ENGL63: LITERARY CRITICISM ->> Literary Discussion vs. Literary Analysis vs.
Literary Interpretation
REVIEWER
- Literary Discussion
- Casual Conversation about a literary texts.
- What can you say about the picture?
- Literary Analysis
- It’s all about our own perspective
- Structured examination of a literary piece.
- Literary Interpretation
- What is Literary?
- In-depth understanding of the literary
- concerning the writing, study, or content of piece. Provision of meaning and explanation.
literature, especially of the kind valued for
quality of form.
- What is Criticism? LITERARY PERIODS
- the analysis and judgment of the merits and ->> I. Classical Period (1200 BCE - 455 BCE) - oral
faults of a literary or artistic work. tradition
- What is Literary Criticism? a. Homeric/Heroic Period (Iliad & Odyssey) -
Homer
- The study, discussion, evaluation, and
interpretation of the text. b. Classical Greek Period (Golden Age of
Greece) (city-state & democracy - polis) -
- This includes the classification of genre. Philosphers (Aesop)
- Asks what the literature is, what it does, c. Classical Roman Period (Dictatorship/Julius
and what it is worth. Caesar) orid, Horace & Virgil
->> Purposes of Literary Criticism d. Patristic Period (Bible) - Saint Jerome
- Why do we have to analyze everything? ->> II. The Medieval Period (455 BCE - 485 CE)
- “The life which is unexamined is not worth a. The Old English (Anglo-Saxon Period)
living” - Socrates
- "Dark Ages" - Rome fell & the Barbarians
1. Helps us understand what is important tribe moved into Europe.
about the text.
2. Helps us understand the relationship - rise of poetry
between the author, reader, and the text.
3. Enhances our enjoyment in reading a - Epic story (Beowulf)
literary work. b. The Middle English Period
- rise of tales
- Geoffrey Chaucer (father of english - Queen Victoria
literature)
- Sentimental Novels
- 24 Canterbury Tales (ex. The Wife of a
Bath's Tale) - British Writers:
->> III. The Renaissance Period & Reformation 1. Elizabeth Browning (How Do I Love Thee)
(1485 - 1660 CE) 2. Robert Browning (My Last Duchess)
a. Early Tudor Period (Henry VII) 3. Charles Dickens (The Tale of Two Cities)
- emergence of Protestantism - American Writers:
- Edmund Spencer (poet) 1. Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
b. Elizabethan Peiod 2. Emily Dickinson (Hope is the Things with
- Queen Elizabeth Feathers)
- rise of sonnet (William Shakespeare, - Rise of Aesthetic Movement
Christopher Marlowe) - Intellectual Movement
->> IV. The Enlightenment Period (Neo-classical) ->> VII. The Modern Period (1914 - 1945 CE)
(1660 - 1970 CE)
- The Harlem Renaissance - Black Writers
- Neoclassical - influence of classical
literature - British Writers:
a. The Age of Johnson - transition toward 1. Dylan Thomas
romanticism
- Don't Go Gentle Into That Goodnight
- Writers: Dr. Samuel Johnson, Edward
- American Writers:
Gibbon, Thomas Gray, Thomas Paine (The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) 1. Robert Frost
->> V. The Romantic Period (1790 - 1830 BCE) - The Road Not Taken
- Theme: Love, Nature, and Imagination - A Time to Talk
- Writers: Jane Austen - Pride & Prejudice 2. Flannery O'Connor
- Gothic Writings - (horror novels) - A Good Man is Hard to Find (short story)
- Writer - Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven, The 3. Ernest Hemingway
Black Cat)
- The Old Man & The Sea
->> VII. The Victorian Period (1832 - 1901 CE)
- Realism - dominant fashion, realistic
characters over complicated plot
- Theme - social issues, truths about everyday
life
->> VIII. Post-Modern Period (1945 - onward)
1. Multiculturalism - use of different cultures
2. Metafiction - a story within a story
3. Fragmented Poetry - intertextuality
- Writers:
1. T.S. Eliot (Thomas Stearns)
- "Only those who will risk go far" -The
Waste Land
2. Langston Hughes
- dreams deffered
- Magical Realism - magical/supernatural
- Gabriel Garcia Manner/Magner
- J.K. Rowling
