LITERARY CRITICISM
LANGUAGE Model
What is Literature?
 Comes from the Latin term “LITERA” which
means ‘an encounter with letters’.
 It is a body of literary productions, ORAL,
WRITTEN or VISUAL, containing imaginative
language that realistically portrays thoughts,
emotions, and experiences of human
condition.
 It is a language in use that provides insights
and intellectual stimulation to the reader. As
one explores literature, he likewise discovers
the beauty of language.
 It is a product of a particular culture that
concretizes man’s array of VALUES,
EMOTIONS, ACTIONS, & IDEAS.
 It is therefore the recreation of human
experience that tells about people and their
world.
Literary Standards
1. Universality - It appeals to everyone
regardless or culture, race, sex, and time
which are considered significant.
2. Artistry - It has an aesthetic appeal to
everyone and thus possesses a sense of
beauty.
3. Intellectual Value - It stimulates critical
thinking that enriches mental processes of
abstract and reasoning, making man realizes
the fundamental truths of life and its nature.
4. Suggestiveness - It unravels and conjures
man’s emotional power to define symbolism,
nuances, implied meanings, images and
message, giving and evoking visions above
and beyond the plane of ordinary life and
experiences.
5. Spiritual Value - It elevates the spirit and the
soul and thus have power to motivate and
inspire, drawn from the suggested morals or
lessons of the different literary genres.
6. Permanence - It endures across time and
draws out the time factor: TIMELINESS,
occurring at a particular time, and
TIMELESSNESS, remaining invariably
throughout time.
7. Style - It presents peculiar way/s on how man
see/s life as evidenced by the formation of his
ideas, forms, structures, and expressions
which are marked by their memorable
substance.
Literary Models
 Appeals in different aspects and importance
1. CULTURAL Model
 It aims to understand and appreciate cultures
and ideologies different from one’s own in time
and space.
2.
 It aims to promote language development like
vocabulary and structure.
3. PERSONAL GROWTH Model
 It aims to help one achieve lasting pleasure
and deep satisfaction in reading.
Classification of Literature
According to usage:
A. STRUCTURE
1. FICTION- is a literary work of imaginative
narration, either oral or written, fashioned to
entertain
and to make the readers think and more so, to
feel.
2. NONFICTION - a literary work of REAL LIFE
narration or expression based on history and
facts
whose main thrust is intellectual appeal to
convey facts, theories, generalizations,
or concepts about a particular topic.
B. FORM
1. PROSE- written in the common flow of
language in sentences and paragraphs which
give information,
relate events, express ideas, or present
opinions.
2. POETRY - expressed in verse, measure,
rhythm, sound, and imaginative language and
creates
an emotional response to an experience,
feeling, or fact.
C. GENRE
1. Fiction (short story, novel, folktale, fable,
legend)
2. Poetry
3. Essay
4. Drama/Play
5. Arts - paintings, drawings, music and dances
BASIC ELEMENTS AND CONCEPTS OF
LITERATURE
Elements of Fiction
• Characters (protagonist, antagonist, foil,
background)
• Plot (exposition, narrative hook, conflict, rising
action, complication, climax,
falling action, denouement/conclusion)
• Setting (place, time, situation, mood)
• Theme - the overall feeling which the story
revolves
• Point of View (first person- actor, third person-
narrator, omniscient-all knowing)
• Structure or style (traditional or linear, modern
or episodic)
 • Mood and Tone (lonely, happy, suspense, or Octava Rima - verse
horror, fantastic, etc.) 8 verses • Heptameter - 7
• Nonet or feet verse
Elements of Tragedy (Aristotle’s Poetic) Spenserian • Octameter - 8 feet
Plot stanza - 9 verses verse
• Peripeteia, reversal of fortune
• Anagnorisis, recognition of (ignorance How to identify the metrical measurement of a verse?
to knowledge and vice
versa) • Count how many syllables are there in a verse.
• Hamartia tragic flaw • Determine if the syllable pattern is uniform.
• Catharsis feeling of pity & fear • Try what foot pattern would be applicable
• Hubris problem (iambic, trochaic, anapestic, dactylic)
• Open ending hanging • Identify the measurement of the verse
• Close ending according to the foot pattern used.
• Synopsis
On Drama
GENERAL TYPES OR GENRES OF LITERATURE
• Narrator (Modern • Playwright, Author,
drama) Poet, Novelist,
I - Prose
• Messenger Essayist,
• Novel & Novelette
(Greek drama) Orator, Public
• Long narrative divided into various
• Chorus (Greek Speaker
chapters.
drama) • Dialogue and
• The events are taken from true-to-life
• Soliloquy Script
stories.
• Aside • Scene and Act
• Short Stories - Short narrative involving a
• Stage and Stage
simple plot and few characters
craft (end stage,
• Folk Tales
thrust stage,
• Fairy Tales
arena)
• Whimsical Tales
• Costume, mask,
• Fables - are stories whose characters are
makeup, set
animals who speak and act like humans.
• Lighting (spotlight,
• Anecdotes – are merely product of the writer’s
floodlight, shade)
imagination.
The main aim is to bring lessons to the
On Poetry Foot Patterns such as:
readers.
• Verse
• Parables
• Diction • Iamb = ta-TUM,
• Legends - are usually talking about origins of
• Language • Trochee = TUM-ta,
things / people / places / animals etc.
• Rhyme • Anapest = ta-ta-
• Myths
• Rhythm TUM
• Essays - expresses viewpoint of the writer
• Meter • Dactyl = TUM-ta-ta
about and issue or topic.
• Imagery • Spondee = TUM-
• Speeches
• Symbolism TUM
• Declamations
• Alliteration / • Orations - formal treatment of a subject
Repetition • The poem consists
intended to be spoken in public.
• Assonance of 9 stanzas in
• News - are records of every day events.
• Refrain trochaic
• Biography - deals with the written accounts of
tetrameters. It is
person’s life written by another person.
rhymed “abab.”
II – Poetry
Types of Stanza in Meter - the systematic
Poetry measurement of the verse A. Narrative Poetry
in terms
of foot pattern used in 1. Epic - is an extended narrative poetry
verse. about a hero of a race.
• Heroic couplet - • Monometer - 1 foot
2 verses verse The two types of Epic are:
• Terza rima - 3 • Dimeter - 2 feet a. Popular Epic – doesn’t have specific
verses verse author.
• Quatrain - 4 • Trimeter - 3 feet Ex. Harvest song of Aliguyon, etc.
verses verse
• Quintet - 5 • Tetramemter - 4 b. Modern Epic – has specific author.
verses feet verse Ex. Divine comedy of Dante, etc.
• Sestet - 6 verses • Pentameter - 5
• Septet - 7 verses feet verse 2. Metrical Tales - these narrative are
• Octave • Hexameter - 6 feet written in verse and can be classified
 either as a ballad or a metrical romance.
3. Idylls or home tales – Bayani sa Bukid by
Al Perez
4. Love Tales – Florante at Laura
5. Tales of supernatural written for strong
moral purpose in verse form.
Example: Ang Ibong Adarna
6. Ballad - a ballad is a story song that often
has a refrain or chorus as in the example
that follow.
7. Dramatic Poetry
8. Social Poem
9. Corrido
10. Awit
11. Other Types of Poetry:
a. Haiku
b. Tanka
c. Limericks
d. Acrostic Poem
e. Concrete or form poetry
III – Types of Drama
– Comedy
– Tragedy
– Melodrama or Musical
– Farce
– Satire
– Morality
– Comedy of Error
A. Literary Criticism – involves the reading,
interpretation and commentary of a specific text or
texts which have been designated as literature.
Literary criticism is the application of a literary
theory to specific texts. Literary theory identifies
what makes literary language literary and the
function of literary text in social and cultural terms.
1. Classical Literary Theory –literature is an
imitation of life.
a. Mimesis (Plato) – literature is an imitation of life.
b. Dulce et utile (Horace) – function of literature is to
entertain or to teach/instruct
c. Sublime (Longinus) – style may be low, middle,
high, or sublime
d. Catharsis (Aristotle) – purgation of negative
emotions of fear and pity
2. Historical – Biographical and Moral –
Philosophical Approaches
a. A literary work is a reflection of its author’s life
and times or the life and times of the characters in
the work.
b. It emphasizes that literature functions to teach
morality and to probe philosophical issues.
3. Romantic Theory. William Wordsworth
articulated it in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads
as literature which should
a. have a subject matter that is ordinary and
commonplace
b. use simple language, even aspiring to the
language of prose
c. make use of the imagination
d. convey a primal, simple, uncomplicated feeling
e. present similitude in dissimilitude (similarities in
differences)
4. New Criticism – dominant in Anglo Saxon
believes that literature is an organic unity. To use
this theory, one proceeds by looking into the
following : the persona, the addressee, the
situation (where and when), what the persona
says, the central metaphor (tenor and vehicle),
the central irony, the multiple meaning of words.
-more on practical essays
- it is a praxis
FORM – over-all effect the poem creates
5. Psychoanalytical Theory – applies Freudian
psychoanalytic ideas to literature.
a. It looks into the character’s or author’s
motivations, drives, fears, desires.
b. It believes that creative writing is like dreaming
– it disguises what cannot be confronted directly –
the critic must decode what is disguised.
6. Mythological / Archetypal Approach – is based
on Carl Jung’s theory of collective unconscious.
a. Repeated or dominant images or patterns of
human experience are identified in the text.
b. It also uses Northrop Frye’s assertion that
literature consists of variations on a great mythic
theme that contains the following : (1) the garden :
the creation of life in paradise, (2) alienation :
displacement or banishment from paradise, (3)
journey : a time of trial and tribulation, (4)
epiphany : a self-discovery as a result of struggle,
(4) rebirth / resurrection : a return to paradise.
7. Structuralist Literary Theory – comes from the
linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Saussure which
recognizes language as a system or structure. To
Vladimir Propp and Tzvetan Todorov ,
structuralism should identify the general principles
of literary structure and not to provide
interpretations of individual texts. Three
dimensions in individual literary texts :
a. the text as a particular system or structure in
itself (naturalization of a text)
b. texts are unavoidably influenced by other texts
(intertextuality)
c. the text is related to the culture as a whole
(binary oppositions)
8. Deconstruction – interrogates our common
practices in reading and exposes the gaps,
incoherences, the contradictions in a discourse
and how the text undermine itself or how a text
contradicts itself. Deconstruction draws much
from the works of Jacques Derrida. The process
involves
a. identifying the oppositions in the text
b. determining which member is
favored/privileged and looking for evidence that
contradicts it
c. exposing the text’s indeterminancy
9. Russian Formalism – led by Viktor Shklovsky –
aims to establish a ‘science of literature’ and
discover the literariness of a text by highlighting
 the devices and technical elements used by the
author. These elements should include :
a. baring the device – e.g. distorting time in various
ways – foreshortening, skipping, expanding,
transposing, reversing, flashback, flashforward,
etc.
b. defamiliarization – this means making strange
and using fresh ways of describing things
c. retardation of the narrative – the technique of
delaying and protracting actions by using
digressions, displacements, extended
descriptions, etc.
d. naturalization – refers to how we endlessly
become inventive in finding ways of making sense
of the most random or chaotic utterances or
discourse.
e. carnivalization – Mikhail Bakhtin used this term
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.
10. Marxist Literary Theory. It aims to explain
literature relation to society – that literature can
only be properly understood within a larger
framework of social reality. Marxist literary critics
would like to look at the structure of history and
society and then investigate whether the literary
work reflects or distorts this structure. They insist
that literature has a social dimension – it exists in
time and space, in history and society. Moreover,
writers are constantly formed by their social
contexts and social class.
11. Feminist Criticism. Branching out from Marxism,
it is a political discourse; a critical and theoretical
practice committed to the struggle against
patriarchy and sexism.
a. Feminism asks why women played a
subordinate role to men in society.
It studies the male-dominated canon to
understand how men have used culture to further
their domination of women.
b. It studies literature by women for how it
addresses or expresses the particularity of
women’s life and experience. Feminist critics
insist that women’s experience is different from
men’s.
12. Postcolonial Criticism. Postcolonialism refers to
the independence enjoyed by Third World
countries after the decline of colonial rule by
imperialist powers. The many concerns of
postcolonial criticism includes the following :
a. attempt to resurrect their national culture and
to combat the misconceptions about their culture
b. dramatize the colonial experience and their
response to it
c. escape from the implicit body of assumptions to
which the language of the colonizing power,
English, was attached.
d. study diasporic texts outside the usual Western
genres, especially works by aboriginal authors,
marginalized ethnicities, immigrants, and
refugees.
e. analyze nationality, ethnicity, and politics with
poststructuralist ideas of identity and
indeterminacy, and hybrid constructions (Homi K.
Bhaba)
13. Post Modern Literary Theory. Postmodern
refers to the culture of advanced capitalist
societies, which has undergone a profound shift in
the ‘structure of feeling.’ Postmodern texts have
the following features :
a. fragmentation g. intertextuality
b. discontinuity h. decentering
c. indeterminacy i. dislocation
d. plurality j. ludism
e. metafictionality k. parody
f. heterogeneity . pastiche
1. Literature and Literary Theory
 Traditionally, literature is regarded as a
homogenous body of works with similar
characteristics which are read in similar ways
by an undifferentiated audience.
 Today with the impact of literary theory to the
study of literature, the latter is seen as an area
in a state of flux.
 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 and 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.
 These theories aim to explain, or at times
demystify, some of the assumptions or beliefs
implicit in literature and literary criticism.
2. Literary Criticism and Literary Theory
 Literary criticism involves the reading,
interpretation and commentary of a specific
text or texts which have been designated as
literature.
 Two conventions or assumptions which tend to
be inherent in its practice are: a) that
criticism is secondary to literature itself and
dependent on it and b) that critical
interpretations or judgments 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 texts
which are designated as literary, then literary
theory should do two things: a) it ought to
provide the readers with a range of criteria for
identifying literature in the first place, and an
awareness of these criteria should inform
critical practice; and b) it should 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.
 Literary criticism also involves the
understanding and appreciation of literary
texts.
 Two primary questions of literary criticism are:
a) why does a piece of literature have the
precise characteristics that it has? (how does it
work?) and b) what is the value of literature?
 Any literary theory has to account for: a) the
nature of representation in the text; b) the
nature of reality and its relation to
representation; c) how the representation of
reality is accomplished or subverted and
denied; and d) what conventions or codes
particular writers, literary schools or periods
might employ to achieve representation.
 Literary theory also addresses questions of
what makes literary language literary, as well
as the structures of literary language and
literary texts, and how these work.
 Literary theory is also concerned with the
study of the function of the literary text in social
and cultural terms, which in turn leads to a
construction of its value.
3. Survey of Literary Theories/Approaches
a. 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:
 Mimesis (Plato). Mimesis is the Greek
word for imitation. We try to see whether
a piece of literary work shows imitation of
life or reality as we know it. If it is, what is
imitated? How is the imitation done? Is it
a good or bad imitation?
 Function (Horace). Function refers to
whether a piece of literary work aims to
entertain (dulce) or to teach or to instruct
(utile).
 Style (Longinus). Style refers to whether
the literary work is written in a low, middle,
or high style. Longinus even suggested a
fourth style which he called the sublime.
 Catharsis (Aristotle). Catharsis 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.
 Censorship (Plato). Censorship is an
issue for Plato for literary works that show
bad mimesis. Literary works that show
bad mimesis should be censored
according to Plato.
b. Historical-Biographical and Moral-
Philosophical Approaches. The Historical-
Biographical approach sees a 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 the work. A historical novel
is likely to be more meaningful when either its
milieu or that of its author is understood.
James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the
Mohicans, Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe,
Charles Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities, and
John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath are
certainly better understood by readers familiar
with, respectively, the French and Indian War
(and the American frontier experience), Anglo-
Norman Britain, the French Revolution, and
the American Depression.
On the other hand, the Moral-Philosophical
approach emphasizes that the larger function
of literature is to teach morality and to probe
philosophical issues. Literature is interpreted
within a context of the philosophical thought of
a period or group. Jean Paul Sartre and Albert
Camus can be read profitably only if one
understands existentialism. Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter is seen as a study
of the effects of sin on a human soul. Robert
Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening” suggests that duty takes precedence
over beauty and pleasure.
c. Romantic Theory. William Wordsworth
explained his idea on romanticism in his
Preface to the Second Edition of the Lyrical
Ballads.
He explained that poetry should:
 have a subject matter that is
ordinary and commonplace.
 use simple language, even
aspiring to the language of prose.
 make use of the imagination.
 convey a primal (simple,
uncomplicated) feeling.
 present similitude in dissimilitude
(similarities in differences).
d. American New Criticism/New Criticism.
This theory believes that literature is an
organic unity. It is independent of its author or
the time when it was written or the historical
context. It is concerned solely with the ‘text in
itself’, with its language and organization. It
does not primarily seek a text’s meaning, but
how it speaks itself. It encourages attentive
close reading of texts, a kind of
democratization of literary study in the
classroom, in which nearly everyone is placed
on an equal footing in the face of a ‘blind text.’
It looks into how the parts relate to each other,
achieve its order and harmony, contain and
resolve irony, paradox, tension, ambivalence,
and ambiguity.
To use this theory, one proceeds by
looking into the following:
 the persona
 the addressee
 the situation (where and when)
 what the persona says
  the central metaphor (tenor and
vehicle)
 the central irony
 the multiple meanings of words
e. Psychoanalytical Theory. This theory
applies the ideas of Freudian psychology to
literature. Freud sees the component parts
of the psyche as three groups of functions:
the id, directly related to the instinctual
drives; the ego, an agency which regulates
and opposes the drives; and the superego,
another part of the ego with a critical judging
function.
It encourages the reader/critic to be creative
in speculating about the character’s or
author’s motivations, drives, fears, or
desires. The belief here is that creative
writing is like dreaming – it disguises what
cannot be confronted directly – the critic
must decode what is disguised. A direct
relation between the text and the author is
presupposed and made the center of inquiry.
f. Mythological/Archetypal Approach. This
approach to literary study is based on Carl
Jung’s theory of the collective
unconscious. Repeated or dominant
images or patterns of human experience are
identified in the text: the changing of
seasons, the cycle of birth, death and
rebirth, the heroic quest, or immortality.
Myths are universal although every nation
has its own distinctive mythology. Similar
motifs or themes may be found among many
different mythologies, and certain images
that recur in the myths of people separated
in time and place tend to have a common
meaning, elicit comparable psychological
responses, and serve similar cultural
functions. Such motifs and images are
called archetypes.
This approach also uses Northrop Frye’s
assertion that literature consists of variations
on a great mythic theme that contains the
following:
 the creation and life in paradise:
garden
 displacement or banishment from
paradise: alienation
 a time of trial and tribulation,
usually a wandering: journey
 a self-discovery as a result of
struggle: epiphany
 a return to paradise:
rebirth/resurrection
g. Structuralist Literary Theory. This theory
draws from the linguistic theory of Ferdinand
de Saussure. Language is a system or
structure. Our perception of reality, and
hence the ways we respond to it are dictated
or constructed by the structure of the
language we speak.
This theory assumes that literature, as an
artifact of culture, is modeled on the
structure of language. The emphasis is on
‘how’ a text means, instead of the ‘what’ of
the American New Criticism. The
structuralists argue that the structure of
language produces reality, and meaning is
no longer determined by the individual but by
the system which governs the individual.
Structuralism aims to identify the general
principles of literary structure and not to
provide interpretations of individual texts
(Vladimir Propp and Tzvetan Todorov).
The structuralist approach to literature
assumes three dimensions in the individual
literary texts:
 the text as a particular system or
structure in itself (naturalization of
a text)
 texts are unavoidably influenced
by other texts, in terms of both
their formal and conceptual
structures; part of the meaning of
any text depends on its
intertextual relation to other texts
 the text is related to the culture as
a whole (binary oppositions)
h. Deconstruction. This theory questions
texts of all kinds and our common practices
in reading them. It exposes the gaps, the
incoherences, the contradictions in a
discourse and how a text undermines itself.
The deconstructionist critic begins by
discerning a flaw in the discourse and then
revealing the hidden articulations.
Deconstructing a text calls for careful
reading and a bit of creativity. The text says
something other than what it appears to say.
The belief is that language always betrays its
speaker (especially when there is a
metaphor).
A deconstructive critic deals with the
obviously major features of a text, and then
he/she vigorously explores its oppositions,
reversals, and ambiguities. The most
important figure in deconstruction is the
Frenchman Jacques Derrida.
How to do deconstruction:
 identify the oppositions in the
text
 determine which member
appears to be favored or
privileged and look for
evidence that contradicts that
favoring or privileging
  expose the text’s
indeterminacy
i. Russian Formalism. This theory stresses
that art is artificial and that a great deal of
acquired skill goes into it as opposed to the
old classical maxim that true art conceals its
art. The Russian Formalists, led by Viktor
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 Formalists read literature to
discover its literariness – to highlight the
devices and technical elements introduced
by the writer in order to make language
literary.
The key ideas in this theory are:
 Baring the device – this practice refers to
the presentation of devices without any
realistic ‘motivation’ – they are
presented purely as devices. For
example, fiction operates by distorting
time in various ways – foreshortening,
skipping, expanding, transposing,
reversing, flashback and flashforward,
and so on.
 Defamilairization – this means making
strange. Everything must be dwelt upon
and described as if 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).
 Retardation of the narrative – the
technique of delaying and protracting
actions. Shklovsky draws attention to
the ways in which familiar actions are
defamiliarized by being slowed down,
drawn out or interrupted. Digressions,
displacement of the parts of the book,
and extended descriptions are all
devices to make us attend to form.
 Naturalization – refers to how we
endlessly become inventive in finding
ways of making sense of the most
random or chaotic utterances or
discourse. We refuse to allow a text to
remain alien and stay outside our frames
of reference – we insist on ‘naturalizing’
it.
 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.
j. 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. Marxists believe that any
theory that treats literature in isolation (for
instance, as pure structure or as a product of
the author’s individual mental processes)
and keeps it in 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 and then see
whether the literary work reflects or distorts
this structure. Literature must have a social
dimension – it exists in time and space; in
history and society. A literary work must
speak to concerns that readers recognize as
relevant to their lives.
Marxist literary criticism maintains that a
writer’s social class and its prevailing
‘ideology’ (outlook, values, tacit
assumptions, etc.) have a major bearing on
what is written by a member of that class.
The writers are constantly formed by their
social contexts.
k. 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: one
is concerned with unearthing, rediscovering
or re-evaluating women’s writing, and the
other with re-reading literature from the point
of view of women.
Feminism asks why women have played a
subordinate role to men in the society. 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. It also studies the male-
dominated canon in order to understand how
men have used culture to further their
domination of women.
Critics like Simone de Beauvoir, Mary
Ellman, and Kate Millett were among the first
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, ols
maids. For the first time in history, criticism
posited a female reader for whom
stereotypes of womanhood were offensive.
l. Postcolonial Criticism. Postcolonialism
refers to a historical phase undergone by
 Third World countries after the decline of
colonialism: for example, when countries in
Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the
Caribbean separated from the European
empires and were left to rebuild themselves.
Many Third World writers focus on both
colonialism and the changes created in a
postcolonial culture. Among the many
challenges facing postcolonial writers are the
attempts both to resurrect their culture and
to combat the preconceptions about their
culture.
Postcolonial literatures emerged in their
present form out of the experience of
colonization and asserted themselves by
foregrounding the tension with the imperial
power and by emphasizing their differences
from the assumptions of the imperial center.
Language became a site of struggle for
postcolonial literatures since one of the main
features of imperial oppression is control
over language.
There is a need to escape from the implicit
body of assumptions to which English, the
language of the colonizing power, was
attached: its aesthetic and social values,
the formal and historically limited constraints
of genre, and the oppressive political and
cultural assertion of metropolitan dominance
– of center over margin.
Postcolonial critics also study diasporic texts
outside the usual Western genres, especially
productions by aboriginal authors,
marginalized ethnicities, immigrants, and
refugees.
Homi K. Bhabha’s postcolonial theory
involves analysis of nationality, ethnicity, and
politics with poststructuralist ideas of identity
and indeterminacy, defining postcolonial
identities as shifting, hybrid constructions.
m. Postmodern Literary Theory. Postmodern
is a term used to refer to the culture of
advanced capitalist societies. This culture
has undergone a profound shift in 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 orders.
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:
 a new type of consumption
 planned obsolescence
 ever more rapid rhythm of fashion
and styling changes
 the penetration of advertising,
television, and the media
 the replacement of the old tension
between city and country, center
and province, by the suburb and
by universal standardization
 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
element of self-consciousness and reflexivity.
The common features of postmodern texts are:
fragmentation intertextuality
discontinuity decentring
indeterminacy dislocation
plurality ludism
metafictionality parody
heterogeneity pastiche
Perhaps the greatest liberating feature of
postmodern writing has been the mixing of
writings and intertextual referencing. The
borders between genres have become more
fluid. Artists and writers no longer quote texts;
they incorporate them, to the point where the
line between high art and commercial forms
seems increasingly difficult to draw.
n. Reader Response Criticism – Reader +text
+ Meaning
- can be seen as a reaction in part to some
problems and limitations perceived in New
Criticism. New Criticism did not suddenly fail
to function: it remains an effective critical
strategy for illuminating the complex unity of
certain literary works. But some works do not
seem to respond well to New Criticism’s
‘close reading.’ New ideas about the
conceptual nature of knowledge, even
scientific knowledge, questioned a
fundamental assumption of New Criticism.
New Criticism was arguably emulating the
sciences; but in the wake of Einstein’s theory
of relativity, Heisenberg’s uncertainty
principle, or Gӧdel’s mathematics, and much
else, it seems clear that the perceiver plays
an active role in the making of any meaning,
and that literary works in particular have a
subjective status (as opposed to New
Criticism’s objective reality of the literary
work).
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, enthusiasms.
A response to a literary work always helps
us find out something about ourselves.
Every act of response, he continues, reflects
 the shifting motivations and perceptions of
the reader at the moment. 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. While multiple interpretations are
accepted, some readings are considered
incorrect or inappropriate because they are
unsupportable by the text. The focus is on
the ‘transaction’ between the text and the
reader, i.e. a poem is made by the text and
the reader interacting.
Stanley Fish (1980, 1989) moves away from
the idea of an ideal reader who finds his/her
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
interpretive strategies.
Three (3) important questions need to be
asked by the reader:
a. How do I respond
to this work?
b. How does the text
shape my
response?
c. How might other
readers respond?
LITERARY CRITICISM
*Written by Mark Lund, Carver Center for the Arts and
Technology, Baltimore County Public Schools, 1996.
3 Purposes of Criticism
• (1)To help us resolve a difficulty in the reading.
• (2) To help us choose the better of two
conflicting readings.
• (3) To enable us to form judgments about
literature.
Introduction: What is Literary Criticism?
Literary criticism is the study, analysis, and
evaluation of imaginative literature.  Everyone who
expresses an opinion about a book, a song, a play, or
a movie is a critic, but not everyone's opinion is based
upon thought, reflection, analysis, or consistently
articulated principles. As people mature and acquire an
education, their ability to analyze, their understanding
of human beings, and their appreciation of artistic
craftsmanship should increase.  The study of literature
is an essential component in this- growth of reflection.
Sometimes students object to analysis and
ask, "Why do we have to analyze everything? Why
can't we just enjoy the books we read in English?"  imitation (mimesis) of a serious action, the tragic plot
These are good questions, and there are some good
answers for them. First, talking about an experience,
actual or vicarious, is one way of increasing
enjoyment.  Second, sometimes talking about an
experience involves recreating it in words, but it can
also involve the search for meaning, in short, analysis. 
Finally, as Socrates said, "The life which is
unexamined is not worth living." Analysis, or
examination, increases awareness and understanding;
it is part of the maturation process. The analysis of
literature has always been part of a liberal education. 
When a work of literature is studied without reference
to history or to the life of the author, the approach is
intrinsic, or formalistic.  However, literature is related to
two other humanistic disciplines: philosophy and
history.  Philosophy explores basic, general ideas,
such as truth, beauty, and goodness.  History attempts
to ascertain what happened in the past and why it
happened.  Philosophy may help readers to
understand the general ideas, or themes, of a literary
work.  History helps to elucidate the life and times of
the author.
Traditionally, literary studies were conducted
within the three humanistic disciplines of literature,
history, and philosophy.  In the twentieth century, the
social sciences have been used to develop new
approaches to criticism.  Psychology has helped to
illuminate the motivations of characters and the writers
who create them.  Sociology has revealed the
relationships between the works the author produces
and the society that consumes them.  Anthropology
has shown how ancient myths and rituals are alive and
well in the plays, poems, and novels that are popular
today.
Literary criticism has been a social institution
for many centuries.  Different ages take different
approaches, but the activity is constant.  Authors are
aware of criticism so that it is probably not entirely fair
to say that the literary critic reads meanings into the
texts that were never intended by the author.  Literary
criticism is not "reading between the lines" -it is reading
the lines very carefully, in a disciplined and informed
manner.  This is why it is possible to speak of some of
the approaches discussed in this booklet as elements
of literature.  That is, it is valid to speak of archetypal
elements in a literary text, sociological elements in a
literary text, and formal elements in a literary text.  The
approaches to literature do not put the elements there;
they are already there.  The approaches help to reveal
and clarify them.
The Formalistic Approach
The formalistic approach began with Aristotle
(384-322 BC), a philosopher of ancient Greece, who in
his book The Poetics attempted to define the form of
tragedy.  Aristotle wrote that the tragic hero was an
essentially noble individual who, nevertheless,
manifested a flaw in character that caused him or her
to fall from a high position to a low position. The flaw in
character (hamartia) was a kind of blindness or lack of
insight that resulted from an arrogant pride (hubris). 
During the course of the tragic action, the hero came to
a moment of insight-today it might be seen as an
epiphany-that Aristotle called anagnorsis.  Thus the
tragic plot moves from blindness to insight.  As an
had to be written in a dignified style.  The effect of the
tragedy was supposed to be catharsis or the purging of
the emotions of pity and fear.  All the elements of
tragedy went together to produce a formal unity: this is
the essence of the formalistic approach.
The twentieth century formalistic approach,
often referred to as the New Criticism, also assumes
that a work of literary art is an organic unity in which
every element contributes to the total meaning of the
work.  This approach is as old as literary criticism itself,
but it was developed in the twentieth century by John
Crowe Ransom (1888-1974), Allen Tate (1899-1979),
T.S. Eliot (1888- 1965), and others.
The formalist critic embraces an objective
theory of art and examines plot, characterization,
dialogue, and style to show how these elements
contribute to the theme or unity of the literary work.  • There is no need to bring in outside
Moral, historical, psychological, and sociological
concerns are considered extrinsic to criticism and of
secondary importance to the examination of
craftsmanship and form.  Content and form in a work
constitute a unity, and it is the task of the critic to
examine and evaluate the integrity of the work.  results from the resolution of opposites, often
Paradox, irony, dynamic tension, and unity are the
primary values of formalist criticism.
Because it posits an objective theory of art,
there are two axioms central to formalist criticism.  One
of these is The Intentional Fallacy which states that an
author's intention (plan or purpose) in creating a work
of literature is irrelevant in analyzing or evaluating that
work of literature because the meaning and value of a
literary work must reside in the text itself, independent
of authorial intent. Another axiom of formalist criticism
is The Affective Fallacy which states that the
evaluation of a work of art cannot be based solely on
its emotional effects on the audience. Instead, criticism
must concentrate upon the qualities of the work itself
that produce such effects.  The formalistic approach
stresses the close reading of the text and insists that
all statements about the work be supported by
references to the text.  Although it has been
challenged by other approaches recently, the New
Criticism is the most influential form of criticism in this
century.
Formalism is intrinsic literary criticism because
it does not require mastery of any body of knowledge
besides literature.  As an example of how formalistic
criticism approaches literary works, consider
Shakespeare's Macbeth.  All the elements of the play
form an organic whole.  The imagery of the gradual
growth of plants is contrasted with the imagery of
leaping over obstacles: Macbeth is an ambitious
character who cannot wait to grow gradually into the
full stature of power, but, instead, must grasp
everything immediately.  A related series of clothing
images reinforces this point: because Macbeth does
not grow gradually, his clothing does not fit.  At the end
of the play, his "Tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow" soliloquy drives home the point as we see,
and pity, a man trapped in the lock-step pace of
gradual time.  Formalistic critics would immediately
see that the repetition of the word "tomorrow" and the
natural iambic stress on "and" enhance the
meaninglessness and frustration that the character
feels.  References to blood and water pervade the
play, and blood comes to symbolize the guilt Macbeth
feels for murdering Duncan.  Even the drunken porter's
speech provides more than comic relief, for his
characterization of alcohol as "an equivocator" is linked
to the equivocation of the witches.  Shakespeare's
craftsmanship has formed an aesthetic unity in which
every part is connected and in which the whole is
greater than the sum of the parts.
1. Formalism / New Criticism / Aristotelian
• Focusing on the elements such as the
exposition, rising action, conflict, complication,
climax, falling action, and conclusion
(denouement).
• This also includes characters, setting, theme,
point of view, and literary devices employed by
the author.
information about the history, politics, or
society of the time, or about the author's life.
Terms used in New Criticism
• tension - the integral unity of the poem which
in irony of paradox
• intentional fallacy - the belief that the
meaning or value of a work may be
determined by the author's intention
• affective fallacy - the belief that the meaning
or value of a work may be determined by its
affect on the reader.
• external form - rhyme scheme, meter, stanza
form, etc.
• objectivecorrelative - originated by T.S. Eliot,
• this term refers to a collection of
objects, situations, or events that
instantly evoke a particular emotion.
(symbolism)
• Practitioners: I.A. Richards, William Emerson,
John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren,
Cleanth Brooks,Allen Tate, and others.
•
Advantages of Formalism
• This approach can be performed without much
research, and it emphasizes the value of
literature apart from its context (in effect
makes literature timeless). 
• Virtually all critical approaches must begin
here.
•
Disadvantages of Formalism
• The text is seen in isolation.
• Formalism ignores the context of the work.
(other factors)
• It cannot account for allusions.
• It tends to reduce literature to little more than a
collection of rhetorical devices.
Examples
• A formalistic approach to John Milton's
Paradise Lost would take into account the
physical description of the Garden of Eden and
its prescribed location, the symbols of hands,
seed, and flower, the characters of Adam, Eve,
Satan, and God, the epic similes and
metaphors, and the point of view from which
the tale is being told (whether it be the
narrator's, God's, or Satan's).
 • But such an approach would not discuss the
work in terms of Milton's own blindness, or in
terms of his Puritan beliefs.
• Therefore when the narrator says "what in me
is dark / Illumine," a formalistic critic could not
interpret that in light of Milton's blindness.
• He would have to find its meaning in the text
itself, and therefore would have to overlook the
potential double-meaning.
2. Historical and Biographical Approaches
• Literature is seen both a reflection and product
of the times and circumstances in which it was
written.
• It operates on the premise that the history of a
nation has telling effects on its literature and
that the piece can be better understood and
appreciated if one knows the times
surrounding its creation.
• Historical / Biographical critics see works as
the reflection of an author's life and times (or
of the characters' life and times).
• They believe it is necessary to know about the
author and the political, economical, and
sociological context of his times in order to
truly understand his works.
Advantages
• This approach works well for some works--like
Edgar Allan Poe’s works;
• It also is necessary to take a historical
approach in order to place allusions in their
proper classical, political, or biblical
background.
Disadvantages
• New Critics refer to the historical / biographical
critic's belief that the meaning or value of a
work may be determined by the author's
intention as "the intentional fallacy."  War n also helps readers to understand why Ralph's
• They believe that this approach tends to
reduce art to the level of biography and make
it relative (to the times) rather than universal.
Central Historical Questions:
 Historical events help shape a work
 What specific historical events were happening
when the work was being composed? (See
timelines in history or literature texts.
 What historical events does the work deal with?
 In what ways did history affect the writer's
outlook?
 In what ways did history affect the style?
Language? Content?
 In what ways and for what reasons did the
writer alter historical events?
Historical criticism seeks to interpret the work
of literature through understanding the times and
culture in which the work was written.  The historical
critic is more interested in the meaning that the literary
work had for its own time than in the meaning the work
might have today.  For example, while some critics
might interpret existential themes in Shakespeare's
Hamlet, a historical critic would be more interested in
analyzing the play within the context of Elizabethan
revenge tragedy and Renaissance humor psychology.
Biographical criticism investigates the life of an
author using primary texts, such as letters, diaries, and
other documents, that might reveal the experiences,
thoughts, and feelings that led to the creation of a
literary work.  For example, an investigation of Aldous
Huxley's personal life reveals that Point Counterpoint
is a roman a clef: the character Marc Rampion is a
thinly disguised imaginative version of Huxley's friend,
D.H. Lawrence.
Historical criticism and biographical criticism
are used in tandem to explicate literary texts. 
Sometimes the very premise of a novel may seem
more probable if the circumstances of composition are
understood.  For example, students often wonder why
the boys in Lord of the Flies are oil the island.  Their
plane has crashed, but where was it going, and why? 
The book may be read as a survival adventure, but
such a reading would not account for the most
important themes.  Knowing that William Golding was
a British naval commander in World War II and
knowing some of the facts of the British involvement in
the war help in an understanding of the novel. The
most important fact relating to the premise of the novel
is that during the London Blitz (1940-1941) children
were evacuated from the metropolitan area: some
were sent to Scotland, some to Canada and Australia. 
Golding imagines a similar evacuation happening
during his scenario of World War III.  The itinerary of
the transport plane is detailed at the beginning of the
novel: Gibraltar and Addis Ababa were stops on an
eastward journey, probably to Australia or New
Zealand.  The aircraft was shot down, and the boys are
stranded on a Pacific atoll.  In the age of the
intercontinental ballistic missile, the evacuation seems
impossible, but the novel was published in 1954 when
atomic weapons were still delivered principally by
bombers.  The history of the rise of Hitler and World
democratic appeasements crumble under the ruthless
aggression of Jack's regime.
In short, the historical approach is vital to an
understanding of literary texts.  Sometimes, knowledge
of history is necessary before the theme of the work
can be fully grasped.
The Archetypal Approach
The archetypal approach to literature evolved
from studies in anthropology and psychology. 
Archetypal critics make the reasonable assumption
that human beings all over the world have basic
experiences in common and have developed similar
stories and symbols to express these experiences. 
Their assumption that myths from distant countries
might help to explain a work of literature might seem a
little far-fetched.  However, critics of this persuasion
believe it is valid.
Carl Jung (1875-1961), a student of Freud,
came to the conclusion that some of his patients' -
dreams contained images and narrative patterns not
from their personal unconscious but from the collective
unconscious of the human race.  It was Jung who first
used the term archetype to denote plots, characters,
and symbols that are found in literature, folk tales and
dreams throughout the world.  Some of the principal
archetypes are described in the following paragraphs.
The Hero and the Quest
According to Joseph Campbell, the story of the
hero is the monomyth, or the one story at the bottom of
all stories.  The hero is called to adventure.  This
means that the hero must go on a quest.  The first
stage of the quest is separation: in this stage the hero
separates from familiar surroundings and goes on a
journey.  The second stage of the quest is initiation:
the hero may fight a dragon, conquer an enemy or in
some other way prove his or her courage, wisdom and
maturity.  The final stage is the return: the hero must
return to society to use the courage and wisdom
gained in the initiatory phase.  Often the initiation
involves a journey to the underworld, and the return
phase is regarded as a kind of rebirth.  This links the
myth of the hero to the next archetypal motif.  (Mary
Renault's The King Must Die (1958) is a good
actualization of this pattern.)
The Death and Rebirth Pattern
Many myths from around the world reflect the
cycle of the seasons.  Sometimes mythic thought
requires a sacrifice so that the seasons can continue.  myths in the creation and interpretation of literature.
A sacrificial hero (in myth it is usually a god or king)
accepts death or disgrace so that the community can
flourish.  Although the sacrifice is real, it is not
necessarily to be regarded as final: the god who dies in
the winter may be reborn in the spring.  Characters like
Oedipus and Hamlet, who sacrifice themselves to save
their kingdoms, are based on the archetype of the
dying god.  Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" reflects this
archetypal pattern in a contemporary setting.
Mother Earth Father Sky
A surprising number of cultures regard the
earth as the mother of all life, and she is sometimes
seen as the original divinity who was wedded and
superseded by the archetypal male divinity, the sky
god. The offspring of the earth mother and the sky
father are all of the creatures that inhabit the world.  paradoxes that could only be expressed by difficult and
Earth mother characters in literature are characterized
by vitality, courage, and optimism.  They represent
embodiments of the life force.  Shug Avery in Alice
Walker's The Color Purple represents a modern
version of the earth goddess: she gives Celie the
courage to live.
Culture Founder, Trickster, Witch
Culture founders are heroes who invent rules,
laws, customs, and belief systems so that society can
function and people can live.  Prometheus was the
great culture founder of the Greeks.  He created
mankind and invented writing, mathematics, and
technology so that human beings could survive.  Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and
Because he stole fire from the gods and gave it to
men, he also became a sacrificial hero, condemned to
be tortured in the Caucasus Mountains until he was
freed by Heracles.  Modern characters who derive
from the culture hero archetype would include Mr.
Antrobus in The Skin of Our Teeth and Finny in A
Separate Peace.  Both of these characters are
creative inventors, organizers, and leaders.  The
antithesis of the culture hero is the trickster.  Shakespeare's play has form and purpose; the hero
Representing the forces of chaos, the trickster delights
in mischief.  At times the trickster may appear evil, but
the essential quality embodied by this archetype is
childishness.  Hermes is the trickster in Greek myth;
Loki, in Norse myth.  Native American myths have
many trickster figures.  In William Golding's Lord of the
Flies Ralph's culture-founding efforts are constantly
subverted by Jack, a trickster figure who is motivated
only by the idea of fun.  The female trickster contrasts
with the earth goddess figure in that she devotes
herself to pleasure rather than nurturing: she is
referred to as the outlaw female or witch.  Medea
comes close to epitomizing this archetype.
Four Elements = The World
Earth, water, fire, air: these are the symbolic
elements that compose the world. Earth usually has
the connotations of nurturing life.  Water may purify,
and flowing rivers represent the flow of life; but water
may also destroy when it is uncontrolled, as in a flood. 
Fire represents destruction, but it can also purify and
make way for the new.  Air is the spiritual element;
words denoting the spirit are often derived from the
words for wind.
The other term for archetypal criticism is myth
criticism.  Literary critics, poets, and storytellers all use
 
This reflects their belief that the old myths, far from
being falsehoods, reveal eternal truths about human
nature.
Deconstruction
Most people would identify the current era of
literature as the modern period; surprisingly, literary
critics and historians do not.  Contemporary literature
(1945 to the present) is called Postmodernist. 
Modernism as a literary term is applied to the writers of
the first half of the twentieth century who experimented
with forms of writing that broke age-old traditions:
writers like T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf,
Langston Hughes, and William Faulkner.  These
writers viewed human beings as trapped in tragic
unorthodox styles.  The writings of the modernists are
regarded as classics of the twentieth century, but
contemporary writing has moved beyond them.  The
tragic stance has given way to irony, and the break up
of the culture is treated with sardonic humor.  Since
1945 everything is disposable: books, culture, social
mores, even-with nuclear weapons- planet Earth itself. 
Television, with its thousands of stories and its
parodies of literary classics, cuts against the privileging
of any story as a work of art.  In the Postmodern Age,
there is no literature, there are only stories; there is no
wisdom, there is only information, and information is,
almost by definition, disposable.
Guildenstern Are Dead illustrates some of the principal
qualities of Postmodern literature.  Aristotle's notion of
the noble hero is undercut by two bumbling antiheroes
who don't have enough individual identity to be able to
tell themselves apart. They intrude from the margins of
Shakespeare's Hamlet, wander and wonder aimlessly,
and are finally packed off to a meaningless execution,
disposable tools in a nasty internecine conflict. 
has a role to play in life, even though he may have
doubted this at the beginning of the play.  Stoppard's
heroes make jokes about death, about fate, about
everything.  Stoppard's plot doesn't really go anywhere
because like Pirandello's six characters and Beckett's
two tramps, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are
characters in search of a plot.  Worse, they are
characters in search of personalities.  In the film
version, pages of dramatic scripts float and swirl about
all the scenes like autumn leaves or trash escaped
from the recycling bin.  The tragic world of Hamlet is
subverted by the ironic Postmodern interlopers,
proving that even a mighty Shakespearean text can be
deconstructed, that is, reduced to meaninglessness.
Deconstruction is the movement in criticism that best
expresses the Postmodern consciousness. It has
supplanted New Criticism in most of the literature
departments of American colleges and universities.
Deconstruction might be regarded as the
antithesis of formalism.  Where the formalist critic
seeks to demonstrate the organic unity of a literary
work, the deconstructionist tries to show how attempts
at unified meaning are doomed to failure by the nature
of language itself.  Thus, to deconstruct a literary work
is to show that it is self-contradictory.
Originating in a radical skepticism about the
capacity of language to mean anything, deconstruction
thrives on the paradoxes of twentieth century thought. 
As Freudian psychology destroyed the notion that the
conscious self controls the person, as Einsteinian
physics undermined ideas of objectivity, deconstruction
assaults the belief that language is unequivocal in its
meaning and that literary works have a stable meaning
intended by the author.  Formalist critics accepted the
intentional fallacy because they thought that the literary
text could stand on its own without reference to
authorial intention, but for the deconstructionist literary
texts crumble into contradictions under analysis.
Before deconstruction became a trend in
criticism, even before the word deconstruction entered
the language, Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990), wrote
what might be regarded as the classic deconstructive
narrative, The Alexandria Quartet.  Completed in 1960
and composed of four novels that relate the same
events from different points of view, the Quartet does
not attempt to establish one version of the story as
definitive.  Rather, in a relativistic universe perspective
rules the world: one step to the left or right and the
whole picture changes.
Feminist Criticism
During the 1960s a new school of criticism
arose from the struggles for women's rights.  While
social and economic justice were the most obvious
goals of the feminist cause, many women realized that
the roots of the inequality were cultural. This
perception led to the development of feminist literary
criticism.  Using psychological, archetypal, and
sociological approaches, feminist criticism examines
images of women and concepts of the feminine in myth
and literature.
Feminist critics have shown that literature
reflects a patriarchal, or male dominated, perspective
of society.  Patriarchalism is an ideology that causes
women to be depicted in two ways: as goddesses
when they serve the patriarchal society in the role of
virtuous wives and mothers as prostitutes and witches
when they do not.  Plays and novels often reveal both
views of women.  Thornton Wilder parodies these
stereotypes with the characters of Mrs. Antrobus and
Lily Sabina in the play The Skin of Our Teeth.  Wilder
does not spare the patriarchal Mr. Antrobus, whose
foibles are plain for all the audience to see.
A fresh approach to the investigation of
literature, feminist criticism often focuses on characters
and issues that have been neglected or marginalized
in previous studies.  So much has been written about
Prince Hamlet, that feminist interpretations of the
motivations and conflicts of Queen Gertrude and
Ophelia are often striking in their originality.  Similarly,
Charlotte Gilman-Perkins "The Yellow Wallpaper"
brings feminist criticism to the foreground.  It is this
freshness of approach that makes feminist criticism
one of the most exciting contemporary approaches to
literature.
As a form of sociological criticism, feminist
criticism shares some qualities with Marxist
approaches.  Both are critical of society, as it is
presently constituted.  Both are concerned with the
lives of those oppressed or marginalized by the
dominant culture.  Both investigate literature as a
means of bringing about changes in attitudes and
ultimately in society.
The Philosophical Approach
3. Moral or Humanistic Approach
• Literature is viewed to discuss man and its
nature.
• It presents man as essentially rational; that is,
endowed with intellect and freewill; or that the
piece does not misinterpret the true nature of
man.
• The approach is close to “morality” of
literature, to questions of ethical goodness or
badness.
Central Questions to ask?
• What behaviors do the characters display
that the author wants us to think are
“right”? How can you tell?
• What behavior is “wrong”? How can you
tell?
• What religious or ethical beliefs does the
text deal with directly?Are there any
religions or philosophies mentioned
specifically in the text?
• What religious or ethical beliefs or
philosophies does the author seem to
favor? How can you tell?
Practitioners:
• Matthew Arnold -- argued that works must
have "high seriousness"
• Plato -- insisted that literature must “exhibit
moralism and utilitarianism”
• Horace - felt literature should be "delightful
and instructive"
Advantages
• This approach is useful for such works as
Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man," which
does present an obvious moral philosophy.
 • Question like: what is the philosophy
embedded in the story?
• It is also useful when considering the themes
of works.
• This approach is useful for such works as
Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man," which
does present an obvious moral philosophy.
• Question like: what is the philosophy
embedded in the story?
• It is also useful when considering the themes
of works.
Disadvantages
• Detractors argue that such an approach can
be too "judgmental."  conscious of all their feelings, urges, and desires
• Some believe literature should be judged
primarily (if not solely) on its artistic merits, not
its moral or philosophical content.
• vast unconscious portion.
The philosophical (or moral) approach to
literature evaluates the ethical content of literary works
and concerns itself less with formal characteristics.  Observing the conservative, prudish upper
Philosophical criticism always assumes the
seriousness of literary works as statements of values
and criticisms of life, and the philosophical critic judges
works on the basis of his or her articulated philosophy
of life. Assuming that literature can have a good effect
on human beings by increasing their compassion and
moral sensitivity, this form of criticism acknowledges
that books can have negative effects on people as
well.  For this reason, philosophical critics will
sometimes attack authors for degenerate, decadent, or
unethical writings.
While this description may make philosophical
critics seem similar to censors, these critics rarely call
for burning or banning of books.  Unlike censors, they
try to deal with the whole literary work rather than with
passages taken out of context.  Some people might
criticize J .D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye
because Holden Caulfield is a poor role model.  The
book might also be attacked because of its profane
language.  In fact, these aspects of the novel have led
to its being banned in many school districts throughout
the United States.  Although the philosophical critic
may find both of these aspects of the novel disturbing,
he or she might still believe that, on balance, the book
was to be commended for its indictment of hypocrisy
and materialism.  For the philosophical critic, it is not a
question of objectionable characters and passages; it
is a question of the totality of the work.  Instead of
banning books that they find to be without redeeming
social merit, philosophical critics write scathing reviews
explaining why they consider the books they are
attacking to be decadent or unethical.  In the twentieth
century, philosophical critics have tended toward a
humanistic belief in reason, order, and restraint.  This
explains their reluctance to ban books despite their
moral concerns: if human beings are rational, as the
philosophical critic believes, they will listen to reason
when it is spoken; and they will reject evil and embrace
the good.
The Psychological Approach
The psychological approach has been one of
the most productive forms of literary inquiry in the
twentieth century.  Developed in the late 1800s and
early 1900s by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and his
followers, psychological criticism has led to new ideas
about the nature of the creative process, the mind of
the artist, and the motivations of characters.
Freud's principal ideas are essential to an
understanding of modern literature and criticism. 
Although the works of Freud consist of many complex
volumes, there are four main ideas that have been so
influential that it is hard to believe they were not always
with us.
The Unconscious
According to Freud, human beings are not
because most of mental life is unconscious.  Freud
compared the mind to an iceberg: only a small portion
is visible; the rest is below the waves of the sea.  Thus,
the mind consists of a small conscious portion and a
Repression
middle classes of the late nineteenth century, Freud
came to the conclusion that society demands restraint,
order, and respectability and that individuals are forced
to repress (or sublimate) the libidinous and aggressive
drives.  These repressed desires, however, emerge in
dreams and in art. The artist and the dreamer are both
creators; both have a need to express themselves by
creating beautiful or terrifying images and narratives. 
But the lust and aggression may not be represented
directly.  This leads to the use of symbols and subtexts
in dreams and literature.
The Tripartite Psyche
Freud developed his psychoanalytic theory
around three principles: the ego, the id, and the
superego.  The ego is conscious and represents the
part of the mind that interacts with the environment and
with other people in social situations.  As the conscious
waking self, the ego is the reasonable, sane, and
mature aspect of the mind capable of mastering
impulses and dealing effectively with the stresses of
daily life.  Common parlance may show disrespect for
the "big ego," but for Freud the supercilious attitude
denoted by this phrase would, paradoxically, be an
indication - of a weak ego.  The id is unconscious and
is comprised of the basic drives of hunger, thirst,
pleasure, and aggression.  The id is removed from
reality, that is, from the outer world of society and
environment.  The id is the mind of the infant,
demanding instant gratification, incapable of tolerating
the delayed gratification that makes the ego socially
acceptable.  At first, Freud thought that the id had only
one principle, the pleasure principle, also known as the
libido or sex drive. However, he found he could not
account for aggression, violence, and self-
destructiveness without postulating a second principle,
the aggressive drive, also known as the death wish. 
The superego is the final part of the tripartite psyche.
Representing parentally instilled moral attitudes, the
superego may seem to be like the conscience. Like the
id, however, the superego is largely unconscious. 
Sometimes the superego is thought to represent an
idealized image (ego-ideal) towards which the ego
strives.  During the normal course of development, an
individual gains in ego strength and is able to master
basic drives and mediate the demands of the id, the
superego, and the environment.
Many works of literature contain characters
who embody mental forces. Some of these works were
written long before Freud formalized his psychological
theory.  Three famous works of Victorian literature
were published at about the time Freud was
developing his ideas: Oscar Wilde's The Picture of
Dorian Gray (1891), Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and Joseph Conrad's "The
Secret Sharer" (1912).  Probably the most notorious id
character ever created, Mr. Hyde incarnates the
aggressive drive of the unconscious; however, Dr.
Jekyll makes it clear in his statement of the case that
he admired Hyde's tremendous love of life.  In a similar
way, the captain in Conrad's story recognizes that
Leggatt has killed a man, but he allows Leggatt to
swim to a nearby island because he admires the
freedom and self-possession of Leggatt.  Both Dr.
Jekyll and the captain live in L-shaped dwellings: like
Freud's iceberg, part of the dwelling is seen and part
remains hidden.  Wilde's Dorian Gray resorts to hiding
his portrait (which shows his moral state) in the attic. In
each of these works, an ego character must mediate
between the social environment and the desires of the
id character.  The id is not so much immoral as
amoral.  It is the way in which the ego character deals
with the drives of the id that constitutes the moral
action of the story.
The Oedipus Complex
In Greek myth, Oedipus was a king of Thebes
who, having been abandoned in childhood and
consequently ignorant of his own identity, unknowingly
killed his father and married his mother.  In describing
the psychosexual development of children, Freud
analyzed the powerful feelings that develop between
mother and son.  Freud believed that boys develop
strong attractions to their mothers during the phallic
period (3-6), with a corresponding rivalry developing
between the boy and his father.  Usually these conflicts
are resolved as the boy matures and develops love
interests outside the home, but some neuroses of adult
life are supposed to result from insufficiently resolved
Oedipal conflicts.
The Oedipus Complex has been very
controversial and some psychoanalysts have modified
or rejected it. Alfred Adler (1870-1937), one of Freud's
pupils, reinterpreted the Oedipus Complex when he
developed his own theory of the Inferiority Complex.
Adler believed that the primary motivation for human
beings is not the libido, as Freud had posited, but the
will to power.  For Adler, then, the Oedipus Complex is
essentially a power struggle between the boy and the
father, in which the boy tries to overcome feelings of
inferiority by successfully capturing the mother's
attention. Adler also coined the term masculine protest
to refer to the rebellion of by young women (and some
young men) against the inferior status that women
have in many societies.  Masculine protest consists of
aggressive behavior towards others in an attempt to
allay feelings of inferiority.
Writers were interested in the powerful
conflicts that arise in families long before Freud, but
writers of the twentieth century exploring these
conflicts in their works will be labeled Freudian whether
they acknowledge the influence of Freud or not.  D.H.
Lawrence's Sons and Lovers explores the influence of
a possessive mother on her sons; the same author's
story " The Rocking- Horse Winner" depicts a boy who
believes he can win his mother's love by being lucky in
gambling on racehorses.  Frank O'Connor's "My
Oedipus Complex" is a humorous treatment of Freud's
ideas.  The same author's "Masculine Protest" makes
use of the Adlerian notion of the inferiority complex.
The literature of the past has been reexamined
in the light of psychoanalysis.  Freud himself started
this trend when he named a complex after Oedipus:
this reinterpreted the play.  In fact, the play was
profoundly psychological in its original conception. 
Oedipus goes to Delphi and receives, prophecies from
the gods: what better way to express the working of
the unconscious?  Jocasta tells Oedipus that many
men have dreamed of sleeping with their mothers:
dreams do reveal unconscious desires.  Finally, having
sorted out his identity, Oedipus, analyst and patient in
one paradoxical person, blinds himself and leaves the
stage to wander the world, a sadder and a wiser man.
Since the late 1940s Shakespeare's Hamlet
has been interpreted as having an Oedipal Complex. 
He expresses love for his mother, and seems
obsessed by the idea of Claudius and Gertrude
sleeping together.  His jealousy and aggression
towards Claudius are overt.  Of course, c Claudius is
not Hamlet's father but his stepfather. Hamlet idealizes
and adores his real father.  These facts do not deter
the psychological interpreters.  Perhaps the concept of
masculine protest is as, applicable to the playas the
Oedipal conflict.  Hamlet feels that Gertrude is weak;
worse, he feels implicated in her weakness.  Much of
the play dwells on Hamlet's feelings of weakness and
inferiority, and his aggressive behavior at the end may
be interpreted as masculine protest.
Poets, dreamers, and madmen all tap the
fountainhead of the unconscious, the source not only
of aggressions and desires but of the will to live. The
psychological approach to literature delves into the
symbolic fictions that arise from the primordial springs
of the imagination and attempts to explain them to the
rational, waking selves who inhabit the daylight world.
The Sociological Approach
4. Sociological Approach
Literature is viewed as the expression of man with
a given social situation which is reduced to
discussions on economics, in which men are
somewhat simplistically divided into “the haves
and the haves not”, thus passing into the
“proletarian approach” which tends to underscore
the conflict between the two social classes.
They believe that the Social
conditions and notions of the
origins and cultures of
humanity affect literature.
 What does the writer seem to
like or dislike about this
society?
Central Sociological Questions:
 What sort of society
does the author
 describe? (How is it
set up? What rules
are there?
 What happens to
people who break
them? Who enforces
the rules?)
 What changes do you
think the writer would
like to make in the
society?
 And how can you tell?
 What sorts of
pressures does the
society put on its
members?
 How do the members
respond to this
pressure?
Sociological criticism focuses on the
relationship between literature and society.  Literature
is always produced in a social context.  Writers may
affirm or criticize the values of the society in which they
live, but they write for an audience and that audience is
society.  Through the ages the writer has performed
the functions of priest, prophet and entertainer: all of
these are important social roles.  The social function of
literature is the domain of the sociological critic.
Even works of literature that do not deal
overtly with social issues may have social issues as
subtexts.  The sociological critic is interested not only
in the stated themes of literature, but also in the latent
themes.  Like the historical critic, the sociological critic
attempts to understand the writer's environment as an
important element in the writer's work.  Like the moral
critic, the sociological critic usually has certain values
by which he or she judges literary work.
5. Cultural Approach
Literature is seen as the manifestations and
vehicles of a nation’s or race’s culture and
tradition.
It includes the entire complex of what goes under
“culture” - the technological, artistic, sociological,
ideological aspects; and considers then literary
piece in the total cultural milieu.
 The thrust is to make full use of the reciprocal
function between culture and literature.
 One of the richest ways to arrive at the culture
of the people.
 The most pleasurable ways of appreciating the
literature of the people.
Central Questions for Cultural Approach
 What particular cultural practices, traditions
are shown in the literary piece?
 How does the author present these culture or
traditions?
 What is the attitude of the author to these
culture and traditions? How about your
reaction?
Marxist Criticism
One of the most important forms of
sociological criticism is Marxist criticism.  Karl Marx
(1818-1883) developed a theory of society, politics,
and economics called dialectical materialism.  Writing
in the nineteenth century, Marx criticized the
exploitation of the working classes, or proletariat, by
the capitalist classes who owned the mines, factories,
and other resources of national economies.  Marx
believed that history was the story of class struggles
and that the goal of history was a classless society in
which all people would share the wealth equally.  This
classless society could only come about as a result of
a revolution that would overthrow the capitalist
domination of the economy.
Central to Marx's understanding of society is
the concept of ideology.  As an economic determinist,
Marx thought that the system of production was the
most basic fact in social life.  Workers created the
value of manufactured goods, but owners of the
factories reaped most of the economic rewards.  In
order to justify and rationalize this inequity, a system of
understandings or ideology was created, for the most
part unconsciously.  Capitalists justified their taking the
lion's share of the rewards by presenting themselves
as better people, more intelligent, more refined, more
ethical that the workers.  Since literature is consumed,
for the most part, by the middle classes, it tends to
support capitalist ideology, at least in countries where
that ideology is dominant.
Marxist critics interpret literature in terms of
ideology.  Writers who sympathize with the working
classes and their struggle are regarded favorably. 
Writers who support the ideology of the dominant
classes are condemned.  Naturally, critics of the
Marxist school differ in breadth and sympathy the way
other critics do.  As a result, some Marxist
interpretations are more subtle than others. Take the
Marxist approach to Shakespeare's The Tempest for
example.  The standard Marxist party line would be to
interpret Prospero as the representative of European
imperialism. Prospero has come to the island from
Italy.  He has used his magic (perhaps a symbol of
technology) to enslave Caliban, a native of the island. 
Caliban resents being the servant of Prospero and
attempts to rebel against his authority.  Since Prospero
is presented in a favorable light, the Marxist critic might
condemn Shakespeare as being a supporter of
European capitalist ideology.  A more subtle Marxist
critic might see that the play has far more complexity,
and that Caliban has been invested with a vitality that
makes it possible for audiences to sympathize with
him. Certainly, the Marxist view of the play brings out
ideas that might be overlooked by other kinds of critics
and, thus, contributes to the understanding of the play.
Sociological criticism, then, reflects the way
literature interacts with society.  Sociological critics
show us how literature can function as a mirror to
reflect social realities and as a lamp to inspire social
ideals.
GLOSSARY
abstruse:        difficult to understand;
abstract
Adlerian:     of, or relating to, the
psychological theories of
 Alfred Adler ( 1870 -1937) mimetic theory:   the idea that a work of art
stressing the will to power as imitates life
the primary human motivation modernism:   literary movement of the first
aesthetics:      the philosophical study of half of the twentieth century
beauty and the arts characterized by
amoral:      without a sense of morality experimentalism and anxiety
anagnorisis:       the moment of revelation at New Criticism:    a twentieth century formalistic
the end of a tragedy approach emphasizing
antithesis:       polar opposite organicism, irony, and tension
artifact:           an object made by human objective theory: the idea that a work of art is to
beings for an intended use be analyzed by intrinsic
criterion:              a standard or guideline for criteria
evaluation Oedipus Complex: the Freudian idea that young boys
deconstruction:      a literary approach that seeks to have libidinous feelings for
undermine the notion that a their mothers with
literary text has a fixed corresponding feelings of guilt
meaning and aggression for their
ego:              the Freudian term for the fathers
conscious, waking self organicism:   the New Critical idea of the
epiphany:            a sudden moment of clarity or work of art as a unity that
recognition transcends the sum of its
existentialism:     philosophy stressing the parts
radical freedom of the pathetic fallacy:   the New Critical rejection of
individual; according to this effect on the audience as a
philosophy human life has no criterion for evaluation
meaning except that created postmodernism:   the literary period since 1950
by individuals characterized by
expressive theory:  the idea that a work of art decentralization, skepticism
emanates from the experience and parody
and imagination of the artist pragmatic theory: the idea that the rhetorical
extrinsic:         exterior; approaches to effect of a work on the
criticism that depend upon audience is the central
non-literary criteria criterion for evaluation
Freudian:            of, or pertaining to, the roman a clef:   [Fr. novel with a key] a novel
psychological theories of in which the characters are
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) based on real people whose
stressing the libido as the names have been changed
primary human motivation superego:        aspect of psyche that
hamartia:      a flaw in character resulting in incorporates parentally-
moral blindness instilled morals
hubris:            arrogant pride which leads to
a fall FIGURES OF SPEECH
id:                   the aspect of the unconscious
mind that encompasses the Figure of Definition / Example
libido and aggressive drive Speech Description
ideology:       intrinsic system of
Simile comparison She acts like a
understandings which may be
using LIKE, queen.
conscious or unconscious
AS, THAN,
inferiority complex: lack of self -esteem deriving from
SEEMS.
feelings of powerlessness
Metaphor subtle She is the
integrity:      wholeness; the parts of a
comparison, apple of my
literary work are assumed by
no “as…” eyes.
New Critics to constitute a
meaningful whole Personificati Giving human The
intentional fallacy: the theory that an author's on qualities to mosquitoes
purpose in creating a work is inanimate are rehearsing
irrelevant to the interpretation objects their war song.
of the work Hyperbole An She cried a
intrinsic:       interior; the formalist approach exaggeration bucketful of
to criticism emphasizes purely to emphasize tears when
literary criteria not to deceive she lost him.
irony:         a technique in which the Apostrophe Addressing a “My God, my
expected is subverted by the statement to Lord, you are
unexpected someone my last hope!”
libido:             Freudian term for the pleasure long dead or
principle or sexual drive absent or
abstraction as
 if present CONTRAST - the comparison or juxtaposition of things
Allusion Quoting from “I am the way, that are different
the Bible, the truth, and
history or the life” DENOTATION - the dictionary meaning of words.
literature
Paradox seemingly The child is DISSONANCE - the juxtaposition of harsh jarring
absurd but the father of sounds in one or more lines.
true the man.
Litotes Understatem It’s not a bad EUPHONY - agreeable sounds that are easy to
ent / de- accomplishme articulate.
emphasizing nt!
Onomatopo sounds of The snake EXTENDED METAPHOR - an implied comparison
eia words hisses in the between two things which are essentially not alike.
suggest the mouse’s hole. These points of comparison are continued throughout
meaning the selection.
Metonymy substitution Have you
taken FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE - Language used in such a
Rizal? way as to force words out of their literal meanings by
Synecdoche part - to - It is difficult to emphasizing their connotations to bring new insight
whole teach a and feeling to the subject.
hungry
stomach. HYPERBOLE - an exaggeration in the service of truth
Symbolism representatio The old man is - an overstatement.
n alone in the
sea. IDIOM - is a term or phrase that cannot be understood
“And the by a literal translation, but refers instead to a figurative
mysterious meaning that is understood through common use.
worm crawls
and enter the IMAGERY - is the representation through language of
chamber …” sense experience. The image most often suggests a
Climax succession of I listened, I mental picture, but an image may also represent a
action heard, I acted, sound, smell, taste or tactile experience.
I did.
IRONY - is a literary device which reveals concealed or
Irony opposite Backbiters are
contradictory meanings.
such nice
people.
JARGON - language peculiar to a particular trade,
profession or group.
ALLITERATION - is the repetition of initial consonant
sounds.
JUXTAPOSITION - is the overlapping or mixing of
opposite or different situations, characters, settings,
ALLUSION - is a direct or indirect reference to a moods, or points of view in order to clarify meaning,
familiar figure, place or event from history, literature, purpose, or character, or to heighten certain moods,
mythology or the Bible. especially humour, horror, and suspense. also
Contrast
APOSTROPHE - a figure of speech in which a person
not present is addressed. LITERAL LANGUAGE - what is said is based in reality
without the comparisons used in figurative language.
ASSONANCE - is a close repetition of similar vowel
sounds, usually in stressed syllables. LITOTES - a form of understatement in which
something is said by denying the opposite.
ATMOSPHERE / MOOD - is the prevailing feeling that
is created in a story or poem. METAPHOR - a comparison between two things which
are essentially dissimilar. The comparison is implied
CACOPHONY - Harsh sounds introduced for poetic rather than directly stated. ‘
effect - sometimes words that are difficult to
pronounce. METER - any regular pattern of rhythm based on
CLICHE - an overused expression that has lost its stressed and unstressed syllables.
intended force or novelty.
METONYMY - use of a closely related idea for the idea
CONNOTATION - the emotional suggestions attached itself.
to words beyond their strict definitions.
MOOD - see atmosphere
CONSONANCE - the close repetition of identical
consonant sounds before and after different vowels. ONOMATOPOEIA - the use of words which sound like
what they mean.
OXYMORON - two words placed close together which
are contradictory, yet have truth in them.
PARADOX - a statement in which there is an apparent
contradiction which is actually true.
PERSONIFICATION - giving human attributes to an
animal, object or idea.
RHYME - words that sound alike
RHYME SCHEME - any pattern of rhymes in poetry.
Each new sound is assigned the next letter in the
alphabet.
RHYTHM - a series of stressed or accented syllables
in a group of words, arranged so that the reader
expects a similar series to follow.
SIMILE - a comparison between two things which are
essentially dissimilar. The comparison is directly stated
through words such as like, as, than or resembles.
SPEAKER - the "voice" which seems to be telling the
poem. Not the same as the poet; this is like a narrator.
SYMBOL - a symbol has two levels of meaning, a
literal level and a figurative level. Characters, objects,
events and settings can all be symbolic in that they
represent something else beyond themselves.
SYNEDOCHE - the use of a part for the whole idea.
THEME - is the central idea of the story, usually
implied rather than directly stated. It is the writer's idea
abut life and can be implied or directly stated through
the voice of the speaker. It should not be confused with
moral or plot.
TONE - is the poet's attitude toward his/her subject or
readers. it is similar to tone of voice but should not be
confused with mood or atmosphere. An author's tone
might be sarcastic, sincere, humourous . . .
TROPE - a figure of speech in which a word is used
outside its literal meaning. Simile and metaphor are the
two most common tropes.
UNDERSTATEMENT - this is saying less than what
you mean in the service of truth.
VOICE - the creating and artistic intelligence that we
recognize behind any speaker.
FROM REVIEWER:
Twelfth Night – not reflect the belief of catharsis in
Aristotles Poetics
Walang Sugat – the use of vernacular as excellent
vehicle to full understandinf of text
Nothing permanent in this world except change –
truth in Change by Angela Manalang
An Apology for Poetry – Sir Philip Sydney
Emotion – Except in Alexander pope An Essay on
Criticism
The Art of Fiction – Henry James
Paradise Lost - John Milton
The historical approach in Noli Me Tangere – time
that shaped the events of the novel
Archetypes present in the text – mythological
approach critic see
Literary theory – philosophical discussion of literature
methods and goals
Hermeneutics – approach used to study text of the
bible
New Criticism – meaningful criticism in the poem
HOPE
Divine and spiritual – focus of medieval period
Deconstructive reading – reaction against
structuralism. reject idea that a text has a solid and
definite meaning
Plot ended with divine intervention like way – error
dues ex machine
Post-modernism – not structural, it is inventive and
creative
Formalism – emphasis on medium
Hermeneutics – defined as science of interpretation
New Criticism – does not allow intertextual reading
Poverty – can be subject matter of humanism
Neoclassicism – re-examination and imitation of
classical models – promotes reading and
appreciation of literary classics
- reacted against stylistic excess and superfluous
artistry in Renaissance writer
Enlightenment – logical thinking and freedom
Modern Period – characterized by two broad events –
French revolution and Industrial revolution
Romanticism – human subjectivity and expression
and exaltation of nature
Romanticism – Shall I compare thee to a summers
day” allusion to beauty of nature
Realism – avoidance of fantastical imaginary and
mythical
The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) – critical
theory of Realism

Naturalism – emphasized hereditary psychological

components of characters
Naturalism – natural occurrences of things
- give scientific description of
motivations of charcters and causes
of events
-
Symbolism – era of decandence
- reaction against structured and
scientific
Aestheticism – independence of art from social, moral
- art exist for its own sake

Field of religion – hermeneutics in Middle Ages

Marxist – class struggles and economic history

Post-structuralism – how meaning, interpretation,

framework, systems, and structural beliefs break apart

The reader is the author of the text – reader-

response theory in death of the author by M. Bakhtin