Literary Approaches and Elements Flashcards
would help reveal how or why a particular work is constructed and what its social and cultural implications are
Critical approaches
most common critical approaches
Structuralism
Gender Criticism
Reader-Response Criticism
Formalist Criticism
Biographical Criticism
Psychological Criticism
Sociological Criticism
It is a theory in which all elements of human culture, including literature, are thought to be parts of a system of signs
Structuralism
its essence is the belief that things cannot be understood in isolation, they have to be seen in the context of larger structures they are part of
Structuralism
suggests the interrelationship between “units” (surface phenomena) and “rules” (the ways in which units can be put together).
Structuralism
Structuralismsuggests the interrelationship between
units and rules
surface phenomena
units
the ways in which units can be put together
rules
In language, units are ___________ and rules are the ____________________________________________
words; forms of grammar which order words.
Structuralists relate the text to some larger containing structure, such as:
a. the conventions of a particular literary genre, or
b. a network of intertextual connections, or
c. a projected model of an underlying universal narrative structure, or
d. a notion of narrative as a complex of recurrent patterns of motifs.
examines how sexual identity influences the creation and reception of literary works
Gender Criticism
Originally an offshoot of feminist movements, gender criticism today includes a number of approaches, including the so-called “_______________” approach recently advocated by poet _____________
masculinist; Robert Bly
The bulk of ______________, however, is feminist and takes as a central precept that the patriarchal attitudes that have dominated western thought have resulted, consciously or unconsciously, in literature “full of unexamined ‘male-produced’ assumptions.”
gender criticism
Feminist criticism attempts to correct this imbalance by analyzing and combatting such attitudes—by questioning, for example in the classic play ____________ by __________, why none of the characters ever challenge the right of a husband to murder a wife accused of adultery
‘Othello’; Shakespeare
This approach takes a fundamental tenet that “literature” exists not as an artifact upon a printed page but as a transaction between the physical text and the mind of a reader.
Reader-Response Criticism
It attempts to describe what happens in the reader’s mind while interpreting a text” and reflects that reading, like writing, is a creative process.
Reader-Response Criticism
According to reader-response critics, literary texts do not “contain” a meaning; meanings derive only from the act of __________________
individual readings
emphasizes how religious, cultural, and social values affect readings
individual readings
This approach regards literature as a unique form of human knowledge that needs to be examined on its own terms
Formalist Criticism
All the elements necessary for understanding the work are contained within the work itself
Formalist Criticism
A primary goal for ____________ is to determine how such elements work together with the text’s content to shape its effects upon readers.
formalist critics
This approach begins with the simple but central insight that literature is written by actual people and that understanding an author’s life can help readers more thoroughly comprehend the work
Biographical Criticism
focuses on explicating the literary work by using the insight provided by knowledge of the author’s life and the biographical data should amplify the meaning of the text, not drown it out with irrelevant material.
biographical critic
This approach reflects the effect that modern psychology has had upon both literature and literary criticism.
Psychological Criticism
