2. What are the main tenets and characteristics of New Criticism and
Moral Formalism?
1. The literary text has primary importance.
2. Criticism should be scientific and objective.
3. Great literature has organic unity. In organic unity the parts work
together to create a beautiful whole.
4. Literary works are the vessels in which human values are
transmitted. The study and appreciation of literature is a pre-condition
to the health of society.
5. Literature is a weapon in the battle of cultural politics.
3. What are the main tenets and characteristics of New Criticism and Moral
Formalism?
6. Form and content are equally important.
6. Good literature is of timeless significance. It somehow transcends
the limitations and peculiarities of the age it was written. It speaks to
what is constant in human nature. Such writing is 'not for an age, but
for all time.
7. The New Critics warned against the affective fallacy, intentional
fallacy, and the heresy of paraphrase.
4. “Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath
• I’m a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.
5. Apply the New Critical approach to Sylvia Plath’s Metaphors:
Explain organic unity in Sylvia Plath’s Metaphors:
In organic unity the parts work together to create a beautiful whole.
In Sylvia Plath’s ‘Metaphors,’ for example, we have organic unity. The
poem is a riddle about pregnancy. It consists of nine lines and each
line has nine syllables. Even the images in the poem such as melon,’
‘elephant,’ ‘ponderous house,’ and ‘a cow in a calf’ work together to
give us a beautiful picture of pregnancy.
6. What are the main tenets and characteristics
of Russian Formalism:
1. The literary text has primary importance.
2. Criticism should be scientific and objective.
3. Art defamiliarizes reality. It makes familiar things unfamiliar.
4. Literature practices controlled violence upon language.
5. Form is more important than content.
6. Objects have several aesthetic and non-aesthetic functions.
7. According to Russian Formalists objects have
several aesthetic and non-aesthetic functions:
• According to Russian formalists, the same object can possess several
functions: a church may be both a place of worship and a work of art.
Fashions may possess social, political, erotic and aesthetic functions.
A political speech, a biography, a letter and a piece of propaganda
may or may not possess aesthetic value in different societies and
periods. The domestic functions of Greek vases, and the military
function of breastplates have been subordinated in modern times to
a primarily aesthetic function.
8. Apply the Russian Formalist approach to Sylvia Plath’s Metaphors”
Explain Defamilarization in Sylvia Plat’s ‘Metaphors.’
According to the Russain formalists, art defamiliarizes reality. In Sylvia
Plath’s ‘Metaphors,’ for example, pregnancy is defamilairized by using
metaphors such as ‘elephant,’ ponderous house,’ melon’ and a ‘cow in
a calf” to make us see pregnancy in an unfamiliar and a beautiful
way.
9. What is literary criticism?
• Literary criticism is the process of assessing and evaluating, explaining
and interpreting the literary text by using one theory or another.
10. Explain Plato’s view of poetry:
In his ‘Republic,’ Plato attacked poetry because he believed that:
1. poetry manipulates human feelings and emotions.
2. poetry is two-times removed from reality.
11. Explain Aristotle’s view of poetry.
In his ‘poetics,’ Aristotle defended poetry because he believed that:
1. poetry expresses human feelings and emotions.
2. Poetry reflects reality.
12. • The unsettling nature of “Metaphors” (The Colossus, William
Heinemann Limited, 1960)arises from the dichotomy of Plath’s tone
and the images she chooses to convey her mentality. Initially, she
playfully compares her pregnant state to an “elephant,” a “house,” a
ripening “melon,” and a “yeasty” loaf of bread. However, starting with
the sixth line, it becomes clear that beneath these pithy musings run
the undercurrents of anxiety. Plath begins to see herself merely as a
“means”—almost an incubator, with no other worth besides that of
birthing offspring. This culminates with the last line, where she
realizes that she is forever changed, irrevocably. Her pregnancy was
only the beginning of the train-ride; she must now become a mother.
