LITERARY APPRECIATION

FINAL TEST

Submitted by:
TARISMAN
A1D2 03 029

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
HALUOLEO UNIVERSITY
KENDARI
2009
1. In my opinion, Literary Criticism is a branch of literature that
focused on analyzing, evaluating, and interpreting the work of
literature itself to understand life specifically social matter by
applying

any

approaches

such

as

feminism,

formalism,

psychological, historical, mimetic, etc.

2. The history of Literary Criticism began with the Classical and
medieval criticism including the Aristotle era with his poetics,
which introduced the concept of mimesis and catharsis. this
kind of criticism Then centered in religious text and tradition.
Then came the Renaissance criticism, this literary criticism
introduce classical ideas of unity of form and content into
literary neoclassicism, declared literature as central to culture,
entrusting the poet and the author with preservation of a long
literary tradition. The beginning of Renaissance criticism was in
1498. Next, 19th-Century Criticism, this era of criticism came out
with the British romantic movement of the early nineteenth century
brought in new aesthetic ideas to literary study, including the idea
that the object of literature need not always be beautiful, noble, or
perfect, but that literature itself could elevate a common subject to
the level of the sublime. German Romanticism, which followed closely
after the late development of German classicism, emphasized an
aesthetic of fragmentation that can appear startlingly modern to the
reader of English literature. After that, there was The New

Criticism. in the early twentieth century all important aesthetic

movements were as antecedents, current ideas about literary

criticism derive almost entirely from the new direction taken.
Early in the century the school of criticism known as Russian
Formalism, and slightly later the New Criticism in Britain and
America, came to dominate the study and discussion of
literature. Both schools emphasized the close reading of texts,
elevating it far above generalizing discussion and speculation
about either authorial intention (to say nothing of the author's
psychology or biography, which became almost taboo subjects)
or reader response. This emphasis on form and precise attention
to "the words themselves" has persisted, after the decline of
these critical doctrines themselves.
3. - Relative Criticism is a criticism in which its evaluation and
interpretation based on the setting (time and place) where and
when a literary work appeared. This criticism believes that the
value of literary work is attached on the work itself. If there is a
work considered as a valuable work by a certain society in a
certain time and place, it will continue be a valuable work as
well, in other place and time after (it was considered well in the
past, and so does in the present). This Criticism appeared to
react toward the absolutism.
- Absolute Criticism is a criticism that based on the others
issues like politic, moral and other issues beyond the literature
work itself. This criticism believe that a valuable work is not in a
literary work itself and a good work is a work which has a
tendency of political, and has a moral value, etc. It often
evaluates the work dogmatically and statically. For example,
Neo-humanism and Marxism.
4. The other name of New Criticism is Formalism

5.

The difference of formalism criticism, objective criticism, and

new criticism are:

The New Criticism is a type of formalist literary criticism.
New Critics treat a work of literature as if it were a selfcontained, self-referential object. Rather than basing their
interpretations of a text on the readers response, the authors
stated intentions, or parallels between the text and historical
contexts (such as authors life), New Critics perform a close
reading, concentrating on the relationships within the text that
give it its own distinctive character or form. New Critics
emphasize that the structure of a work should not be divorced
from meaning, viewing the two as constituting a quasi-organic
unity. Special attention is paid to repetition, particularly of
images or symbols, but also of sound effects and rhythms in
poetry. New Critics especially appreciate the use of literary
devices, such as irony, to achieve a balance or reconciliation
between dissimilar, even conflicting, elements in a text.
Because it stresses close textual analysis and viewing the
text as a carefully crafted, orderly object containing formal,
observable patterns, the New Criticism has sometimes been
called an "objective" approach to literature. New Critics are
more likely than certain other critics to believe and say that the
meaning of a text can be known objectively. For instance,
reader-response critics see meaning as a function either of each
readers experience or of the norms that govern a particular
interpretive community, and deconstructors argue that texts
mean opposite things at the same time.\
6. The purpose of Feminist Literature Criticism:

- To see the reflection of societys assumption on womans

destiny
- To see how woman live, how woman have been living, how
woman have been
led to imagine themselves, how the very act of naming has
been till now a male
prerogative, and how we can begin to see name-and
therefore live-a fresh.
7. Some contemporary theories/criticism
-

Psychoanalytic is study focused on writers psyche, the

study of the creative process, the study of psychological
types and principles presents within works of literature, or
the effects of literature upon its reader.

Structuralism is a way of thinking about the world which is

predominantly

concerned

with

the

perception

and

description of structures. It claims that the nature of every

element in any given situation has no significance by itself.
-

Post- structuralism and Deconstruction, is a reaction to

structuralism and works against seeing language as a stable,
closed system. It is a shift from seeing the poem or novel as
a close entity, equipped with definite meanings which it is the
critics task to decipher, to seeing literature as irreducibly
plural, an endless play of signifiers which can never be finally
nailed down to a single center, essence or meaning.

Reader Response theory is the readers ability to

understand a text or to bring crtain assumptions to a text
based on the interpretive strategies that she/he has learned
in a particular interpretive community.

Feminist Literary Theory is theory aim to define or

establish a feminist literary canon or theories seeking to re-

interpret and re-vision literature from a less patriarchal slant

and focusing on sexual difference and sexual politics.
-

Post colonialism is a collection of theoretical and critical

strategies used to examine the culture (literature, politics,
history, and so forth) of former colonies of the European
empires, and their relation to he rest of the world

New-historicism is a theory that views history skeptically

(historical narrative is inherently subjective), but also more
broadly, history includes all of the cultural, social, political,
anthropological discourse at work.

Etc.

8. The relationship with pragmatic in literature and in linguistic.

Pragmatic in literature see literature mainly as a tool to reach
a certain objective. The interpretation and evaluation are
based on the readers objective. Or we can say that this
criticism is depending on the reader (receptive).
In linguistic, this term is also applied in a language use that
based on the certain context and objective. The language
interpretation is based on the context/objective of a language
receiver or interlocutor (receptive).