SCOPE: LITERARY CRITICISM

 Formalism
 Historical Biographical
 Moralism
 Feminism
 Marxism
 Mythological Archetypal
LITERARY
CRITICISM
WHAT IS LITERARY
CRITICISM?
 The study, evaluation, and interpretation
of literature.
A reasoned consideration of literary works
and issues
An argumentation about literature
WHAT IS LITERARY
CRITICISM?
 Literary criticism is the evaluation, analysis, description,
or interpretation of literary works. It is usually in the form
of a critical essay, but in-depth book reviews can
sometimes be considered literary criticism. Criticism may
examine a particular literary work, or may look at an
author's writings as a whole.
TYPES OF
LITERARY
CRITICISM
FORMALISM
a unique form of human knowledge
 This approach regards literature as “

that needs to be examined on its own terms. ” All the elements

necessary for understanding the work are contained within the work itself. Of particular
interest to the formalist critic are the elements of form—style, structure, tone, imagery, etc.
—that are found within the text. A primary goal for formalist critics is to
determine how
such elements work together with the text’s content to shape its
effects upon readers.
BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM
 This approach “begins with the simple but central insight
that literature is written by actual people and that
understanding an author’s life can help readers more
thoroughly comprehend the work.” Hence, it often affords
a practical method by which readers can better understand
a text.
IN A STATION OF THE METRO
The apparition of faces in the crowd
Petals in a wet black bough.

-Ezra Pound
HISTORICAL CRITICISM
 This approach “seeks to understand a literary work by
investigating the social, cultural, and intellectual context
that produced it—a context that necessarily includes the
artist’s biography and milieu.” A key goal for
historical critics is to understand the effect of a
literary work upon its original readers.
MORAL PHILOSOPHICAL
APPROACH
 Critics taking a moral or philosophical approach usually describe or
evaluate a work in terms of the ideas and values it contains. This
often means examining a work’s ideas and values—both those
expressed directly by the narrator or character and those implied by
the overall design and content—in relation to a particular ethical,
philosophical, or religious system (rationalism, existentialism,
Christianity, etc.).
MARXIST CRITICISM
The Marxist perspective is the study of the struggle
between the upper, lower, and middle class.
The basis of this perspective is economics. Marx
found that economic was the driving force behind
society.
FEMINIST CRITICISM
concerned with less obvious forms of
marginalization such as the exclusion of
women writers from the traditional literary
canon
READERS’ RESPONSE
CRITCISM
Reader response critics turn away from the
traditional idea that a literary work is an
artifact that has meaning built within it; they
turn their attention instead to the responses of
individual readers.
MYTHOLOGICAL
ARCHETYPAL CRITICISM
a type of critical theory that interprets a text by
focusing on recurring myths and archetypes (from
the Greek archē, "beginning," and typos, "imprint")
in the narrative, symbols, images, and character
types in literary work.
ARCHETYPES
a recurrent symbol or motif in
literature, art, or mythology.
Images and symbolisms that
inform and/or elicit universal
human reaction
READER’S
RESPONSE
CRITICISM
MAMA MO
SOFT DRINKS!
READER’S RESPONSE
CRITICISM
 Tyson explains that "...reader-response theorists share two beliefs: 1) that the role of
the reader cannot be omitted from our understanding of literature and 2) that readers
do not passively consume the meaning presented to them by an objective literary text;
rather they actively make the meaning they find in literature" (154).
 The author is dead
 The death of the author is the birth of the reader
TYPICAL QUESTIONS
• How does the interaction of text and reader create meaning?
• What does a phrase-by-phrase analysis of a short literary text, or a key portion of
a longer text, tell us about the reading experience prestructured by (built into) that
text?
• Do the sounds/shapes of the words as they appear on the page or how they are
spoken by the reader enhance or change the meaning of the word/work?
• How might we interpret a literary text to show that the reader's response is, or is
analogous to, the topic of the story?
• What does the body of criticism published about a literary text suggest about the
critics who interpreted that text and/or about the reading experience produced by
that text? (Tyson 191)
FORMALIST/
NEW CRITICISM
 FORMALIST
 Also known as New Criticism, Formalism involves a close reading of the text in a piece of
writing
 Formalists believe that all information that is essential to the interpretation of a work must be
found within the piece itself
 There is no need to bring in outside information about the author’s life
 They are not interested in the work’s affect on the reader
 Spend much time analyzing the irony, imagery, paradox, and metaphors of the literary work
 Interested in setting, symbols, characters, and point of view incorporated in the piece
 A formalist basically would focus on literary devices of a piece of writing, especially irony
 BACKGROUND
INFORMATION
New Criticism arose in opposition to biographical or vaguely impressionistic approaches
 It sought to establish literary studies as a main idea
 Its desire to reveal “organic unity in complex texts” (or the use of literary devices in all works of
writing) may be historically determined, reflective of early 20th century critics seeking a lost order or
in conflict with an increasingly fragmented society
 PROS OF FORMALISM
 This approach can be performed without much research
 It emphasizes the value of literature apart from its context (in effect
makes literature timeless)
 Virtually all critical approaches must begin here; it is the origin of
criticism
 CONS OF
FORMALISM
 When using formalism, the text is seen in isolation
 Formalism ignores the context of the work; it focuses only on
literary devices
 It cannot account for allusions
 It tends to reduce literature to a science; and the style and emotion
is broken down and ignored
FIGURES OF SPEECH
 A figure of speech is a word or phrase using figurative language—language
that has other meaning than its normal definition. In other words, figures
of speeches rely on implied or suggested meaning, rather than a dictionary
definition.
 Figures of speech make up a huge portion of the English language, making
it more creative, more expressive, and just more interesting.
FIGURES OF SPEECH
 Simile – life is like a box of chocolates
 Metaphor – All the world is a stage.
 Personification – The letters are dancing
 Hyperbole - I have a ton of things to do when I get home.
 Oxymoron – Deafening silence filled the room. Cruel Kindness
 Paradox – This is the beginning of the end. you have to be cruel in order to be kind.
 Irony – words are intentionally used to indicate a meaning other than the literal one.
TYPICAL QUESTIONS
• How does the work use imagery to develop its own symbols? (i.e. making a certain
road stand for death by constant association)
• What is the quality of the work's organic unity "...the working together of all the parts
to make an inseparable whole..." (Tyson 121)? In other words, does how the work is
put together reflect what it is?
• How are the various parts of the work interconnected?
• How do paradox, irony, ambiguity, and tension work in the text?
• How do these parts and their collective whole contribute to or not contribute to the
aesthetic quality of the work?
• How does the author resolve apparent contradictions within the work?
• What does the form of the work say about its content?
• Is there a central or focal passage that can be said to sum up the entirety of the
work?
• How do the rhythms and/or rhyme schemes of a poem contribute to the meaning or
effect of the piece?
MYTHOLOGICAL AND
ARCHETYPAL
APPROACHES
 DEFINITIONS AND MISCONCEPTIONS
 The myth critics study the
so-called archetypes or
archetypal patterns. They
wish to reveal about the
people’s mind and
character.
 Myth is the symbolic
projection of the people’s
hopes, values, fears, and
aspirations. The illustration is Pandora’s Box.
According to mythology, Pandora’s
Box is the source of all misfortune
but also hope.
COMPARISONS BETWEEN THESE TWO
APPROACHES

Both mythological
criticism and the
psychological
approach are
concerned with the
motives that
underlie human
behavior.
Psychology tends to be
experimental and diagnostic;
it is related to biological
science. Mythology tends to
be speculative and
philosophical; its affinities are
with religion, anthropology,
and cultural history.
EXAMPLES OF ARCHETYPES: IMAGES
1. Water:
a. The sea
b. Rivers (cf. The
Mississippi River in
Huckleberry Finn)
2. Sun
a. Rising sun
b. Setting sun
3. Colors
Archetypes are universal symbol.
This is Ouroboros.
4. Circle: wholeness,
unity
a. Mandala
b. Egg (oval)
c. Yin-Yang Mandala
d. Ouroboros
5. Serpent (snake,
worm)
6. Numbers
Yang-yin
7. The archetypal woman
a. The Good Mother (cf. The Widow Douglas in Huckleberry
Finn)
b. The Terrible Mother (cf. Miss Watson in Huckleberry
Finn)
c. The Soul Mate (cf. Mary Jane Wilks in Huckleberry Finn)
8. The demon lover (cf.
Blake’s “The Sick Rose”
and the Jungian animus)
9. The Wise Old Man (cf. Jim
in Huckleberry Finn)
10. The Trickster (“con
man”—King and Duke in
Huckleberry Finn)
11. Garden
12. Tree
13. Desert
14. Mountain
B. ARCHETYPAL MOTIFS OR
PATTERNS
1. Creation: perhaps the most
fundamental of all archetypal
motifs
2. Immortality (cf. “To His Coy
Mistress”)
a. Escape from time
b. Mystical submersion into cyclical
time

Andrew Marvell
 3. Hero archetypes
a. The quest (cf.
Oedipus)
b. Initiation (cf.
The dueling match in Hamlet is
a pattern of sacrifice- Huck)
atonement-Catharsis
c. The sacrificial
scapegoat (cf.
Oedipus and
Oedipus the Rex Hamlet)
C. ARCHETYPES AS GENRES
Northrop Frye, in his
Anatomy of Criticism,
indicates the
correspondent genres for
the four seasons:
1. Spring: comedy
2. Summer: romance
3. Fall: tragedy (cf.
Hamlet) Louis Bouwmeester (1842-
1925) as Oedipus
4. Winter: irony
B. JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY
C.G. Jung’s “myth forming” elements are in
the unconscious psyche; he refers them as
“motifs,” “primordial images,” or
“archetypes.” He also detected the
relationship between dreams, myths, and art
through which archetypes come into
consciousness.

Carl Gustav Jung is known

as one of the foremost
psychological thinkers of
the 20th century.
INDIVIDUATION
 INDIVIDUATION: SHADOWS, PERSONA, AND ANIMA

Individuation, to Jung, was

the quest for wholeness that
the human psyche invariably
undertakes, the journey to
become conscious of his or
herself as a unique human
being, but unique only in the
same sense that we all are,
not more or less so than
others.
SHADOW
The shadow is the darker aspects of
our unconscious self, the inferior and
less pleasing aspects of the
personality, which we wish to
suppress. (cf. Shakespeare’s Iago,
Milton’s Satan, Goethe’s
Mephistopheles, and Conrad’s Kurtz)
Those traits that we dislike, or would rather ignore,
come together to form what Jung called the
Shadow. This part of the psyche, which is also
influenced heavily by the collective unconscious, is a
form of complex, and is generally the complex most
accessible by the conscious mind.
 Without a well-developed shadow side, a person
can easily become shallow and extremely
preoccupied with the opinions of others, a walking
Persona.

Just as conflict is necessary to advancing the plot of

any good novel, light and dark are necessary to our
personal growth.
Anima and Animus
 ANIMA/ANIMUS

According to Jung, the anima and animus are the

contra-sexual archetypes of the psyche, with the
anima being in a man and animus in a woman.
These are built from feminine and masculine
archetypes the individual experiences, as well as
experience with members of the opposite sex
(beginning with a parent), and seek to balance out
one’s otherwise possible one-sided experience of
gender. 
 PERSONA
Persona is an element of the personality which arises “for reasons of
adaptation or personal convenience.” If you have certain “masks” you
put on in various situations (such as the side of yourself you present at
work, or to family), that is a persona.
JUNGIAN QUEST:
 Assumes that the monomyth of the Quest or
Journey underlies archetypal images
 Hero forced to leave comfortable surroundings
and venture in an unfamiliar, new world filled
with new challenges
 Meet wise old man who helps out with guidance
and advice
 Barrier tests the fledgling hero (tends to
separate familiar world from unfamiliar)
JUNGIAN CRITICISM: