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Important Questions - Criticism
Important Questions - Criticism
4. IMPORTANT QUESTIONS -
CRITICISM
1. POETICS BY ARISTOTLE
1. Answer the following questions.
(i) What is literary criticism?
(ii) What does Plato say about poetry?
(iii) The subject of 'Republic' is politics. Comment.
(iv) What does 'Poetics' deal with?
(v) How does Aristotle define poetry?
(vi) In what three ways does Aristotle differentiate various art forms from one another?
(vii) What is the difference between epic poetry and tragedy?
(viii) Why does Aristotle value Homer so highly as a poet in 'Poetics'?
(ix) How does Aristotle define 'the universal'?
(x) What are the three meanings of imitation?
(xi) Define the term 'mock epic'.
(xii) What is the main difference between poetry and history?
(xiii) What are the six parts every tragedy must have? Which, according to Aristotle, is the
most important?
(xiv) What, according to Aristotle, is the primary purpose of tragedy?
(xv) What is the place of cathersis in tragedy?
2. Answer the following questions.
(i) What is 'anti-climax' is drama?
(ii) What is the importance of plot in tragedy?
(iii) What is the opinion of Aristotle about three unities in the play?
(iv) What is the place of suffering in tragedy?
(v) Among the three unities, which one is called Aristotelian?
(vi) What are the characteristics of an ideal tragic hero?
(vii) Why does Aristotle consider a saintly figure inappropriate to be a tragic hero?
(viii) What does Aristotle mean by the singleness of in tragedy?
(ix) What does the term hamartia mean?
(x) What is the Probable Impossibility as discussed by Aristotle?
(xi) Why is plot more important than character or speech in a tragedy?
(xii) What are 'recognition' (anagnorisis) and 'reversal' (peripeteia)?
(xiii) What role does language play in the development of epic and tragedy?
(xiv) What is peripety? What is a discovery? What is the best form of discovery?
(xv) What are the four requirements of a character?
3. Aristotle's Theory of Tragedy
4. Aristotle's Concept of Ideal Tragic Hero
5. Importance of Plot in Tragedy
6. Plot-Character Relationship
7. Aristotle's Concept of Imitation
8. Aristotle's Concept of Cathersis
Notes Prepared By: Prof. Shahbaz Asghar
2. AN APOLOGY FOR POETRY BY PHILIP SIDNEY
9. Answer the following questions.
(i) Who was Philip Sidney?
(ii) What was the purpose of writing "An Apology for Poetry"?
(iii) Define the term Renaissance.
(iv) What two ideas does "An Apology for Poetry" deal with?
(v) What is the origin and meaning of the word "poet"?
(vi) What is the nature and function of poetry according to Sidney?
(vii) How is poetry superior to philosophy and history?
(viii) How has Sidney established that poetry is antique and universal in nature?
(ix) What, according to Sidney, is the relationship between pleasure and learning?
(x) How does the poet's art differ from that of the astronomer, geometrician, moral
philosopher, rhetorician, and others?
(xi) What, according to Sidney, did Greeks mean by the philosophical term architectonike?
(xii) Is Sidney's idea of mimesis Platonic or Aristotelian?
(xiii) What are the three kinds of poetry according to Sidney?
(xiv) What is Elegy?
(xv) What is the essence of Sidney's defense against poetry?
10. Answer the following questions.
(i) What is Sidney's opinion about the heroic or Epic poetry?
(ii) Sidney says, "Comedy is not merely to provide according to Aristotle".
(iii) What are the main objections brought against poetry by its enemies?
(iv) To what extent, ultimately, does Sidney agree with Horace about the aim or "end" of
poetry?
(v) Does "rhyming and versing" make a poet, according to Sidney?
(vi) How does Sidney refute the allegation against poetry that it is bound up with "rhyming
and versing"?
(vii) How does Sidney refute the allegation against poetry being the waste of time?
(viii) How does Sidney refute the allegation against poetry being the mother of lies?
(ix) How does Sidney refute the allegation against poetry being the nurse of abuse?
(x) What was Sidney's approach on Plato's banishment of poets from his ideal republic?
(xi) Why has England grown so hard a step-mother to poets? Asks Sidney.
(xii) What should be the qualities of a tragedy according to Sidney?
(xiii) What should be the qualities of a comedy according to Sidney?
(xiv) What argument does Sidney make concerning the unity of place? Does his comment
seem fitting? Why or why not?
(xv) What is the value of Sidney's criticism?
11. The Puritan Attack on Poetry
12. Sydney's Defense of Poetry
13. Sydney's Theory of Poetry
14. Sydney As a Critic
Notes Prepared By: Prof. Shahbaz Asghar