Literary creation can be traced back to human history and literary criticism shares its age with literature. The study of literature as we understand it now began as a serious pursuit only after the Renaissance. In the age of Renaissance different people had different perceptions of literature. Literary study was a piece of historical study for those who looked upon it as a document of the past events. It was a search of moral truths for those who studied it as philosophy. Scholars studied it seriously so as to put forward its authenticity as a literary text. Literary criticism meaning, understanding and appreciating literature evolved gradually out of these studies. Most of the other disciplines had developed methods of studying …show more content…
The Greek term originated as early as in the fourth century. The term criticism, as applied to the study and analysis of a body of literary writing, developed only in the seventeenth century in Europe, and later became a common term. This wide and general use of the term criticism, meaning literary criticism encompasses three distinguishable fields of inquiry literary theory, literary history and literary criticism retaining the original Greek sense. Literary history, also called history of literature, treats the whole body of literary works as a process governed historically by time. It treats works as an integral part of a historical process” (Nagarajan, 2011). In the words of Robert Spiller, “it is concerned with describing and explaining the expression in literature of a people during a period of time, in a place and usually in a specific language” (Spiller, 1970). Literary theory lays down principles of literature, its categories and criteria and describes the features and forms that make up a literary work. It is a systematic account of the nature of literature. Literary criticism deals with the understanding and appreciation of specific works and authors. It has generally been the practice to use this term to include all literary …show more content…
Reflecting back historically, ancient critics and their criticism are valuable to us, they are representative of the Graeco-Roman tradition in the arts on which the entire edifice of western criticism rests. There is a great deal to be learnt from them. They looked into the nature and function of art. They were a source of inspiration to those who came later. Graeco-Roman tradition differs from our hoary Indian tradition which goes farther back in
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 5th ed. New York: Longman, 2011. Print.
Heberle, Mark. "Contemporary Literary Criticism." O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Vol. 74. New York, 2001. 312.
Bryfonski, Dedria, and Phyllis Carmel Mendelson, eds. Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1978.
New Criticism attracts many readers to its methodologies by enticing them with clearly laid out steps to follow in order to criticize any work of literature. It dismisses the use of all outside sources, asserting that the only way to truly analyze a poem efficiently is to focus purely on the words in the poem. For this interpretation I followed all the steps necessary in order to properly analyze the poem. I came to a consensus on both the tension, and the resolving of it.
As a precursor, the common understanding needs to be reached that: literature is an art, and has many mediums. Medium is the material or technique with which an artist works (Dictionary.com), for example: photographs, pastels, canvas, paper, ink, etc... There are technical, recreational, and otherwise artistic uses for all mediums. A small child taking pictures of a puppy with a disposable camera, a reporter taking precise pictures of a sporting event, and an artist taking close-up pictures of the dew as it drips off a tree are all different uses of the same medium in photography. Literature can be created with many different intentions and reasons, but the attempt to determine that something is not art based off of the motivation or intentions of the artist is quit meaningless.
Forum 19.4 (Winter 1985): 160-162. Rpt. inTwentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 192. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Nov. 2013.
The notion of the author has often been disputed when it comes to critical literary studies. The argument centers around one basic question: Should the author be considered when looking at a text? There are numerous reasons given as to why the author is important or why the ...
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 5th ed. New York: Longman, 2011. Print.
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 5th ed. New York: Longman, 2011. Print.
Literature is acknowledged for its ability to mirror life. It stands as a reflection for some of the human behavior and it helps to illuminate a genuine picture of the societies.
“Criticism is inevitable”. Humans tend to admire and evaluate elements of life, objects, places, ideas, whatever is in front of them. This means to analyze, judge or disapprove, is the human nature that cannot be controlled even though words are that being said, it happens in the human mind by default. When it comes to literature, criticism plays a major role as is explained in the book “The Norton Introduction to Literature”. Edited by Kelly J. Mays. Critical approaches have three essential elements in the literacy exchange or interaction process, which are the text, the source and the receiver. This three elements are so essential because eventually will help the writer to formulate questions giving the writer a solid
His first statement is that “Literary criticism is a description and evaluation of its object” (Brooks 19). The literary critic reports on the work that he is criticizing and picks out the meaning that he deems important, which might be different from what the next critic would pick out. To describe the work it is therefore already a subjective exercise, such as in Doctor Faustus, in the A-version of the text, some people ...
The study of Literature lends to an understanding of our history, our society and sometimes ourselves. With Literature, we see the Countries and People as they were. We experience the different climates,language and tone.
For example in literary criticism, psychoanalytic criticism uses to interpret literature. Psychoanalytic criticism has some distinction from psychoanalysis in interpreting behavior. Psychoanalysis is the used in medical knowledge to cure people from mental disorders while psychoanalytic criticism use as a technique of psychoanalysis to describe literary work. Psychoanalytic criticism have focus on the critical study of any literary work through different aspects i.e. to study the psychology of author (analyze authors' life, works and personality) , psychology of character (analyze the characters' behavior and motivation) psychology of audience (analyze the acceptance of work for those who read the work) psychology of text (analyze the role of language ,symbolism and the overall structure of the
Person, James E., Jr. “Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800.” http://go.galegroup.com. N.p., 1988. Web. 9 Dec. 2010. .