usually what draws us in to story
• Drawn to certain characters because of how they
  are developed by author
• Believable
• Admirable

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Basic Elements of Analysis

• Structure
• The writers arrangement of the material into a
  story
• Straightforward structure (action)
• Introduction
• Complication
• Resolution

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Basic Elements of Analysis

• Structure
• Straightforward structure (action)

Climax
Rising action
Falling action
Introductory material
Stable situation (dénouement)
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Basic Elements of Analysis

• Structure
• The writers arrangement of the material into a
  story
• Stream of consciousness
• mind of character
• Flow of sensations, thoughts, memories,
  associations, reflections
• Varied, disjointed and illogical elements
• Virginia Woolf
• James Joyce
• William Faulkner

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Basic Elements of Analysis

• Style
• Work usage
• Sentence structure
• Sparse Hemingway
• Flowery Faulkner (2-pg. sentences)
• Use of allusion
• Use of dialogue
• Colloquial
• Twain
• Walker

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Basic Elements of Analysis

• Atmosphere
• Mood or feeling that permeates the environment
• Ties in usually with setting and/or characters
• Young Goodman Brown
• Ominous, dark
• Huckleberry Finn
• Humorous, irreverent

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Basic Elements of Analysis

• Theme
• Meaning of work
• Message to reader
• Straightforward
• Uncle Toms Cabin
• Slavery is cruel and immoral and must go!
• Ambiguous
• YGB
• Meaning of faith/effects of evil

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Ch. 2 Textual Scholarship, Genre Source Study
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Three Foundational Questions

• Do we have an accurate version of what we are
  studying?
• What are we dealing with?
• Did earlier writings help this work come into
  being?

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Textual Scholarship

• Do we have an accurate version of what we are
  studying?
• Textual criticism
• Establishment of an authentic text or text
  that the author intended
• Literature can be corrupted from what the author
  intended

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Genre Studies

• What are we dealing with?
• Grouping or categorizing works
• Have certain expectations about various genres
• Epic
• Aeneid
• Odyssey

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Source Studies

• Did earlier writings help this work come into
  being?
• What are the origins of this work?
• How the work came into being
• What influences were at work to give it exactly
  the qualities that it has
• Authors manuscripts, notebooks, comments, etc.
• Edgar Allan Poes Philosophy of Composition
• Robert Frosts manuscripts

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• TEXT CONTEXT EFFECT

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• Text is always read by a historical person, a
  person located at a specific point in time.
• Historical context can limit interpretation to a
  degree
• Relies on reader to decode that reading with
  certain language, values, mores, etc.

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• As readers, we must ferret out linguistic codes
  that were operating at the time the author was
  writing.
• Gay
• 100 years ago
• happy
• Today
• Reveals sexual orientation

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• The farther away we are from the original
  context, the more we have to work at making sense
  of the text.
• Harder to read Shakespeare or Milton than Mark
  Twain or Charles Dickens
• Harder to read Twain or Dickens than John Grisham
  or Cormac McCarthy

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Valid Interpretation

• Does a text have only ONE correct meaning?
• ---OR---
• Can a text have more than one interpretation?

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If only one correct interpretation

• How does one arrive at the correct
  interpretation?
• What are the hermeneutical principles readers
  must use to discover this interpretation?

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If there are multiple interpretations

• Are all interpretations valid?
• Can each interpretation be considered a
  legitimate analysis of the text?

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• Who is to say that ones interpretation is valid?
• English professors?
• Professional critics?
• Published scholars?
• Any reader?

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• Is a text always didactic?
• Is it intended to convey instruction?
• Must a reader learn something from every text?

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• Does a text affect each reader in the same way?

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• How is a text influenced by the culture of its
  author and the culture in which it is written?

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• Can a text become a catalyst for change in a
  given culture?