WEEK 1

Literature
- Collection of works of art that are made of words.
- Some are written, some are made orally.
- A story about people, animals, or events. It can be nonfiction and fiction, also informative.

Literary Text
- Is artistic and has a poetic touch.
- Prose (short stories, novels) and poetry (poems, sonnets) are a part of it.

Imagery
- Any part of a poetry or prose that appeals to the senses (taste, sight, etc) in a way that creates a
vivid and emotional picture for the readers.

Persona
- The characters involved in the story or the author’s voice.

Non-Literary Text
- Informative and based on facts.

Prose
- Has a standard structure, regular grammar and punctuation, and is often used for novels and stories.

Poetry
- Form of writing based on musicality and rhythm, uses unconventional structure and form.

Literary Criticism
- Reader’s understanding of an author’s work by summarizing, interpreting, analyzing its value and
content.

Hermeneutics
- Art of understanding and making oneself understood.
- Branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation.

Literary Theories
- Guides you in understanding a particular literary text between author and work.

Critique/Review
- Response to a body of work (performance, concept, article, etc).
- Mainly uses someone’s opinionated judgment.

Parts of a Critique
Introduction
- Description of work, including its purpose, the creator, and its intention.

Body/Analysis
- Analysis of the work’s structure, function, or content.
- Interpretation of the work’s significance or meaning.

Conclusion/Judgment/Recommendation
 - Assessment of the work’s worth.

WEEK 2: FORMALISM

Formalism
- Focuses on the structure and form of the work only.
- Only one work at a time.
- Formalism describes the critical position that the most important aspect of a work of art is its form –
the way it is made and its purely visual aspects – rather than its narrative content or its relationship to
the visible world.

Structuralism
- Based on the assumption that everything has a universally underlying structure.
- Connects work of the author to other works.

Literary Device - Tools used by the writer to hint meaning in a story.

Simile
- Comparison of two unlike objects or things with the use of as or like.

Metaphor
- Comparison of two unlike objects without the use of as or like.

Imagery
- Engages the senses by creating visuals.

Symbolism
 - Uses symbolize to mean something beyond the literal meaning.

Personification
- Gives human traits to non living objects.

Sound Device - Tools used by the poet to create sound effects.

Rhyme
- Is a matching vowel sound by the end of words or lines.

Repetition
- Process of repeating words and phrases or lines within a poem.

Assonance
- Repetition of vowel sounds inside of a line in a poem.

Consonance
- Repetition of consonant sounds inside of a line in a poem.

Alliteration
- Repetition of initial consonant letter inside of a line in a poem.

Onomatopoeia
- Uses words which imitate the natural sound of things.

WEEK 3: MARXISM

Karl Marx is the father of Marxism, Friedrich Engles is his protege.

Karl Marx
- Lived in London during industrialization and traveled in Europe.
- According to Marx, social inequality was a consequence of the arrival of the division of labor, and
moreover, was what had led to the class society.

Marxism - A social, economic, and political philosophy that analyzes the impact of the ruling class on the
laborers, leading to uneven distribution of wealth.
- Marxist critics are also interested in how the lower classes are oppressed in everyday life and
literature.
- Based on social theory, reflection of social institutions, focuses on how literary works are products of
economic and ideological determinants specific to that era, and examines the relationship between
the literary work and the time/place it was made in.

Base - Shapes the superstructure, the ruling class is the base.

- Relations of Production (Bourgeoisie exploits the Proletariat).
- Means of Production (All things needed to produce are owned by Bourgeoisie like machines).

Superstructure - Maintains and legitimizes the base. Everything not to do with production in society.
- Mass Media, religion, education, politics, family.

Doing a Marxist Critique Paper:

 1. Identify the characters now, coward.
2. Identify their social classes.
3. Identify the characteristics/traits of that social class.
4. Find the author’s idea about the prevailing issue like slavery.
5. What happens during social conflict?
6. How did the issue get resolved?
7. Author’s message. What is that?
8. Author’s main purpose besides entertainment.
9. Background of the author, what are their views on economics, politics, and society?
10. Just when and where did they live?

WEEK 4: FEMINISM

Feminism - social, political, and cultural movement that advocates for equality of the sexes and rights of
women.

Key Terms
Feminist - referring to a person, usually women, striving for equality of rights.

Female - matter of biology.

Feminine - set of cultural characteristics given by society.

Ideology - dominant values, beliefs, and ways of thinking through which a culture understands reality.

Patriarchy - male-dominated society.

Misogyny and Misandry - hatred of men and women respectively.

The Other - refers to women.

History of Feminism
First Wave Feminism - active during 19th and earliest 20th century in the UK, US, and Canada.
Overall Goal - to improve the legal position of women in particular and give legal rights to vote.
Assumption - women work in the private sphere (housework, caretaking) while men in the public
sphere (working, livelihood).
Historical Content
- women are considered to be inferior, weak, fragile, emotional, and suited to just be a wife.
- women had no rights to vote, not educated, and could only work manual jobs.
- married women’s property and salary were owned by the husband.

Second Wave Feminism - occured in 1960-1980 which came after a response to the experiences of women in
WWII.
Assumption - society is patriarchal, women have legal rights but still inferior, and women should be
equal to men in all aspects.

Third Wave Feminism - happened in the 1990s to 200s.

Historical Content
- continuation and response to the failed second wave.
 - focused on multicultural emphasis and strived to address problems like homophobia, social
class inequality, sexism, and racism.

Feminist Criticism - literary and critical theory that explores the bias of the male gender in literature.

WEEK 5: RRA

Reader Response Approach - argues that the meaning of a text is only activated when a reader reads and
responds to it.
- recognizes that different people view works differently and interpretations change over time.
- key idea is that readers create meaning rather than find it in the text.