Literary criticism

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A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature's goals and methods. Although the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists.

Whether or not literary criticism should be considered a separate field of inquiry from literary theory is a matter of some controversy. For example, the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism[1] draws no distinction between literary theory and literary criticism, and almost always uses the terms together to describe the same concept. Some critics consider literary criticism a practical application of literary theory, because criticism always deals directly with particular literary works, while theory may be more general or abstract.

Literary criticism is often published in essay or book form. Academic literary critics teach in literature departments and publish in

The Nation, Bookforum, and The New Yorker
.

History

Classical and medieval criticism

Literary criticism is thought to have existed as far back as the classical period.[2] In the 4th century BC Aristotle wrote the Poetics, a typology and description of literary forms with many specific criticisms of contemporary works of art. Poetics developed for the first time the concepts of mimesis and catharsis, which are still crucial in literary studies. Plato's attacks on poetry as imitative, secondary, and false were formative as well. The Sanskrit Natya Shastra includes literary criticism on ancient Indian literature and Sanskrit drama.

Later classical and

medieval criticism often focused on religious texts, and the several long religious traditions of hermeneutics and textual exegesis have had a profound influence on the study of secular texts. This was particularly the case for the literary traditions of the three Abrahamic religions: Jewish literature, Christian literature and Islamic literature
.

Literary criticism was also employed in other forms of medieval

Abdullah ibn al-Mu'tazz in his Kitab al-Badi.[3]

Renaissance criticism

The literary criticism of the Renaissance developed classical ideas of unity of form and content into literary neoclassicism, proclaiming literature as central to culture, entrusting the poet and the author with preservation of a long literary tradition. The birth of Renaissance criticism was in 1498, with the recovery of classic texts, most notably, Giorgio Valla's Latin translation of Aristotle's Poetics. The work of Aristotle, especially Poetics, was the most important influence upon literary criticism until the late eighteenth century. Lodovico Castelvetro was one of the most influential Renaissance critics who wrote commentaries on Aristotle's Poetics in 1570.

Baroque criticism

The seventeenth-century witnessed the first full-fledged crisis in modernity of the core critical-aesthetic principles inherited from

conceit' (concetto), "wit" (acutezza, ingegno), and "wonder" (meraviglia), were not fully developed in literary theory until the publication of Emanuele Tesauro's Il Cannocchiale aristotelico (The Aristotelian Telescope) in 1654. This seminal treatise – inspired by Giambattista Marino's epic Adone and the work of the Spanish Jesuit philosopher Baltasar Gracián – developed a theory of metaphor
as a universal language of images and as a supreme intellectual act, at once an artifice and an epistemologically privileged mode of access to truth.

Enlightenment criticism

Samuel Johnson, one of the most influential writers and critics of the 18th century. see: Samuel Johnson's literary criticism.

In the

Enlightenment period (1700s–1800s), literary criticism became more popular. During this time literacy rates started to rise in the public;[5] no longer was reading exclusive for the wealthy or scholarly. With the rise of the literate public, the swiftness of printing and commercialization of literature, criticism arose too.[6] Reading was no longer viewed solely as educational or as a sacred source of religion; it was a form of entertainment.[7] Literary criticism was influenced by the values and stylistic writing, including clear, bold, precise writing and the more controversial criteria of the author's religious beliefs.[8] These critical reviews were published in many magazines, newspapers, and journals. The commercialization of literature and its mass production had its downside. The emergent literary market, which was expected to educate the public and keep them away from superstition and prejudice, increasingly diverged from the idealistic control of the Enlightenment theoreticians so that the business of Enlightenment became a business with the Enlightenment.[9] This development – particularly of emergence of entertainment literature – was addressed through an intensification of criticism.[9] Many works of Jonathan Swift, for instance, were criticized including his book Gulliver's Travels, which one critic described as "the detestable story of the Yahoos".[8]

19th-century Romantic criticism

The British

aesthetic ideas to literary studies, including the idea that the object of literature need not always be beautiful, noble, or perfect, but that literature itself could elevate a common subject to the level of the sublime. German Romanticism, which followed closely after the late development of German classicism, emphasized an aesthetic of fragmentation that can appear startlingly modern to the reader of English literature, and valued Witz – that is, "wit" or "humor" of a certain sort – more highly than the serious Anglophone Romanticism. The late nineteenth century brought renown to authors known more for their literary criticism than for their own literary work, such as Matthew Arnold
.

The New Criticism

However important all of these aesthetic movements were as antecedents, current ideas about literary criticism derive almost entirely from the new direction taken in the early twentieth century. Early in the century the school of criticism known as

reader response
. This emphasis on form and precise attention to "the words themselves" has persisted, after the decline of these critical doctrines themselves.

Theory

In 1957 Northrop Frye published the influential Anatomy of Criticism. In his works Frye noted that some critics tend to embrace an ideology, and to judge literary pieces on the basis of their adherence to such ideology. This has been a highly influential viewpoint among modern conservative thinkers. E. Michael Jones, for example, argues in his Degenerate Moderns that Stanley Fish was influenced by his own adulterous affairs to reject classic literature that condemned adultery.[10] Jürgen Habermas, in Erkenntnis und Interesse [1968] (Knowledge and Human Interests), described literary critical theory in literary studies as a form of hermeneutics: knowledge via interpretation to understand the meaning of human texts and symbolic expressions – including the interpretation of texts which themselves interpret other texts.

Ferdinand de Saussure's theories of linguistics and semiotics were influential in developing structuralist approach to literary criticism.

In the British and American literary establishment, the New Criticism was more or less dominant until the late 1960s. Around that time Anglo-American university literature departments began to witness a rise of a more explicitly philosophical literary theory, influenced by structuralism, then post-structuralism, and other kinds of Continental philosophy. It continued until the mid-1980s, when interest in "theory" peaked. Many later critics, though undoubtedly still influenced by theoretical work, have been comfortable simply interpreting literature rather than writing explicitly about methodology and philosophical presumptions.

Current state

Today, approaches based in

New Critics
, also remain active. Disagreements over the goals and methods of literary criticism, which characterized both sides taken by critics during the "rise" of theory, have declined.

Some critics work largely with theoretical texts, while others read traditional literature; interest in the literary

evolutionary influences on human nature. And postcritique has sought to develop new ways of reading and responding to literary texts that go beyond the interpretive methods of critique. Many literary critics also work in film criticism or media studies
.

History of the book

Related to other forms of literary criticism, the

media theory
. Principally concerned with the production, circulation, and reception of texts and their material forms, book history seeks to connect forms of textuality with their material aspects.

Among the issues within the history of literature with which book history can be seen to intersect are: the development of authorship as a profession, the formation of reading audiences, the constraints of censorship and copyright, and the economics of literary form.

Major twentieth-century schools of critical analysis

Historicist approaches
  • New Historicism
Formalist approaches
Political approaches
Psychological approaches
Race and sexuality approaches

Key texts

Classical and medieval periods

Renaissance period

Enlightenment period

19th century

20th century

See also

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References

  1. OCLC 54374476
    .
  2. ^ "Literary Theory | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy". Archived from the original on 27 November 2020. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  3. OCLC 10350183
    .
  4. ^ Jon R. Snyder, L’estetica del Barocco (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2005), 21–22.
  5. .
  6. .
  7. .
  8. ^ .
  9. ^ .
  10. .
  11. ^ "Contemporary Women's Writing | Oxford Academic". OUP Academic. Archived from the original on 7 August 2019. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
  12. ^ Ussher, J. (1767). Clio Or, a Discourse on Taste: Addressed to a Young Lady. Davies. p. 3. Retrieved 10 October 2014.

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