Literary Critical Perspectives and Strategies

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Literary Critical Perspectives and Strategies

• The Art and Science of Interpretation

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Objectives and Standards

• Objective categorize, compare, and contrast
  various critical perspectives
• Distinguish between critical perspectives
• Standards 11.3.7 Analyze the clarity and
  consistency of political assumptions (statements
  that take for granted something is true),
  beliefs, or intentions in a selection of literary
  works or essays on a topic.
• 11.3.8 Analyze the philosophical arguments
  presented in literary works to determine whether
  the authors positions have contributed to the
  quality of each work and the credibility of the
  characters.

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What We Read.

• What is literature and who determines what counts
  as literature?
• What are the criteria for determining literary
  value?

4
Why We Read.

• What is literatures place or role in society?
• Why should we study it?
• Why do we read?

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How We Read.

• How do we read? How should we read?
• Where does a texts meaning reside?
• What do we owe a text? What does a text owe us?
• How do a readers interests, experiences, and
  concerns shape/re-shape/misshape a text?

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Formalist Perspectives

• Concerned with the text itself
• Meaning can be established and understood
• A text exists independent of a reader
• Great literature is universal
• New Criticism
• Texts are complex characterized by tension,
  ambiguity, opposition, irony, levels of meaning
• Goal is to explain texts organic unity

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Reader-Response Criticism

• Since we cant know what an author intended, a
  text is meaningless without a reader
• Readers create (rather than discover) meaning
• Meaning is process, not product
• To what degree does the text limit the reader?

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Historical Perspectives

• Texts are a product of their time and place in
  history
• How does a text reflect, challenge, or betray the
  attitudes and ideas of its time
• How was it perceived/received in its time
• History creates context or background

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Historical Perspectives

• New Historical Criticism
• Examines real-life texts, i.e. diaries and
  historical documents, alongside a literary text
• Attempts to ascertain any hidden assumptions,
  biases, or prevailing cultural attitudes
• History is not mere background, it is an equally
  important text

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Historical Perspectives

• Biographical Criticism
• Facts about an authors experience help readers
  make decisions
• Adds to reader appreciation knowing possible
  struggles of an author in creating a text
• How does an authors experience translate to the
  text? What does this reveal about the author?

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Psychological Perspectives

• A text is the revelation of an authors mind or
  personality
• Requires an understanding of basic psychology
  Interpreter applies a developmental concept to
  the text
• Can be applied to both author of a text and
  characters within a text

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Political, or Sociological, Perspectives

• Interpretation influenced by status gender,
  race, class, religion, and more
• Emphasizes power relations
• Belief that not all people have had equal access
  to writing, publishing, and reading
• Marxist and Feminist interpretations are examples

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Deconstruction

• A structuralist perspective that emphasizes
  difference, and the instability of language
• Meaning through binary opposition happy/sad,
  man/woman, black/white
• Encourages imaginative and playful reading,
  hoping to undermine conventional thinking,
  showing meaning to be open-ended and unstable

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Other Perspectives

• Mythological deals with archetypal symbols,
  universal story patterns
• Cultural Studies an umbrella term for that
  includes political and sociological categories
• Includes interdisciplinary studies womens
  studies, Asian studies, Native American, Latino,
  etc.

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Conclusions

• None of these are set in stone
• Multiple perspectives are often combined in the
  act of interpretation
• Which perspectives do you identify with? Which
  are intriguing to you? For which do you still
  have questions?