Literary Criticism

LITERARY CRITICISM

the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. (Activity)

LITERARY THEORY

philosophical discussion of literary criticism's methods and goals (Guide on how we evaluate)

Mimesis

Plato. literature imitates life

Plato

Mimesis is by?

ANNA KARENINA

Written by Leo Tolstoy. is renowned for its realistic portrayal of 19th-century Russian society

Function

Horace. literature either entertain (dulce) or teach (utile).

Horace

Function is by?

Catharsis

Aristotle. literature prompts emotional cleansing. Mostly on negative and heavy emotions. To release emotions

Aristotle

Catharsis is by?

MEDEA

Written by Euripides. The audience experiences pity for Medea's initial betrayal by Jason, but this pity is increasingly mixed with horror and fear as she plans and executes her horrific revenge

Style

Longinus. literature has four styles low, middle, high, and sublime

Longinus

Style is by?

PARADISE LOST

Written by John Milton. his elevated language, vast cosmic scale, and the powerful portrayal of Satan's defiant spirit all contribute to a sense of awe and overwhelming majesty

Censorship

Plato. literature shows bad mimesis should be censored.

Plato

Censorship is by?

THE REPUBLIC

Written by Plato, prioritizes reasoned argument, seeks to define justice and ideal governance, and criticizes art that deviates from these goals.

HISTORICAL-BIOGRAPHICAL

sees a literary work chiefly, if not exclusively, as a reflection of the author's life and times or the life and times of the characters in the work

HISTORICAL-BIOGRAPHICAL

What approach?
this approach, Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere would mean that the events in the story reflect the events that really happened in Philippine history SINCE 2016

NEW HISTORICISM

declares that all history is subjective, written by people whose personal biases affect their interpretation of the past

NEW HISTORICISM

What approach?

the events in Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere are purely Rizal's view, and are not universal or may not have happened for a fact

MORAL-PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH

larger function is to teach morality and to probe philosophical issues

MORAL-PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH

In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, Jean Valjearn's journey from convict to a man of moral integrity highlights the complexities of law versus grace

READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM

shifts emphasis of textual analysis from text alone, and views readers and text as partners

READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM

Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code contains fictional interpretation of the core aspects of Christian history and theology, in which Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and that they had a child

Decentering

Other term for Deconstruction?

DECONSTRUCTION

pioneer Jacques Derrida believes it is impossible for a text to have stable meaning

DECONSTRUCTION

In some stories that do not have tidy endings, you cannot assume you know what happened In Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Saleem's story is riddled with inconsistencies and self-corrections, highlighting how history is constructed through narrative and prone to slippage (fact/fiction binary)

PSYCHOANALYTICAL THEORY

a work of literature is correlated with its author's mental traits

PSYCHOANALYTICAL THEORY

Alcohol allows the latent thoughts and desires of the narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat to surface in such a way that he ends up shirking his self-control

MYTHOLOGICAL-ARCHETYPAL

Carl Jung's "collective unconscious" that contains these archetypes (identifiable in a wide variety of works)

Lam-ang

Archetype of immortality

Superman (Superman Returns)

Archetype of death-rebirth

Gandalf (Lord of the Rings)

Archetype of a wise old man

Aeneas

Archetype of hero of the quest

Odysseus

Archetype of hero of initiation

Jesus Christ

Archetype of sacrificial scapegoat

RUSSIAN FORMALISM

emphasizes on a piece's literariness (devices that distinguish literary language from ordinary language)

Defamiliarization

making something strange, everything must be described as if for the first time.

Naturalization

what was once "strange" becomes conventional

Carnivalization

normal rules, roles, and order are turned upside down

NEW CRITICISM

discourages the use of history and biography in interpreting a literary work. the meaning of a work can be drawn from a detailed analysis of the text itself

NEW CRITICISM

A poem should be treated as primarily poetry and should be regarded as an independent and self-sufficient object

STRUCTURALISM

investigates the kinds of patterns that are built up and broken down within a text and uses them to get at an interpretation of that text
believes text is a "mosaic of quotations" drawing from previous texts

MARXIST CRITICISM

concerns with the analysis of the clash of opposing social classes in society namely the ruling class (bourgeoisie), and the working class (proletariat)

MARXIST CRITICISM

George Orwell's 1985 explores themes of totalitarianism, surveillance, and the manipulation of truth by a ruling elite

FEMINIST CRITICISM

concerns with the woman's role in society as portrayed through texts.

FEMINIST CRITICISM

Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own addresses the status of women, particularly women artists

Stylistics

is the application of concepts from linguistics and allied disciplines in the analysis and interpretation of samples of communication through language

Cognitive Stylistics

the study of how our minds make sense of language in literature It looks at how readers think, imagine, and interpret when they read a text

Cognitive Stylistics

"The forest whispered secrets to the boy"
What type of stylistics?

Corpus stylistics

the study of literature using large collections of texts (called corpora) and computer tools to find patterns in language that are too hard to notice by eye.

Corpus stylistics

She uses the word "sense" more often than her contemporaries

She frequently uses modal verbs like "must" "ought to," "should," showing social expectations

The word "Mr" appears extremely often, reflecting her focus on society and relationships

Critical stylistics

the study of how language reflects power, ideology, and bias.

Critical stylistics

Clear agent ("company") shows responsibility

Verb "laid off" sounds softer than "fired" reduces negative impact

Shows how word choice can hide harsh reality.

Film stylistics

the study of how a film's style creates meaning, including camera angles, lighting, sound, editing, colors, and even the way actors move or speak

Film stylistics

Shots often use wide, barren landscapes and muted colors

Rigorous, Retrievable, Replicable

The 3Rs of stylistics?

Synthetic theoretical Model

What model?
sentence-clause-phrase-word-morpheme

Bottom-up theoretical Model

What model?

morpheme-word-phrase-clause-sentence

Synthetic theoretical Model

sentence-clause-phrase-word-morpheme

Intertextuality

when one text references, quotes, or s inspired by another text

STYLE AS THE MAN

An author who is calm and reflective tends to write in long, gentle, flowing sentences. Style as?

STYLE AS CHOICE

Event: A boy ran out of the house.

Different stylistic choices:

• The boy dashed out of the house.

• The boy hurried outside.

• A young lad sprinted from the doorway.

• He ran out, breathless and frantic.

Style as?

STYLE AS SITUATION

Example:
Situation: Asking for help.

• Formal (to a professor):

  “Good afternoon, Ma’am. May I kindly request your assistance with my paper?”

• Informal (to a friend):

  “Hey, can you help me with my paper?”

• Texting:

  “Hi! Pwede pa-help sa paper?”

The situation determines the style. Style as?

STYLE AS CONFORMITY

• Academic writing:

  “The results indicate a significant correlation between the variables.”

• Legal writing:

  “The party of the first part agrees to the terms herein stated.”

• Journalistic writing:

  “Officials confirmed the incident early Tuesday morning.”

These fields impose strict stylistic rules. What style?

STYLE AS DEVIATION

• Grammar :

  “And the world was hush, and the dark was deep.”
  (Using “hush” as an adjective)

• Spelling or structure :

  “i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)” — e.e. cummings

Breaking rules becomes part of the artistic style. What style?

C. Style as the man

“Style is the man himself” refers to what concept of style?

C. Style as choice

The idea that a single event can be described in various ways (e.g., He ran, He sprinted, He dashed) reflects which concept?

A. Style as choice

A writer chooses between “The child cried loudly” and “The child wailed in sorrow.” This exemplifies—

A. Style as situation

Speaking formally in a job interview but casually with friends is an example of—

B. Style as situation

When a teacher says, “Good morning, class. Today we will discuss…” but texts a friend “uy tara na,” this illustrates—

A. Style as choice

B. Style as situation

C. Style as period

D. Style as deviation

C. Style as period

Shakespeare’s use of archaic words such as “thee” and “thou” reflects what concept of style?

B. Style as period

The fact that writers from the Romantic era use emotional and flowery language is an example of—

A. Style as conformity

Academic writing that requires objectivity, formal vocabulary, and proper citation reflects—

C. Style as conformity

The legal field requiring precise, formulaic language such as “hereby,” “thereof,” and “whereas” demonstrates—

C. Style as deviation

A poet writing “the dark was hush” to create musicality, even though “hush” is not normally an adjective, is an example of—

A. Style as deviation

Using unconventional capitalization and punctuation, as seen in e.e. cummings’ poetry, illustrates—

D. Style as deviation

When a writer breaks grammar rules intentionally to achieve poetic effect, this is—