TRADITIONAL

APPROACHES IN
LITERARY CRITICISM

HISTORICAL – BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM

MORAL – PHILOSOPHICAL CRITICISM
TEXTUAL CRITICISM

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Literary studies in the first part of the 20th
century were dominated by what are now
called «traditional approaches».
American New Critics call «extrinsic»
approaches to literature.
They focus on understanding literary works
by bringing external information to bear on
them rather than by close and careful
consideration of what is already expressed in
the work itself.
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To certain extent all approaches to literature
are by definition extrinsic because a reader
must have certain basic information at hand to
read a literary work at all.
At the vey least, a reader must know the
language in which the work is written and
must possess a certain basic amount of
cultural knowledge.
A reader must have at least a minimal
understanding of the conventions of literature
to process the content of a literary work in a
coherent way.
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We might compare the use of external
information to aid in the interpretation of a
literary text to the activities of a scientist
who interprets a workings of nature. For
instance, the beauty of the stars can be
appreciated without being an expert in
astronomy, but even the most seemingly
naive appreciation of the beauty of nature
involves a complex process of cultural
conditioning.

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More scholarly traditional approaches include
a) biographical studies, in which a work is
illuminated through a discussion of the
experiences and opinions of its author
b) philosohical studies, in which the ideas
expressed in a literary text are compared to
well-known philosophical concepts – and often
judged in relation to the critic’s own moral or
philosophical strance
c) textual studies, in which the historical record is
carefully sifted in an attempt to determine the
precisely correct rendering of scale mechanical
printing of literary texts.
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In traditional approach the work of art
frequently appears to be a source that
illustrates background.
Such an approach often leads to the study of
literature as essentially biography, history, or
some other branch of learning, rather than as
art.
According to those of the older school,
literature provides primarily an opportunity for
exercising what they perceive to be really
relevant scholarly and cultural disciplines such
as history, linguistics, biography and
philosophy.
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 Historical-Biographical Approach
• Its focus is on the life, times, and
environment of the author, and this
approach deals with the effects of these
factors on the work of art.
• Most of literary works can be analysed in
the light of historical-biographical method.
• A reader/a critic studies the work in
accordance with the period in which the
work is produced. Thus, the values and
perception of the reader’s own age are put
aside.
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• Historical-Biographical approach
establishes a bridge between the reader and
the world’s of the author.
• The life of the author, the historical events
and the values of his age help us
understand the work, and in a similar way
the literary work gives information of the
author and his own period.

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In his book History of English Literature,
French critic Hippolyte A. Taine (1823-
1893) suggests the phrase «race, millue,
et moment»
a) Race stands for “culture and history”
b) Millue is “place”
c) Moment is “time”

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This approach sees a literary work
chiefly as a reflection of its author’s life
and times or the characters in the work.
Taine compared the work of literature to
the fossil of a leaf which tells the world
of a previous age.

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John Milton's sonnet “On the Late
Massacre in Piedmont” illustrates the
topical quality that great literature may
and often does possess. This poem
commemorates the slaughter in 1655 of
the Waldenses, members of a Protestant
sect living in the valleys of northern Italy.
A knowledge of this background clarifies
at least one rather factual reference and
two allusions in the poem.

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However, novels may lend themselves
somewhat more readily than lyric
poems to this particular interpretive
approach; they usually treat a broader
range of experience than poems do and
thus are affected more by extrinsic
factors.

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Itis a mistake, however, to think that poets do not
concern themselves with social themes or that good
poetry cannot be written about such themes.
Actually, poets have from earliest times been the
historians, the interpreters of contemporary culture,
and the prophets of their people.
For example, Blake's “London” is an outcry against
the oppression of human beings by society: he
lashes out against child labour in his day and the
church's indifference to it, against the government's
indifference to the indigent soldier who has served
his country faithfully, and against the horrible and
unnatural consequences of a social code that
represses sexuality.
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Moral-Philosophical Approach
or Moral/Thematic Criticism
• The moral-philosophical approach is as old
as classical Greek and Roman critics. Plato,
for example, emphasized moralism and
utilitarianism; Horace stressed that literature
should be delightful and instructive. Among
its most famous exemplars are the
commentators of the age of neoclassicism in
English literature (1660-1800), particularly
Samuel Johnson.
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The basic position of such critics is that the
larger function of literature is to teach
morality and to probe philosophical issues.
They would interpret literature within a
context of the philosophical thought of a
period or group.
This approach focuses on what is being
taught. It asks the question: «What kind of
truth does this work reveal to us?»

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Roman critic Horace states in his Ars Poetica
(The Art of Poetry) that literature should be
«dulce et utile» or «sweet and useful», it
means literature should be both entertaining
and enlightening.
Sir Philip Sidney adopts the same view in
literary criticism in his The Defence of Poesy:
«right poets» «imitate to teach and delight,
and to imitate borrow nothing of what is, hath
been or shall be, but range, only reined with
learned discretion, into the divine
consideration of what may be and should be».
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Matthew Arnold, the Victorian critic,
adopted a related attitude; he insisted that a
great literary work must possess «high
seriousness» (Because he felt that Chaucer
lacked it, Arnold refused to rank him among
the very greatest English poets). In each
instance critics working from a moral bent
are not unaware of form, figurative
language, and other purely aesthetic
considerations, but they consider them to be
secondary.
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The important thing is the moral or
philosophical teaching. On its highest plane
this is not superficially didactic, though it
may at first seem so.
In the larger sense, all great literature
teaches. The critic who employs the moral-
philosophical approach insists on
ascertaining and stating what is taught. If
the work is in any degree significant or
intelligible, this meaning will be there.

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TEXTUAL STUDIES or TEXTUAL
SCHOLARSHIP
This approach can be considered as
the beginning of New Critisim.
In this criticism the text is analysed in
terms of «the work of the author», in
other words the critic studies what
urges the author to write such a work,
what influences him, and what kind of
historical motives are reflected.

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Textual criticism has as its ideal the
establishment of an authentic text, or the «text
which the author intended».
There are countless ways in which a literary
text may be corrupted from what the author
intended. The author’s own manuscript may
contain omissions and errors in spelling and
mechanics; these mistakes may be preserved by
the text copyists, be they scribes, or
compositors, or scanners, who may add a few
of their own.
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Applying Traditional Approaches on a
Text
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the quintessence of
traditional criticism.
Some of the critics think that Shakespeare
draws attention to the potential problem of
succession after the death of Queen
Elizabeth.
Elizabeth’s advanced age and poor health
may have led the playwright to write such a
work.
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Polonius is considered to be related to
Burghley (Lord Treasurer), one of the
important politicians of Elizabethan Time.
Burghley possessed most of the
shortcomings Shakespeare gave to
Polonius; he was boring, meddling, and
given to wise old adages and truisms.
Moreover, he had an elaborate spy system
that kept him informed about both friend
and foe. In the play Polonius assignes
Reynaldo to spy his son Laertes in Paris.
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Shakespeare creates such a character to
criticise Burgley, and he protrays the lord after
his death in 1598.
Apart from the historical events or figures,
Shakespeare’s own thoughts are reflected, as
well. As a dramatist, he criticises the dramatic
activity of the period and the attitudes of the
players because the private theatre employed
children and constituted a rival for the adult
companies of the public theater, for which
Shakespeare wrote. That’s why Hamlet
attacks the players because of their repertoire.

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Moreover, Shakespeare portrays some
courtiers as stock characters (Osric,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) in the
play to show that they are weak
characters who could not make their own
decisions, instead just puppets in hand of
the authority.

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The Danish court of the period could be
studied in terms of traditional criticism, as
well. The question in the play is
succession, so one should focus on how
the Danish court solves such a problem.
And the critic should learn what he needs
to know about Elizabethan England to
understand this play.

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The critic should not miss that Hamlet does
not succeed to throne after the death of his
father even though he is the only son.
In Hamlet’s day the Danish throne was an
elective one. The royal council, composed
of the most powerful nobles in the land,
named the next king. The custom of the
throne’s descending to the oldest son of the
late monarch had not yet crystallized into
law.

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In the light of traditional criticism, also
the moral and philosophical aspects of the
play should be analysed.
The play emphasises that some humans
are so ambitious for a crown that they are
willing to murder for it and that others are
so highly sexed that they will violate not
only the laws of decorum but also the
civil and ecclesiastical laws against incest.

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Another point is that as an intellectual,
Hamlet is in search of revenge. It is
obvious that his philosophical knowledge
and Christian religion should hinder him
and he must realise that revenge is wrong.
However, Hamlet never gives up the idea
of taking revenge because he is a
transitional figure between his “feudal
son” identity and intellectual man.

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Conclusion
Traditional approaches analyse a work of
art as the mirror of the author and the
society of the period in which it is written.
Studying the historical events of the
period, getting information about the
author’s life and experiences could help
us understand what the text explains and
what the author intends.

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A reader who stays more or less on the
surface of a piece of literature has at least
understood part of what it is about.
Ones who intend to employ the traditional
approaches to a literary work will almost
certainly employ them simultaneously. That
is, they will bring to bear on a poem, for
instance, all the information and insights
these respective disciplines can give in
seeing just what the poem means and does.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Booker, Keith M. A Practical
Introduction to Literary Theory and
Criticism. London: Longman Publishers,
1995.
Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. A Handbook of
Critical Approaches to Literature. New
York: Oxford UP, 2005.

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