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Criticism Block -1
 Literature:
 Literature means a work of art or a body of written works. Literature includes novels, plays
and poetry.
 Literary criticism (or literary studies)
 It is a study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature.
 In other words, Literary criticism is the comparison, analysis, interpretation, and/or
evaluation of works of literature.
 Literary criticism is not a plot summary, a biography of the author, or simply finding
fault with the literature.
 Researching, reading, and writing works of literary criticism will help you to make better
sense of the work, form judgments about literature, study ideas from different points of view,
and determine on an individual level whether a literary work is worth reading.
 The main function of literary criticism is to examine the merits and demerits or defects of a
work of art and finally to evaluate its worth.
 Examples of some types of literary criticism are: Feminist Criticism, Marxist criticism,
Psychoanalytical Criticism.
 Literary Theory
 A particular way of reading or reviewing a text or reading a text from a different perspective.

LITERARY CRITICISM LITERARY THEORY

 A set of rules and regulations- to evaluate
 A set of principles uses for practical reading of
and interpret literary works.
a text like a poem, novel, etc
 It tells us how to read a text, how to approach a
 It tells us the meaning of a literary work.
text
 It is originated from the classical period  it is approximately originated in the 1950s
 Classical criticism, romantic Criticism,  Structuralism, poststructuralism, deconstruction,
New criticism are examples Marxism, and Feminism are the examples
 Ferdinand de Saussureure, Jaques Derrida,
 Plato, Aristotle, Longinus, Dryden, and
Roland Barthes, Roman Jacobson, Semon de
Arnold are some contributors of literary
Bouviour are the some contributors to literary
criticism
theories.

 Literary Criticism
 Literary criticism is the analysis, evaluation, and interpretation of a literary work like a novel,
poem, short story, etc.
 It evaluates any literary works by using particular rules and regulations created by greater
masters like Aristotle, Plato, Sydney, Arnold, etc.
 It tells us what are the good and bad qualities of a literary works.
 Literary criticism helps the readers to find out the hidden meaning of literary works.
 Contributions of Classical Critics– Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Longinus, Dante, etc.
 Romantic Criticism– Contributions of Wordsworth, Coleridge, PB Shelly.
 New Criticism– Contributions of I A Richards, TS Eliot, FR Leavis, JC Ransom, Cleanth
Brooks, W.K Whimsatt.
 Literary Theory.
 Literary theory is a set of principles that tells us how to read a text and how to interpret work
and how approach a literary work.
 In other words, Literary theory is the ideas and methods we use in the practical reading of a
text.
 Theory never tells us the meaning of a poem or novel, instead, it tells us different ways
to reach meaning.
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 The literary theory does not interpret the meaning of a text, instead, it tells us how to
interpret a text.
 Literary theories are the Lenses through which we can visualize literary works.
 It talks about different literary theories like
 Marxism
 Feminist theories.
 Deconstruction.
 Contemporary Literary Theory.

OVERVIEW OF WESTERN CRITICAL THOUGHT

556.-Socrates
 Socrates was born in Athens around 469 BC.
 His father was a stonemason, and that is why he also followed his father's trade.
 We know him as the father of philosophy.
 The irony is that he himself did not write even a single essay, talking about philosophy. What we
know of him today comes from the accounts of his friends and his students writing long after he
was dead.
 Plato, the famous philosopher, he was the student of Socrates.
 And Plato wrote a couple of works ,in which he shared the ideology of his master - Socrates.
 Years before Socrates died, a Oracle, in Athens prophesized that no one would be wiser than
Socrates, in the times to come.
 Now, Oracle is basically a temple kind of structure, which is there on the mountain, and the chief
priest sits there.
 Socrates thought that he was ignorant in so many respects.
 wisdom is actually, according to Socrates- “it is to know that you know, nothing.”
 Socrates was brought to trial in 399 BC, that means he was charged of corrupting the youth of the
city, and he was found guilty and sentenced to death by drinking hemlocks, poison.
 Socrates challenge other person’s views and that is why people started hating him, especially the
people who were born in high class families. because they thought that Socrates is trying to
publicly humiliate them.
 The second reason why Socrates was brought to trial was that he told people that what you were
believing is not true. In Athens and in Greece at that time, people were very orthodox , related to
their views, related to their ideas about religion.
 Now, Socrates went to those learned people, and said that whatever you're believing that is
not true, and he established the distinction between knowledge and beliefs, where he said
that knowledge is always true, whereas belief is only true for some people, I might say that
the sun rises in West. Now, this is my belief, and I can, you know, show you so many things,
which can prove that sunrises in the West, and so can so many other people. But the knowledge or
the truth is that sun rises in the east, and that is going to be universal.
 So, beliefs can be true to some people, and true to some point of time, whereas knowledge is
going to be always true ,under all cases.
 So, because of these two reasons, Socrates was said to be a heretic, a person who was trying to
mislead the young people of the city and therefore he was sentenced to death.
 Socratic method: It was introduced by Socrates, what he used to do is that he used to engage his
companions in a series of innocent questions. And by the way of questioning, he would reveal
their errors. And that is how, he is going to lead the people to the truth, rather than simply giving
what is true, simply saying what is true, he used to question people. And by questioning them, he
used to take out the truth from their own mouth itself.
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 Now in education, also, there are so many teachers who use Socratic method. But this method in
education basically means when a teacher is using series of questions to guide the students
towards an answer. So instead of providing them with the answer, he asked a couple of questions
to the students and then to those questions, the teacher leads the student to the answer. This is
properly known as the Socratic method.

Classical Criticism (Block-2)

 Classical Criticism - Classical criticism refers to a conception of the nature and function of
poetry and of verbal art generally whose principles were first theorized by the sophists in
5th-century bce Greece.
 Classical criticism in literary theory?
 Classical Literary Criticism is simply described as ancient theories and speculations of
other ancient thinkers, with some respected writers such as Aristotle and Plato forming the
core of Classical Literary Criticism in ancient times.

Plato
 The Plato lived in a time of political decline.
 This was shifting to direct democracy.
 Literature, at the time of Plato was treated as immoral, as corrupt, as degenerate. Literature is
really dangerous for the society because they are corrupting us. They are portraying God in
unfavourable light.
 When Plato was writing, Courage, Heroism, Magnificence, these were considered to be the
most prized virtues.
 Plato will keep on telling us that he does not like direct democracy, because it is direct
democracy that kills his beloved teacher Socrates. So, Plato did not like direct democracy.
 He favoured oligarchy, he favoured that some people should rule and others should blindly
follow, because if everybody will start ruling, then we cannot make a Justice Society.
 Life Of Plato
 Plato was a philosopher, who was born in Greece somewhere around 428 BC, and he was
born in a family which was politically and socially quite strong.
 He was a disciple of Socrates.
 Plato founded a school which is known as Academy, in which people study Mathematics,
astronomy and philosophy and history. All these were taught in Plato school.
 One of the most promising students at the Academy was Aristotle, the disciple of Plato. So,
Aristotle was the disciple of Plato.
 Homer was a major influence on Plato.
 Plato wrote predominantly in the style of dialogues.
 Scholars organized Plato’s works in three different areas, one is early, second is middle and
the third one is late.
 in the early works, Plato is directly focusing on lessons, which he has inherited from his
teacher Socrates.
 Works
 “Apology”
 In The work Apology, he is directly talking about the ideas given to him by his
teacher, Socrates.
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 in apology, There is a character of Socrates. And there is another person, both of

them are having debates.
 The other person is charging Socrates, saying that, you've done this bad, you've done
this bad, and Socrates is defending his beliefs against the charges, that is laid down by
the Athenian court.
 Through the work of “Apology”, Plato is saying that- Socrates wanted people, in the
Greek culture to know that Socrates was not a bad idea. And the people of Athens
have done really bad by executing him.
 “Republic”
 This work focuses on , what makes a best government.
 This work is also inspired by the ideas of Socrates and Socrates thought that the best
government could be one, where a person would not just become a king, but then,
there is a proper strategy, which is followed before choosing a ruler.
 He said that, first of all, All the citizens must be properly educated, there should be
a focus on wisdom, courage, justice, temperance, and athletic training should be
given until the age 18.
 Then two years of military services crucial, 10 years they should be educated in
mathematics, five years they should be educated in dialectic and there should be
a lot of debates focusing on reasoning and logic.
 Finally, at the age of 35, all these citizens, who are educated, they will become
teachers and at the age of 50, they will be ready to lead the community and from
these people, who have now achieved the age of 50 , A senior member would be
chosen, who will become the philosopher King. that was the view of Plato as well as
Socrates.
 So, Socrates and Plato both believed in the idea, that only a person who is a great
philosopher can be a great king.
 Concept given by Plato
 “Allegory of the cave”.
 in Plato's Allegory of the Cave, there is a dark cave in which people have been chained to the
wall since birth. The people who are sitting on the opposite side of the wall. on the one side of
the wall, you can see ghosts like figures holding objects.
 On the other side of the wall. You have people sitting, who are chained and they are chained
to this wall since birth, so they cannot look on the other side of the wall. They don't know that
there are these images. They don't know that there is fire . they can just see what is there in
front of them, and they can just see the shadows of the image. That's it.
 Now, behind the heads of these prisoners, There is a fire burning, objects are passed in front
of this fire. So, in front of the fire, you can see these objects, there's a circle, there is a bird,
there is a horse, all the job objects are there. And the projection of these objects can be seen
on the other side of the wall.
 So, the projected images or the shadows of these images is the only thing which the people,
who are chained can see.
 These prisoners was sitting and Who were chained to the wall, they perceive that these
shadow objects are reality, because they don't know that there is actually an object and what
they are seeing is just a shadow.
 Since birth, they have just seen the shadows.
 The prisoners could only see these flickering images on the wall, as they cannot move their
heads. So naturally, for them, These shadows represents reality.
 Plato is saying that all these chained people are the people, who are born on this earth.
And whatever we see in front of us, is actually like the shadows, because we have not
seen what is actually there on the backside of us, we assume that this is reality. Now he is
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offering a twist in the plot. He's saying, What if, one of the prisoners were to be freed from
the chain, and is made to turn and look at the fire for the first time, if a man is made to look at
the fire, his eyes would burn, because from the beginning, from the day he was born, he never
saw such a bright light. So, his eyes would definitely burn, because he's only accustomed to
shadows till now. Then he's giving another twist. Now he's saying, What if a prisoners freed,
and this prisoner climbs out of the cave. Now, this prisoner was just climbed out of the cave,
you can see it in the picture as well. On the right side, there are a few people who are trying to
get out of the cave, and one has already managed to get out of the cave, this particular man,
he is going to go out of the cave, and for the first time, he is going to see the sun, the world,
and then he come in the cave, once again, he will try to convince all the prisoners that, this
what we are seeing is not a reality.
 This is not a reality, this is just an illusion, you all should go out of the cave in order to see
the real picture of the world. Now, this particular image is very similar to what our parents
generally say, कुए का में द्क, this is a frequent metaphor that they use, what is कुए का में द्क,?
कुए का में द्क is an animal, who has never got out of the well. So for him well represents the
reality.
 He doesn't know that there is a lot many things on this earth, except the Well, , just like that
these people are chained in the cave, they think that this is the real world. Now, what are we
trying to teach us by telling us this Allegory of the Cave.
 So he's basically saying that this person, who has gone out of the cave, and has tasted what

real world feels like, he is what we know as a philosopher. And when he comes in the cave
in order to tell his fellow prisoners that you should get out, and you should take pleasure
of the world outside, he's actually trying to teach us. so just like Plato, and Socrates,
they all were knowledgeable people, they were philosophers, they knew something which
we did not know. And that is what they wrote. And that is what we are reading and
understanding.
 The same way, He's saying that the person was moved out of the cave, he is a philosopher.
And when he's trying to pursue the people inside the cave to move out of the cave, he's trying
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to tell them the truth. And who are these prisoners? prisoners are the common man who are
dependent on the false reality. The free prisoner is a philosopher and he has actually come
to know about the true reality of ideas. And therefore, he is trying to convince his fellow
prisoners of The true reality is, which the fellow prisoners cannot see. ? So by this particular
example, he's trying to tell us that, as a philosopher, my job is to lead the ignorant people out
of the cave into the true knowledge.
 Plato’s Theory of forms
 Plato’s theory of form asserts that the physical world ,that we see in front of us is actually not
the real world.
 Instead, Ultimate reality exists beyond our physical worlds.
 In order to make us understand, he has divided the entire world in two parts, the first is
Physical Realm, and the second is Spiritual Realm.
 Physical Realm is the materials stuff, we see and interact with anything, pen, paper,
people bottle, water, bathtub, all these are a part of Physical Realm,, and this physical
realm is changing, and it is imperfect.
 Spiritual realm, however, exists beyond the physical realm and Plato calls this
Spiritual realm as the realm of forms or ideas .
 Spiritual realm is a thing , which exists beyond the physical realm, and it is known as the
theory of forms or the realm of forms.
 Plato’s theory asserts that the physical realm is only a shadow or image of the true reality.
Just like in the allegory of cave, the actual objects were behind, and what the prisoners was
seeing was the shadows. Similarly, physical real, whatever we see in front of us, it is just the
shadows true things are not there in front of us, we cannot see them with our naked eyes.
 physical realm is changing and imperfect forms but the Spiritual realm, it is perfect and
unchanging. And it transcends time and space.
 For example,
 First example is that You need to think of a square. Now, take a paper and draw a
picture of square on that piece of paper. The image of square, that you have made will
differ from my image, , my image that I have made, the picture that you have drawn will
differ from my picture, and will also differ from picture of other people, because you
might draw a square which is three centimeters Long, I might draw a square which is five
centimeter long and your friend might draw a square which is 20 centimeters on every
side. so our pictures are a bit imperfect. nobody can draw a perfect square. Because may
be, our lines aren't exactly straight or angles aren't exactly 90 degrees. In addition, your
picture my picture are likely to be different, different sizes, then, if I asked you to colour
it. So, you might use different colour I, might use different colour .if we use same colour
even then, we made different shades . So, understand the thing that you and I both share
a similar concept or idea of what square is, even though our pictures of squares turned out
to be different आपके और मे रे दिमाग मे जो ideal square है उसकी इमे ज जरुर same
होगी, but हमने जो draw किया है , that can be different. So, to put it in Plato’s term, the
concept and idea of Square, that resides in our brain, resides in the realm of forms
or resides in the spiritual realm. And therefore, the concept of square ,which is there
in our mind is perfect, it is abstract and it is unchanging , Plato would say that this
form of square is real, the concept of square, which I am holding inside me is the
actual reality in whatever I am making from my hand, that is a shadow, that is what
it is like.
 Actually reality and whatever is there in front of you, that is a copy of the reality, . So, ideas,
which are there in our brain, or the concepts, which are there in our brain, they are true, and
they are real, whereas all the earthly things are merely copies. And this is the “Theory of
Mimesis”
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 Theory Of Mimesis
 For example - if I'm an architect, and I'm making a house. now, the ideal house happens to be
inside my brain and whatever I make, that will be an imperfect copy of it. So, whatever we
see in front of us, is a copy of reality, which exists in our brain. So, that was the theory of
forms, given by Plato.
 Plato’s views on poetry
 “Art is mere imitation and therefore it is deceptive.
 According to Plato, everything physical that we see in front of us is actually a copy. For
Example- Chair exists first as an idea, then it exists as an object. So that chair, that we see
in front of us is an imperfect version of the perfect idea of chair, idea perfect है और
उसका . imperfect version क्या है तो वो है - physical chair. And all the chairs are
different versions of this idea.
 So, Chair, which is lying in front of you, it will be a copy again, so already एक copy की
दस
ु री copies है . And this is the reason why Plato says that art is not good, because it
is thrice removed from reality. तीसरी copy है ये , एक तो हमारे दिमाग मे है , और
एक हमारे सामने है , physical chair और उसको भी अगर हमने painting मे उतारा तो , it
is a third copy. So it just thrice removed from reality. And that is why, it is deceptive. It
makes us believe that imitation is reality.
 It encourages passion and let it rule over intellect
 Plato is saying that poetry is a result of divine inspiration. Divine Inspiration is based
on Emotions, Poetry is an emotional thing.
 Thus, Poetry cannot be relied upon, as it is not the result of conscious and considered
Judgments. Plato always believed that we need to follow consciously.
 According to Plato, you need to only write you need to only do things, which are morally
right.
 Plato says - When we indulge in art, we throw away reasons and we indulge in the path of
emotion, which is wrong.
 Poetry and All other art is useless
 According to Plato, Poetry is not going to serve the community, country, it adds to no
knowledge. if I read a book about history, it will add to a lot of knowledge but if I read a
book like Erich Segal’s “Love Story” that is not going to add to any knowledge. So
according to Plato, poetry and other arts, they all are useless.
 “Art leads to immorality”
 in dramas Plato says that I have seen people portraying the vices of gods, I have seen people
teaching audience a Immoral lessons. If you look at today's world, you will find movies,
where there are a lot of violence and sex. Now this violence and sex and media is going to
cause more violent and sexually obsessed behaviours, it is going to take people in that
direction. For example, there are kids as teen, who have become inspired from the character
of Khilji from Padmaavat movie, so they're still going to act like Khilji. Now, Khilji portraits
evil and if people start following all these immoral things.
 Summary:
 Plato did not like poetry.
 Art is mainly imitation, and therefore it is deceptive.
 It encourages passion and emotion and it is it lets emotion rule over intellect.
 Art is useless, it serves no purpose.
 Art leads to immorality.
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558.-Aristotle
 born in The year, 384 BC, and he is born to a wealthy family in Macedonia, That is, today's north
Greece.
 He travelled to Athens to study under Plato, at the famous School of Athens that is Academy. So
he was a student of Plato.
 After studying under Plato, Aristotle started teaching, logic, reasoning and debate at the
Academy. He tutored Alexander the Great.
 Aristotle returned back to Athens and he founded his own school- Peripatetic school. Peripatetic
school was named so, because Aristotle used to walk around while teaching, , and this is the
reason why it is known as peripatetic school, because peripatetic itself means to walking.
 Alexander died in 323 BC, after which, a lot of people were after Aristotle, they wanted to kill
him. So Aristotle fled to Chalcis, and there, he died in the year 322 BC.
 Works:
 “Rhetoric”
 Talk about the three rhetorical pieces- logos, Pathos, ethos
 Rhetorical means using words in such a way that you can persuade somebody.
 For example : There are a few great speakers like we have Shashi Tharoor, Narendra
Modi, they are extremely wonderful orators. Why? Because they have the power of
language, and they can use words in such a way that people are persuaded to think , what
they want us to think.
 Logos means the use of logic or facts. Whenever you want to persuade a person, you need to
know the logic and facts.
 Then comes pathos. Pathos means appeal to your emotion, that means आपको ऐसे शब्द
इस्ते माल करनी है ऐसी चीजे करनी है . जिस से audience के emotions appeal हो जाये ,
 Ethos means the speaker or writer’s character’s, creditability that means हमे पता होना
चाहिये वो इं सान creditable है , हमे उस पर विश्वास हो that is “Ethos”. . So logos, pathos
and ethos are the three important term , that he gave in the work called “Rhetoric”.
 Theories of Aristotle
 Theory is of syllogism
 It is a type of logical reasoning.
 In technical terms, syllogism is an argument, which is based on two statements, making a
third statement also true. For example, if I say A equals to B and B equals to C, then,
what is the third statement , A is also equals to C. , So if A is equal to B and B is equal to
C, then A must be equal to C. This is a syllogism.
 Aristotle criticizes Plato’s views on poetry.
 Aristotle said that Plato is wrong on views on Poetry.
 Plato said I don't like poetry because poetry or art, it is an imitation, And it is
deceptive.
 Aristotle said that, though poetry is an imitation, But it is imaginative recreation,
where a poet drawing from materials from physical world and make something new.
 Aristotle equated poetry with music. And he says, that painting imitates through
form and colour, you use the form, you use the colour, whereas musician imitates to
rhythm and harmony, and therefore it is much closer to poetry, because poetry also
uses rhythm and harmony, in order to deliver something. And if you look at music,
it's not a copy. , there is Sare Ga Ma Pa. And I can make 100 pieces out of Sare Ga
Ma Pa, using my own creative energy.
 So according to Aristotle, art is a creative imitation, according to Plato, it's a mere
invitation, Whereas according to Aristotle, it's a creative imagination. And Aristotle
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says that poetry or art is not thrice removed from reality, it is actually closer to
reality.
 Plato says that- poetry encourages passion and emotion to rule over our intellect.
 Aristotle says that Passion, emotion, all these things are there in everything, why,
because we acquire any kind of knowledge only through our senses, and senses will
lead us to emotion.
 Any knowledge you acquire from the world, you are going to acquire it through
senses.
 Plato says that - Art is Useless.
 Aristotle says that art is not useless, but art is actually natural for human beings to
imitate, how did we learn to walk? How did we learn to talk, we learn by imitating
our parents, Nothing is more natural than imitation for children.
 Plato says- “Art leads to immortality.”
 Aristotle says that every successful drama will teach you morality.
 “Poetics”
 In “Poetics”, Aristotle talks about the Concept of aesthetics.
 So, In the Poetics, he's actually talking about what makes a book or drama beautiful.
 Work was left incomplete,
 in Poetics, Aristotle talk about six important Parts that Aristotle has defined as tragedy.
 Poetics contain 26 chapters.
 Chapter (1 to 5)- Classification of poetry into different kinds
 Chapter (6 to 19) -Discussion on tragedy
 Chapter (20 to 22)- Discussion on poetic style.
 Chapter 23 deals with narrative poetry.
 Chapter 24 deals with epic poetry.
 Chapter 25 deals with critics objection against poetry and Aristotle's reply to them,
 chapter 26 talks about comparing epic with tragedy.
 Elements of tragedy:
 According to Aristotle -Tragedy is a poetry that concerns serious action of certain
gravity. So, serious action should be there, some, weighted should be there, it should use
language that incorporates harmony, rhythm song and it is performed by actors.
 Tragedy means a very sad event or situation, especially one that involves
death
 Aristotle says that there are six important parts of tragedy:
 Plot
 Character
 Diction: Diction means rhythmic language.
 Thought.
 Spectators(Audience)
 Song
 Aristotle says that plot is the soul of tragedy.
 Elements of Good Plot: 5 Elements
 Completeness:
 Completeness refers to the necessity of a tragedy to have a beginning, middle and
end.
 Whenever you are staging A tragedy, it should have a beginning it should have a
middle and it should have an end. And the sequence of these three acts
beginning , middle and end, the tragedy will present a change from bad fortune to
good or from good fortune to bad.
 “Magnitude”
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 Magnitude means length. So he says that length of a tragedy should be such that
it should be easily embraced by the memory.
 “Unity”
 Aristotle talks about Three kinds of unity -Unity of time, unity of action, and
unity of place
 Unity of time- means A play should represent actions, that takes place
approximately the same time as the play. So, what he is saying that कि अगर तीन
घं टे का play है तो तीन घं टे मे ही कहानी पूरी हो जानी चाहिये .
 You should not make a play, in such a manner that years are passing during
hours of a play. for example - in the first act, you are showing a kid, then in the
second act the kid has become a mature person and he is married and the third act
he is old. This is against the unity of time, according to Aristotle.
 Unity of action: means that everything should be unified that means beginning to
middle to end, a play should have a logical sequence, plus he's saying that play
should concern the action of one man, That means a play should not follow
subplots. Means that only one person should be the commander and the play
should revolve around that person only.
 Unity of place - According to Aristotle A play should cover a single physical
space and should not attempt to compress geography nor should the stage
represent more than one place, That means he's saying that suppose in the first
Act ,you are showing London. Now, in the second act, you show Delhi . now ,
According to Aristotle, people in the audience, ,says that it is not believable.
 Determinate structure:
 The plot should have a sequel of cause and effect.
 Determinate structure means that if you remove one part of the plot, the entire
tragedy will be disjointed. That means- basically if you remove one part of the
plot the entire plot will not be understandable to the audience. This means that
each and every scene should be placed only when it has a direct link to the plot.
 Universality: Means, it is necessary that a given character, in a play, should behave
and the player should run in such a manner that people would be able to connect to
for. example, the way A character is behaving in a plot should be in accordance with
how most human beings would react in a situation, according to the law of necessity.
 For Example: If you are showing a mother and the son is dead, And Now, if you're
showing that the mother is not crying, this is not going to make a good plot.
 Three parts of plots:
 “Astonishment”, Anagnorisis, Peripeteia
 Astonishment- Tragedy is not concerned with depiction of just any action, but of actions,
which inspire pity in the reader or audience. pity means you feel bad.
 Anagnorisis: It also means Recognition.
 Anagnorisis means moments of discovery. when the character gets to know about
some important fact, It means change from ignorance to knowledge. For example, in
the play Oedipus Rex, when Oedipu actually know that he killed his father, that is
the moment of discovery, when he discovers the truth, that is called Anagnorisis .
 Peripeteia- means reversal of situation.
 It occurs when an action which is aiming to accomplish a certain goal, actually
accomplishes the opposite goal. , so आप करना कुछ चाहते है और हो कुछ और
जाता है , for example, if a character is attempting to save his friend by cutting him
 11

free from the ropes that are binding his hands, and we get to know as an audience
that he accidentally cuts the wrist of his friend and kills him.
 This is going to be a reversal of situation. . And then तीनो की वजह से what happens
is that what we call as “Catharsis.” Catharsis means, which inspire pity and fear in
the audience.
 Catharsis actually means purification.
 Two types of plots Simple plot and Complex plot.
 Simple plots are in which there is no Anagnorisis and no Peripeteia (reversal of
fortune).
 A complex plot is one which has Anagnorisis and Peripeteia.
 Anagnorisis means moment of discovery,
 Peripeteia means reversal of situation, he's trying to help somebody but he
accomplishes the opposite goal.
 “Character”
 Five qualities of a good tragic hero
 Tragic hero must have high status in society.
 characters should belong to wealthy and prominent families.
 Hero must be good.
 Hero must be good, But that doesn't mean that the hero will be perfect. That leads us
to the third characteristics which is a “Hamartia”.
 Hamartia-
 Hamartia means, that the main character should be good, but he should not be perfect.
 Characters should be realistic, he should be true to life
 A characters should be in alignment with the background, his sex, his education, his
Status, the characters should be appear realistic.
 He should be consistent.
 Consistency means that whatever he has done in the first act, the same nature he
should follow in, it should not happen as if he becomes a totally new person, in the
next act.
 “Diction”
 In order to understand diction, Aristotle says that we need to understand the structure of
tragedy, tragedy consists of four things:
 Prologue -Prologue is a dialogue, which precedes the entry of the course. Basically,
prologue वो होता है जब कोई शु रु मे आ कर के ,जो main theme है उसके बारे मे
बताता है , that is prologue
 Chorus or Choric song. -chorus is basically a group of people, who used to come,
when the drama began and they used to comment upon the actions of the narrator.
 Strophe- when the song starts in the first stanza, they will move from one direction to
the other, , they move from right to left in “Strophe”.
 Antistrophe: Now, they move from left to right in Antistrophe
 “Epode”- When, they come in the centre, and they will stand still and sing the song.
 “Episode”- Episodes are different - different acts or scene, you can say.
 “Exode”- Exode happens when the chorus has exited the stage and when the drama
has ended.

Block -3 Romantic Criticism

 Factor which lead us to romantic movement-
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 Industrialization and urbanization. - Many people migrated to city in search of job means they
migrated from the village or nature.
 The backdrop of neoclassical - new classical follows the rules. That's why William
Wordsworth and Coleridge started a movement against to the neoclassical. They say that we
should move closer to the nature and everyday life of a man.
 French Revolution- Romantic moment inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution.
French Revolution talks about liberty and individualism or freedom.
 Difference between Romantic and romantic-
 Romanticism means Romantic Movement which was started by Wordsworth Coleridge and
etc.
 romantic- refers to the Love and romantic ideas that we share on Valentine.
William Wordsworth as A Romantic Critic

1) Wordsworth was born in 1770 in Cockermouth, near the Lake District. Lake District is
a beautiful place which was surrounded by nature.
2) He has four siblings, but then he shared a very, very close bond with his sister, Dorothy.
3) His uncle sent him to a school, which is called Hawkshead Grammar School.
Hawkshead, which is a village near Lake District.
4) After taking education from the grammar school, he went to Cambridge college, and there
he repels the competitive pressure, he left college saying that- I was not for that hour,
Nor for that place.
5) Wordsworth said- I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear. the natural scenery
of the English lakes terrified him, as well as nurtured him.
6) When he came to England, he started to live with a sister Dorothy, and he also became
friends with a fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, both of them together, started
writing poetry and they tried to change the course of the English poetry. they started
working on the most famous collection, which marks the beginning of romantic literature
that is “Lyrical Ballads.”
Works
1) ” Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems”(1798)
2) "We are Seven".
3) “Idiot Boy.”
4) “Tintern Abbey, Lines Written (or Composed) a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,
on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798,”.
5) “Poems, in Two Volumes”(1807) poetry Collections
a) Poems included
i) “Daffodils”
ii) "Ode: Intimations of Immortality"
iii) "The Solitary Reaper"
iv) "London, 1802"
v) "The World Is Too Much with Us"
6) "Resolution and Independence." (“leech-gatherer”).
7) “Recluse”
8) “Prelude”
9) “Lucy Poems.”
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10) ” Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems”(1798)

a) It is a collection of poems, which have poems written both by William Wordsworth
and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
b) This is considered to have marked the beginning of the English romantic movement in
literature.
c) The first poem was contributed by Coleridge and the poem was Rime of the
Ancient Mariner. And the last poem of this collection is Tintern Abbey, written by
Wordsworth.
d) Main themes of Lyrical Ballads is the return to the original state of nature, in
which people live A purer and a more innocent existence.
e) In the Lyrical Ballads that he say a beautiful line that “Poetry is the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in
tranquility”, that means— whenever you look at a site or you go through a situation,
whenever you have an overflow feeling, after a few days or after a span of time has
passed. If you look back at that Episode, and you try to write a poetry on it.
f) First volume of “Lyrical Ballads” published without preface in 1798.
g) Second volume of lyrical Ballad published in 1801 which had a preface. And his preface he
talks about his views regarding poetry.
h) This preface to lyrical ballads is considered as the romantic manifesto of poetry and Society.
It helps us in understanding romantic literary thought which originated in 18 century.
i) Preface to lyrical ballads has only one proper ballad which is "Rime of Ancient Mariner"
j) In this work Wordsworth admires nature or countryside. He says nature allowed people to
be touched be on their soul.

 Views of the Wordsworth about poem in this work "preface to Ballad".

 Wordsworth says “poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling which is collected in
tranquility”. Means we should write the poem when our feelings are tranquility.
 Poem is the result of long and deep reflection.
 first you have to go and feel the beauty of ordinary life and feel the spontaneous overflow of
powerful feeling after feeling the emotion you have to put yourself income and peace state it
after that use your imagination re-collect your emotional memories and then you should write
poem.
 Who is good poet according to Wordsworth?
 simply a poet is a man speaking to men.
 A good poet has a comprehensive soul.
 Stage of writing poetry as mentioned by Wordsworth in preface to lyrical ballads
 Poetry writing takes 4 step:
 1. Observation- in first stage of poetry the poet only observe the things
 2. Re collection-. The poet contemplate about the observation in this stage tranquility is must
tranquility means peace.
 3. Filtering- when poet clears his mind from non-essential things.
 4.  Express imagination- Imaginative excitement of emotion which was experienced earlier-
now poet has to imagination and put his imagination into to the work.
  Subject matter or content of the good poem
 Poetry can capture any subject according to the interest of the mind. 
 We need to make poetry ordinary. Extra ordinary poetry is not good according to
Wordsworth.
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 Wordsworth says use ordinary things and make them extra ordinary.

 Wordsworth says that the purpose of writing lyrical Ballad is to talk about the things which
are related to our daily life.
 Diction (A style of a poem) Wordsworth view about the diction-
 Diction is basically means -the use of language.
 More specifically it is choice of words, phrases, sentence structure, figure of speech that we
used in poem.
 Wordsworth argue that the decision of the poetry and the prose is the same. Whether you use
prose or whether you use poetry you have to use the same kind of language.
 He also criticized the neoclassical writer like Pope, Dryden for using the natural language.
You can understand the poetry of Wordsworth but you cannot understand the poetry of
Alexander Pope because he used very difficult language or we can say it is a natural language.
 Passion (emotions) should derive your decision not ornament. Don’t try to ornament your
poetry. For example we like that song the diction (words) of which we can understand.
 Humble and day-to-day life language gives the poetic truth and poetic beauty.
 Wordsworth says that "I am writing this Preface to tell you that my collections are an
experiment in the language usage. He wanted to find out that is the conversation language
actually used effectively in poetry.
 He believes that the best of the poem can be written in common language in natural
language of a common man.
 He says that poetry and prose are same. The only difference in prose and poetry is meter.
 Function of poetry according to Wordsworth-
 Function of the poetry is not to just provide pleasure. As a poet you have to check out whether
your poetry is teaching a moral philosophical values lesson to the people who are reading
your poem.
 The aim of the poetry is to provide universal truth.
 Wordsworth view on poetic truth and poetic beauty
 According to Wordsworth poetic truth is much higher than truth of philosophy. Poem can
give you the knowledge of the truth.
 poetry is the most philosophical of all writing according to Wordsworth. Nothing is above the
poetry.
 He says that use simple language and talk about high thinking.
 Matthew Arnold (the great Victorian poet and critic) called Wordsworth "greatest poet after
Shakespeare and Milton."
 William Wordsworth criticizes Milton and he says" Milton's soul is like a star".
 William Wordsworth says in lyrical Ballad a beautiful statement- "Poetry is the breath and
finer spirit of all knowledge"

196.-Coleridge As A Critic
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in 1772, and he died in the year 1834. he read Bible at
the age of five, and he was an ardent reader, he used to read Arabian Nights as a child.
 He also joined British army called “Royal Dragoon”, with a fake name.
 He met Charles Lamb in London at Charity school, and Charles Lamb has written an
essay with the title “Christ's Hospital Five and 30 years Ago”. This is the title of the
essay in which he has talked about his meeting with Coleridge.
 After completing his education at the charity school, he went to Cambridge. There he
befriended Robert Southey. And finally, they both decided that they are going to create
and utopian society named -Pantisocracy.
 15

 Pantisocracy is a utopian society where everyone will be equal in status in Rome.

 After completing his education at Cambridge, he went to Germany and then to Rome. He
also started a paper called—“Friend”, A paper devoted to truth and liberty.
 Later, when he came back from Germany, he befriended William Wordsworth, with
whom he started “Lyrical Ballads”. Lyrical Ballads somewhere marked the beginning of
the romantic age.
 Coleridge shared four poems in “Lyrical Ballads” namely, “Rime of Ancient
Mariner”, “The Foster-Mother's Tale,” Nightingale, and “Dungeon.”
 Towards the end of his life, he suffered from many diseases and he had to take opium as
painkiller in order to reduce the pain that he suffered due to so many diseases. He also
suffered from bipolar disorder, which is a psychological disorder where a person has
a lot of mood swings, so, he was an opium addict and also he suffered from bipolar
disorder.
Works of Coleridge—

1. “Eolian Harp” (1795)

2. “Frost at Midnight.” (1798)
3. "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison"(1798)
4. “Nightingale: A Conversation Poem.”(1798)
5. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (originally "The Rime of the Ancyent
Marinere") (1798)
6. “Christabel (poem)”
7. "Dejection: An Ode" (1802).
8. “To William Wordsworth” (1807)
9. “Kubla Khan” (1816)
10. “Remorse”(1797)

 Influence on Coleridge
 There are basically three main people who influenced Coleridge:- William Wordsworth,
Hartley, German transcendental thinker 
    “Biographia Literaria”—
 A combination of biography, aesthetics, and philosophy.
 It has been divided into several parts out of which in the first part, he talks about
Coleridge’s friendship with Southey and Wordsworth.
 In the second part, he is attacking Wordsworth’s “Preface to Lyrical Ballads”. He says
that I have a different theory of poetry.
 In the 13th part of the book, he talks about distinction between imagination and
Fancy.
 Biography Literaria talk about his life. So, basically it is an autobiography of Coleridge.
 - This work is regarded as one of the most critical work related to literary criticism. Because
in this work he talked about the elements of good writing.
 Coleridge criticizes the views of William Wordsworth about poetry.
 Coleridge in the beginning claims that credits for the theory which Wordsworth wrote in
preface are mutual. Coleridge says" they were half the child of his brain".   Is the theories
 16

which were written by Wordsworth are actually written by Coleridge and Wordsworth
together.
 But later Coleridge criticize the theory of Wordsworth in “Biographia Literaria”
 In this work he talked about five concepts-
 1. Wordsworth says that the poem subject should be rustic. Means- Wordsworth want to
say that we should talk about the ruler life and talk about nature. Coleridge says that
Wordsworth characters are not from rural life.
 2. According to Wordsworth best part of language comes by interacting with nature but
Coleridge says that actually it comes when mind dwells on noble thoughts and ideas of
mastermind of humanity. Coleridge says that if we read good works then we learn
beautiful language. Language cannot be learn by interacting with nature.
 3.  Wordsworth says that best poem use is the language of men. But Coleridge says that
every man's language varies to extent of his knowledge. According to the activity he
indulges in.
 4.  Wordsworth says that the language of prose and poem is same. Coleridge says that
there are lots of difference between the language of prose and poem. Language of poetry
is differing from language of prose in the same way in which the language of prose differs
from language of conversation. Language is not only the matter of words it is actually the
arrangement of words.
 Coleridge theory of primary and secondary imagination.
 In the chapter 13 of Biographia Literaria Coleridge introduces the distinction between two
kinds of imagination- 1. Primary imagination 2. Secondary imagination
 1. Primary imagination:  
 it is a faculty by which all perceive the world around us. For example, if you see a dress
in a shop and then you go to the tailor and say that I saw a dress in a shop I want to make
you to create a dress like in the shop so this kind of imagination. You are imagining the
dress so this is called primary imagination
 "primary imagination is repetition in the finite mind of internal act of creation in
The Infinite I am".  Means when you create image in mind this is called primary
imagination.
 2. Secondary imagination
 which makes artistic creation possible. We can image anything but we cannot artistically
represent it so we can create primary imagination. Secondary imagination makes
artistic creation possible. It requires an effort of the will and consciousness. Means when
you consciously imagination something it is called secondary imagination.
 Secondary imagination is a poetic vision.
 Primary imagination is universal but secondary imagination is only enjoyed by the artist.
 Imagination and fancy
 Coleridge talks about imagination and fancy in Biographia Literaria.
 Fancy is inferior to imagination. Fancy is a very mechanical thing very passive thing but
imagination is very creative thing. We all can fantasize but only poet can imagination.
 Distinction between poetic genius and poetic talent
 Characteristic of poetic genius and poetic talent-  
 According to Coleridge Poetic genius is in born. You are born with it. On the other hand
poetic talent is acquired or cultivated. 
 Depths of thought and emotion- the poet of poetic genius have deep power of thought
and emotion.
 Coleridge coined the term named "willing suspension of disbelief"
 17

 Willing suspension of disbelief" He said that in drama and in poetry willing suspension

of disbelief" is important. He is saying exactly this in Biographia Literaria that willing
suspension of disbelief" for the moment constitutes politic faith.
 Willing suspension of disbelief" means for example we go to theatre and watch Rohit
Shetty movie. Where car in jumping in the air which cannot happen in real life. But still
we still in the theatre and we willingly.  Suspend power disbelief. Disbelieve means when
you are thinking this thing cannot happen.
 Lecture on Shakespeare
 Coleridge has also written a work on a practical criticism name- his lecture on Shakespeare
 This lecture is place between 1808 to 1819. In this lecture he talks about the plays of
Shakespeare.
 He says I admire King Lear, Antonio and Cleopatra but I hate measure for measure.

198.- Percy Bysshe Shelley

 Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 -1822).

 he went to the Eton college and he was bullied throughout his childhood. And due to the
bully experience that he had, he became a rebel with a human society.
 He went to go Oxford college, but then he never attended the college.
 He wrote a pamphlet called “Necessity of Atheism ”. Atheism means people who don't
believe in God. So he said that it's necessary to be an atheist, and this pamphlet was the
reason of his expulsion from college. He was expelled from the college and he eloped to
Scotland later in his life. There he got influenced by William Godwin. and his daughter
was Mary Godwin, he was so inspired by the ideas of democracy and freedom, which he
studied under William Godwin that he eloped with his William Gordon's daughter, Mary
Shelley, and he married her later in the life.
 First he eloped with Mary Shelley, he did not marry her. But later when his first wife
Harriet died, he married Mary Shelly.
 Towards the end of his life, he went to Italy, where he died due to drowning at the age of
29. So, he died at the age of 29.
 Byron has said for Shelley that--- “Shelley is the most gentle, the most amiable, and
the least worldly-minded person I ever met,". This is a statement by Byron.
 Works-----------
 "Necessity of Atheism" (1811)
 “An Address, to the Irish People ”(1812)
 “Queen Mab (poem)”
 “Alastor” (1815)
 “Cenci, A Tragedy, in Five Acts.” (1819)
 “Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation” (1819)
 “Masque of Anarchy” (1819)
 "Ode to the West Wind"(1819)
 “Ozymandias”(1819)
 “Prometheus Unbound”(1820)
 "To a Skylark" (1820)
 "A Defence of Poetry" (1821).
 18

 It is an essay, and it contains Shelly's famous line--- "poets are the unacknowledged
legislators of the world"..
 A Defence of Poetry written in 1821 in response to “Thomas Love Peacock: The
Four Ages of Poetry”, but published in 1840.
 Shelley begins his essay by distinguishing between Reason and Imagination.
 He defines reason as logical thought and imagination as perception.
 He states that poetry is the ‘expression of imagination’ of the poet.
 As per Shelley, “A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth...
While, Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.”
 As per Shelley, “The poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”.
 Gerald Lucas states that Shelley believes poetry to be divine since it “provides the
seed for all of humanity’s creation: religions, institutions, politics, philosophy and
technology.”
 As per him, poetry’s primary purpose is to focus on revealing the beauty in the world
that is apparently hidden from people.

New Criticism Block-4

 Introduction to new criticism
 New criticism basically says that rather than worrying about the author background you need
to evaluate the text written in the book.
 New criticism appeared in 1929.
 Before new criticism, old criticism includes the historical background of the poem and the
historical background of the poet or writer.
 Those critics who do not focus on author background or historical background are called new
critics.
 I .A. Richards was the first person who used the term practical criticism.
 I .A. Richards give the poem to the student without telling the historical background of
the poem or the history of the poet. And told them to analyze this. Then the next day the
student analyzes the text with different manner. He says that the student is able to analyze
in different manner because students have no biographical information about the writer or
historical background.
 They were able to critique or analyze the work in different manner because their
prospective was objective. Objective means they had no other prejudice or pre-
considered notion.
 So actually it's I.A. Richards who started the new criticism but he was not the first person
who gave the term new criticism. He gave the term practical criticism. Practical criticism
means when you are analyzing a work without knowing the historical background.
 The term New Criticism is first used by J. E. Springam. J. E. Springam is used this word
"new criticism" when he was giving a lecture.
 Later a man name called John Crowe Ransom. John Crowe Ransom was an English
Professor .He publishes a work New criticism(1941). And the title of this work new criticism
becomes the title for this entire movement.
 New critics only focus on text.
 19

 New criticism is very much influenced by Matthew Arnold and T S Eliot. Matthew Arnold
says that a person or writer should be objective when he was writing text.
 There are two important terms which are associated with new criticism –
 Auto Telic Text-every text is self-contained and independent of the author genre or historical
context. Means you need not any other information to analyze the Text.
 New criticism you need to follow auto telic text.
 Close reading-deep analysis of how a literary text works. When you read the text deeply then
you will analyze the rhythm, rhyme, the part of speech which are used in the text very closely.
 The following are the major critics of New Criticism - I. A. Richards, T. S. Eliot, F. R. Leavis,
J. C. Ransom, Cleanth Brooks, W. K. Wimsatt, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren.
 Important Texts of New Criticism:
 Tradition and the Individual Talent - T. S. Elliot
 Hamlet and His Problems - T. S. Elliot
 The Intentional Fallacy - Wimsatt & Beardsley
 The Affective Fallacy - Wimsatt & Beardsley.
 I.A. Richards
 Four books written by I.A. Richards
 Meaning off meaning- this work is combined written by I. A. Richards and C.K. Odgen.
 Principle of literary criticism.
 Practical criticism-(subtitle- study of literary judgments)
 Philosophy of Rhetoric
 Concepts given by I.A. Richards
 It was I.A. Richards who first used the term “Practical criticism”.
 Actually, he makes an experiment as a Cambridge teacher. He gives a poem to the student
without giving the information of author and historical background of that poem. He says
that all the student come with different interpretation. Because students have no idea
about the author and his historical background. That is why some where found he was
becomes the founder of new criticism.
  I.A. Richards gave two concepts-1.Four Kind of meaning 2. Two uses of language
 1. Four Kind of meaning - I.A. Richards begin with talk about the four kinds of meaning
in his work “practical criticism". He says that the first thing come into the mind when we
are judging a work is what is the meaning? Four kinds of meaning can be came from the
word –
 1. Sense-what we speak to convey to our listener. What material we are going to
share with the audience.
 2. Feelings -attitude towards subject what we convey is known as feelings.
 3. Tone-the speaker has an attitude towards the listener also. We choose a different
word according to the listener.
  4. Intention. -the speaker speaks for a purpose which modifies his entire speech. For
example politician has a purpose so they modify their speech according to the
purpose. If you want to understand the meaning we have to understand the intention
also.
 We have to understand all these four kind of meaning if we want to analyze the work.
 2. Two uses of language this concept is talk in the book “principle of literary criticism".
 According to Richards language can be used in two ways-
 1. Scientific use of language -in scientific use of language we are usually talked about
facts. Scientific language refers to the real world and makes statement either true or false.
 2. Emotive use of language-this type of language is used in poetry and literary work.
Emotive language what to produce some emotional effects and certain attitudes into those
whom it is addressed.
 20

 T.S. Eliot
 He called himself as a classiest in Literature. That means his follow classical ideas.
 According to Eliot a critic must obey the objective standard in order to analyze any work.
 Objective standard means a person should do away from the prejudice and the notion which
we have in our mind when   we are reading new work.
 Works of TS Eliot-
 Metaphysical poets (essay) - in this work he talked about the metaphysical School of poetry.
In this work he also talks about unification of sensibility and dissociation of sensibility.
 Introduction of metaphysical poets-
 This metaphysical poet (essay) is actually a critical document telling us about the value in
significance of metaphysical poet.
 In this essay TS Eliot throw-in new light on metaphysical poet. They are not fantastic but they
are a mature poet.
 Tradition and individual talent
 This work is first published in literary magazine named “Egoist”. Today this "Egoist" is most
famous periodical in England.
 Later tradition of individual talent was published in TS Eliot first book of Criticism which is
known as “sacred woods"
 In this particular work T S Eliot says that "criticism is as invertible as breathing", he has
divided the essay in three parts. 
 Hamlet and his problems (Essay)
 In this essay he gives the concept of objective correlative.  
 First objective correlative term is used by an American poet name Washington Allston. Later
this term is redefined by TS Eliot.
 According to T S Eliot objective correlative means "refers to an image an action or a
situation usually a Pattern of image action and situation that somehow evokes a particular
emotion from The Reader without stating what that emotion should be".
 Means and objects in the story   that serves a symbolic purpose. In Virginia Woolf to the
Lighthouse the Lighthouse is the objective correlative.
 Eliot says that Hamlet is the Monalisa of literature.

 Cleanth -Brooks
 He served as a cultural attaché (representative of American embassy) at the American Embassy in
London
 Works written by Cleanth Brooks-
 Well wrought urn (subtitle- studies in the structure of poetry) - title "Well wrought urn" is
taken from John Donne poem's canonization.
 Understanding poetry.
 Modern poetry and the tradition.
 Language of paradox.
 Keats sylvan historian: history without footnotes. - In this work we analyze the poem ode to
Grecian urn.
 Two key concept given by Cleanth Brooks-
 21

 Paradox -this concept is talk in the book “language of paradox.” Brooks says that Paradox
is language appropriate and inevitable to poetry. Paradox means when two opposite
meaning are being talk about.
 He says that paradox makes poem beautiful.
 Heresy of paraphrase:
 Paraphrase means when you summaries something. For example making hundred lines story
into 10 lines.
 Heresy means when something which is not good. Heresy means when you are committing an
error.
 So, whenever we are paraphrasing according to Cleanth Brooke then it is a heresy. It is an
error which we are doing. And this concept heresy of paraphrase is talk in the work of
Cleanth Brooks work -well wrought urn.
 In this concept he says that heresy of paraphrase is not important. Because in summarizing the
work the value of the work has lost.

586-F.R. Leavis
 He was associated with the American school of New Critic.
 He accepts the idea of new critics but there are lots of differences in his views about
new criticism. He said that poem is not self contained or it is not self sufficient.
 F .R. Leavis says that we cannot distinguish a poem or a work from the society culture and
tradition.
 He founded the journal which is called scrutiny.   
 Work of F.R. Leavis-
 The Great tradition-
 In this work he talked about some great English novelist. The form and novelist he slept in the
beginning are Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad. At the end of
this work he also included DH Lawrence.
 He says that if we follow great writers then we are following the great tradition. According to
him Jane Austen was the centre of English tradition.
 He says that If we want to analyze any work then we should compare that work with the
great writer then we will be able to follow the great tradition and analyze the work
perfectly.
 The wasteland (critical essay) - in this work he tells that how to read the work of wasteland
written by TS Eliot.
590-John Crowe Ransom
 He was associated with new criticism.
 John Crowe Ransom says that criticism should be more scientific.
 Works-
 Poems about God (volumes of poetry)
 This volume of poetry is praised by Robert Grace and Robert Frost
 New criticism (volume of essay)
 The term new criticism was first coined and used by John Crowe Ransom.
 Poetry: a note on ontology
 John Crowe Ransom talks about three different kinds of poem-
 Physical poem- physical poetry uses physical things and objects. This poem represents
things not ideas. Physical poetry is pure poetry. It is real poetry because we use real
objects.
 22

 Platonic poem- platonic poetry deals with ideas not with objects. Keats' Grecian urn is an
example of platonic poetry. It is an abstract kind of poetry
 Metaphysical poem- when we joint physical poetry and platonic poetry then we can
create a metaphysical poetry. So in metaphysical poetry there is a fusion of reason and
feelings. Reason comes from physical poetry and feelings come from platonic poetry
 587-Wimsatt Beardsley
 Wimsatt and Beardsley are two people
 Works of Wimsatt - Beardsley-
 Verbal icons: Studies in the meaning of poetry-
 in this book that talk about two important concepts- intentional fallacy and affective fallacy
  Intentional fallacy- fallacy means false believe.  Intentional fallacy means when we
identifying the intention of the writer .it is a kind of mistake that people do by deriving the
meaning of text in term of author's intention (feelings and emotions) or from his
Biography and his situation. We cannot judge the intention of a writer.
 Intentional fallacy is based upon author. We are trying to find the intention of the author
 Affective fallacy- it is a term which means suppose error of judgments or evaluation on the
basis of its emotional effects on reader.
 Affective fallacy we are trying to know the emotional effect on The Reader.
 It is basically a supposed error when we are judging or evaluating a text. Because we try
to find what kind of emotional effective had On the Reader.

Block -5 Marxist view Of Literature

 Introduction to literary theory
 Criticism is reviewing something. Literary criticism means analyzing a piece of literature and
saying what is good and what is bad in literature
 Literary critics talk about how to write a good literature.
 Literary Theory-literary theory is the lenses which are used by people in order to analyze a
literary work.
 If I wear Marxism glasses and look the work written by Charles Dickens’- Oliver Twist. Then I
will be focusing on how people are treated by the society. Because Marxism focus on the rise of
working class. People are treated on the race Gender and class.
 If I wear feminist glasses and then analyze the work then I will look at gender relation.

 Introduction to Marxism
  Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, these are the two German writer who gave the theory of
Marxism. 
 23

 Background of Marxism
 Marxism came during the industrialization period. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels opposed the
industrialized society. Because for them industrial revolution was to be blame for the
oppression of the working-class poor people.
 Because of industrialization poor people are suffering and rich people are getting richer day by
day.
 Karl Marx and Friedrich think that the only way we can solve this problem of social class rich
and poor by abolishing private property. Abolishing private property is known as Marxism.
 If you want to attend the class (rich and poor) conflict to you have to abolish private property.
 This concept is talk to by Karl Marx in his work "communist manifesto." Communist
manifesto work is written by Karl Marx and in this work Karl Marx give his views about
Marxism. Marxism is an important topic in sociology. Sociology means scientific study of society
and social behavior.
 Marxism is focused on the idea of Social class. Social class means a group of people who are
categories by the role they are playing in the economy and their relationship with the production
of goods. That is called class.
 According to Marxism there are two major classes-
 1. Bourgeoisie (upper class people) -these are the people who own the means of production.
Means of production means how products are manufactured in the society. Bourgeoisie
(upper class people) are business manager, factory in charge. For example -.TATA,
AMBANI ETC

 2.Proletariat (working class)-these people are labours who are producing the goods.
 These are the two major class exist in the society according to Marxist.
 Now we are going to talk about base and super structure according to Karl Marks there are two
Main forces in the society. One is BASE and second is Superstructure.
 BASE- base is a society consists of means of production. The way how you produce by using
all tools. like technology, machines, factories, land etc. 
 For example: there is a society. In the society there are lots of things like government,
transportation means, Educational Institutes, hospitals, religions, endless number of factories,
endless number of people, endless number of resources.
 All the people Bourgeoisie (upper class people) and .Proletariat (working class) are
included in BASE.
 All the human beings and all the resources which might be required in order to produce anything
are a part of base.
 Superstructure. - It includes culture; ideology .That means living all the people in India they are
going to have certain values and believes these forms the superstructure. Then there are lots of
institutes in the society- education, religion, media, family, Government and government
institution. All these things fall under superstructure. Whatever you thinking, the way you are
expressing. what you behave all these are form of superstructure. For example in India weather is
common to smoke in Street in India, or to make love in public place is normal or not. These all
are believe and these are the part of the superstructure.
 So, Superstructure according to Karl Marx emerges out of the base. It expresses the interest
of the ruling class. (Bourgeoisie (upper class people) who control the base).
 Superstructure is reflecting the interest of the ruling class. Superstructure is what we know is an
ideology. If you look at Indian society we have certain ideology and this ideology reflects the
views and taste of the higher class. You can look any advertisement each ad is actually
targeting us and making us believe by buying that product we can go and become the
member of the higher class.
 Superstructure is used as the instrument of the power by the dominant class to convince
working class that this is how things are.
 24

 All the believes in superstructure convince us that we need to go by the values and that is
how the society needs to be Run. For example in World War 2 women are going to factories for
work because male are in the war. Women are supposed to be going out and earn money for their
family. After the war and did America face the difficult cultural crisis. Women who want to go to
the factories but men are trying to make them (women) home maker. So to change the scenario in
number of text, a number of magazines a number of magazines books television, Shows
advertisements ,shows closing stores ,Opera, together all the superstructure together try to
convince women that their happiness would come through returning to their home as The Home
maker. So you can see by the means of all superstructure all of them constant emphasis
femininity. And superstructure believes that women work is to take care of the family. This is
house superstructure controlling the base. All the masculine people of the world males of America
are controlling the base.
 So super structure is going to reflect their views and their taste and superstructure is an
instrument by which dominant people to convince other people that this is how things
should be. And it naturalizes the unequal power of the nation.
 If there is an unequal power between two social class Super structures is going to naturalize that
class. And this is superstructure and base are the fundamental concept of Marxism.
 According to economic system there are two type of society-
 Capitalist society-
 Communist society
 Capitalist society -capitalist society is an economic system in which the means of production
(resources land, Technology, machines, factories) all these things are privately owned.
And it is operated for a profit.
 In this system the economy and the use of resources are controlled by individual business
owner and private companies and that is why capitalist system is known as free market
Enterprise. Free market enterprise means when there is no intervention of the
government
 In the capitalist society government play a very minor role only to collect taxes from the private
companies or business... Government has no other role in the business.
 Capitalist is based on the idea of Laissez faire. Laissez fairies an French term which means "let
them do" or "leave alone."
 In capitalist society individual are given the freedom to operate their business as they want and
manage their own income.
 All the upper-class people in capitalist society tried to earn more and more money and this can
exploit the lower class for labor people.
 Through this system poor people will become poor day by day and rich become richer day
by day.
 And Karl - Marx is against this capitalist society. He says that we should go to the communist
society.
 Communist society is an economic system that Fox is on the betterment of the whole rather than
an advancement of the individual. In this system everyone should be benefited.
 He says that resources are limited and if people start having private property. It creates inequality
between classes. Communist society says that if there is no private property then everyone will
become equal. In communist society everyone will working and the profit distributed equally
among the people. And in communist society government will distribute profit equally among all
the people.
 In communist system government will taking care of every one. Aristotle work's republic and
Thomas more’s work utopia is an example of Communist society.
 Karl Marx and Fridrich Engles
  The work written by Karl Marx and Engles together is -
 25

 1. Communist manifesto.
 2. Das capital
 So these two works (communist manifesto, Das capital) written by Karl Marx and
Engels together.
  Fredrich Engles also wrote another work namely "condition of working class in
England".
 Now we are looking the major concepts given by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels-
 1. Views about capitalism-  
 In capitalism system bourgeoisie people try to oppress the lower class people. On the
other hand if the mode of production is under the control of government, in case of
Communist society, where there will be no difference between rich and poor and
everyone is going to live happily together. Karl Marx detests the practice of
capitalism. Because capitalism allowed rich to become more rich and poor to become
poorer.
 According to them if there is a Perfect World, in perfect world class does not exist,
everyone would be equal.
 2. Conflict theory
 Karl Marx says that if you look into the history you find that it in the entire history every
time there was a conflict between two social classes.
 This conflict theory says that in the entire history every time we find that if there are 2
social classes there always is a conflict between each other. To remove this conflict we
have to stand against the upper class.
 According to conflict theory Karl Marx is that one day the worker become so agitated
with the factory honour that it would rise up and overthrow the dominance class. And this
is known as workers revolution.
 Karl Marx and Friedrich say that this Revolution will going to happen where proletariat
raised their voice against the bourgeoisie people and overthrow capitalism.
 Removing the private property we can remove the social class system and capitalism.
 So conflict theory says that in the history whenever one dominant class is oppressing
the other class. The other class Revolt and rise up against the dominant class. And
dominant class was removed by the lower class. And this happen in every society. 
 Now we are going to discuss the term 
 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels coined the term class consciousness.-
 Class consciousness. --Class consciousness means a subjective awareness of all the
people belonging to the proletariat that they have all common interest and they need to
collectively come together and bring social change. For example, Indian National
Movement. When the working class people look at themselves as individual. Like I
and me. When you say I am exploited by my boss. Rather than say we are exploited.
It is called false consciousness.
 When working class are looking only for them individually. It is called false
consciousness. Whereas class consciousness when all working people unite together
under common interest and decide to get common interest for social change. Class
consciousness is very important.
  Alienation:  According to Karl Marx -alienation is seems as the worker become more
and more distanced or isolated from their work. And this result the feelings of
powerlessness.
 26

 When worker produces the works, they love their work. They feel that they are playing an
important role. So work gives satisfaction to the workers.
 But in the capitalist society works become a misery. Because a person feels that how
much he works he never going to get credit. The main upper class people get the credit.
For example in the movie Sui Dhaga. They don't get the credit of their work. That why
worker no longer enjoy the work. They simply work in order to earn money. This is
called alienation.
 When the worker become isolated from their work. And this gives them powerlessness.
Karl Marx says that in order to remove the alienation we need to end capitalism.

Block-7 Feminism
 27

 Feminist Criticism talks about -social, political, economic and psychological oppression of
women
 Feminist criticism started with the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s.
 Charles Fourier coined the term Feminism in 1837.
 Feminist critic believed that all of literature is centred on men and their superiority.
 Feminist criticism can be done by either male or female author.
 Four Waves of Criticism:
1) First Wave Feminism (1700’s to early 1900’s)
a. The first wave of feminism grew out of the mid-19th century. Writers like Mary
Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792), highlighted the
inequalities between the sexes.
b. In this wave, female writers imitated the established male form of writing.
2) Second Wave Feminism (1960’s to 1980’s)
a. They rebelled against the male writers.
b. Writers like Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex, 1972) and Eline Showalter
established the groundwork for the dissemination of feminist theories.
3) Third Wave Feminism (1990’s – 2007)
a. It resisted the perceived essentialist ideologies and a white, heterosexual, middle class focus
of second wave feminism.
b. In this phase women writers undergone a self-discovery and tried for a literature of their own
and stopped imitating.
4) Fourth Wave of Feminism (2008 – Present)
a. Jennifer Baumgardner identifies fourth wave feminism as starting in 2008 and continuing
into present day.
b. Kira Cochrane, author of “All the Rebel Women: The Rise of Fourth Wave of Feminism”
defines fourth wave feminism as a movement that is connected through technology.
c. Diana Diamond defines fourth wave feminism as, a movement that combines Politics,
Psychology and Spirituality. It is often associated with online feminism using Facebook,
Twitter and other Social-Media.
5) Gyno criticism
a. It means criticised by females to female authors.
b. This term was coined by the Feminist Elaine Showalter in her 1979 essay “Towards a
Feminist Poetics”. It is the study of feminist literature written by a females and critics also by
female authors.
c. Gyno criticism focuses exclusively on literature written by female authors.
d. It aims to recover ‘Lost’ or ‘Neglected’ writers and to understand in its specificity women’s
construction of textual meaning.
6) Feminine, Feminist and Female Stages
a. In her book “A literature of their Own” Eline Showalter writes on English women writers.
b. Showalter described pattern and phases in the education of female tradition and divided the
period of education into three stages:-
i. (I) The Feminine Phase: This phase dates back from 1840 – 1880. During this period
women wrote in an effort to equal the intellectual achievements of the male culture.  The
distinguishing sign of this period is the male pseudonym eg: George Eliot for Mary Ann
Evan. This trend was introduced in 1840’s. This trend spread because of the inferiority
complex experienced by female writers.
 28

ii. (II) The Feminist Phase:  This phase lasted about 38 years from 1882-1920. The new
women movement got strength. Women won the right to vote. They began to use
literature to dramatize the ordeals of wrong womanhood.
iii. (III) The Female Phase:  This is the latest phase on going since 1920. Here Women
rejected both imitation and protest. Showalter considers both as signs of dependency.
 In this phase women shows more independent attitudes. They realize the place of female
experience in the process of art & literature.
 The representation of female phase such as Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf
began to think of male and female sentences.

7) Important texts of Feminist Criticism:

1. A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) – by Mary Wollstonecraft.
2. The Second Sex (1972) – by Simone de Beauvoir. De Beauvoir is the pioneer of Feminist
criticism.
3. The Female Eunuch (1970) –by Germaine Greer
4. Sexual Politics (1970) –by Kate Millet (American)

8) Womanism
a. “Womanism is to feminist as purple is to lavender”
b. Womanism is a feminist term coined by Alice Walker. It is a reaction to the realization that
‘feminism’ does not encompass the perspectives of Black women.
c. It is a feminism that is “stronger in colour”, nearly identical to ‘Black Feminism’.
d. A womanist is a woman who loves woman and appreciates woman’s culture and power as
something that is incorporated into the world as a whole.
e. Alice walker coined this term in her famous essay collection “In Search of our Mother’s
Gardens: Womanist Prose” (1983).
9) Radical Feminism
a. Radical Feminism seeks to abolish patriarchy by challenging existing social norms and
institutions rather than through a purely political process.
b. This includes challenging the notion of traditional gender roles, opposing the sexual
objectification of women and raising public awareness about such issues as rape and violence
against women.
10) Liberal Feminism
a. It’s a popular kind of feminism in USA.
b. For liberal feminist, winning equality between women and men is end goal; basically, they
want the freedom to grab a better life.
11) Materialist Feminism
a. Materialist feminists don’t buy the idea of essential women-ness. As the French feminist
thinker Monique Wittig tells in her 1981 essay “One is not born a Woman”, materialists
feminist want to track now the ‘Myth of Women’ gets played out in real life. They want to
talk about how women’s oppression is shaped by capitalism.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
1. She was born in 1759. Her childhood was not good. Her father was abusive specially to
Marry's mother.
2. At her young age, Mary tries to protect her mother from his abusive father.
 29

3.  Mary decided that marriage was a bad institution. And this idea affected throughout her life.
4.  William Godwin and Mary lives together because their views are same. They think
marriage is bad. Both shared the common hatred towards the Institution of marriage.
5. When Mary Wollstonecraft become pregnant. She ask William Godwin to marry but William
Godwin deny.
6. Sadly, Mary Wollstonecraft died at the age of 38 when she was giving a child birth.

WORKS OF MARY WOOLSTONECRAFT

1.Thoughts on the education of the daughter.

2.Mary : A fiction-only novel which was completed by Mary Wollstonecraft.

3. A Vindication of the rights of man - In order to refute Edmund Burke's Reflections on the
Revolution in France (1790) she wrote a work " A Vindication of the rights of man.". In this work she
defended the French Revolution.
4. Wrongs of woman-this work is also known as Mariya.This is the unfinished novelistic sequel to A
vindication to right of women.(  A Vindication of the rights of women का सीक्वल है  Wrongs of
woman).
Summary :-    A Vindication of the rights of women-

 1.It is a book length feminist essay which was published by Mary wollstonecraft .

2. It is a book which divided into 13 chapters.

3.French Revolution greatly inspired Mary Wollstonecraft .French Revolution specially influence
her to write on female equality. because before French Revolution even in France, there is no
equality. But after the French Revolution France think that there should be a free education system
and all  people should go and educate themselves.   An education system should be built in England.
But French Revolution only talk about the education system but it did not talked about the education
of women. That's why Mary Wollstonecraft raised a voice that women education should be
necessary.

3. .So in this work ,a Vindication of the rights of women ,she talked about how important it is to
educate girls.

3.Wollstonecraft says that a woman could not become a good mother, a good wife, good
household Managers if they are not educated.(अगर हम चाहते हैं कि बहुत ही अच्छी माताएं एक
अच्छी पत्नीबने हमारे समाज में तो हमें महिलाओं को पढ़ाना होगा)

4.She says that how can women raise their child and run a household if they are focused only on
their appearance . At the time in France and England Women are indulge in to look beautiful
and to play Piano.

5.If a women want to become equal to man then women should educate themselves . A beautiful
woman can only amused the man but she cannot become equal to man. 

6.In this work she talked about the system of national education in which boys and girls should be
educated together and education should be open to all classes.
 30

7.She says a beautiful line in this work-"I do not wish women to have power over men but over
themselves" .It means a females we do not over power man but we need to have power over
ourselves.

   Virginia Woolf 
 We are going to discuss 5 essay of Virginia Woolf which talk about feminism

1.Room of one's own.

2.Profession for women.

3.Free Guinias

4.Modern fiction

5.Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown.

1. Room of one's own – 

I. the book open with Virginia woolf asserting that in this particular book she is going to
talk about how female can start writing fiction.
II. If a woman want to write a fiction they must have a room of her own and 500 pounds
a year income. A woman can write only if she has enough money and  she has enough
privacy.
III. To illustrate this thing  she give an example.She says she was invited for all male
colleges for a lunch and she was also invited for the dinner nearby Women's College.
She says that in women college women eat very simple and dull dinner while the man
serve the rich lunch in the male college.
IV. great deal of money public as well as private has gone towards to the education of
man in contrast little or no money has been spent on the education of women. Women
are impoverished and under educated .Because of this condition women are not able
to produce good literature.
V. Then Virginia Woolf talk about her visit to the library. In the library she read all the
literature written by men for women and she found a common theme. What was the
common theme ?Common thing was given in the book which was called Mental
moral and physical inferiority of women. It was the title of a book (Mental moral
and physical inferiority of women).In this book it was concluded that England is
under the rule of patriarchy. Patriarchy means-it is the society  which is given and
controlled by men and it is such because man are considered to be superior and they
are considered to be more capable gender. 
VI. Virginia Woolf says that men constantly talk about the inferiority of women. So, that
they can maintain their own privilege social status and their control of power.
VII. If women had written any of this work she would have definitely portrait female
character in a much better light. But literature has been written by male writers so
they portrait the woman in a very very bad light.
 31

VIII. For example in Ramayan there is a chapter Sunderkand and in this chapter there is a

line “” ढोल, गंवार , शद्र
ू ,पशु ,नारी सकल ताड़ना के अधिकारी“” It means all these
four people are deserve only punishment. This is how in Indian Mythology describe
that women are inferior.And this was actually written by men. Because man wanted to
maintain their own social status and to control over power.

2) Room of one's own

I. she talked about Paradox (मिथ्याभास ,विरोधाभास). Paradox means in history women

are presented as socially limited . But in literature women are presented to be
interesting.  she explain this by telling us that history of women has been barely told.
nobody has actually ever told about women in history. she says history of women is yet
to be properly written. man is a bread earner and it is a good job. but raising children by
women is not a job.
II. .Virginia Woolf praising Jane Austen saying that she was the first writer  whose
writing we cannot see the idea that she will not be taken seriously. 
III. Towards the end of the essay she is looking out of the window at an October  day and
she sees a man and a women meeting nearby a corner and then getting in to a taxi
together. this image of togetherness leads the Virginia Woolf to her last major points.
IV. In her last major point, she argues that truly great literary mind is Androgynous.
According to Virginia Woolf the greatest writers are great because their mind are
not dominated by either masculine or feminine quality. But it is the combination of the
two qualities. Masculine mind would be dominated by brain. Feminine qualities
dominated by heart. And the good writer is who has good combination of brain and
heart and this is called Androgynous. Androgynous means free from both the sexes.
V. In this work Virginia also talk about Shakespeare's sister (fictional character) Judith
Shakespeare. Virginia says that even Shakespeare sister also was gifted with the same
qualities like Shakespeare. She has also had amazing talent to write. But she was denied
from the same opportunity is to develop this talent. Because the door was closed for the
women. That's why today we know Shakespeare but we don't know about her sister
Judith Shakespeare.

Simon De Beauvoir
 Simon De Beauvoir  we are going to talk about the second wave of feminism (The
Second Wave of feminism is usually demarcated from the 1960 s to the late 1980 s.
 It was a reaction to women returning to their roles as housewives and mothers after the
end of the Second World War. ... 38 percent of American women who worked in the
1960 s were largely limited to jobs as teachers, nurses or secretaries).

works -

1 Memoirs of dutiful daughter - it is the autobiography account of Simon-De-Beauvoir

early years and she talks about how she left her family to  attend classes in a college in Paris.
 32

2. Adieux : A Fairwell To Sartre  -this particular work is dedicated to  Jean-

Paul Sartre's life. Jean-Paul Sartre was the lover of Simon-De-Beauvoir. And both of them
had life long romantic relationship. After the death of Sartre , Simon-De-Beauvoir wrote  a
novel in which she discusses her last few years of her deceased lover Jean-Paul Sartre. 

3. Second Sex  - this is an essay which open with and question what is a woman?

She try to define what is women in this essay. She says  it is very irritating for a female
author how to write for an audience which is actually not even consider to be refer to an
audience. She says that men fundamentally oppress  women by characterizing them on the
every level as the other. She says First sex is man and the second sex is female. She says that
man has an ideology they tried to impress women by characterizing them as other and women
are define as an opposition to man .means but man is not his woman. man is opposite to
women for example if we says a woman is coward then it means man is courageous.

She says that it is important to look history mythology and see how Women are represented
there. She studied all the mythical character and all that females are  represented as not real
match for a man. He is saying that man is portrait as essential, absolute and transient whereas
female are represented as in essential incomplete. 

She said that if we look at the work of famous people for example will look at the work of
Aristotle. Aristotle himself says that female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of
quality

She says that I am frustrated when I see women willingly accepted the passive role that was
imposed upon them. And she make the crucial point that women are not born feminine but
it was shaped by thousand external processor.

She says that sex is biological thing. you can be a man or you can be a women it is a
biological thing. but gender masculine and feminine that was not a biological thing that is
depending upon the upbringing. At the initial stage when girl is born she was conditioned into
accepting passivity, dependent, repetition , introvert personality .Every force in the society
conspired to drive her of the subjectivity and to flatten her an object.

The bourgeoisie women (middle class women) perform three major function according to
Simon-De-Beauvoir

1.She is a wife,

2. she is a mother

3. she is an entertainer.

At the age of 40 women suffer from a Emptiness syndrome.For example-when the children
become young they become independent now the mother ,she don't have much to do with the
life of the children. Just like a bird's kids in the nest. Her nest become empty. When the
children go and have own their life so they have suffer from Emptiness syndrome.
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Show the Simon-de- Beauvoir  is reflecting the trauma of the old age. And when women lose
their rebirth capacity. They are also started losing their primary function. Therefore they are
losing their own identity. For a woman rebirth is a primary purpose so after 50 she loses this
primary function and she lost her identity. 

She says that women should stand for themselves if they want to create their own identity.

she says a beautiful line towards the end of essay - "one is not born but rather become a
woman" means woman is not born but rather become a woman

when a girl is born she was biological a girl.But then she conditioned to become a female.

639 Elaine Showalter 

 She was a feminist critique.

 In this video we are going to talk about the most famous essay of her- Towards a Feminist Poetics.

 5 IMPORTANT WORKS -

1. Towards a feminist poetics

2. Literature of their own

3. Inventing herself.-in this work she surveys all the feminist icons Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
Mary Wollstonecraft, Opera Wilfred, Princess Diana .And describe what they contribute in the
field of feminism

4. Female malady: women Madness and English culture - In this work she talks about female
malady. Female melody means Hysteria . Hysteria is a condition violent, mental and hesitation. When
you are in a state of frenzy. When you are appearing to be crazy in front of people. It is neurotic
disorder where there is a violent emotional outbreak. Female malady is today known as depression.
So, she says that how cultural ideas about proper feminine behavior have shaped the definition in the
treatment of female insanity from the Victorian era to the present. Because of we bound in culture we
are so suppressed and we feel so suffocated that it leads to Insanity. All the females are suffered
from Thyroid. Because thyroid problem happen when your emotion don't get outlet means
when you are not able to say what you want to say. Because it was a female who have to suppress
and control their emotions and behavior.

5 Hystories: Hysterical epidemic and modern media- in this work Showalter argues that Hysteria
which is a medical condition traditionally is seen as feminine. Means depression is seen as the
feminine things. When you are emotionally weak then it is a feminine trade. Males don't have
depression because they are emotionally strong. And this condition has persisted for centuries and
now it manifested in the cultural phenomena. So it is become a part of culture. You can see every 3
out of 5 people are suffering from depression. Like stress depression has become the part of our
culture. So in this work she is talking about depression.

Towards a Feminist Poetics (essay)

In the first part she talks about women as a reader. And it is known as feminist critique.
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Women as a reader known as feminist critique. According to Elaine Showalter -feminism can be
divided into two distant varieties-

1. Concern women as a reader-in these concept women are considered as the consumer of the
Literature which is produced by the male writers. So she calls it male produce literature.

For example if we read literature we found there are lots of male who wrote many things in literature
so as a female I am consuming or reading the male produce literature.

She argues that a female reading may change an idea of the given text. And this reading is called
as feminist critique.

She says that if a female read any text the meaning would change .the female may change the idea of
the given text. And this is called feminist critique

The treatment given to the female character by the male writers is analyzed and orders to find gaps.
For example- if you look at the historical work like Cleopatra-the queen of Egypt at the time of Julius
Caesar has been treated differently by the Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw. Bernard Shaw gives
Cleopatra as a Caesar adopted daughter whereas Shakespeare considered her Caesars concubine.

So you can see same Treatment of historical character is done by two writers very differently.
Shakespeare was living at that time when female are portrait as very negative manner.

Feminist critique also concern with the exploitation and manipulation of female audience. Specifically
if you talked about culture in film. You will find advertisement in which women appears with
different poses exhibiting parts of their body to get more publicity to various consumer product. So
feminist critique is also deal with exploring how females are presented in popular culture and film. So
this is the first concept women as a reader when a female read all these things she tried to interpret
what is presented by the society.

The next section we are going to talk about is” The problem with the feminist critique"

She says that we get a problem when we are reading a literature as a female point of view. 

One of the main problems of feminist critique is that It is male oriented. if we study stereo type
women the sexism of male critique and limited role women play in literary history we can see that we
are not learning what women have felt and experience .we are experience  what the men have felt. for 
example if you are reading a work which was written by a male writer and in that work the writer
talks about the problems that are faced by women, then you can only see what man would had felt ..
You can not actually learn what woman had felt and experience. So Elaine Showalter says that if you
are reading male produce literature it is good but the problem is that 

1. Even if you read a male produce work very deeply you will not be able to see what women would
have felt and experience in that particular condition. You can see only what man think women had
felt.

2. Second problem is that you have a problem of reluctant to question what men have represented in
the literature. Because we think that it is the truth. The way female is presented that how they should
be presented. That is why she said that we neutralize and naturalize the women victimization by
making it inevitable. With think that it is natural phenomena .We cannot do anything about how
women suffer. So we think that it is very natural process that women are victimized.
 35

2. Second concept is women as a writer. In this concept woman is the producer of the textual
meaning. It looks into the themes, genre and structure of literature written by women.

Women is a reader when you are reading a male produced literature and women are as a writer when
you are reading a woman produce literature. For this concept Elaine Showalter brought a term from
French language Gynocriticism or Gynocritics.

Gynocritics means women as writer.

Feminist critique is essential political. It is associated with Sociology and Marxist theory where as
Gynocritics is self contained as experimental. 

The Gynocritics aims to understand the specificity of women's writing not as a product of the Sexism.
But as a fundamental aspect of female reality. Show the way women are writing and the way they are
drawing character is actually shows the female reality.

Gynocritics aims at analyzing women's literature that is based on women's experience. Thus the
program that Gynocritcs plan include construction of framework that would analyzing women's
literature and development of new models deriving from the bases of female experiences.

If we analyze the literature produced by women. We are able to see the actual feminine experiences
which were faced by women.

Gynocritics not only analyze the literature produced by female but also Gynocritics look the
development of new models which are derived from the female experiences. Every female feel
different thing and when you analyze women literature you are able to see different shades of female
experiences.

Showalter releases that gynocritics arise when the dependence on the male literary tradition

Is discarded. For example if we talk about India if we say male are able to compose poetry then
female writers would never be able to emerge but gynocritics arise when people discarded the
dependence on the Male writer .And when they become an open minded towards the female literature
as well.
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Block-7 New criticism and Deconstruction

 New criticism-
 New criticism basically says that rather than worrying about the author background you need to
evaluate the text written in the book.
 New criticism appeared in 1929.
 Before new criticism old criticism includes the historical background of the poem and the
historical background of the poet or writer.
 Those critics who do not focus on author background or historical background are called new
critics.
 I .A. Richards was the first person who used the term practical criticism. I .A. Richards give the
poem to the student without telling the historical background of the poem or the history of the
poet. And told them to analyze this. Then the next day the student analyzes the text with different
manner. He says that the student is able to analyze in different manner because students have no
biographical information about the writer or historical background.
 They were able to critique or analyze the work in different manner because their prospective was
objective. Objective means they had no other prejudice or pre- considered notion. So actually it's
I.A. Richards who started the new criticism but he was not the first person who gave the term new
criticism. He gave the term practical criticism. Practical criticism means when you are analyzing a
work without knowing the historical background.
 The term new criticism is first used by J. E. Springam. J. E. Springam is used this word "new
criticism" when he was giving a lecture.
 Later a man name called John Crowe Ransom. John Crowe Ransom was an English Professor .He
publishes a work new criticism. And the title of this work new criticism becomes the title for this
entire movement.
 New critics only focus on text.
 New criticism is very much influenced by Matthew Arnold and T S Eliot.
 There are two important terms which are associated with new criticism –
 Auto telic Text-every text is self-contained and independent of the author genre or historical
context. Means you need not any other information to analyze the text .Text head self
contained all the information.
 Close reading-deep analysis of how a literary text works. When you read the text deeply then
you will analyze the rhythm, rhyme, the part of speech which are used in the text very closely.

Introduction to  structuralism

 Structuralism concerned with the study of structure.
 37

 if you look around the whole world follow structure and every structure follow certain rules. For
example if we talk about solar system it is a structure and the sun is the centre of the solar system.
And the entire planet moving around the sun. So there is a structure which is follow in solar
system.
  So, Structuralism suggest that there is a Universal pattern to everything and the same
Universal pattern are there in human thoughts and human culture so culturally we follow a
pattern.

 What is structuralism in Literature?

 Structurally critic analyzes the material that is text by examining the underline structure in that
text such as characterization or plot. So basically they are saying that every text follow Universal
pattern and therefore we can develop a General conclusion about both individual work and the
systems from it has emerged. After understanding structure of the text. Then we can examine the
whole text.

606 -Intro to   post structuralism and deconstructionism

 Post structuralism is opposite to structuralism. It comes in 1950 to 1960. It started from
France. Who reject the idea of structuralism is called post structuralism.
  Major concept of   post structuralism and deconstructionism-
 Post structuralism believe in no  structure. Structuralism says that the meaning lies in the
structure of the text but the post structuralism says that it meaning is no where located. Post
structuralism means -you cannot communicate exactly what you want to communicate.
 Binary opposition- according to structuralism everything exist in binary opposition for
example day and night men and women. But in post structuralism you cannot understand
the binary opposition. Post structuralism give the importance to binary operation and it is
bad.
 Post structuralism believe in the idea of no centre and structuralism they think that Centre is
organising the structure.

 For example- if  writer is saying love is better than hatred than according to structuralism love
is good but according to  structuralism and post structuralism we convert the idea and say
hatred is good. In structuralism novel hero will win but in de-structuralism and post
structuralism villain will win.

650-INTRO TO NEW HSITORICISM-

 New historicism is a literary movement or a critical movement which developed around
1980s .
 New historicism deals with understanding the relationship between literary text and
the historic and cultural context of the text and it is also related to cultural studies
 Role of context in new historicism.
 Now, in order to understand this concept, let's assume that Shakespeare wasn’t living
in Elizabethan England, but he was living in our society, okay, so he wasn't a part of
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the Elizabethan England, but rather he was a part of our modern day society. And
being a part of the modern day society, he must have experienced the Cold War, , then
iraq war, global warming, World War taken all these things we experienced by
Shakespeare. So it seems clear that if Shakespeare was born in our day and our age,
then he would be definitely a little different from the guy who lived in the late 16th
century in the Elizabethan England. And definitely he would not have written
Hamlet, King Lear or Tempest, rather he would have written works, which are more
modern, okay. Why?, because the circumstances surrounding the 20th century
Shakespeare would be very different from the circumstances surrounding the
Renaissance’s Shakespeare .we all know. So, you can see how a person who was born
in a different time period will write different kinds of work, because historical
background of the age influences the writer a lot. And the same thing appears
when it comes to a reader. Now, if we are looking at the Shakespearean plays, we
would definitely analyze the play in a different light. If we got to know that the
female characters during the Shakespearean time played by boy actors, you can see
how this particular information will differ. And will influence our way of looking at
Shakespearean play. Suppose you're given a play and you're not told the fact that at
that particular time, women characters were not coming on stage. But then suppose I
give you the same text with this highlighted factor that remember, women characters
during the time this play was staged, were played by boy actors. We think we know
these works, but then when we get to know about the political and social scenario of
the time when these works were written, our interpretation of the works changes.
 So, to put simply, according to new historicism, circumstances matter a lot. New
historicism is all about paying close attention to the historical context of literary work
after all plays ,poems ,novels ,art, everything related to art is a product of specific
time in place, and will be very wrong if we ignore the context of the literary work.
Because all these things, all these plays poems novels, they reflect the values of their
culture of this specific time in place when they were written. So, all these literary
works are a comment on the values of the culture of that time. So in order to
understand the text better, we need to look at the political and historic background of
the age. So new historicism aims to show that each era or period has its own
conceptual and ideological framework that people of the past did not actually
understand the concepts like individual God ,reality, gender, in the same way as we
do. you can really even understand the fact what do we understand by reality today
was the word reality making the same sense 400 years back, know the term gender
what it means today, it must not have meant the same 400 years back. So every word
changes its meaning according to the time according to the place. It's been used in.
Similarly, every literary work is filled with the cultural values of that historic period.
So in order to understand those literary texts, it is important that we look at the
cultural background, the context, new historicism emphasises that literary texts are
culturally embedded objects, and therefore, the criticism should consider the culture
in which author produced the work. Unlike new criticism or formalism, new
historicism is not just saying that you need to look at the words on the in the text or
you don't need to just look at the structure of the text, it says that you need to go
 39

beyond the work you need to actually look at the culture which produced the work. So
you need to understand the culture in which that author was living when the particular
work was written by the author. So every literary text is culturally embedded. The
new historical approach emphasises the cultural context in which your text is
produced, and it is not focusing exclusively on the formal structure of text just like
formalist or structuralist would do. Therefore, in order to understand a literary text,
critique needs to first understand the author's background and the cultural context in
which the work was produced. This is what new historicism says. So I hope that I was
able to make you guys understand what it meant by a new historicism and how
context matters and played a crucial role in new historical criticism.