ENGLISH 10 QUARTER 3 WEEK 7-8

What I Need to Know

This lesson will review your skill in composing a critique be taught various approaches that you use in making one. These are:
structuralist/formalist, moralist, Marxist, feminist, historical, and reader-response. Lastly, you will try writing your own critique of a selection
based on the different approaches discussed.

After reading and answering the activities in this module, you are expected to: Critique a literary selection based the moralist,
Marxist, feminist, historical, and reader-response.

What I Know
Which approach deals with the given question? Choose the letter of the correct answer from the box.

A. Structuralist C. Moralist E. Feminist G. Reader-response

B. Formalist D. Marxist F. Historical

_____1. Is there a central passage in the text that can be pointed to as summing up the work?
_____2. What does the text have to do with you, personally, including your past, present, and future?
_____3. How does the text play out given ethical principles?
_____4. What common patterns exist within the work that are also present in other literary compositions?
_____5. How is the relationship between men and women portrayed in the text?
_____6. Who benefits from the production and acceptance of the literary was written works?
_____7. Have any of the words in the text changed meanings since the text was written?
_____8. What did the text do well and what did it poorly? Was it an enjoyable text as a piece of entertainment or work of art?
_____9. How are the various elements of the work interconnected?
_____10. How do characters of different social classes interact or conflict?
_____11. Does the presentation in the work support or condemn a particular event, or leading political figures of its time? Can the work be
seen to do both?
_____12. Does the work seem to build a positive or negative influence on its readers?
_____13. What does the text reveal about the economic, social, psychological, and political workings of patriarchy?
_____14. How do the parts of the text work together to make an inseparable whole?
_____15. What social class does the work supposedly represent?

What’s In
Recall your lesson from the previous module. Then, answer the questions below.
1. What is a critique?

2. How do you write a critique?

What’s new
One Picture, One Word
What does each picture mean? Some letters are given as clues.
1. R _ _ d 2. _ t _ _ c _ u e 5. _ e m _ _ _ n _

3. M _ _ x 4. _ i _ t _ _ y

What is It
What are the different approaches you can use in writing a critique?
 Being a critical reader or consumer of literature and other art means being able to apply certain standards in evaluating a work.
Different schools of thought have different standards, as they hold different perspectives about what carries meaning and value in a work.
As you write your own critique of a selection, different critical approaches may be applied. These are structuralist/formalist, moralist,
Marxist, feminist, historical, and reader-response.

Structuralist/Formalist

The Structuralist school of thought stems from linguistic theories of structure, which posit that there is an underlying structure that
organizes language and the way language expresses our thoughts. This belief extends into a philosophy that holds that there is a structure to
everything, seeing an organizing code in music, economy, and even social life. Thus, a structuralist reading of a story will pay attention to the
underlying elements that the text has in common with similar texts.
Structuralists believe that there is a deep structure that is universal to all members of a particular genre: structural elements that are
seen in all poems, all short stories, and so on. For example, a structuralist may hold that all novels are expected to have a plot, characters, a
setting, a core conflict, and etc.
There are different structuralist approaches in literary analysis. For example, Northrop Frye contributed the use of four mythoi to
identify and categorize structures used in Western Literature. Among these structures are the archetypal mythic or narrative structures:
comedy, tragedy, romance, and satire; and the genres, such as prose, lyric poetry, drama, and so on. As one might expect, these look not just
at the features of the work itself (for example, a five-act Shakespearean comedy) but at the way that work fits its genre by virtue of the
patterns and structures the work is organized by.
These are common questions asked in a structuralist analysis:
*What patterns exist within the work that make it belong to the same class as other works like it? (Consider Frye's mythoi framework.)
*What patterns within the text exist that may reflect patterns in the culture from which the text emerged? (This analyzes both the text and the
culture structurally.)
*What rules or codes of interpretation must be internalized in order to decide what the text "means"?
Formalism, for its part, is another classical school of criticism that examines a work's intrinsic features. Unlike approaches that would
follow, Formalism, as its name suggests, focuses on the form of the work, assuming that the text itself contains the keys to understanding the
text.
Formalism appears to follow from classical principles of literary design, including Plato and Aristotle's notion of organic unity. This
principle refers to the internal consistency with which a text's theme is developed alongside its dramatic structure. A narrative or drama and
plot arc that has proper organic unity would have its scenes closely connected and commonly developing from the core theme. All of the
interdependent parts of the text would also work in harmony with the theme, meaning each character, each line of dialogue, each setting
detail, flows from that central hub.
Formalist analysis tends to focus on these questions:
*How do the parts of the text work together to make an inseparable whole (organic unity)?
*How are the various elements of the work interconnected?
*Is there a central passage in the text that can be pointed to as summing up the work?
*In poetry, how do the rhyme scheme and/or metric patterns contribute to the meaning or overall effect of the text?
*How do devices like ambiguity, tension, irony, and paradox work in the text?

Moralist

Another way of analyzing a text and determining its worth is Moralist Criticism, which involves examining how a text deals with the
issue at its center.
Under moralist criticism, a literary text is expected to reinforce traditionally held moral values. Courage, maturity, sensitivity,
honesty, and so on are all expected to be upheld by the text, and literature that challenges or erodes these values is less valued.
Moralist Criticism weighs the text by these considerations:
*Is a practical, moral, or ethical idea being presented?
*How does the text play out given ethical principles?
*Does the work seem to build a positive or negative influence on its readers?
When reading a text from the moralist lens, it helps to focus on the text's core conflict and its climax. The conflict usually puts a
particular value to the test, and the climax-together with its impact on the characters-will end up supporting either the value or the idea it is in
conflict with.

Marxist
Marxist literary criticism, for its part, examines how the text represents and treats the power dynamics between social classes. This is
because it operates based on the perspective and principles of its namesake, itself a movement based onthe theories and social examinations
of Karl Marx. Marxist literary criticism examines economic and other class differences in a text, as well as the way that the economic and
power hierarchy in the world of the text is structured.
Interestingly, this focus for literature and art was already built into Marx's theory about society in general, as he believed that
conflict among classes-the elite, the middle class, the working class-would always be present, leading to a cycle of revolution. This conflict, he
contended, would be mirrored in art and literature (novels, short stories, poetry, films, etc.) produced by such a society.
As such, Marxist literary criticism examines a work by asking the following questions:
*Who benefits from the production and acceptance of the literary work?
*What social class is the author part of?

Feminist

Another critical approach to reading literature that focuses on the dynamics of different social groups is feminist literary criticism.
Unlike Marxist literary criticism, the focus of Feminist literary criticism follows the broader perspective of feminism, which identifies and
challenges the ways in which women are marginalized in a patriarchal (male-dominated) society, as well as how this marginalization and
dominance are resisted.
Contrary to misconceptions that have surfaced due to people misunderstanding its name, feminism (and thus Feminist literary
criticism) is not about believing that women are superior to men, or desiring to tear down men, or wanting women to dominate society
instead of men. It does, however, involve identifying ways in which equality between the sexes is not realized, and how this is sometimes
treated as part of the "default" way that things work.
With this focus in mind, feminist literary criticism asks the following questions about a literary work:
*How is the relationship between men and women portrayed in the text?
*What are the power relationships present between men and women (or characters assuming such roles) in the text?
*How are the roles for males and females defined?
*What constitutes masculinity and femininity?
*What does the text reveal about the economic, social, psychological, and political workings of patriarchy?
*What does the text's reception by the public and by literary critics reveal about patriarchy?

Historical

New Historicism is a school of criticism influenced by structuralist and poststructuralist theories (recall the aforementioned
structuralist question about cultural structures) that assumes that a work is influenced by the culture and era that created it. Each text is thus
viewed as a sort of 'time capsule' that captures some aspect of the text's historical roots.
While structuralism focuses inwardly on the text itself, historical criticism leverages external bases for interpretation or critical
reading: the text's historical context. Along with the historical time frame, historical criticism also considers the social, cultural, and intellectual
environment that produced the author and the text, as well as the text's audience.
Historical criticism uses these factors to inform a reading of the text. For example, Sara Teasdale's sonnet, "There Will Come Soft
Rains," can be read with historical criticism, which will connect its dramatic situation of nature reclaiming the earth after humanity's
disappearance with its publication date of 1918, during the time of the world's recovery from World War I. The persona's fascination with what
happens in the wake of humanity's annihilation can be linked to the immense and senseless wartime death, destruction, and environmental
damage that the poem could be responding to.
New Historicism asks the following questions:
*What language or elements in the work reflect the "current events" of the author's day?
*How have these events been interpreted and presented by the author?
*How are these interpretations reflective of the author's culture?
*Does the presentation in the work support or condemn a particular event, or leading political figures of its time? Can the work
be seen to do both?
*Have any of the words in the text changed meanings since the text was written?

Reader-response

A reading text may also be understood in terms of its personal significance to you, the reader, rather than through any external
principles or ways of interpretation. This is called Reader-response criticism, which leverages your own experiences, principles, and beliefs in
deciding what a text is saying.
Lois Tyson notes that Reader-response critics believe that a reader (and thus the reader's background, which informs his or her
beliefs and principles) cannot be separated from the experience of reading the text. Thus, a reader does not passively consume the text but
instead actively engages in reading it, negotiating its content against what he or she knows to make meaning. All this is in contrast to how
other frameworks tend to view the reader as using tools external to themselves, like the text's historical roots or its structural basis, to make
sense of the text.
Of course, simply because Reader-response criticism puts you in charge of deciding what a text means doesn't mean you can be
vague about your reading. In fact, Reader-response criticism analyzes the reader as much as the text. In doing Reader-response criticism, you
may ask:
*What does the text have to do with you, personally, including your past, present, and future?
*Does the text reinforce or clash with your view of the world, and do you believe it is right or wrong about that?
*How were your views and opinions challenged by this text, if at all? Did you change any of them, or learn anything?
*How does it portray, handle, and address things you consider to be important about the world?
*What did the text do well and what did it do poorly? Was it an enjoyable text as a piece of entertainment or work of art?

Processing Questions
-> How can you distinguish a critical approach from the other?

-> What are the things you have to consider when using each critical approach?

What's More
Activity A Identify the approach described in each number. Choose the letter of the correct answer from the box.
A. Structuralist C. Moralist E. Feminist G. Reader-response
B. Formalist D. Marxist F. Historical
____1. This approach centers on the dynamics between genders in a text.
____2. This approach pays attention to the underlying elements that the text has in common with similar texts.
____3.This approach examines how the text represents and treats the power dynamics between social classes.
____4. This approach gives importance to your own experiences, principles, and beliefs.
____5. This approach involves examining how a text deals with the issue at its center.
____6. This approach focuses on the form of the work, assuming that the text itself contains the keys to understanding the text.
____7. This approach assumes that a work is influenced by the culture and era that created it.

Activity B Read the poem below. Then, write a short essay that answers one of the given questions. Provide a clear central idea, and cite
evidence from the text as supporting information.
The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn
(An Excerpt)
BY ANDREW MARVELL

The wanton troopers riding by It wax’d more white and sweet than they.
Have shot my fawn, and it will die. It had so sweet a breath! And oft
Ungentle men! they cannot thrive I blush’d to see its foot more soft
To kill thee. Thou ne’er didst alive And white, shall I say than my hand?
Them any harm, alas, nor could Nay, any lady’s of the land.
Thy death yet do them any good. It is a wond’rous thing how fleet
I’m sure I never wish’d them ill, ’Twas on those little silver feet;
Nor do I for all this, nor will; With what a pretty skipping grace
But if my simple pray’rs may yet It oft would challenge me the race;
Prevail with Heaven to forget And when ’t had left me far away,
Thy murder, I will join my tears ’Twould stay, and run again, and stay,
Rather than fail. But oh, my fears!
It cannot die so. Heaven’s King
Keeps register of everything,
And nothing may we use in vain.
Ev’n beasts must be with justice slain,
Else men are made their deodands;
Though they should wash their guilty hands
In this warm life-blood, which doth part
From thine, and wound me to the heart,
Yet could they not be clean, their stain
Is dyed in such a purple grain.
There is not such another in
The world to offer for their sin.
Unconstant Sylvio, when yet
I had not found him counterfeit
One morning (I remember well)
Tied in this silver chain and bell,
Gave it to me; nay, and I know
What he said then; I’m sure I do.
Said he, “Look how your huntsman here
Hath taught a fawn to hunt his dear.”
But Sylvio soon had me beguil’d,
This waxed tame, while he grew wild;
And quite regardless of my smart,
Left me his fawn, but took his heart.
Thenceforth I set myself to play
My solitary time away,
With this, and very well content
Could so mine idle life have spent;
For it was full of sport, and light
Of foot and heart, and did invite
Me to its game; it seem’d to bless
Itself in me. How could I less
Than love it? Oh, I cannot be
Unkind t’ a beast that loveth me.
Had it liv’d long, I do not know
Whether it too might have done so
As Sylvio did; his gifts might be
Perhaps as false or more than he.
But I am sure, for aught that I
Could in so short a time espy,
Thy love was far more better then
The love of false and cruel men.
With sweetest milk and sugar first
I it at mine own fingers nurst;
And as it grew, so every day
Questions:
1. How does the poem fit the structural definition of a lyric poem?

2. What is the central statement of the poem, and how do the elements of the poem work together to establish it?

3. How does the poem function as a product of the time in which it was written?

What I Have Learned

Given the chance to discuss one critical approach to a group of high school students like you, what approach would it be and why?
How would you go about your discussion?

What I Can Do
You are a member of the Read and Learn Club, an extracurricular organization that screens and makes recommendations on reading
selections for your batch. The school's English department has reached out to your club to help students choose good reading selections as
supplements for their in-class learning.

You have been asked to choose a reading selection that interests your audience, and produce an eight to ten paragraph written
critique, using one of the critical lenses that you have learned in this module.
Your critique must include a summary of the reading selection. Your critique must use the critical lens' terminology and approach correctly,
and it must arrive at an overall judgment using the chosen lens.

Your critique will be read by the English faculty, and then your batchmates.

Assessment
I. Write T if the statement is true and F if it is false.
____1. The Marxist literary criticism is inspired by Carl Jung.
____2. Northrop Frye contributed the use of five mythoi to identify and categorize structures used in Western Literature.
____3. Organic unity refers to the internal consistency with which a text's theme is developed alongside its dramatic structure.
____4. In the Reader-response approach, you evaluate a text based on its personal significance to you.
____5. Under moralist criticism, a literary text is expected to reinforce traditionally held moral values.

II. Read the informational text below. Then, write your an essay output analyzing in your notebook it using theory moralist or reader-
response approach. Place on a separate sheet of paper.

*Open with a thesis statement that identifies your overall evaluation of the text, in terms of its ability to convey or affirm a moral-
belief (moralist) or to have personal significance to you as a reader (reader-response).
*Provide a summary of the text that identifies its central idea and key supports, especially ones that are relevant to your reading.
*Follow up with evidence that supports your thesis statement, including your answers to relevant guide questions used in your chosen
lens. Finish with a conclusion that revisits your thesis statement.

Beauty in Nature
by Michael Popejoy

"I declare this world is so beautiful that I can hardly believe it exists." The beauty of nature can have a profound effect upon our
senses, those gateways from the outer world to the inner, whether it results in disbelief in its very existence as Emerson notes, or feelings such
as awe, wonder, or amazement. But what is it about nature and the entities that make it up that cause us, oftentimes unwillingly, to feel or
declare that they are beautiful?
One answer that Emerson offers is that "the simple perception of natural forms is a delight." When we think of beauty in nature, we
might most immediately think of things that dazzle the senses-the prominence of a mountain, the expanse of the sea, the unfolding of the life
of a flower. Often it is merely the perception of these things itself which gives us pleasure, and this emotional or affective response on our part
seems to be crucial to our experience of beauty. So in a way there is a correlate here to the intrinsic value of nature; Emerson says: "the sky,
the mountain, the tree, the animal, give us a delight in and for themselves."
Most often, it seems to me, we find these things to be beautiful not because of something else they might bring us-a piece of
furniture, say, or a 'delicacy' to be consumed-but because ofthe way that the forms of these things immediately strike us uponobservation. In
fact, one might even think that this experience of beauty is one of the bases for valuing nature-nature is valuable because it is beautiful.
Emerson seems to think that beauty in the natural world is not limited to certain parts of nature to the exclusion of others. He writes
that every landscape lies under "the necessity of being beautiful," and that "beauty breaks in everywhere." As we slowly creep out of a long
winter in the Northeast, I think Emerson would find the lamentations about what we have 'endured' to be misguided: "The inhabitants of the
cities suppose that the country landscape is pleasant only half the year . . To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty,
and in the same field it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again."
 The close observer of nature sees a river in constant flux, even when the river's water is frozen and everything appears to be static
and unchanging for a time. Nature can reveal its beauty in all places and at all times to the eye that knows how to look for it. We can hear
Emerson wrangle with himself on this very point in the words of this journal entry:
"At night I went out into the dark and saw a glimmering star and heard a frog, and Nature seemed to say, Well do not these suffice?
Here is a new scene, a new experience. Ponder it, Emerson, and not like the foolish world, hanker after thunders and multitudes and vast
landscapes, the sea or Niagara."
So if we're sympathetic to the idea that nature, or aspects of it, are beautiful, we might ask ourselves why we experience nature in
this way. Emerson says that nature is beautiful because it is alive, moving, reproductive. In nature we observe growth and development in
living things, contrasted with the static or deteriorating state of the vast majority of that which is man-made. More generally, he writes: "We
ascribe beauty to that which . . . has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things." He cites natural
structures as lacking superfluities, an observation that in general has been confirmed by the advancement of biology. Furthermore, he says
that whether talking about a human artifact or a natural organism, any increase of ability to achieve its end or goal is an increase in beauty. So
in Emerson we might find the resources for seeing evolution and the drive to survive as a beautiful rather than an ugly process, governed by
laws that tend to increase reproductive fitness and that we can understand through observation and inquiry. And lastly, Emerson points to the
relation between what we take to be an individual and the rest of nature as a quality of the beautiful. This consists in the "power to suggest
relation to the whole world, and so lift the object out of a pitiful individuality." In nature one doesn't come across individuals that are robustly
independent from their environment; rather things are intimately interconnected with their surroundings in ways that we don't fully
understand.
"Nothing is quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the whole."
All of these qualities of beauty seem to go beyond the mere impression of sensible forms that we started with, and what goodness in nature.
In addition to the immediate experience of beauty based in perception, Emerson suggests that the beauty of the world may also be
viewed as an object of the intellect. He writes that "the question of Beauty takes us out of surfaces, to thinking of the foundations of things." In
other words, we can also experience the world as beautiful because of its rational structure and our ability to grasp that structure through
thought. Think for instance of the geometric structure of a crystal, or snowflake, or nautilus shell. Or consider the complexity of the fact that
the reintroduction of the wolf in Yellowstone National Park changed the course of the rivers due to a chain reaction of cause and effect
through the food web, a process called a trophic cascade. This reinforces Emerson's emphasis on the interconnection between all members of
the natural world; as observers of nature we are confronted with one giant, complex process that isn't of our own making, but that we can also
understand, and get a mental grasp on, even if only partially, and be awestruck in that process of understanding.
There is thus an emotional or affective component in the beauty of the intellect just as there is in the immediate beauty of
perception. If we destroy the natural world, we take away the things that we can marvel at and experience awe towards in these two ways.
And this experience of the beautiful through the intellect may reinforce our attributing value to nature here as well, but a deeper kind of value,
the intrinsic value I talked about in the last essay. Here it is not only that nature is valuable because it is beautiful, but nature is beautiful
because it possesses intrinsic value, grounded in its intelligible structure. Thus we see a close parallel between goodness and beauty in nature.
We can find an objective basis for goodness and beauty in nature, namely its intelligible structure, but also see that nature is valuable and
beautiful for us, with the particular apparatus that nature has given us for navigating our way through the world.
So that which is the basis of truth in nature and provides it with intrinsic value is also that which makes it beautiful. Emerson himself
ties these three aspects of nature into one package himself:
"He should know that the landscape has beauty for his eye, because it expresses a thought which is to him good: and this, because of
the same power which sees through his eyes, is seen in that Spectacle.”
This is the unified philosophy of nature that I set out to explicate in the first essay-nature is the source of truth, goodness, and beauty, because
of its intelligible structure, and because of its production of organisms that can recognize that structure, us. And this view of nature includes an
inherent call to protect that which is true, good, and beautiful. These are the things that we as human beings are searching for, are striving
after, and yet they're right in front of us if only we would listen with our ear to the earth.
Although I've been advocating an approach to nature based on its intelligibility, we are far from tying down the giant that is nature
with our minds. Emerson writes that "the perception of the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth." Although we shall continue to
try to uncover nature's secrets, let us also continue to take pleasure in our immediate encounter with her. Let us continue to be awestruck, like
the child on the seashore, or clambering up a tree. Let us hold onto that experience, and fight for the environment that makes it possible, both
for the child in each of us, and for those that come after us.

Source: Michael Popejoy. "Beauty in Nature." Harvard Sustainability. April 23, 2014. Accessed November 15, 2019. https://green.harvard.edu/news/beauty-
nature.

Prepared by:

KRISTINA E. SOROTEN JELENIE DC. GARCIA RACHEL D. VELORIA

Teacher II Teacher II Teacher I

Checked and Reviewed by:

RUEL M. TEJADA, PhD

HT I- Language Department

Noted by:

SUSANGRES P. PASCUA,EdD
Principal II