Concepts and Interpretations Flashcards
What does Matthew Arnold mean when he describes culture as “the best that has been thought and said in the world” (5)? How is it connected with his view of poetry?
He is not very precise in his definition of the best
- we must turn to poetry ‘to interpret life for us’
- poetry can be used as a substitute for religion
- Vague idea of “the best”
Timeless, expresses a certain attitude towards the world
- Poetry holds the power of being able to interpret the world for us and is therefore a vessel for “the best”
- Poetry is a sacred refuge in times of secularization
How is Arnold’s assessment of culture related to the liberal humanist assumption about the autonomy of the human subject? How is this view relevant to the dominant understanding of literature in the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century?
- Arnold shared the collective western view of the individual which is that the individual is sovereign
- Culture transcends history
- Liberal humanism assumes that all of us are essentially free and that we have created ourselves on the basis of our individual experiences.
Not surprisingly, in much of Western literature, and especially in lyric poetry and realistic fiction, individuals present themselves, or are portrayed, along these lines. In the realistic novels of the mid- nineteenth century, characters again and again escape being defined by their social and economic situation because they are essentially free.
Realism suggests that the characters that it presents find the reasons for their actions and decisions inside themselves. Because this liberal humanist view of the individual is as pervasively present in our world as it was in the nineteenth century, it also characterises much of our contemporary literature. (S.9)
What was the historical context for the development of English literature as an academic discipline in the early twentieth century?
New Criticism
What does T. S. Eliot mean by an ‘objective correlative’? How is it related to his theory of poetry?
‘objective correlative’: ‘a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion’
Emotion must be conveyed indirectly through the ‘objective correlative’, which will then evoke the proper response in the reader.
Moreover, emotion must always be kept in check by what Eliot called ‘wit’, a quality that he required of all poetry and by which he means an ironic perception of things
How would you interpret Robert Frost’s statement that poetry provides ‘a momentary stay against confusion’? How is it connected to Eliot’s view of his contemporary world and poetry’s role in it?
- Because of its integration of thought and feeling and of opposing attitudes in a coherent aesthetic form, poetry could even serve that function if the confusion itself was its major theme.
- Poetry deepens our awareness of the important things in life.
- we can use poetry as a guideline
- Eliot consciously places poetry in opposition to the modern world.
He seeks in poetry the sort of profound experience that the modern world, in which materialistic values and a cheap moralism have come to dominate, cannot offer.
For Eliot, the natural, organic unity that is missing from the world and that we ourselves have also lost with the advent of scientific rationalism and the utilitarian thinking of industrialisation – the ‘dissociation of sensibility’ – is embodied in aesthetic form in poetry.
- Eliot consciously places poetry in opposition to the modern world.
- Poetry allows us to recapture temporarily a lost ideal of wholeness in the experience of reading.
What is practical criticism? Which are its basic assumptions?
Practical criticism was invented by Richards in 1926
- So that there would be less bias
- Basic assumption: the poem is complete within itself and doesn’t need additional information
- No reference to the author or time; very text oriented approach
How is F. R. Leavis’ theory of the novel reflected in D. H. Lawrence’s statement, “If a novel reveals true and vivid relationships, it is a moral work, no matter what the relationships may consist in”?
D. H. Lawrence was famous because he was one of the first working class writers and some of his books were banned, because it crossed social boundaries - contained too explicit scenes - authentic representations of life depended on a writer’s personal authenticity and moral integrity Not falsifying and changing up the reality of life; aesthetic moralism
What do the New Critics mean by the statement, “A poem should not mean, but be”?
Reading a poem should be a complete experience that engages all our faculties and that far exceeds merely extracting its ‘message’.
- a poem had to be fully experienced in order to be effective
- A poem should be experienced with all senses
What is meant by the principle of ‘coherence’?
- the principle of coherence keeps the text’s paradoxes and possible contradictions in check.
- Coherence is a sense of completeness and structure within a poem
- A structural principle that governs many elements within a text; cohere - belong together
What are the limitations of the so-called ‘Criticism,Incorporated.’?
‘irony’ that the writers and the critics of the period valued so highly as a defensive strategy in a confusing world of rapid social and technological change, they themselves genuinely believed it to be an infallible sign of ‘maturity’ and proceeded to demote all texts (and writers) that did not meet the required standard.
the female writers elected for inclusion in the literary pantheon were admitted because they met a male standard.
- Criticism is a discipline for professionals; academics, students and professor
- Wanted to develop it into a science
According to Bertens, “…for the French structuralism… structure is even more fundamental than form.” Why? How is this claim related to Saussure’s theory of language?
- The structure of language makes the meaning possible
- Saussures’ ideas were formed into a book and applied to other fields as well
- The sound distinction is more important; such as tree and tea
- Formed through conventions
- This means structure is more important than form
What is meant by the term “linguistic determinism”?
The understanding of the world is defined by language and filtered through it
There needs to be a scale of different terms
What are binary oppositions? How are they relevant to the understanding of cultural signs?
19th century: study of primitive cultures to understand the current ones
- Things are distinguished in binary categories in order to survive in primitive cultures
Culture can be seen as a system of science
- For Lévi-Strauss the most fundamental binary opposition is between culture and nature which constitutes the basis of what we call culture.
- - Cultural signs appear on a scale between pairs of opposites
They may have however changed in so far that we see them as arbitrary
What is semiotics? Explain.
- The semiotic tradition explores the study of signs and symbols as a significant part of communication
- Studying all aspects of cultures/ their practices in terms of systems of science
- The person associated with semiotics is Roland Barthes
Bertens states that Gérard Genette’s narratology “…redefines existing categories and insights in terms of relations”. How does it accomplish that?
- order, duration and frequency are not separate but interconnected
- narratological catecories dont stand on their own but are related
- Genette looked at categories like order, duration and frequency which related different levels of a literary text to each other
Example: duration looks at the relation between time in the narrative and time of narration - He looked not at the categories on their own but at how the different structures work together
