Literary Criticism: Detailed Notes for NET Exam Preparation

1. Introduction to Literary Criticism

• Literary Criticism: The art or practice of judging and commenting on the qualities and character of literary works. It involves the evaluation, analysis, description, or interpretation of literary texts.

Purpose

• Understanding: To provide deeper insights into literary works, exploring themes, structures, meanings, and contexts.
• Evaluation: To assess the aesthetic, moral, and cultural value of texts.
• Interpretation: To explain and interpret various elements within the text, such as symbolism, themes, and characters.

Historical Overview

• Classical Origins: Literary criticism dates back to ancient Greece and Rome with critics like Aristotle, who wrote "Poetics," defining principles of tragedy and epic poetry.
• Medieval Period: Focused on religious texts and their moral and allegorical interpretations.
• Renaissance: Rebirth of classical ideas and the exploration of new forms and themes in literature.
• 18th Century: Emergence of aesthetic theory and the formalist approach.
• 19th Century: Romantic criticism emphasizing the individual experience and emotional response.
• 20th Century: Diverse critical approaches including structuralism, post-structuralism, Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis, and more.

Major Functions

1. Descriptive: Outlines the features and characteristics of a literary work.
2. Analytical: Breaks down a text into its constituent parts to understand its meaning and structure.
3. Interpretive: Provides an explanation of a text's meaning, themes, and significance.
4. Evaluative: Judges the artistic merit and cultural value of a work.

Key Approaches in Literary Criticism

1. Historical/Biographical: Examines literature in the context of its historical setting and the author's life.
2. Formalism/New Criticism: Focuses on the text itself, analyzing its form, structure, and language.
3. Marxist: Looks at literature through the lens of class struggle and economic power.
4. Feminist: Analyzes the representation of gender and the dynamics of power related to gender.
5. Psychoanalytic: Uses Freudian and other psychological theories to interpret texts.
6. Structuralism/Post-Structuralism: Investigates the underlying structures of texts and deconstructs them to find inherent contradictions.
7. Reader-Response: Emphasizes the reader's role in interpreting and creating meaning from the text.
8. Postcolonial: Explores the impact of colonialism and cultural identity in literature.
9. Ecocriticism: Studies the relationship between literature and the physical environment.

Importance of Literary Criticism

• Enhances Understanding: Provides deeper insights and fosters a greater appreciation of literary works.
• Cultural Reflection: Helps readers understand cultural, social, and historical contexts.
• Encourages Critical Thinking: Promotes analytical and interpretive skills, encouraging readers to think critically about texts and their meanings.
• Diverse Perspectives: Opens up multiple ways of looking at a text, enriching the reading experience.

Conclusion

Literary criticism is a vital field that enriches our understanding and appreciation of literature. By employing various critical approaches, it allows us to delve deeply into texts, uncovering layers of meaning and offering new perspectives on familiar works. As an evolving discipline, it continues to adapt and respond to changing cultural and intellectual landscapes, ensuring its relevance and importance in the study of literature.

2. Major Types of Literary Criticism

1. 1. Historical Criticism

   •  Examines the historical context in which a literary work was written.
   • Focus: The influence of the author's life and times on the text.
   • Key Concepts: Contextual background, historical influences.
   • Notable Critics: Hippolyte Taine, Georg Lukács.
   • Example: Analyzing Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities by considering the historical events of the French Revolution.

   2. Formalism/New Criticism

   •  Emphasizes the form and structure of the text itself, rather than external factors.
   • Focus: Literary devices, language, and structure.
   • Key Concepts: Close reading, text as an independent entity.
   • Notable Critics: Cleanth Brooks, T.S. Eliot.
   • Example: Analyzing the use of irony and symbolism in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

   3. Marxist Criticism

   • Analyzes literature based on class struggle, economic conditions, and materialism.
   • Focus: How literature reflects, reinforces, or challenges societal structures.
   • Key Concepts: Class conflict, ideology, materialism.
   • Notable Critics: Karl Marx, Frederic Jameson.
   • Example: Examining George Orwell's 1984 in the context of class struggle and the power dynamics of a totalitarian society.

   4. Feminist Criticism

   •  Examines literature from the perspective of gender roles and relations.
   • Focus: The portrayal of women and challenges to patriarchal ideologies.
   • Key Concepts: Gender, power dynamics, representation.
   • Notable Critics: Elaine Showalter, Judith Butler.
   • Example: Analyzing the portrayal of female characters in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.

   5. Psychoanalytic Criticism

   • Applies the theories of psychology (particularly Freudian) to literature.
   • Focus: Characters, symbols, and themes through concepts like the unconscious, repression, and desire.
   • Key Concepts: The unconscious, Oedipus complex, symbolism.
   • Notable Critics: Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan.
   • Example: Exploring the unconscious desires and fears of characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

   6. Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

   •  Structuralism focuses on the underlying structures that govern narratives, languages, and texts; Post-Structuralism deconstructs these structures to reveal inherent contradictions and instabilities.
   • Focus: Structural patterns, binary oppositions, deconstruction.
   • Key Concepts: Semiotics, binaries, deconstruction.
   • Notable Critics: Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida.
   • Example: Deconstructing the language and narrative structure of a text like Derrida’s analysis of Rousseau.

   7. Reader-Response Criticism

   •  Emphasizes the reader's role in creating the meaning of a text.
   • Focus: Individual interpretation and interaction between reader and text.
   • Key Concepts: Reader interpretation, subjective experience.
   • Notable Critics: Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser.
   • Example: Considering how different readers might interpret J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.

   8. Postcolonial Criticism

   • Explores literature produced in or about regions that were once colonies.
   • Focus: Themes of power, identity, and cultural conflict.
   • Key Concepts: Colonialism, identity, hybridity.
   • Notable Critics: Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha.
   • Example: Analyzing Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart in the context of colonialism and cultural identity.

   9. Ecocriticism

   • Studies the relationship between literature and the physical environment.
   • Focus: Ecological themes and human-nature interactions in texts.
   • Key Concepts: Nature, environment, sustainability.
   • Notable Critics: Cheryll Glotfelty, Lawrence Buell.
   • Example: Examining the environmental themes in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

   10. Cultural Criticism

   • Examines literature within the context of cultural practices and societal norms.
   • Focus: The influence of culture on literature and vice versa.
   • Key Concepts: Culture, ideology, societal norms.
   • Notable Critics: Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall.
   • Example: Analyzing the cultural and societal implications in Toni Morrison's Beloved.

3. Key Terms in Literary Criticism

• 1. Allegory

  • A narrative in which characters, events, and settings represent abstract qualities or ideas.
  • Example: George Orwell’s Animal Farm is an allegory for the Russian Revolution.

  2. Allusion

  • A reference to another text, historical event, or cultural element within a literary work.
  • Example: T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land contains numerous allusions to classical literature and mythology.

  3. Canon

  • A body of works traditionally accepted as the most important and influential in shaping culture and scholarship.
  • Example: The Western literary canon includes works by Shakespeare, Homer, and Dante.

  4. Close Reading

  •  A detailed, careful analysis of a text, focusing on its language, structure, and meaning.
  • Example: Examining the use of symbolism and imagery in Robert Frost’s poem "The Road Not Taken."

  5. Deconstruction

  • A method of literary analysis that questions the stability of meaning in a text by examining binary oppositions and internal contradictions.
  • Example: Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s works.

  6. Diction

  • The choice of words and style of expression that an author uses in a literary work.
  • Example: The formal diction in Jane Austen’s novels contrasts with the colloquial language of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.

  7. Epiphany

  • A moment of sudden revelation or insight experienced by a character.
  • Example: In James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus experiences an epiphany about his artistic vocation.

  8. Foreshadowing

  • A literary device in which an author gives hints or clues about what will happen later in the story.
  • Example: The opening scenes of Shakespeare’s Macbeth foreshadow the tragic events that follow.

  9. Genre

  • A category of literature characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.
  • Example: Genres include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, and science fiction.

  10. Imagery

  • Descriptive language that appeals to the senses and creates vivid pictures in the reader’s mind.
  • Example: The rich imagery in John Keats’s "Ode to a Nightingale" evokes the beauty of nature.

  11. Intertextuality

  • The relationship between texts and how they reference or influence each other.
  • Example: The intertextual references in James Joyce’s Ulysses draw on Homer’s Odyssey.

  12. Irony

  •  A literary device where the intended meaning is opposite to the literal meaning.
  • Example: In Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, the irony lies in proposing cannibalism as a solution to poverty.

  13. Metafiction

  • Fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, often blurring the boundary between fiction and reality.
  • Example: Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five includes metafictional elements as the protagonist becomes aware of his role in the story.

  14. Motif

  •  A recurring element, such as a theme, symbol, or image, in a literary work.
  • Example: The motif of darkness and light in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

  15. Narrative Techniques

  • Various methods used by authors to tell a story (e.g., stream of consciousness, unreliable narrator).
  • Example: The use of stream of consciousness in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.

  16. Parody

  • A humorous or satirical imitation of a serious work.
  • Example: Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote parodies chivalric romances.

  17. Persona

  • The voice or character assumed by an author in a literary work.
  • Example: The persona in Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues, such as "My Last Duchess."

  18. Satire

  • A genre that uses humor, irony, or ridicule to criticize and expose flaws in society, individuals, or institutions.
  • Example: Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels satirizes human nature and political systems.

  19. Stream of Consciousness

  •  A narrative technique that presents the flow of thoughts and feelings in a character’s mind.
  • Example: James Joyce’s Ulysses and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse use stream of consciousness extensively.

  20. Symbolism

  • The use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities beyond their literal meaning.
  • Example: The green light in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby symbolizes Gatsby’s dreams and aspirations.

  21. Theme

  • The central idea or message conveyed by a literary work.
  • Example: The theme of alienation in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.

  22. Tone

  • The attitude or approach that the author takes toward the work’s central theme or subject.
  • Example: The melancholic tone in Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Raven."

  23. Unreliable Narrator

  • A narrator whose credibility is compromised.
  • Example: The narrator in Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Tell-Tale Heart" is unreliable due to his madness.

4. Important Literary Theories and Movements

1. 1. Formalism

   • Focuses on the form and structure of a text.
   • Key Concepts: Literary devices, structure, close reading.
   • Notable Figures: Viktor Shklovsky, Roman Jakobson.
   • Example: Analyzing the use of narrative techniques in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.

   2. Structuralism

   • Analyzes literature through underlying structures like language and systems of meaning.
   • Key Concepts: Semiotics, binary oppositions, mythemes.
   • Notable Figures: Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes.
   • Example: Analyzing myths using Claude Lévi-Strauss's structural anthropology.

   3. Post-Structuralism

   • Challenges the fixed structures of meaning proposed by structuralism.
   • Key Concepts: Deconstruction, instability of meaning, différance.
   • Notable Figures: Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault.
   • Example: Deconstructing the concept of authorship in Barthes's The Death of the Author.

   4. Marxism

   •  Analyzes literature through the lens of class struggle and economic conditions.
   • Key Concepts: Ideology, materialism, class conflict.
   • Notable Figures: Karl Marx, Georg Lukács, Terry Eagleton.
   • Example: Examining Charles Dickens's Hard Times for its critique of industrial capitalism.

   5. Psychoanalytic Criticism

   •  Uses theories of psychology to interpret literature.
   • Key Concepts: The unconscious, Oedipus complex, repression.
   • Notable Figures: Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan.
   • Example: Analyzing the symbolic meaning of dreams in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.

   6. Feminist Criticism

   • Examines literature from the perspective of gender roles and relations.
   • Key Concepts: Patriarchy, gender, representation.
   • Notable Figures: Simone de Beauvoir, Elaine Showalter, Judith Butler.
   • Example: Analyzing the portrayal of women in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One's Own.

   7. Postcolonial Criticism

   • Studies literature produced in or about regions affected by colonialism.
   • Key Concepts: Hybridity, otherness, colonial discourse.
   • Notable Figures: Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.
   • Example: Analyzing Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness in terms of its colonial implications.

   8. New Historicism

   • Views literature in the context of the cultural and historical conditions in which it was produced.
   • Key Concepts: Power relations, historical context, cultural artifacts.
   • Notable Figures: Stephen Greenblatt, Louis Montrose.
   • Example: Analyzing Shakespeare’s The Tempest with respect to Renaissance views on colonization.

   9. Ecocriticism

   • Studies the relationship between literature and the physical environment.
   • Key Concepts: Nature, environment, sustainability.
   • Notable Figures: Cheryll Glotfelty, Lawrence Buell.
   • Example: Analyzing environmental themes in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.

   10. Reader-Response Criticism

   • Focuses on the reader's role in creating the meaning of a text.
   • Key Concepts: Subjective interpretation, reader experience, interaction.
   • Notable Figures: Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser.
   • Example: Considering how different readers might interpret multiple endings in Italo Calvino's If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.

   11. Cultural Materialism

   • Examines literary texts within the context of cultural and material conditions.
   • Key Concepts: Ideology, power, cultural production.
   • Notable Figures: Raymond Williams, Jonathan Dollimore.
   • Example: Analyzing how Elizabethan drama reflects and shapes the cultural conditions of the time.

   12. Queer Theory

   • Examines texts through the lens of sexuality and gender.
   • Key Concepts: Gender fluidity, heteronormativity, sexual identity.
   • Notable Figures: Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.
   • Example: Analyzing the representation of non-normative sexualities in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.

   13. Existentialism

   •  Focuses on individual existence, freedom, and choice.
   • Key Concepts: Absurdity, freedom, authenticity.
   • Notable Figures: Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus.
   • Example: Analyzing the themes of existential despair in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

   14. Surrealism

   • Emphasizes the irrational and the unconscious in literature.
   • Key Concepts: Dream logic, the unconscious, automatic writing.
   • Notable Figures: André Breton, Salvador Dalí.
   • Example: Examining the dreamlike sequences in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.

5. Approaches to Literary Analysis

1. 1. Formalist Approach

   • Focus: The form, structure, and language of the text itself.
   • Key Concepts: Literary devices, genre, narrative techniques, and textual elements.
   • Example: Analyzing the use of symbolism and imagery in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.

   2. Biographical Approach

   • Focus: The life and experiences of the author.
   • Key Concepts: Author’s background, personal history, and influence on the text.
   • Example: Examining how Sylvia Plath’s personal struggles influenced her poetry, particularly in Ariel.

   3. Historical Approach

   • Focus: The historical context in which the text was written and received.
   • Key Concepts: Time period, historical events, and cultural context.
   • Example: Analyzing Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities in the context of the French Revolution.

   4. Marxist Approach

   • Focus: The socio-economic conditions and class struggles depicted in the text.
   • Key Concepts: Ideology, class conflict, economic power structures.
   • Example: Exploring the class dynamics and capitalist critique in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

   5. Psychoanalytic Approach

   • Focus: The psychological dimensions of the characters and the author.
   • Key Concepts: Unconscious desires, repression, Freudian analysis.
   • Example: Analyzing Hamlet’s Oedipal complex in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

   6. Feminist Approach

   • Focus: Gender roles, power relations, and representation of women.
   • Key Concepts: Patriarchy, gender bias, female identity.
   • Example: Examining the portrayal of women and gender roles in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.

   7. Reader-Response Approach

   • Focus: The reader's experience and interpretation of the text.
   • Key Concepts: Subjective experience, reader engagement, interpretive communities.
   • Example: Considering different readers’ interpretations of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.

   8. Structuralist Approach

   • Focus: The underlying structures and systems of meaning in the text.
   • Key Concepts: Semiotics, binary oppositions, language systems.
   • Example: Analyzing myths using Claude Lévi-Strauss's structuralist theories.

   9. Post-Structuralist Approach

   • Focus: The instability of meaning and the deconstruction of texts.
   • Key Concepts: Deconstruction, textual ambiguity, différance.
   • Example: Deconstructing the narrative of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to reveal its inherent contradictions.

   10. Postcolonial Approach

   • Focus: The effects of colonization and representation of colonized peoples.
   • Key Concepts: Hybridity, otherness, colonial discourse.
   • Example: Analyzing the themes of colonialism and identity in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.

   11. Ecocritical Approach

   • Focus: The relationship between literature and the natural environment.
   • Key Concepts: Nature, ecology, environmental concerns.
   • Example: Exploring the depiction of nature and environmental ethics in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.

   12. New Historicist Approach

   • Focus: The interplay between the text and the historical and cultural contexts.
   • Key Concepts: Power relations, historical context, cultural artifacts.
   • Example: Analyzing Shakespeare’s The Tempest with respect to Renaissance views on colonization and exploration.

   13. Queer Theory Approach

   • Focus: The exploration of gender and sexuality in literature.
   • Key Concepts: Gender fluidity, heteronormativity, sexual identity.
   • Example: Investigating the representation of queer identities in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room.

   14. Mythological/Archetypal Approach

   • Focus: The use of myths, archetypes, and universal symbols in literature.
   • Key Concepts: Jungian archetypes, mythic patterns, collective unconscious.
   • Example: Identifying the hero’s journey archetype in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.