DEFINING CRITICISM, THEORY, and
LITERATURE
1. How does one arrive at the correct
interpretation of literary text?
2. If there is only one correct interpretation of a
text, what are the hermeneutical principles
readers must use to discover this
interpretation?
3. If a work can have multiple interpretation, are
all such interpretation valid?
4. Can’t one simply enjoy a novel, for example,
without considering its interpretation?
5. Need one be able to state the work’s theme,
discuss its structure, or analyze its tone in
order to enjoy the act of reading the novel
itself?
CAN A TEXT HAVE MORE THAN ONE
INTERPRETATION?
Literary Criticism
“- is the act of studying, analyzing, interpreting,
evaluating, and enjoying a work of art.”
“- is a disinterested endeavor to learn and
propagate the best that is known and thought in
the world.” –Matthew Arnold
“- is a discipline that attempts to formulate
aesthetic and methodological principles on
which the critic can evaluate a text.”
• Traditionally, literary critics involve
themselves in either theoretical or practical
criticisms.
• Theoretical criticisms formulated the
theories principles, and tenets of the nature
and value of art.
• Practical criticism (or applied criticism)
applies the theories and tenets of theoretical
criticism to particular work.
• The practical critic defines the standards of
taste and explains, evaluates, or justifies a
particular piece of literature. S/he posits that
there is only one theory ore set of principles
a critic may use when evaluating literary
work.
• The absolute critic-and the relativistic
critic, uses various and even contradictory
theories in critiquing a piece of literature.
• The basis for either kind of critic or any form
of criticism, is literary theory. Without theory,
practical criticism could not exist.
WHAT IS LITERARY THEORY?
“- is the assumptions (conscious or unconscious)
that undergird one’s understanding and
interpretation of language, the construction of
meaning, art, culture, aesthetics, and ideological
positions.”
• Because anyone who responds to a text is
already a practicing literary critic and
because practical criticism is rooted in the
reader’s preconditioned mindset concerning
his/her expectations when actually reading a
text, every reader espouses some kind of
literary theory.
• An incomplete, unconscious, and therefore
unclear literary theory leads to illogical,
unsound, and haphazard interpretation.
• A well-articulated literary theory assumes
that an innocent reading of a text or a sheerly
emotional or spontaneous reaction to a work
cannot exist, for theory questions the
assumptions, beliefs and feelings of readers,
asking why they respond to text in a certain
way.
MAKING MEANING FROM TEXT
• How we readers construct meaning through
or with a text depends on the mental
framework each of us has developed
concerning the nature of reality.
• This framework or worldview consists of the
assumptions of presuppositions that we all
hold (either consciously or unconsciously)
concerning the basic makeup of our world.
• For instance, we all struggle to find answers
to such questions as these: What is the basis
of morality or ethics? What is the meaning of
human history? Is there an overarching
purpose for humanity’s existence? Is there
an ultimate reality?
• Upon such conceptual framework rests
literary theory. Whether that framework is
well reasoned or simply a matter of habit and
past teachings, readers respond to works of
art via their worldview.
THE READING PROCESS AND LITERARY
THEORY
The relationship between literary theory and a
reader’s personal worldview is best illustrated in
the act of reading itself:
A reader brings to the text his or her past experience
and present personality. Under the magnetism of the
ordered symbols of the text, the reader marshals his
or her resources and crystalizes out from the stuff of
memory, thought and feeling a new order, a new
experience which he/she sees as the poem. This
becomes part of the ongoing stream of the reader’s
life experience, to be reflected on from any angle
important to him or her as a human being.
- The Reader, the Text, the Poem (1978) by
Louise M. Rosenblatt
• Rosenblatt declares that the relationship
between the reader and the text is not linear,
but transactional; that is, it is a process or
event that takes place at a particular time and
place in which the text and the reader
condition each other.
• Because no literary theory can account for all
the various factors included in everyone’s
conceptual framework, and because we, as
readers, all have different literary
experiences, there can exist no metatheory-
one overarching literary theory that
encompasses all possible interpretations of a
text suggested by its readers.
• There can be no one correct literary theory,
for in and of itself, each literary theory asks
valid questions about the text, and no one
theory is capable of exhausting all legitimate
questions to be asked about any text.
• Although each reader’s theory and
methodology for arriving at a text’s
interpretation differ, sooner or later groups of
readers and critics declare allegiance to a
similar core of beliefs and band together,
thereby founding different schools of
criticism.
• Because the various schools of criticism (and
the theories on which they are based) ask
different questions about the same work of
literature, these theoretical schools provide
an array of seemingly endless options from
which readers can choose to broaden their
understanding not only of the text but also of
their society, their culture, and their own
humanity.
• By embracing literary theory and literary
criticism (its practical application), we can
participate in that seemingly endless
historical conversation and debate
concerning the nature of humanity and its
concern as expressed in literature itself.
WHAT IS LITERATURE?
• Derived from the Latin littera, meaning
“letter”, the root meaning of literature refers
primarily to the written word.
• Literature is an “art”. It refers to works of
imagination or creative writing.
• Literature, from German word Wortkunst,
which automatically implies that the
imaginative and creative aspects of literature
are essential components of the word
literature itself.
• Whether one accepts the broad or narrow
definition, many argues that a text must have
certain peculiar qualities before it can be
dubbed literature (literary standards).
• While distinguishing literature from other
forms of writings, this appealing aesthetic
quality directly contributes to literature’s chief
purpose: the telling of a story.
LITERARY THEORY AND THE DEFINITION OF
LITERATURE
• Is literature simply a story that contains
certain aesthetic and literary qualities that all
somehow pleasingly culminate in a work of
art?
• If so, can text be considered artifacts that can
be analyzed, dissected, and studied to
discover their essential nature or meaning?
• Or does a literary work have ontological
status; that is, does it exist in and of itself,
perhaps in a special neo-Platonic realm, or
must it have an audience, a reader, before it
become literature?
 • Can we define the word text? It is simply print
on a page?
• If pictures are included, do they automatically
become part of the text?
• Who determines when print becomes a work
of art? The reader? The author? Both?
• An examination of a text’s total artistic
situation would help us decide what
constitutes literature.
• This total picture of the work involves such
elements as the work itself (an examination
of the fictionality or secondary world created
within the story), the artist, the universe or
world the work supposedly represents, and
the audience or readers.
• Overall, the definition of literature depends
on the particular kind of literary theory or
school of criticism that the reader or critic
espouses.
THE FUNCTION OF LITERATURE AND
LITERARY THEORY
• Is literature’s chief function to teach
(extrinsic) or to entertain (intrinsic)? In other
words, can or do we read a text for the sheer
fun of it, or must we always be studying and
learning from what we read?
• The French verbs savoir and connaitre can
both be translated as “to know” and highlight
the difference between these two
epistemological ways of knowing a text.
• Savoir means to analyze (from the Greek
analuein, to undo) and to study. It is used to
refer to knowing something that is the object
of study and assumes that the object, such
as a text, can be examined, analyzed and
critiqued. Knowledge or learning is its
ultimate goal.
• Connaitre implies that we intimately know or
have experienced the text. It is used for
knowing people and refers to our knowing an
author’s canon.
• To know how to analyze a text, to discuss its
literary elements, and to apply the various
methodologies of literary criticism means that
we know that text (savoir).
• To have experienced the text, to have cried
with or about its characters, to have lost time
and sleep immersed in the secondary world
of the text, and to have felt our emotions
stirred also means that we know that text
(connaitre).
• The formal study of literary theory enables us
to explain our responses to any text and
allows us to articulate the function of
literature in an academic and a personal way.
RELEVANCE OF THE STUDY OF LITERARY
THEORY
• Literary theory assumes that there is no such
thing as an innocent reading of a text. What
elicits these responses or how a reader
makes senses out of a text is at the heart of
literary theory.
• Because our reactions to any text have
theoretical bases, all readers must have a
literary theory.
• Because many reader’s literary theory is
more often than not unconscious,
incomplete, ill-formed, and eclectic, their
interpretations can easily be illogical,
unsound, and haphazard.
• A well-defined, logical, and clearly articulated
literary theory enables readers to
consciously develop their own personal
methods of interpretation, permitting them to
order, clarify, and justify their appraisals of a
text in a consistent and logical manner.
A HISTORICAL SURVERY OF LITERARY
CRITICISM
• Practical Criticism: In its most general sense,
what readers have been doing since the
emergence of the first work of literature, be it
oral or written. Today, it also includes the
practical function or critics.
• Theoretical Criticism: What theoreticians of
literature do. In the west, it is assumed to
have begun in the 5th century BCE Athens.
• It is the Greeks of the 5th century B.C. who
first articulated and developed the
philosophy of art and life that serves as the
foundation for the most theoretical and
practical criticism.
• From the 5th century B.C. to the present,
critics such as Plato, Dante, Wordsworth,
 and a host of others have developed
principles of criticism that have had a major
influence on the ongoing discussion of
literary theory and criticism.
THE CLASSICAL PERIOD
“All of Western philosophy is but a footnote to
Plato” - Alfred North Whitehead
Plato (ca. 427-437 B.C.)
• Works of Criticism: Plato’s ideas expressed
in his Ion, Crito, The Republic, and other
works, laid the foundation for many, if not
most, of the pivotal issues of philosophy and
literature: the concepts of truth, beauty, and
goodness; the nature of reality; the structure
of society; the nature and relations of being
(ontology); questions about how we know
what we know (epistemology); and ethics
and morality.
• In the plays and writings of the comic
dramatist Aristophanes, a contemporary of
Plato, a few tidbits of practical criticism arise,
but no clearly articulated literary theory.
• Main Concepts: The core of Platonic thought
resides in Plato’s doctrine of essences,
ideas, or forms. Ultimate reality, he states, is
spiritual.
• This spiritual realm, which Plato calls The
One, is composes of “ideal” forms or
absolutes that exist whether or not any mind
posits their existence or reflects their
attributes.
• It is these ideal forms that give shape to or
ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.)
physical world, for our material world is
nothing more than a shadowy replica of the
absolute forms found in the spiritual; realm.
Example: chair as a chair.
• With the Advent of Plato and his Academy,
philosophical inquiry and abstract thinking
usurped the narrative as a method for
discovering the truth.
• If ultimate reality rests in the spiritual realm
and the material world is only a shadowy
replica of the world ideals, then according to
Plato and his followers, poets (those who
compose imaginative literature) are merely
imitating an imitation when they write about
any object in the material world.
• Plato declares that a poet’s craft is “an
inferior who marries an inferior and has
inferior offspring”, for the poet, declares
Plato, is one who is now two steps or degrees
removed from ultimate reality.
• Plato condemns poets for producing art that
is “nothing more than a copy of a copy”.
• Plato condemns all poets. Because poets are
untrustworthy and damned, no longer can
their works be the basis of the Greeks’
morality or ethics for Plato argues that in the
poet’s works, lies abound concerning the
nature of ultimate reality. Example: The Iliad.
• In the Republic, Plato ultimately concludes
that such people, the poets, must be
banished.
• In a later work, Plato recants that total
banishment of poets fro society, for he
seemingly recognizes society’s need for
poets and their craft to “celebrate the victors”
of the state. However, only poets “who are
themselves good and also honorable in the
state” can be tolerated.
• Main Area of Interest in Criticism: The
function of poetry (namely, literature)
• Influence: Plato initiates the still-existing
debate on the value, nature, and the worth of
literature, and of those who produce works of
literature.
• The Catchphrases: Poetry is the imitation of
the imitation.
• Poetry is twice distanced from the ultimate
reality.
• Works of Criticisms: In Poetics, Aristotle
states the general principles of tragedy as he
saw them at the time, in accordance with his
principles of philosophy.
• Main Concepts: Mimesis, which gathers all
the arts under the roof of imitation. In this,
Aristotle agrees with Plato. However, as
Plato sees the art of poetry as a potential
threat against the order in society, for
Aristotle it may prove helpful in the
improvement of society.
• The disagreement has its roots in the
differing approaches of these two
 philosophers toward the idea of imitation.
Against Plato’s idea that “imitation is two
steps removed from the truth or realm of the
ideal”, Aristotle deems “that poetry is more
universal, more general than things as they
area” for “it is not function of the poet to relate
what happened, but what may happen –
what is possible according to the law of
probability or necessity”.
• Comparing it with history, Aristotle concludes
that poetry is a more philosophical and
therefore higher thing
• This is because the historian writes of what
has already happened, whereas the poet
writes of what could and should happen.
• Aristotle explains it as the tendency of poetry
to express the universal (with respect to
universal truth); as history tends to express
the particular (namely, what happened in a
particular case).
• For Aristotle, poets do not imitate the
physical world as it is, but create an imitation
of it as it should be, and this paves the way
that gets to the ideal as near as possible
• Comedy versus Tragedy: In its most general
sense, a comedy imitates the actions of the
ones who are inferior to the audience. It does
not reflect those people’s vices, however, but
merely what is ridiculous, caused by “some
error or ugliness that painless and has no
harmful effects”.
A tragedy, however, analyzed in detail in the Poetics,
is defined as:
“An imitation of a noble and complete action,
having the proper magnitude, it employs a language
that has been artistically enhanced by each of the
kinds of linguistic adornment, applied separately in
the various parts of the play, it is presented in
dramatic, not narrative form, and achieves,
through the representation of pitiable and fearful
incidents, the catharsis of such pitiable and fearful
incidents”.
Aristotle’s Chief Contribution to Literary
Criticism
a. Tragedy, or a work of art, is an imitation of
nature that reflects a high form of art.
b. Tragedy is an organic whole, which means
that it has a beginning, a middle and an end;
and its parts are all interrelated. The three
unities of time, place and action all serve
to this sense of wholeness.
c. Tragic hero is a noble man of positive
character, but he is not faultless. So, his
misfortunes and ultimate downfall are
caused by some error or frailty in his own
character. This is what we call his tragic
flaw, or hamartia.
d. Catharsis is the aimed emotional effect or a
tragedy on its audience. It is the purgation or
purification of the emotions of the audience
by the end of the play.
e. The universal, not the particular, should be
stressed.
Main Area of Interest in Criticism: Literary Form
Influence: Literary criticism’s concern with the
compositional elements of a work began with
Aristotle’s poetics. It set the standards with respect
to which literary works (especially in drama) are
judged for ages, including with Renaissance and the
18th century.
The Catchphrase: Poetry tends to express the
universal, not the particular.
Horace (65-8 B.C.)
• Works of Criticism: From Ars Poetica (the art
of poetry) and a personal letter, it is possible
to gain an understanding of his views with
respect to literature.
• Main Concepts: In these texts, Horace aims
to provide a guideline on how to be a good
writer.
His advice basically includes that poets:
• Should imitate other poets, especially the
poets of the past, and particularly the
Greeks;
• Should write about traditional subjects in
unique ways;
• Should avoid all extremes in subject matter,
diction, vocabulary and style; gaining
mastery in these skills by reading and
following the examples of the classical Greek
and Roman authors; and
 • Should avoid appearing ridiculous and must
therefore aim their sights low, not attempting
to be a new Virgil or Homer.
• Literature’s ultimate aim is to be “sweet and
useful” (dulce et utile), and therefore it is the
task of the poet to aim for the both in his
works. He should aim to teach and delight.
• Main Area of Interest in Criticism: Literary
taste (namely, the features that make a
literary work good)
• Influence: His views on literature “became
the official canon of literary taste during the
Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and partly in
the Neo-Classic Period.
• The Catchphrase: Literature’s ultimate aim is
to teach and delight.
st
Longinus (1 Century A.D.)
• Work of Criticism: On the Sublime
• Main Concepts: One cannot accurately judge
a literary work, unless one is exceedingly
well-read.
• What is great in a work, Longinus names as
sublime. This is an aspiration for higher, for
“something more divine than we”. All readers
possess the innate capacity to recognise it.
The harmonious response of our intellects,
emotions and wills to a work of art means that
we have been touched by the sublime.
• The author must possess a great mind and a
great soul.
• The text must be composed of dignified and
elevated diction, disposing the reader to high
thoughts.
• The reader’s reaction to a work matters only
if as the audience they are learned enough.
• Main Area of Interest in Criticism: Single
elements of a text.
• Importance: He is the first literary critic to
quote in his writings from a different tradition
than his own (from Hebrew). With that, he
deserves the title as the first comparative
critic in literary history.
• He is also the first critic to define a literary
classic.
• His critical method and concepts can be seen
as foreshadowing various schools of literary
criticism that emerged in the 20th century
(including new criticism and reader-oriented
criticism).
THE MIDDLE AGES
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
• Works of Criticism: Letter to Can Grande
della Scala, originally a letter, in which he
explains his literary theory.
• Main Concepts: The language spoken by the
people (the vernacular) is an appropriate and
beautiful language for writing.
• Allegory and symbolic language, techniques
used in religious writings, can be used in
secular works as well (as he said that he did
in the Divine Comedy).
• Main Area of Interest in Criticism: The proper
language for poetry
• Influence: The common tongue became an
acceptable means of expression in literature,
thus paving the way for an increase in
audience.
RENAISSANCE
Sir Philip Sydney (1554-86)
• Works of Criticism: An Apology for Poetry
(originally Defence of Poesy, 1595) is the
definitive formulation of Renaissance literary
theory and the first influential piece of literary
criticism in English history. Sidney’s sources
include Plato, Aristotle, Horace, and several
of his own contemporary Italian critics.
• Main Concepts: Poetry is an art of imitation,
as defined by Aristotle with the concept of
mimesis.
• Poetry is not a mindless or immoral activity.
• Poetry’s chief concern is to “teach and
delight”.
• Poetry is more valuable than history, law,
and philosophy; and it embodies the truth
above all other arts and sciences.
• The unities of time, place, and action are
elemental in a tragedy.
• Creative poetry is similar to religion for both
function through stirring the emotions of the
reader.
 • Poets affirm morality, blend truth with
symbolism, and give delight.
• Main Area of Interest in Criticism: The
function of poetry.
• Influence: The English tradition and history of
literary criticism begins with Sydney.
THE NEO-CLASSICAL PERIOD
John Dryden (1631-1700)
• Works of Criticism: An Essay of Dramatic
Poesy (1668)
• Main Concepts:
a. A drama must stick to the three unities.
b. The language of a play must observe
“proper” speech.
c. The violent actions should not be shown
onstage; it would be quite “improper”,
and therefore against decorum.
• English drama is better than the French.
• Shakespearean tradition in drama is
defended.
• The rhymed verse in drama is more valuable
than the blank verse.
Main Area of Interest in Criticism: The appreciation
of literary works by their audience
Influence: Dryden develops the study of literature in
and of itself, not with respect to morality or religion.
Key Concepts: Concepts such as decorum,
politesse (namely, courteous formality), clarity,
order, decorum, elegance, cleverness, wit are
definitive of Dryden’s style as well as the period he
produces his works.
AGE OF REASON
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
• Works of Criticism: Essay on Criticism
(1711), in which he attempted to codify
neoclassical literary criticism, and therefore
addressed primarily to literary critics.
• Main Concepts: The golden age of criticism
is the classical age, the age of homes,
Aristotle, Horace, and Longinus, who
discovered the truth about “unerring nature”.
• A good poet needs to be natural genius,
adorned with a knowledge of classics and an
understanding of the rules of poetry;
balancing himself through politeness and
grace in terms of style.
• His emphasis on defining the boundaries of
style makes his literary theory a rhetoric one.
• The works of such a poet seeks to reaffirm
truths or absolutes already discovered by the
classical writers. This makes his theory of
criticism mimetic.
• The task of the critic is to validate and
maintain classical values in the ever-shifting
flux of cultural change. Thus, he is the one
who defines and defends good taste and
cultural values.
• Main Area of Interest in Criticism: Literary
taste
• Importance: Examining his Essay on
Criticism, it is possible to gain an insight into
the 18th century thought and literary
criticism.
THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
• Works of Criticism: In his preface to the
second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1798),
Wordsworth explains the new vision of poetry
he shares with Coleridge, giving us a glimpse
of the beginnings of a radical change in
literary theory.
• Main Concepts: The subject matter for his
poetry is driven from common life.
• The “proper” language of poetry is as it is
really used by people.
• The manner is the natural state of
excitement.
• The poets do no longer need to follow a
prescribed set of rules, for the aim is that they
freely express their own individualism.
• Readers are to decide in accordance with
their own feelings, not having to base their
judgements upon that of others.
• Main Area of Interest in Criticism: The
elements and subject matter of literature
• Influence: Imagination is valued over reason
in the composition of poetry, which resulted
in new definitions of poetry and poet, as well
as new judging criteria on behalf of the
reader.
 • The mimetic and rhetorical theories of the
past centuries are shifted towards expressive
theories.
• Highlighting the individuality of the artist and
carrying readers into a privileged position in
the appreciation of literature.
• The Catchphrases: “All good poetry is the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”.
• Poetry takes “its origin from emotion
recollected in tranquility”.
19TH CENTURY AND THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-93)
• The environmental causes that should be
taken into consideration in the process of
analysis are:
a. Race: Authors’ inherited and learned
personal characteristics
b. Milieu / Surroundings: Authors’
culture, intellectual concerns
c. Moment / Epoch: The time period in
which the work is written
d. Dominant Faculty: Each author’s
individual talent that differentiates it
from others
• Main Area of Interest in Criticism: The
meaning of the text
• Influence: The text can now be
approached as a literary object that can
be dissected to discover its meaning.
Literary works are now seen as the
results of their histories.
• The Catchphrase: A work of art is “the
result of given causes”.
Matthew Arnold (1822-88)
• Works of Criticism: In his essays “The Study
of Poetry” and “The Function of Criticism at
the Present Time”, Arnold assumes a
position that combines the ancient theories of
criticism with the current emphasis on the
objectivity of knowledge.
• Main Concepts: Poetry can provide
necessary truths, values, and guidelines for
society.
• The best poetry is of a “higher truth and
seriousness” than history—or any other
human subject or activity, such as religion,
science, and philosophy.
• Literature reflects the society in which it is
written, and for this reason presents its
values and concerns.
• A classic work of literature belongs to the
“highest” or “best” class.
• Seriousness goes hand in hand with moral
excellence.
• The critic is to be objective, not having an
interest in worldly affairs such as politics,
which may breed bias. Thus, paving the way
for high culture will be possible.
• The critic is to refer to the ideas and
expressions of the masters of the antiquity,
using them as the chief criterion in the
judgement of poetry.
• Main Area of Interest in Criticism: The
function of poetry
• Influence: Arnold’s aim for an objective
criticism results in the opposite direction.
Now, the critic is not only an interpreter of
literary texts, but also has a duty as the
authority on values, culture, and tastes of the
society.
Henry James (1843-1916)
• Works of Criticism: In his essay “The Art of
Fiction” (1884), James states that the English
novel “had no air of having a theory, a conviction,
a consciousness of itself behind it—of being the
expression of an artistic faith, the result of choice
and comparison”. For this reason, in this essay
he assumes the task of providing the novel with
a theory of its own.
• Main Concepts: A definition of the novel as: “a
personal, a direct impression of life: that [...]
constitutes its value, which is greater or less
according to the intensity of the impression”.
• A novel must be interesting.
• Readers do not suspend their disbelief (against
what Coleridge claimed) as they read a literary
text. So, a novel must be realistic.
• A work of art is organic, with a life of its own, not
a mere collection of realistic data.
• Third person narration is preferable rather than
omniscient narration. It creates a greater sense
of illusion.
• It is the reader who decides the value of a text,
not the critics.
• Main Area of Interest in Criticism: Criticism of
novel as a genre
• Influence: The genre of novel became a
respectable topic for literary critics.
• His emphasis of realism started a debate which
has not concluded yet.

MODERN LITERARY CRITICISM

• Arnold’s death in 1888 (and to a lesser degree

James’s death in 1916) marks a transitional
period in literary criticism.
• Like Dryden, Pope, and Wordsworth before him,
Arnold was the recognized authority and leading
literary critic of his day, and it is his theories and
criticism that embody the major ideas of his era.
• At the end of the 19th century, most critics
emphasized either a biographical or historical
approach to the text.
• Using Taine’s historical interests in a text and
James’s newly articulated Mtheory of the novel,
many critics investigated a text as if it were the
embodiment of its author or a historical artifact.
• In the 20th century, the tendency among the
various new schools of criticism has been the
abandonment of the holistic approach of the
former ages, which investigated, analysed, and
interpreted all elements of the artistic situation.
• This former tendency has been replaced,
instead, by theories that concentrate on one or
more specific aspects (such as focusing on the
text only).