Literary Criticism: An Overview

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Literary Criticism An Overview

• Critical Approaches to Literature

Dr, Amy Berry SMSU February 1, 2012
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Literary criticism gives us a window into a work
of literature It gives us a particular way of
understanding the text from a specific viewpoint
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Formalism maintains that a literary work contains
certain intrinsic features, and the theory
"...defined and addressed the specifically
literary qualities in the text" (Richter 699).
Therefore, it's easy to see Formalism's relation
to Aristotle's theories of dramatic construction
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Dramatic Form     DenouementClimax and
unraveling   Dramatic Conflict
Builds Falling action   Rising
Action Resolution
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Applying Formalist Dramatic Form to Understanding
Shakespeares Hamlet Hamlet Dramatic Form What
is the rising action, conflict, denouement, and
falling action in Shakespeares Hamlet? How
does dramatic form analysis help us to understand
the play?
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Formalism New Criticism New Critical theories
are still used in secondary and college level
instruction in literature and even writing   How
does the work use imagery to develop its own
symbols? What is the quality of the work's
organic unity "...the working together of all the
parts to make an inseparable whole..." In other
words, does how the work is put together reflect
what it is? How are the various parts of the
work interconnected? How do paradox, irony,
ambiguity, and tension work in the text? How do
these parts and their collective whole contribute
to or not contribute to the aesthetic quality of
the work? How does the author resolve apparent
contradictions within the work? What does the
form of the work say about its content? Is
there a central or focal passage that can be said
to sum up the entirety of the work? How do the
rhythms and/or rhyme schemes of a poem contribute
to the meaning or effect of the piece?
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Using New Critical Approaches to Understand
Hamlet What are the main ironies in
Hamlet? What are several strong tragic ironies
in the play? Is there a central passage or
passages that sums up the play? That captures
the essence of Hamlets character? What
recurring images or symbols connect the various
parts of the play? What recurring themes create
the overall meaning of the play?
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• Reader Response/Close Reading
• What Do You Think?
• At its most basic level, reader response
  criticism considers readers' reactions to
  literature as vital to interpreting the meaning
  of the text
• The role of the reader is critical to the meaning
  of the text
• There is no objective literary text
• Readers create the meaning of the text through
  the act of reading and interpreting
• The reader, not the writer, creates the text!!!!

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What Does Hamlet Mean to You?? What meaning do
you create as you read the text? How might we
interpret a literary text to show that the
reader's response is the topic of the story?
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Historicism Historicism places the literary text
in an historical context. History is a series of
events that have a linear, causal relationship
event A caused event B event B caused event C
and so on The literary text is a product of
history, a reflection of history, and a record of
history
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• What language/characters/events present in the
  work reflect the current events of the authors
  day?
• Are there words in the text that have changed
  their meaning from the time of the writing?
• How are such events interpreted and presented?
• How are events' interpretation and presentation
  a product of the culture of the author?
• Does the work's presentation support or condemn
  the event?
• Can it be seen to do both?
• How does this portrayal criticize the leading
  political figures or movements of the day?
• How does the literary text function as part of
  a continuum with other historical/cultural texts
  from the same period...?

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Using Historicism to Understand Hamlet What
language/characters/events present in the play
reflect the current events of the authors
day? How does this portrayal criticize the
leading political figures or movements of the
day? How does the play relate to other
historical/cultural texts from the same period?
Relate Hamlet to Dr. Faustus
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Feminist Literary Criticism Feminist criticism
makes womens experience, status, and power the
center of reading and interpretation Feminist
criticism is concerned with "...the ways in which
literature (and other cultural productions)
reinforce or undermine the economic, political,
social, and psychological oppression of women
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Feminist Principles that Inform Feminist Literary
Criticism Women are oppressed by patriarchy
economically, politically, socially, and
psychologically patriarchal ideology is the
primary means by which they are kept oppressed
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Using Feminist Criticism to Understand
Hamlet What are the power differences between
women and men? How do these power differences
limit the power, status and choices of women?
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