ENGL - 1000 INTRO TO LITERARY AND CULTURAL STUDIES

what is literary studies/criticism?

the study, analysis, and interpretation of literature

when does literary studies/criticism begin to develop?

began developing in Britain through the 1600 - 1700s as a formal discipline (e.g. Aristotle’s Poetics in the 4th century BC)

what is literary/critical theory?

the systematic study of basic critical principles or assumptions that underlie a text, culture, or way of thinking

what can literary/critical theory also examine?

can also examine the methods of literary criticism itself

what can literary criticism be viewed as?

can be viewed as the practical application of theory to a given text

what is literature?

traditionally defined as creative, written fiction

e.g. novels, short stories, poems, plays, etc.

schools of criticism/theory have sought to…?

restrict or broaden the definition of literature

new critic: “L’art pour ‘art”

art for art’s sake

art exists in isolation from…?

social context, didactic, political, moral function: resides in a purely artistic, intellectual domain. only a certain type of text should be considered literature.

marxist: art for art’s sake is a tool to divide social classes…?

it restricts art solely for the upper class ignoring its value as a social tool mean to be produced for the masses

verse

language organized to follow a specific structure (metre, rhyme scheme, etc.)

verse (poetry)

typically organized into stanzas of related lines

verse characteristics

• often breaks rules of grammar, sentence structure, and word order (syntax)

  • includes lyric, epic, dramas, etc.

prose

language that’s not organized according to a specific metrical pattern

prose characteristics

• typically meant to follow rules of grammar, sentence structure, word order (syntax) to appear more natural

  • includes fiction and non-fiction alike

what are the 6 major movements in eng lit?

1. middle ages: ca. 500-1500

2. 16th/17th centuries: 1485-1660

3. restoration and 18th century: 1660-1785

4. romantic period: 1785-1832

5. Victorian era: 1837-1901

6. 20th/21st centuries: 1901-present

middle ages: ca 500-1500 (6 points)

• old english ca. 5th century - 1066

• anglo -saxon

• caedmon’s hymn (the oldest first recorded english poem)

• beowulf ca. 700-1000 more widely known

• anglo norman french a.k.a. middle english

• william caxton introduced book printing to england ca. 1422-1491

16th/17th centuries: 1485-1660 ( 5 points)

• early modern english: late 15th century - mid 17th century

• started in 1485 b/c prince henry the 7th rose to tutor monarch which led to queen elizabeth

• public theatre in elizabethain england (1588-1603) displayed dramas of william shakespeare and christopher marlowe

• modern english: 17th century- present

• 17th century the enlightenment: intellectual and cultural movement in europe emphasizing reason > faith to understand the world

restoration and 18th century: 1660 - 1785 (5 points)

• england became a republic b/c royalty left england for 10-20 years b/c the ppl wondered why they had to listen to a king

• restoration of the stewart dynasty in england w/ king charles II marking the end of english commonwealth and interregnum

• theatres reopened once again and women were allowed to act on stage (previously played by young boys)

• literary critics became more formal w/ John dryden, Alexander pope, and samuel johnson (also authors)

• satire (humorous/sarcastic; poking fun at a topic) as a method popularized and became a political/social critique being humorous/sarcastic to discuss or interpret (swift, pope, johnson)

romantic period: 1785 -1832 (4 points)

• opposition to the enlightenment’s emphasis on rationality and britain’s rising industrialization

• romanticism wanted to return to nature to emotions and creativity instewad of strict logic

• the big 6 english romantic poets:

1. William Blake

2. William Wordsworth

3. Samuel Taylor Coleridge

4. Lord Byron

5. Percy Shelley

6. John Keats

• novels of Mary Shelley and Jane Austen

the Victorian era: 1837 - 1901 (4 points)

• romantics looked more inward or shallow while the Victorians looked to address social issues of class, race, gender, etc. (equally if not more so than the romantics)

• the serial novel popularized like Charles Dickens (published weekly or monthly in periodicals)

• not as recognized back then but are now Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte (sisters), influenced by romantic and gothic fiction of the decades prior

• major poets: Lord Alfred Tennyson and Christina Rossetti

20th/21st centuries: 1901 - present (6 points)

• rise of modernism in early 20th century

• advancement in technology impacting traditional literature (e.g. film/photography)

• “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” poet W.B. Yeats WWI

• postmodernism of 1950s seen either as a continuation or radical break of modernism

• self reflexivity, deep irreverence, parody

• soliloquy of molly bloom no punctuation or structure (their version of what modernism is)

major literary theories

• marxism

• postcolonialism

• structuralism/formalism

• psychoanalysis

marxism

• emphasizes class conflict and historical background/production of literature

• highly critical of capitalism

• e.g. how does this novel depict class struggles? are the characters aware of the economic structures of their oppression?

• *quiz what is the marxism analyzing?

postcolonialism

• examines and critiques imperialism and colonialism

• colonial forces develop ideologies of economic, political, and cultural domination, and how decolonized ppl can disempower these theories

• e.g. how does this novel depict the colonizer and the colonized?

structuralism/formalism

• interrelation of elements as part of a larger system or “structure” instead of examining elements in isolation from their structural function

• e.g. how does the narrative structure of this novel relate to others?

psychoanalysis

• argues that texts are always structured by the psyche and its complex, often contradictory to human desires

• literary theory psychoanalyzes an author or character in text

• e.g. how does the protagonist of this novel embody the archetype of the shadow?

alliteration - (essential terms to literary studies)

• consonant that repeats at the beginning of a word or in a stressed syllable

• e.g. “the Furrow Followed Free”

antithesis - (essential terms to literary studies)

• rhetorical technique where two ideas directly opposed and presented in a grammatically parallel way

• gives contrasting purpose, drawing attention to difference

• e.g. “giver every man thy ear, but few thy voice” - “united we stand, divided we fall”

assonance - (essential terms to literary studies)

• repeating interior vowel sounds

• differs from rhyme as the final consonants differ

• e.g. sweet dreams, hit or miss

canon - (essential terms to literary studies)

• recognized works of an author/group of authors that are portrayed as “classics” containing significant literary merit

• originally applied to religious texts (canonical Christian texts from bible or significant clergy)

• western canon: ancient greek philosophy of aristotle, plato, plays of shakespeare, poetry of the british romantics etc.

• western canon faced criticism for being too exclusionary, eurocentric, malecentric, etc. (many new writers from varioous backgrounds have since been added

character - (essential terms to literary studies)

• those depicted in stories

• flat character: those who don’t change throughout the story (side character)

• round character: those more developed and likely to change throughout

• stock character: generic type, often in a conventional manner, that an audience can quickly identify (mad scientist, the fool, detective)

close reading - (essential terms to literary studies)

• common methodology for literary studies involving a careful. sustained analysis of a text’s passage

• encourages a slow analysis: attention to form, structure, argument, language etc.

• e.g. how’s the the passage structured? how is the author using imagery effectively?

connotation - (essential terms to literary studies)

• suggestion, implication, or association of a word or phrase, beyond its literal meaning

• authors can choose words w/ particular connotations to subtly evoke/influence meaning

• e.g. “this is my house” vs “this is my home”

denotation - (essential terms to literary studies)

• literal, dictionary definition of a word (oxford eng dict. as standard)

• can trace the historical development of a word (its etymology) using the OED

diction - (essential terms to literary studies)

• word choice: complexity, abstractness, formality, etymology/origin

• what type of words is the author using (vocab)? how are they arranging these words (syntax)?

imagery - (essential terms to literary studies)

• patterns of images meant to evoke your senses, vividly describe a scene, make you feel

• metaphors and similes fall under tools of imagery

• e.g. "The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung me; a few
  shattered pines were scattered around; and the solemn silence of this glorious presence-chamber of
  imperial Nature was broken only by the brawling waves, or the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder
  sound of the avalanche..." (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 65-6).

motif - (essential terms to literary studies)

• Recurring pattern, image, action in a text whose repetition adds to its meaning, points to a theme

• While often related to a text's abstract theme, a motif tends towards something concrete

• e.g the repeated washing of hands in Macbeth is a motif, helping to develop the theme of guilt

narrative - (essential terms to literary studies)

• fictional or non-fictional events told by a narrator

• story: what happened, chronologically

• plot: how it’s presented

• frame narrative: the surrounding narrative in which a primary, inner narrative is told

narrator/pov - (essential terms to literary studies)

• the voice telling the story

• in non-fiction, the narrator can often be read as the author directly

• in fiction, the narrator is not always the author but often a character themself

• can have different povs from which they present the narrative

• first person: told from pov of one or more characters using “I”

• second person: told from pov of narrator describing to audience directly using “you”

• third person: told from pov of outside narrator that doesnt directly participate in narrative using “he, she, they etc.”

plot - (essential terms to literary studies)

• the design and order of events in a narrative, emphasizing their impact on character

• while outline can reveal the broad structure of a story (boy meets girl, boy looses girl), plot allows the characters to influence/be influenced by this set up (boy meets girl, but b/c of their feuding families, looses girl)

meter - (essential terms to literary studies)

• regular rhythmic sound pattern of stressed/accented syllables and unstressed/unaccented syllables

• stressed syllables are marked w/ a slanted dash /

• unstressed syllables are marked w/ a breve ̆ (small half circle placed above a letter)

• scansion: process of marking stressed and unstressed syllables in verse

• lambic: one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable (ex. above, belong, delay)

  • tends to match the natural rhythm of english conversation

  • popularized by Chaucer, Shakespeare

• trochaic: one stressed followed by one unstressed (ex. garden, highway)

• dactylic: one stressed followed by two unstressed (hickory dickory dock)

• foot: repeating unit of stressed/unstressed syllables in particular combination

  • one foot = monometer

  • two feet = dimeter

  • three feet = trimeter

• lines of poetry are characterized by their length in feet and the pattern of stress

• e.g. lambic pentameter (shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, john milton’s paradise lost)

symbolism - (essential terms to literary studies)

• process by which a person, place, object, event, etc. comes to stand for an abstract idea

• while metaphors/similes are more explicit in directly stating what is the representation stands for, symbols tend to be more implicit/requiring interpretation

• e.g. the green light in The Great Gatsby is a symbol of hope for the future, the fading of the american dream

syntax - (essential terms to literary studies)

• grammatical rules governing sentence structure/ word order

• one of the greatest differences between prose and verse

• also a primary way in which a writer’s style/voice emerges

theme - (essential terms to literary studies)

• significant idea that emerges from a text (its message)

• can be reduced to a single word (love, death, anger) or short phrases (coming of age)

• can be developed implicitly (through plot, setting etc) or explicitly (stated clearly in dialogue

• refers to recurring topic of multiple texts and authors (ex. the theme of time throughout shakespeare’s drama)

rhetorical text

• broad term to refer to objects we are examining

• rhetoric: the art/study of persuasive communication

• text: any form of communication that humans create and use

• written texts, visual texts, auditory texts, performance texts, etc.