Literary criticism

2021年1月25日发(作者：gust)
Literary criticism
: a disciplined activity that attempts to describe, study, analyze, justify, interpret,
and evaluate a work of art.

Literary Criticism: Map prepared by Skylar Hamilton Burris

This map shows loosely where the critical approaches fall. An explanation of the map follows.
Map Explanation:

The work itself is placed in the center because all approaches must deal, to some extent or another,
with
the
text
itself.
Formalism

and
deconstruction
are
placed
here
also
because
they
deal
primarily
with
the
text
and
not
with
any
of
the
outside
considerations
such
as
author,
the
real
world,
audience,
or
other
literature.
Meaning,
formalists
argue,
is
inherent
in
the
text.
Because
meaning
is
determinant,
all
other
considerations
are
irrelevant.
Deconstructionists
also
subject
texts to careful, formal analysis; however, they reach an opposite conclusion: there is no meaning
in language.

A
historical

approach
relies
heavily
on
the
author
and
his
world.
In
the
historical
view,
it
is
important
to understand the author and his world in order to understand his intent and to make
sense of his work. In this view, the work is informed by the author's beliefs, prejudices, time, and
history, and to fully understand the work, we must understand the author and his age.

An
intertextual
approach is concerned with comparing the work in question to other literature, to
get a broader picture.
Reader-Response
is concerned with how the work is viewed by the audience. In this approach,
the reader creates meaning, not the author or the work.

Mimetic
criticism seeks to see how well a work accords with the real world.

Then,
beyond
the
real
world
are
approaches
dealing
with
the
spiritual
and
the
symbolic
--the
images connecting people throughout time and cultures (
archetypes
). This is mimetic in a sense
too, but the congruency looked for is not so much with the real world as with something beyond
the real world --something tying in all the worlds/times/cultures inhabited by man.
The
Psychological

approach
is
placed
outside
these
poles
because
it
can
fit
in
many
places,
depending how it is applied:
(1) Historical if diagnosing the author himself
(2) Mimetic if considering if characters are acting by
psychological motivations
(3) Archetypal when the idea of the Jungian collective unconscious is included
(4) Reader-Response when the psychology of the reader--why he sees what he sees in the text--is
examined.

Likewise,
Feminist, Minority, Marxist
, and other such approaches may fit in:
(1)
Historical
if
the
author's
attitudes
are
being
examined
in
relation
to
his
times
(i.e.
was
Shakespeare a feminist for his times, though he might not be considered so today?)
(2) Mimetic--when asking how well characters accord with the real world. Does a black character
act like a black person would, or is he a stereotype? Are women being portrayed accurately? Does
the work show a realistic economic picture of the world?


Psychoanalytical Criticism
: The application of the methods of Sigmund Freud
’
s psychoanalysis
to interpreting works of literature.


Freudian psychology
Models of the Human Psyche

Dynamic Model:
asserting that our minds are a dichotomy consisting of conscious (the rational)
and the unconscious (the irrational).

Parapraxes/Freudian slips (
动作倒错
)
: slips of tongue, failures of memory, acts of misplacing
an object, and a host of other so-called mistakes we make, all of which can be directly traced to
our unconscious desires, wishes, or intentions.


Economic Model
: in this revised model, Freud introduces two new concepts:

The
Pleasure
principle
:
part
of
the
human
psyche
that
craves
only
pleasures
and
desires
instantaneous satisfaction of instinctual drives; it ignores moral and sexual boundaries established
by society.
The Reality principle
: part of the human psyche that holds the pleasure principle in check. The
reality principle recognizes the need for societal standards and regulation on a person
’
s desire for
pleasure.

They were at war within the human psyche.


Typographical Model:
a model of the human psyche devised by Freud. In this model, he divides
the human psyche into 3 parts: the conscious, the preconscious and the unconscious.

The conscious
: the rational and waking part of the human psyche. It is the mind
’
s direct link to
external
reality,
for
it
perceives
and
reacts
with
the
external
environment,
allowing
the
mind
to
order its outside world.

The preconsciou
s: the storehouse of memories that the conscious part of the mind allows to be
brought to consciousness without disguising these memories in some form or another.

The
unconscious
:
the
part
of
the
human
psyche
that
receives
and
stores
our
hidden
desires,
ambitions, fears, passions, and irrational thoughts.