Literary Criticism

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Literary Criticism

• Georgia Perimeter College

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Introduction

• Purpose to discuss many ways to enjoy the
  fullness of any literary piece through To His
  Coy Mistress Approaches
• Textual
• Formalistic
• Genre
• Historical/Biographical
• Moral/Philosophical
• Mythological and Archetypal

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Textual Approach

• Textual Analysis - the science of finding errors
  in a text and the art of removing them.
• Text and Coy Mistress
• Words Archaic
• transpires - breathes forth
• instant - now present
• both nearer the latin original than the 21st
  century meaning
• Word Mistakes
• glow glew dew
• 1st edition had glew

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Formalistic Approach (Background)

• Focus - the autonomous work itself that is, the
  authors life and times, and sociological,
  psychological, economic, political implications
  are extraneous.
• Formalists Questions What is the Literary work?
  What is its shape? What is its effect? How are
  the effects and forms achieved?

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Formalistic Background II

• Answers all answers come from the text
• All is unified in tone, character, etc. - form.
  Form alone takes, and holds, and preserves,
  substance - saves it from the welter of helpless
  verbiage that we swim in, as in a sea of
  tasteless pudding.
• Content (idea) vs achieved content art the
  difference between the two is technique - or
  form. Form would include imagery, rhythm,
  character development, etc..

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Formalistic Application

• Title - who is speaking to whom (mistress)
• Key Words - Preoccupation with the passing of
  time brevity of youth need to experience young
  loves delights in their proper time
• Rhetorical features, section I conditions and
  hyperbole
• had we but Ganges and Humber flood and
  conversion of the Jews years adoring her parts

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Formal. App. II

• Rhetorical features, section II Tone shift from
  exaggerated praise and love declarations to
  deaths certainty and fleshs decay.
• Adds Understatement for emphasis
• Honesty makes her unrealistic coyness foolish,
  illogical, perhaps perverse
• Therefore to emphasize that this is a argument

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Genre Approach

• Genre Considerations
• Type
• Lyric
• Short
• Charm polish ease of expression
• Imagination, wit
• Sophistication
• Level of Statement (Paraphrasable content) a
  lyrical proposition

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Historical Biographical Approach( Background)

• Historical-Biographical General
• Life and Times of the Author or the Characters of
  the Work
• Piers Plowman - corruption in 14th century
  English
• The Grapes of Wrath the depression
• Oliver Twist industrialization and child labor
• To Kill a Mockingbird Jim Crowe laws and
  practices

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Hist/Bio Application

• Historical -Biographical and Coy Mistress
• Marvells life and times and poems logical
  argument tone
• Logic - Son of Anglican priest classically
  educated a Parliamentarian admirer of Cromwell
  writer of political satires
• Tone - not pedantic, though. Courtly love, so
  she is an elevated goddess, so like one she is
  capricious and he must humor her (from the flood
  to the conversion of the Jews). But by the end
  he has stripped off modesty and divinity (1) her
  willing soulbreathes forth passion (2)
  kinesthetic ecstasy tear our pleasures with
  rough strife/Through the iron gates of life (the
  virginal body.)

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Hist Bio. Application II

• Historical, religious, classical, metaphysical
  allusions
• Flood Conversion of the Jews Time winged
  chariot - the sun, moon, night, and time- and
  their course - tone still pleasing/humorous
• Second stanza -images crude Last stanza not
  playful at all slow-chapped (slow-jawed) power
  alludes to the cannibalism of time (Kronos)
• Make the sun run Joshua Phaeton(son of the
  sun) and his chariot ride Zeus and Alcmeme
• Breasts and the rest lovers rolled up into a
  ball amorous birds of prey -all metaphysical
  revolt against too sweet Elizabethan love poetry.

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Moral-Philosophical Backgound

• Function to teach morality and probe
  philosophical issuesThe Stranger-
  existentialism Tom Jones - Christianity Essay
  on Man - reason The Scarlet Letter - secret
  sinMoral/Philo. Application
• Carpe diem seize the day eat, drink, and be
  merry for tomorrow we shall die.
• Often called hedonistic stance
• Sex - essentially a pagan view of sex as physical
  dalliance (Now let us sport while we may) that
  derives pleasure. A Cavalier view, not a Puritan
  one
• Pessimism - perhaps a function of 17th century
  developments that led to a loss of a
  philosophical or moral view of life?

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Moral and Philo. Application 2

• Francis Bacons induction and scientific truth
• Copernican theory - removed man and earth as the
  center of the universe
• Thomas Hobbes - materialism and man as animal
• Is the speaker honestly reflecting his view of
  life - pessimism - and advocating sensuality as
  the only way make the best of a bad situation -
  or is he just typical male?t