Literary Criticism and Its Approaches

1. Literary
Criticism

2. Overview
• Literary criticism provides the poet with
the tools for self-evaluation and self-
improvement. It introduces work of periods
and cultures different in theme and
treatment.
• Literary criticism is a view or opinion on
what a particular written work means. It is
about the meanings that a reader finds in
an author's literature.

3. Introduction
Literary critics have many skills:
Those which the practicing poet needs to
acquire are close reading, explication and
evaluation.
The criticism that continues to be written
naturally concentrates on established
figures.

4. Introduction
Literary critics have many skills:
Even the aims of criticism seem
somewhat doubtful.
No single critical approach seems
invariably successful.
And insights from differing approaches do
not necessarily cohere.

5. Introduction
Literary critics have many skills:
Purposes of Theory - What does literary
criticism hope to achieve?
as their starting point the
the reader's or listener's
But all take
analysis of
response.

6. Introduction
Literary critics have many skills:
Milton's "select audience though few"?
Poets may not make money but they still
have markets to consider.
The difficulties afflict more than the
professional translator or literary scholar,
as modern poetry very much uses
recherché imagery and far-flung allusion.

7. Introduction
Literary critics have many skills:
Poems that work well on the page will not
necessarily rise to a public performance.
by the
But is commonly overlooked
beginning poet.
Is objectivity possible?

8. Introduction
Literary critics have many skills:
Not a demarcation dispute, they say, but
simple experience and logic.
Or academic critics from the learning the
difficult art of writing poetry.
The experience may well be enriching for
both. But the question is more insidious.

9. Introduction
Literary critics have many skills:
Sought to make poems out of their
responses.
But that does not invalidate the question.
More than that, criticism became an end in
itself.

10. Introduction
Literary critics have many skills:
The intellectual gymnastics currently
performed by the great names of
American criticism are not grounded in the
poem being analyzed, but in the tenets of
radical theory.
But the criticism has detached itself and
become somewhat like a Modernist poem.

11. Schools of Criticism
Traditional
- Though perhaps Edwardian in style, this
approach — essentially one of trying to
broaden understanding and appreciation
— is still used in general surveys of
English literature.

12. Schools of Criticism
New Criticism
- The poem (the approach works best for
poetry, and especially the lyric) is detached
from its biographical or historical context,
and analyzed thoroughly: diction, imagery,
meanings, particularly complexities of
meaning.

13. Schools of Criticism
Rhetorical
- Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, and the
rhetorical approach attempts to understand
how the content of the poem, which is more
than intellectual meaning, is put across.

14. Schools of Criticism
Stylistic
- Style is the manner in which something is
presented, and this approach concentrates
on the peculiarities of diction and imagery
employed, sometimes relating them to
literary and social theory.

15. Schools of Criticism
Metaphorical
- Metaphor enters into consideration in most
approaches, but here the emphasis is
deeper
focusing
and more exclusive,
on the ways that
attention
metaphors
actually work: metaphors are not regarded
as supporting or decorative devices, but
actually constituting the meaning.

16. Schools of Criticism
Structuralist
- Here the writing is related to underlying
patterns of symmetry which are held to be
common to all societies. Evidence is drawn
from sociology and anthropology, and the
approach attempts to place the work in
larger context rather than assess its quality.

17. Schools of Criticism
Post-structuralist
- In contrast to the New Critics approach,
which stresses interdependence and organic
unity, the Poststructuralist will point to the
dissonances and the non sequiturs, and
suggest how the poem works by evading or
confronting traditional expectations.

18. Schools of Criticism
Myth Theory
- The approach derives from Northrop Frye
and attempts to place poems into categories
or subcategories into which all literature is
divide by archetypal themes — e.g. the myth
of the hero, his subjugation of enemies, his
fall.

19. Schools of Criticism
Freudian
- Not only is the diction examined for sexual
imagery, but the whole work is seen through
Freudian concepts: struggles of the
superego, the Oedipus complex, with the
repressed contents of consciousness, etc.

20. Schools of Criticism
Jungian
- Jungians search for recurring poetic
images, symbols and situations in poems,
but their aim is not to categorize poems as
Northrop Frye does but to relate them to
larger patterns in society, whether native
peoples or high civilizations.

21. Schools of Criticism
Historical
- Poems are placed in their historical context
— to explain not only their allusions and
particular use of words, but the conventions
and expectations of the times.

22. Schools of Criticism
Biographical
- As with the historical approach, a poem
may be used to illuminate the writer's
psychology, or as biographic data.

23. Schools of Criticism
Sociological
- Here the focus is on society as a whole,
and critics assess the social factors at work
in a poem, which may be everything from
the attitudes a writer inherits from his social
background to the markets which supported
his literary efforts.

24. Schools of Criticism
Political
- It may be the political movements the poet
supported which interest the critic, but more
commonly the poem is assessed on political
lines: how fairly or effectively it promotes
political action or attitudes.

25. Schools of Criticism
Marxist
- The poem may be assessed on its political
correctness — on its support for workers
against capitalist exploitation — but most
analyses or
Marxists
describes
praise work that
the injustices which Marxist
societies aim to overcome.

26. Schools of Criticism
Moralist
- Many poets have strong ethical or religious
convictions, but the moralist critic usually
has a broader interest.

27. Schools of Criticism
Cognitive Scientific
- In contrast to others, which generally
possess an humanities orientation, that of
cognitive science attempts to relate poems
to patterns of brain functioning.

28. Testing the Approaches
 Which approach is best?
 Which proves the most illuminating is the
usual answer.
not entirely
for a wise
 The various approaches are
distinct, and one can aim
eclecticism

29. Is Criticism a Sham?
o But does criticism really work?
o Do we analyze carefully and consult our
books on theory before responding to a
work?
o Not usually. Impressions come first. But we
then have to think why and how we are
responding in a certain way.

30. Is Criticism a Sham?
o Is the poem
strained, hackneyed, overworked, etc.?
o And if so, by what criteria?
o In setting out thoughts on paper, and then
attempting to substantiate them, we are
honing essential skills.

31. Practical Critiquing
Critiquing tool has been developed with
the purpose to guide through a reflection
and evaluation process of their units of work.

32. Suggestions
• Start with the literary criticism of poems
you know and love.
• Read literary criticism of contemporary
work and, if at all possible, of poems
similar to your own, which will at least help
you anticipate the reception likely from
editors and workshop presentations.

33. Suggestions
• Research has moved from literary criticism
to literary theory, which is not written for
ready comprehension.
• Don't despise the elementary grounding
provided by schoolbooks.
• Be severe but not over-severe with your
creations.

34. Suggestions
• Use a checklist. For example:
o title — appropriate to subject, tone and
genre? Does it generate interest, and hint
at what your poem's about?
o subject
Who is
— what's the basic situation?
talking, andunder what
circumstances? Try writing a paraphrase
to identify any gaps or confusions.

35. Suggestions
• Use a checklist. For example:
o shape — what are you appealing to:
intellect or emotions of the reader? What
structure(s) have you used —
progressions, comparisons, analogies, bal
d assertions, etc.? Are these
satisfyingly integrated? Does
aspects
structure
support content?

36. Suggestions
• Use a checklist. For example:
o tone — what's your attitude to the
subject? Is it appropriate to content and
audience: assured, flexible, sensitive,
etc.?

37. Suggestions
• Use a checklist. For example:
uncontrived, economical, varied
o word choice — appropriate and
and
energizing? Do you understand each word
properly, its common uses and
associations? See if listing the verbs truly
pushes the poem along. Are words
repeated? Do they set mood, emotional
rapport, distance?

38. Suggestions
• Use a checklist. For example:
o personification — striking but persuasive,
adds to unity and power?
o metaphor and simile — fresh and
convincing, combining on many levels?
o rhythm and metre — natural, inevitable,
integrate poem's structure?

39. Suggestions
• Use a checklist. For example:
o rhyme (if employed) — fresh,
pleasurable, unassuming but supportive?
o overall impression — original, honest,
coherent, expressive, significant?

40. Conclusions
• Why practice criticism at all? Because it's
interesting, and opens the door to a wider
appreciation of poetry, particularly that in
other languages.
• It's also unavoidable. Good writing needs
continual appraisal and improvement, and
both are better done by the author, before the
work is set in print.

41. Conclusions
• Most academics write articles rather than poems,
but there seems no reason why their skills should
not deployed in creating things which by their own
submission are among the most demanding and
worthwhile of human creations. Nor should poets
despise professional literary criticism. In short, the
approaches of this section should give poets some
of the tools needed to assess their work, and to
learn from the successful creations of others.