English sense quiz

Question 1

The Moral/Intellectual Approach

Answer 1

Concerned with discovering the truth and significance of literature

Question 2

Criticism for Moral/Intellectual Approach

Answer 2

approach leads to “message hunting”

Question 3

The Topical/Historical Approach

Answer 3

Stresses the relationship between the work and is period

Question 4

Criticism for The Topical/Historical Approach

Answer 4

deals more with background knowledge than the literature itself

Question 5

New Critical/Formalist

Answer 5

Beginning in the 1930s and 1940s, with Emphasis on detailed examination and explanation of text, “explication de texte”

Most useful with poems and short passages; examinations of larger works with discussions of “point of view,” “tone,” “plot,” “character,” “structure,” etc.

Question 6

Criticism for The New Critical/Formalist

Answer 6

failure to appreciate history and biography; text alone fails to address value and appreciation of literature

Question 7

Structuralist

Answer 7

Attempt to find relationships and connections among elements that appear separate and discrete; attempt to discover forms unifying all literatures

Enables critics to discuss works from widely separate cultures and historical periods

Question 8

Feminist

Answer 8

Literature presents a masculine-patriarchal view

The Four Attempts: 1. Women have been ignored and the result is prejudice 2. Present a milieu that is both more balanced and values women 3. Recover women writers of the past and encourage more women writing 4. Alter language to correct inequities and distortions

Question 9

Economic Determinist/Marxist

Answer 9

According to Marx, the primary influence on life is economics, and the struggle between the capitalist and working classes is the main driver of history.

The rise of “proletarian literature,” emphasis on the struggles and drudgery of everyday people’s existence, rising above oppression only to be suppressed again

Question 10

Psychological/Psychoanalytic

Answer 10

Championed by Sigmund Freud, interpretations based upon the claim that behaviour was caused by hidden and unconscious motives and drives

Question 11

Archetypal/Symbolic/Mythic

Answer 11

Championed by Carl Jung, human life is built up of patterns, or archetypes, that are similar throughout various cultures and historical times; similar to structuralism

Archetypes: God’s creation of human beings, sacrifice of the hero, search for paradise

Jung’s belief: universal and recurring patterns demonstrate “universal human consciousness”

Question 12

Deconstructionist

Answer 12

Championed by Jacques Derrida, analysis that stresses ambiguity and contradiction
Critical of West’s logocentric tendencies; circumstances and time matter most
“All interpretation is misinterpretation.” No correct interpretations, only interpretations; emphasis on ambivalence, discrepancy, enigma, uncertainty, delusion, indecision, and lack of resolution, etc.
Attacks on “correct,” “privileged,” or “accepted” readings

Question 13

Criticism for Deconstructionist

Answer 13

Criticism: the cause of uncertainty is authorial intention, not linguistic instability

Criticism: flawed major premise if no “privileged readings” exist, how do you invalidate them

Question 14

Reader-Response

Answer 14

Rooted in phenomenology, the branch of philosophy that deals with “the understanding of how things appear,” reality found in the mental perception of externals
Reader is a necessary third leg in a literary work consisting of an author-text-reader dynamic; emphasis on transaction and realization