Literary Criticism: A Study in Details
“Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence.”
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)
Tabular Analysis of Literary Criticism
Definition: Literary criticism refers to the evaluation, interpretation, and analysis of literary works.
Purpose: To examine and understand the literary elements, themes, and techniques employed in a work.
Types: Formalist, Marxist, Feminist, Psychoanalytic, Postcolonial, New Historicism, Reader-response, etc.
Focus: Examining the structure, language, style, symbolism, and narrative techniques of a text.
Approach: Objective analysis and interpretation of a literary work based on specific theoretical frameworks.
Key Concepts: Intertextuality, authorial intention, reader response, ideological criticism, canon formation.
Role of Critics: To provide insights, interpretations, and assessments of literary works to enhance understanding.
Literary Theory: Refers to the underlying principles and methods applied in literary criticism.
Significance: Helps in understanding the historical, social, and cultural context of a literary work.
Critiques: Can be subjective, influenced by personal biases or theoretical perspectives.
In-depth Analysis: Exploring the Depths of Literary Criticism
Introduction:
Criticism, specifically Literary Criticism, is perhaps one of the most hotly debated and contentious issue of the 20th century, and it would be specially important for student of literature to take a view on the role and nature of criticism.In general it is a discussion of literature, including description, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of literary works. T.S. Eliot in his essay The Function of Criticism compares critics to a “Sunday park of contending and contentious who have not been arrived at the articulation of their differences. “Perhaps the same may be said about the diversity of opinion about what criticism itself is. Not only do some people consider it to be a futile “Towers of Babel”, but also questions the very existence of criticism. For a layman criticism means judgments and this sense commonly colours our use of it even when it is most broadly employed. The critic is therefore, regarded as an expert who brings his special faculty to examine the merits and deflects of a work and to pronounce a verdict upon it.
As criticism is occupied with the evolution of the creative works, the critics of criticism would only be too glad to call it a parasitic literature. Yes, criticism is nothing more than books about books. There are also criticism commentary upon the theory of criticism itself and thus implies books about books. So, if the first was parasitic, is not the second saprophytic. But this opinion of criticism as merely a false siren which is of no particular benefits to the regarding publics, is not only extreme but positively fallacious. Criticism is in the world of T.S. Eliot the common pursuit of true judgment. Mathew Arnold in his well known essay, Function of Criticism at the Present Time, asserts that criticism is an eminently useful activity for its function is to “know the best that is known and thought in the world and in his turn making his known to create a current true and fresh idea”. Thus criticism seeks to guide the common readers to enhance the judgment and to stimulate appreciation literary works. As Bacon has said, “some books may be read to deputy”, though he qualified his statements by saying that “the distilled books are like conformational judgment criticism can never invalidated the function criticism serves.
Remote Antiquity:
Criticism can be said to have its beginnings in remote antiquity. The Western tradition’s earliest extended instance of literary criticism occurs Greek philosopher Plato’s dialogue The Republic (about 380 bc), in Greek philosopher Aristotle’s Poetics (about 330 bc) , in Roman poet Horace’s practical advice in Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry, about 20 bc), or in a 1st-century ad treatise, On the Sublime, long attributed to a 3rd-century philosopher named Longinus.
In fact criticism is almost contemporaneous with the first creative activity, and the first poem must also have been a critic of his own creation. But of course the ancient critic who immediately comes to mind is Plato, and even more that him is Aristotle. Aristotle in his Poetics almost taxonomically classified the branches of poetry and drama and lays down the general rules that drama must have an exposition, a middle with a climax and a satisfying end, that tragedy must deal with a sublime person and comedy with a lowly one, that the play must be passes the unity of action, and that tragedy must serve that function of Catharsis. Many of the terms that he uses have become critical jargons and used also invariably to judge a particular drama. The terms like harmantia, Peripetia, anagnorisis, and hurbris are terms that are both a help in the judgment of literature and also a hindrance the sense that they have frequently jackets from whose imitation lesser critics have scarcely been able to free themselves. Yet Humphrey House says the Poetics serves the great function, even if only as a “questionnaire”. Another renowned critic was Longinus, a Roman who in his book On the Sublime gave a view which was in many ways different from the approach of Aristotle for it emblessed the spontaneity and inspiration that lies behind the work of art. It is again he who pointed out that the value art can be measure from the work ability to imprint itself on our mind.
Evolution of criticism:
The traditional criticism of most of these critics is based on the one hand and comparative on the other. The aim of this method is to account for work from the genius of its author and from the turn this genius takes from the circumstances amidst which it was developed. For example in the study of Paradise Lost the first task will be to eliminate as far as possible a personal bias arriving, from individual preferences and to account for the poem by exhaustive analysis for Millions genius and environment of the man himself. To a great extent this criticism undid the former judicial criticism which has long crusade individual task by the dead writer of authority of a priory nation. To see the Latin or Greek master as the as the permanent standard of excellence was done away with and recognized that criticism ought to change with Time for the formulation of the formal roles did not have the knowledge of the works produced subsequent to them.
The Modern Era:
Until the end of the First World War this critical tradition of biographical, historical, didactic and impressionistic criticism was dominant, but this proved of dolorous importance to a world that was wholly changed after the Great War. This led to the new critical jargon of ‘new criticism’ which began with a ‘New Poetics ‘ by theorist such as Pound, Eliot, Richards and Deanis. The turn their back on the former initiative principle and also the principle of didacticism in trying to see the aesthetic or poetic object as it really is. To achieve this end the critic required a capacity to completely distance him from all predecided notions about poetry in order to allow the text or the discourse to speak to him without the intervention of the critics’ prejudices. Thus for them a piece of literature had an biological and other contexts which are often mistaken for literature criticism. The entire process can be summed up as explication de text. Close reading analysis and interpretation were to be the methods followed. The greatest influences in “New Criticism” were books like Practical Criticism, Understanding Poetry, and The Verbal Icon etc.
The Second World War produced an even greater crisis in Western Culture and this again seems to have necessitated a re – valuation of literature values. In this period evolve four types of criticism which are generally known as “Existential”, “Phenomenological”, “Myth” and finally “structuralist” criticism with its more recent development, the post – structural mode. The existential criticism can be traced back to existentialism as a philosopher movement which had its origin. Their vision was of an absurd universe and they necessarily looked at life or reacted to life with nausea despair and dread. Sartre’s Being and Nothingness presents all its concept. Phenomenological can also be traced back to Kursert’s Phenomenological method, the search for the actual behind the appearance to get to the thing themselves as they are presented to our consciousness. Next come like “Myth” theory of Northrop Frye who believed that literature is a kind of Myth making. In his The Anatomy of Criticism, he divided all literature into four different modes, the four different seasons baring his concept on the ancient myth of sacrifice and regeneration. But by for the most formidable challenge to traditional criticism was launched by “structural criticism’. Structural poetics is the outcome of structural linguistics which had studied language to discover in it a system of signs. They believe that there is a different between the surface structure and the deep structure between the intent of the author and his achievement. ‘Post structuralism’ is only one step away for it says that a critic must recompose in his mind the piece of creative writing and then activity reconstruct it. Much of such criticism appears almost paradoxical and it would require great effort and abstract thinking to get to the heart of such criticism.
The Conclusion:
A vital aspect of criticism is the manner in which a critic treats or reveals a piece of literature. It must be noted that if out of a mistake notion of his power, he should exercise his function without knowledge and without a sense of responsibility, he must be judged as being guilty of cultural and artistic sabotage. One frequently comes across types of critics who may be best described as the universal Momus or fault finder like sadist they thrill at the thought of taking to piece an author or his work. A critic must be specially careful with youth writers who can be compared for what Charles Morgan calls “a man exhibiting under compulsion as it were, his fresh burning wounds,” the critic if he must judge new poetry must bring understanding and love into the operation. Of course the opposite of this type of criticism is that of the universal enthusiast who is ready to praise almost everything under the sky. Such unalloyed praise is again faulty criticism and scenes no purpose whatever. The ideal literature critic will be neither a mere fault finder, nor a mere eulogizer. He will be as widely read as a Saintsbury, but he will carry his learning lightly. He will not be learned, but also wise, and he will ne an upright at the same time. He will besides he somewhat a philosopher with his own point of view, though he will avoid being a mere theorist. Then and only then can he be termed an ideal critic.
Ardhendu De
Ardhendu De
References
Hernadi, Paul. "Literary Criticism." Microsoft® Student 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA:
Microsoft Corporation, 2008.
Practical Criticism A Study Of Literary Judgement I. A. Richards : I.A. Richards : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/wxpO_practical-criticism-a-study-of-literary-judgement-i.-a.-richards
Essays in criticism. The study of poetry. John Keats; Wordsworth. Edited by Susan S. Sheridan : Arnold, Matthew, 1822-1888 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/essaysincritic00arnouoft
Samuel Johnson’s literary criticism : Hagstrum, Jean H : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/samueljohnsonsli00hags
Principles Of Literary Criticism : I A Richards : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.218337
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