Literary Criticism Flashcards
Novel versus Drama
Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1838 ‘On Art in Fiction’
In the novel, we address ourselves to the one person – on the stage we address ourselves to a crowd…
The novelist can appeal to those delicate and subtle emotions, which are easily awakened when we are alone
(idea of generic distinctiveness)
(the ‘passion’ of drama replaced by the ‘delicate and subtle emotions’ of the novel)
physiological crit
mid-century physical and psychological response by critics due to scientific climate. G.H Lewes.
1859 article on Austen
like the laws of colour being mixing the right colours… “The laws of construction, likewise, are derived from the invariable relation between a certain order and succession of events, and the amount of interest excited by that order”
plot being like nervous system with its temporality an linearity.
the gay science on technology
E. S. Dallas (1860s)
‘the withering of the individual as an exceptional hero, and his growth as a multiplicand unit’
comments on the photograph, and the art of printing in colour. continues:
railway and the steamship, the telegraph and the penny postage, by daily and hourly bringing near to us a vast world beyond our own limited circles…
which have: “enormously increased the number of readers, have of themselves created a literature, and through that literature have had a mighty influence upon the movement of the time
genre and categorisation of literature
taxonomic theories: taxonomic natural history. putting species of novels into types.
Balzac’s famous 1842 ‘Avant-propos’ to his Come ́die humaine
‘There exist – there have always existed – Social Types just as there are Zoological Types’
novelist attempt to describe the ‘types’ of human social activity. goal to complete ‘true; description
issues with taxonomic theory
Taine’s concept of the ‘ideal’ or ‘model’ literary character,
this type of theory, unlike the theory looking to plot, looked first to character. but by 1950s they ask what is real? shift from zoological ‘collection’ to a novel being a ‘study’ of reality.
the role of authorial voice
late 1800s discussion of place of author within realist narrative: Formalism. attempt to achieve the objectivity of science or photography. Novelistic Formalists of second half of 19thc voiced the desire to erase the voice of author. This claim goes back to Balzac’s ‘Avant-propos’ where he claims the task is simply to transcribe ‘social reality’. Authorial objectivity. authors responsibility never to address the reader.
the circle
curious circle emerged from the brith of Formalism. while the novel had in Bulwer-Lytton;s day been discussed as the alternative to and successor of drama, critics such as James now used the term ‘dramatic’ as one of praise, as a point of novelist technique whereby dramatic ‘scenes’ and ‘showings’ rather than merely discursive ‘telling’. No communication between reader and author.
