Lecture 2

Question 1

According to ______, the interpretations of literature we produce before we study critical theory may seem completely personal or natural, but they are based on the beliefs – beliefs about literature, about education, about language, about selfhood – that permeate our culture and that we therefore take for granted.

Answer 1

Tyson (2006)

Question 2

The earliest work of theory was _________, which, in spite of its title, is about the nature of literature itself: Aristotle offers famous definitions of tragedy, insists that literature is about character, and that character is revealed through action, and he tries to identify the required stages in the progress of a plot.

Answer 2

Aristotle’s Poetics

Question 3

_________ was also the first critic to develop a ‘reader-centred’ approach to literature, since his consideration of drama tried to describe how it affected the audience.

Answer 3

Aristotle

Question 4

According to Holman (1992), the first important critical treatise, the _________ (4th century BC), has proved to be the most influential.

Answer 4

Poetics

Question 5

Holman (1992) defined ________ as a term which has been applied since the 17th century, justification, analysis, or judgment of works of art.

Answer 5

criticism

Question 6

There are many ways which criticism may be classified. The principal purposes which critics have had are:

Answer 6

(1) justify’s one’s own work or to explain it and its underlying principles to an uncomprehending audience (Dryden, Wordsworth, Henry James);
(2) to justify imaginative art in a world that tends to find its value questionable (Sidney, Shelley, the New Criticism);
(3) to describe rules for writers and to legislate taste for the audience (Pope, Boileau, the Marxists);
(4) to interpret works to readers who might otherwise fail to understand or appreciate them (Edmund Wilson, Matthew Arnold);
(5) to judge works by clearly defined standards of evaluation (Samuel Johnson, T. S. Elliot);
(6) to discover and apply the principles which describe the foundations of good art (Coleridge, Addison, I.A. Richards).

Question 7

Tyson (2006) explained that, __________ is the application of critical theory to a literary text, whether or not a given critic is aware of the theoretical assumptions informing her or his interpretation. As critics confer their interpretation about the text, they are doing literary criticism.

Answer 7

literary criticism