Literary Criticism Flashcards
Structuralist
Certain underlying patterns and symmetries are common to the literature of almost all societies and cultures. Draws many of its ideas from sociology and anthropology. Go beyond assessing the quality of a work in favor of placing it in a larger cultural context.
Formalist
Concerned purely with how a text’s literary elements contribute to a coherent whole. It prefers to address questions of style, word choice, and use of conventions instead of biographical or historical sources.
New Criticism
A critical movement akin to formalism that focused mainly on lyric poems and examined them as verbal objects without reference to the author’s biography or outside influences. New critics closely at a poem’s diction, imagery, and underlying meaning.
Historical
Focus on a work’s context in history and how its allusions might also examine the effect a novel such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin had on the social views and politics of its nature.
New Historicism
Aim to understand a text through its historical context and influences as well as to interpret cultural and intellectual history through the study of relevant literary and sub-literary texts.
Biographical/Traditional Criticism
Focuses on how details fo the writer’s life and the period she or he lived in are reflected in the work and explain how the work was produced.
Postcolonial
Examine literary works as examples of western colonialism and imperialism and try to show how there works helped further ideas of racial and cultural inequality.
Ex: Caliban from Shakespeare
Psychoanalytic
Combs the language and plots of literary works for examples of Freudian concepts.
Reader-Response
Focus on the reader’s role in responding to, and, in effect, creating a piece of literature. Each reader brings own experiences, biases, and expectations to a work, which in turn causes each reading to be different.
Marxist
Views literature through a political lens, as in how a work depicts or glosses over the exploitation of workers by wealthy or powerful interests.
Feminist
Emphasizes the role of women in literature, either as authors and poets or as characters in a narrative.
Philosophical
Look at the ethical or religious questions raised by a work of literature, and seek to bring out the author’s own ideas about what is ethical and how life should be lived.
