DIVING

INTO
LITT.
AN INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY APPROACHES AND
CRITICISMS
 Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads,
these other places, and look out through other eyes.
And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die
vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond
the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we
resume our lives.
NEIL GAIMAN, American Gods
Literature is the one place in any society where,
within the secrecy of our own heads, we can hear
voices talking about everything in every possible
way.
SALMAN RUSHDIE
"The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write
what you mean."
Robert Louis Stevenson
To subvert is not the aim of literature, its value lies in discovering and
revealing what is rarely known, little known, thought to be known but in fact
not very well known of the truth of the human world.
GAO XINGJIAN, Nobel Lecture, 2000
Literature is the expression of the thoughts of society.
Books are specimens of the conversations of an age,
preserved in the spirit of taste and of genius.
PROFESSOR HUXLEY
The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.
- TS Eliot
Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary
about ordinary people and saying with ordinary words
something extraordinary.
- Boris Pasternak
 WHAT IS LITERATURE

It may refer to a body of artistic writing on any subject of a

particular nation by people of a certain period of time
usually characterized by beauty of expression, by form
and by universality.
It is an expression of peoples life, thought, hopes,
emotions, feelings and aspirations at a certain period of
time and place
 APPROACHES TO LITERATURE

The WORK in itself

The WORK and its author
THE WORK and the world it imitates
The WORK and other works
The WORK and its reader
 Historical Biographical
Actually, poets have from the earliest times have been historians,
the interpreters of contemporary culture, and the prophets of their
people.
 HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHICAL

Although Historical-Biographical has been evolving over many years, its

basic tenets are perhaps most clearly articulated in the writings of the
19th century French critic Hippolyte A. Taine whose phrase: race,
milieu, et moment, bespeaks a hereditary and environmental
determinism.

This approach sees a literary work chiefly, if not exclusively, as a reflection

of its authors life and times or the life and times of the characters in the
work.
 WILLIAM BLAKE
MANY OF HIS POEMS CAN BE READ MEANINGFULLY ONLY IN TERMS OF BLAKES
LONDON. HIS LONDON IS AN OUTCRY AGAINST THE OPPRESSION OF HUMAN BEINGS
BY SOCIETY: CHILD LABOUR AND THE INDIFFERENCE OF THE CHURCH AND THE STATE.
Auguries of Innocence
He who mocks the Infants Faith
The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife Shall be mockd in Age & Death
And yet forgives the Butchers knife He who shall teach the Child to Doubt
The Bat that flits at close of Eve When we see not Thro the Eye
Has left the Brain that wont Believe
The rotting Grave shall neer get out
The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags The Whore & Gambler by the State
Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags Licencd build that Nations Fate
A Truth that's told with bad intent The Harlots cry from Street to Street
Beats all the Lies you can invent
EDGAR ALLAN POE
The master of the macabre and Dark Romanticism, Poe capitalized on his own tragic and
grief-filled existence to draw to life stories that featured heavily on the concept he knew and
understood above all else: DEATH, LOVE, and LOSS.

Annabel Lee The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
Went envying her and me
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we
Of many far wiser than we
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
 Sociological
It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still
love it.
Oscar Wilde
SOCIOLOGICAL

Sociological Approach maintains that the literary work

cannot be separated from the social context in which it
was created. Literature reflects the society and derives its
essential existence and significance from the social
situation to which it responds.
EXAMPLES:
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER = THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS
[ American Frontiersmen and Indian War ]
SIR WALTER SCOTT = IVANHOE [ Anglo-Norman Britain ]
CHARLES DICKENS = TALE OF TWO CITIES [ The French Revolution ]
JOHN STEINBECK = THE GRAPES OF WRATH [ American Economic
Depression ]
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE = UNCLE TOMS CABIN [ Racial Discrimination in
the South]
JOSE RIZAL = NOLI ME TANGERE / EL FILIBUSTERISMO
[ Spanish colonization and the repression of the Filipinos ]
 Moral Philosophical
Great literary work must possess high seriousness
Matthew Arnold
 The Moral-Philosophical Approach od as a old as classical Greek and Roman
critics. Plato emphasized moralism and utilitarianism; Horace stressed that
literature should be delightful and instructive.

The basic position of such critics is that the larger function of literature is to
teach morality and to probe philosophical issues.

Nathaniel Hawthornes THE SCARLET LETTER is seen essentially as a study of

the effects of secret sin on a human soulthat is, sin unconfessed before
both God and Man, as the sin of Arthur Dimmesdale with Hester Prynne.
 Andrew Marvells To His Coy
Mistress espouses the theme of
Carpe Diem or seize the day, an
attitude of eat, drink and be
And the last age should show your heart.
merry, for tomorrow we may
die.
Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long loves day.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
For, lady, you deserve this state,
But at my back I always hear
Times wingd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
Robert Frosts Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
suggests that duty and responsibility take precedence
over beauty and pleasure.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sounds the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
 Psychological
Man is least himself when he is alone
give him a mask and he would tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde
Of all the critical approaches to literature, the Psychological Approach has been one of
the most controversial, the most abused, andfor many readersthe least appreciated.

The Psychological Approach aims to use psychological theories, particularly those of

Freuds in interpreting and drawing meaning from text or the literary piece. It provides
many clues towards solving a works thematic and symbolic mysteries but it is can
seldom account for the beautiful symmetry of a well-wrought poem or a fictional
masterpiece.

It is concerned with the ways in which the authors unconsciously leave traces of their
inner lives in their works and the ways in which the readers respond to these works. This
may be used to analyse a characters hidden desires and motives.

The approach revolves around the
psychoanalytic theory that involves the
unconscious mind. Freud emphasizes
three distinct Psychic Zones that is present
within the text: the ID, the EGO and the
SUPER EGO. Think of the image of a man
with an Angel and a Demon on his
shoulder and you have the basic premise
of what this approach is all about.
THE ID
- Without consciousness or semblance of
rational order; characterized by a
tremendous and amorphous vitality.
Naturally, it operates on the pleasure
principle: the ID knows NO VALUES, NO
GOOD and EVIL, NO MORALITY. The ID, in
short, is the source of all our aggressions
and desires. It is lawless, asocial and
amoral.
THE EGO
- In view of the destructive potential of the ID, it is
therefore necessary that the other factor in the
tripartite existence in the psychological approach be
one that intends to protect: the EGO. This is the
rational governing agent of the psyche. The ego is
governed by the reality principle, consequently, it
serves as an intermediary between the world within
and the world without.
THE SUPER EGO
- The third part is the moral censoring agency; the
representative of all moral restrictions, the advocate of
the impulse towards perfection. The SUPEREGO operates
on the morality principal. Whereas, the ID follows mere
instinct, the SUPERGO aims for the lofty ideals of
humanity and it is left to the EGO to find balance.
Herman Melvilles MOBY DICK

THE WHITE WHALE [Superego]

- Symbolic representative of the repression of New Englands Puritanism
CAPTAIN AHAB [Id]
- The monomaniac captain of the Pequod who leads his crew to destruction
due to his insane compulsion and obsession to strike back at the creature
that injured him.
STARBUCK [Ego]
- The first mate who must mediate between his captain and his obsession, to
achieve a sense of rational balance
STRUCTURALISM
 Structuralism identifies structures or patterns but without going through the expected
plot, characters, settings, themes or the like. It looks for the relationship between the
choice of words and the way they weave together to form an identifiable style of studying
a text.
It holds that a literary work consists of conventional elements that taken together by a
reader familiar with such conventions, give the work meaning.
Vladimir Propp published Morphology of the Folktale in 1928; in this book, he tried to
identify a so-called grammar of narrative. In botany, the word morphology means the
study of a plants structure. Propp attempted to find a similar deep structure underlying
any number of stories. According to Susana Onega, Propp draws a clear distinction
between, on the one hand, the text itself, which is the manifest level and, on the other,
the abstract level of function sequences and spheres of action of the characters.
In his study of Russian fairytales, Propp compiled a list of thirty-one possible functions.
Despite the differences in shape and identity of the characters/landscapes/obstacles, the
stories still have the same building blocks.
VLADIMIR PROPS MORPHOLOGY OF THE FOLK TALE

1. Functions of characters serve as stable, 1. The villain

constant elements in a tale, independent of 2. The donor
how by whom they are fulfilled.
3. The helper
2.The number of functions known to the
fairy tale is limited 4. The princess (or sought-for-person) and
her father
3. The sequence of function is always
identical 5. The dispatcher

4. All fairy tales are of one type in regard to 6. The hero (seeker or victim)
their structure 7. The false hero
 7. Form of miraculous birth: TABLE II: The Preparatory Section
TABLE I: The Initial Situation
1. Temporal-spatial determination ("in a
a. from a fish and from water; 24-26. Interdictions:
certain kingdom"). b. from a hearth; 24. person performing;
2. Composition of the family: c. from an animal; 25. contents, form of the interdiction;
26. motivation of the interdiction.
a. according to nomenclature and d. otherwise.
status; 27-29. Absentations:
8. Prophecies, forewarnings.
b. according to the categories of 27. person performing;
dramatis personae 9. Well-being, prior to complication 28. form of absentation;
(zavjdzka):
(dispatcher, seeker, etc.). 29. motivation of absentation.
a. fantastic;
3. Childlessness. 30-32. Violation of an interdiction:
b. domestic;
120 MORPHOLOGY OF THE FOLKTALE 30. person performing;
c. agrarian; 31. form of violation;
4-5. Prayer for the birth of a son:
d. in other forms. 32. motivation.
4. form of the prayer;
10-15. The future hero: 33-35. First appearance of the villain:
5. motivation of the prayer.
10. nomenclature, sex; 33. nomenclature;
6. Cause of pregnancy: 34. manner of inclusion into the course of
11. rapid growth;
a. intentional (a fish which is eaten, action
etc.); 12. connection with a hearth, ashes;
35. details of external appearance on the
b. accidental (a swallowed pea, etc.); 13. spiritual qualities;
scene (flies in through the ceiling).
c. forced (a girl is abducted by a bear, 14. michievousness; 36-38. Interrogation, reconnaissance:
etc.).
15. other qualities. 36. what motivates it;
GENDER CRITICISM
Biology is Destiny.
- Sigmund Freud
 This approach is similar to a feminist critical approach but does not limit itself to the
feminine perspective. Instead, it opens up elements of meaning in the text in terms of
male and female gender stereotypes, the tension between them and the issues
related to sexuality. It is concerned, especially with the alleged differences in which
the males and females read and write and also the representation of gender in
literature.
Answers the question: how does the text promote or question gender standards
dictated by society.

Patriarchy: a system of beliefs and social practices that support male dominance

Gender: a socially constructed set of expectations for what is masculine or feminine.

Biology dictates whether you are male or female.
 GENDER CRITICISM

Its true, he put his hand on my ass and I was about to scream bloody murder when the bus passed by a
church and he crossed himself. Hes a good sort after all, I said to myself. Maybe he didnt do it on
purpose or maybe his right hand didnt know what his left hand was up to. I tried to move farther back in
the bussearching for explanations is one thing and letting yourself be pawed is anotherbut more
passengers got on and there was no way I could do it. My wiggling to get out of his reach only let him get
a better hold on me and even fondle me. I was nervous and finally moved over. He moved over, too. We
passed by another church but he didnt notice it and when he raised his hand on his face it was to wipe
the sweat off his forehead. I watched him out of a corner of one eye, pretending that nothing was
happening, or at any rate not making him think I liked it. It was impossible to move any farther and he
started jiggling me. I decided to get even and put my hand on his behind. A few blocks later I got
separated from him by a bunch of people. Then I was swept along by the passengers getting off the bus
and now Im sorry I lost him so suddenly because there was only 7,400 pesos in his wallet and Id have
gotten more out of him if wed been alone. He seemed affectionate. And very generous.
- Vision out of the Corner of One Eye by LUISA VALENZUELA
DECONSTRUCTION
Deconstruction views texts as subversively undermining any apparent or
surface meaning and denies any final explanation or statement of meaning. It
questions the presence of any objective structure or context in the literary
piece.
Deconstruction involves taking apart any meaning to reveal contradictory
structures hidden within. Neither meaning nor the text that seeks to express
it has any privilege over the other and this extends to critical statements
about the text.
It answers the question: What idea does the text promote that runs contrary
to the meanings the readers have come to accept.
MYTHOLOGICAL-
ARCHETYPAL
 It involves the identification and analysis of a
recognized Archetype. It maybe a THEME, IMAGE,
MOTIVE or PATTERN that occurs so often in a literary
work it seems UNIVERSAL.
WHICH HERO
ARE YOU?
 B Orphan
Harry Potter, Bruce Wayne
*Orphan heroes, I think, are those who
are hardnosed (pragmatic, to use the
word of Pearson) and realistic, as a
A Innocent result of the tragedy of their childhood.
David Copperfield They are most afraid of being left
behind, so they set up boundaries and
The goal is to remain in safety. Your thick, high walls to protect themselves
gift/virtue is your trust and from outsider intrusion. The logic here
optimism. is: to avoid being left behind the
second time, I shall not allow anyone to
go near me again (only to disappoint
me by leaving in the future).

C Warrior
Achilles, Hercules, Luke Skywalker,
James Bond, John McClane (Die Hard)
*Warrior heroes are very common. I
think of the Masai warriors. Or the 300
warriors of Leonidas. They know what
needs to be done (to win) and they will
do everything it takes to defeat an
enemy.
D Caregiver
Linderman (Heroes), Dr. Jack Shephard (Lost),
Agent Dana Scully (The X-Files)
*Personally, I have a soft-spot for Caregiver Heroes. Its their selflessness
that defines them, you see. They can always be counted on to help those
in need, even if its means sacrificing a part of their own self.
**Most caregivers are healers. But they are not to be confused with
heroes with self-healing properties (like Wolverine or Claire Bennett of
Heroes). Their gift is for others, more than for themselves. The more
they help others, the more fulfilled they are.
 E Seeker
Neo (The Matrix)
Agent Fox Mulder (The X Files), Peter Petrelli (Heroes),
Clarice Starling (The Silence of the Lambs)
*The objective is to seek answers to questions theyve
long had. Sometimes the Seeker Hero realizes in the end
that the answers to his/her questions have always been
there inside of the self, just waiting for the proper
opportunity to reveal itself to the hero. Ultimately, its the
journey that educates the Hero, the very thing that
provides opportunities for the Hero to learn more about
the Self.
 F Lover
Arwen (The Lord of the Rings), Aladdin, Jamal Malik
(Slumdog Millionaire)
*The Lover Hero probably believes the Beatles when the
fab group once said, All we need is love. Love is all we
need. The LH aspires for oneness with another. Think of
Jerry Maguire when he said, you complete me. The
journey therefore is all about finding that One that will
complete the Hero. The adventure is all about winning the
hand of a princess (Aladdins journey started when he
wished to be Prince Ali to be worthy of Princess Jasmine),
or providing comfort and safety for a hesitant, self-exiled
King (Arwen to Aragorn) or joining a game show in the
hopes of being seen by the beloved (Jamals stint in Who
Wants To Be a Millionaire, Bollywood version).
 G Destroyer
Shiva, Sylar (Heroes), Ozymandias (a.k.a. Adrian Veidt from the
Watchmen)
*Yes, there are Destroyer Heroes. Look at the Indian deity Shiva.
DHs believe that to be able to achieve a goal, one has to go through
a difficult process, quite possibly a destructive one. The adage is: to
make an omelette, you have to break an egg. Destruction is
necessary in achieving perfection, some would say. While some
would claim that Sylar (Heroes) is a villain and not really a hero, I say
one may refer to those episodes that show Sylar casting away his
villainous ways in favor of helping others. Ozymandias is another
perfect example. To achieve his goal of peace and unity (for nations
to unite against a common enemy that is), the process of
destruction is necessary.
*Personally, I believe that while most Heroes have a Messianic
complex (Redeemer role), most Destroyer Heroes (those bordering
on villainy) have a god complex. Distinguish the Messianic (see Jesus
Christ) complex with that of the god complex. While the former is
willing to sacrifice the self, the latter recognizes the supremacy and
infallibility of the self.
 H Creator
Brahma
*The objective is to create new things, new ideas, for the
betterment of the community (for the common good). The
process of creation gives joy, fulfillment and satisfaction to
the Creator Hero. This is the opposite of the Destroyer Hero.

I Ruler
King David (Bible),Odysseus (The Odyssey), King Arthur,
Amidala (Star Wars)
*Ruler-Heroes desire peace and order above all. They realize
that the world is chaotic, therefore it is their responsibility to
find order, if not create order in it. They are happiest when
they are able to organize the community toward a specific
goal, or are able to give the people a figure they can always
count on (even if they are, initially, hesitant to rule). Some
RHs are reluctant leaders (perhaps a result of some past
tragedy that haunts them), believing that they are unworthy
to lead, but because of the desire to achieve the greater
good, not to mention a desire to meet the demands of the
community, then the RH finally steps up to the plate and
becomes the Ruler Hero that he/she envisions him/herself to
be.
J Magician
Gandalf (The Lord of the Rings),Albus (Harry
Potter), Merlin (King Arthur),Nicolas Flamel
Not all Magician Heroes are strictly
magicians/mages. Anyone who longs for
transformation, or desires to look for ways to
transform things around him/her for the
common good is one. The yearning to change
matter into gold, or transform ideas into
concrete outcomes define the MH.
K Sage
The Beast (X-Men), Robert Langdon (Angels &
Demons, The Da Vinci Code)
*The live to learn. They learn, ultimately, to help
others. Their knowledge puts them in situations
wherein they can help people save themselves, or
realize something about themselves, or about the
environment they find themselves in. Their education
never stops. The journey is about the education and
the sharing of the learnings of the Sage Hero.
 L Fool
Bartimaeus (the djinni in The Bartimaeus Trilogy), Jack
Sparrow (The Pirates of the Carribean), Han Solo (Star
Wars)
*Lifes journey is all about enjoyment. Not just
personal enjoyment, but the enjoyment of all. Life is a
party and everyone is invited! Rum for everyone at the
cantina! Merriment galore! And yes, Fool Heroes have
the best sense of humor, hands down. Bartimaeus
written by Jonathan Stroud is the perfect, most perfect
example.

(concised by Ms. A.F. Sangil)