Ap pro ac h e s i n
Literary
Criticism
ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC
AND PROFESSIONAL
PURPOSES
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
01 02
differentiate the write objective
different approaches in assessments,
literary criticism,
03 and express ideas in
appropriate language •
•
MELC
CS-EN11/12A-EAPP-Id-f-15
CS-EN11/12A-EAPP-Id-f-16
and manner.
let’s
start!
First off: Objective Assessment
OBJECTIVE
ASSESSMENT
It is a system of interpreting, It is a systematic
judging, and assessing a person,
thing, or any type of work while way of considering
considering and presenting facts. the truthfulness of
a piece of work.
CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:
To achieve an objective assessment of any piece of work, the following are considered:
1. Description. Pure description of the object, piece of work, art event, etc. It answers
the question: “What do you see?”
In artwork it may pertain to the following: description constitutes form of art, medium,
size, and scale, elements of general shapes, color, texture of surface, and context of
object.
In writing, it could be talking about form, structure, choice of words, length, genre, etc.
CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:
2. Analysis. Determining what the features suggest and deciding why the artist or
writers used such features to convey specific ideas. It answers the questions:
a. artwork: “How did the artist do it?”
b. piece of writing: “How did the writer write it?”
The analysis includes the following: the subject matter, use of symbolism and other
elements, choice of words (for writing) or medium (for artworks), relevance, timeliness
or timelessness, etc.
CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:
3. Interpretation. It answers the questions:
a. artwork: “Why did the artist create it and what does it mean?”
b. piece of writing: “Why did the writer create it and what does it mean?”
Remember: You shouldn’t make your interpretation too arbitrary. Provide evidence
and point out what exactly influenced your understanding of the work.
CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:
Here are elements that you can include in your interpretation:
● How does this make you feel?
● What do you think when engaging with this piece of work?
● What did the artist/writer want to tell their audience?
● What do you think of the title of the work? Does it influence your
interpretation?
CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:
4. Judgment. Judging a piece of work means giving it a rank in relation to other
works. It answers the questions: “Is it a good piece of writing/artwork?”
Here are some points that can help you write your judgment:
● Is the work successful or not?
● What do you feel when engaging with this piece of media?
● Go back to your first impression. Has anything changed? What did you learn?
● If nothing changed, what is your first impression of the work?
OBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT
You are entitled to your own opinions, but these opinions must be based
on facts so that you will not be biased.
It is very important that you will not be focused only on giving opinions.
You must also look for information that will help support your opinion
because:
● this will add to the credibility and validity of your opinion; and
● more will believe you if what you express is strongly supported with
information that are true and correct.
APPROACHES IN
LITERARY
CRITICISM
BUT FIRST…
When you express your
views, it is also important to
use appropriate language
for a specific discipline.
There are terms that you
should prefer to put in your
writing depending on the
field or context you are in.
For example, if you are to convince people who
are experts in the field of Science and
Mathematics, you need to use their language.
Here are examples of
terms that you can use in the following
disciplines.
You should be formal and use technical terms that are familiar
to them. However, if your audience is the general public, you
also need to use the language they know.
Do not use those that are not common to them. Avoid jargons
or technical
words and slang or invented words.
You can be informal when necessary. However, you must never
forget to be POLITE to avoid having future problems.
the different
approaches
Here are the critical approaches that you can use to
make your reaction paper more convincing and
appropriate.
FORMALIST CRITICISM
This approach regards literature as “a unique form of human knowledge that
needs to be examined on its own terms.”
All the elements necessary for understanding
the work are contained within the work itself. Of particular interest to the formalist
critic are the elements of form—style, structure, tone, imagery, etc.— that are
found within the text.
A primary goal for formalist critics is to determine how such elements work
together with the text’s content to shape its effects upon readers.
FORMALIST CRITICISM
● claims that literary works contain intrinsic properties and treats each work as a
distinct form of art.-
● posits that the key to understanding a text is through the text itself; the
historical context, the author, or any other external contexts are not necessary
in interpreting the meaning.
FORMALIST CRITICISM
Common Aspects looked into in Formalism:
● Author’s techniques in resolving contradictions within the work.
● Central passage that sums up the entirety of the work.
● Contribution of parts and the works as a whole to its aesthetic quality.
● Contribution of rhymes and rhythms to the meaning or effect of the work.
● Relationship of the form and the content
● Use of imagery to develop the symbols used in the work.
● Interconnectedness of various parts of the work.
● Paradox, ambiguity, and irony in the work.
● Unity in the work.
GENDER CRITICISM
This approach “examines how sexual identity influences the
creation and reception
of literary works.”
Other goals of critics include “analyzing how sexual identity
influences the reader of a text” and “examining how the
images of men and women in imaginative literature reflect or
reject the social forces that have historically kept the sexes
from achieving total equality.”
GENDER CRITICISM
Common Aspects:
• How culture determines gender
• How gender equality (or the lack of it) is presented in the text
• How gender issues are presented in literary works and other
aspects of human production and daily life
• How women are socially, politically, psychologically, and
economically oppressed by patriarchy
• How patriarchal ideology is an overpowering presence.
HISTORICAL APPROACH
This approach “seeks to understand a
literary work by investigating the social,
cultural, and intellectual context that
produced it—a context that necessarily
includes the artist’s biography and
milieu.”
A key goal for historical critics is to
understand the effect of a literary work
upon its original readers.
READER-RESPONSE
CRITICISM
This approach takes as 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.
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
• claims that the reader’s role cannot be separated
from the understanding of the work; a text does not
have meaning until the reader reads it and interprets
it.
• readers are not passive and distant but are
consumers of the material presented to them
• Interaction between the reader and the text in
creating meaning
MEDIA
CRITICISM
It is the act of closely examining and judging the
media.
When we examine the media and various media
stories, we often find instances of media bias. Media
bias is the perception that the media is reporting the
news in a partial or prejudiced manner.
MEDIA
CRITICISM
Media bias occurs when the media seems to push a
specific viewpoint, rather than reporting the news
objectively.
Keep in mind that media bias also occurs when the
media seems to ignore an important aspect of the
story.
MARXIST CRITICISM
It focuses on the economic and political elements of art;
because Marxist criticism often argues that all art is political,
either challenging or endorsing (by silence) the status quo. It is
frequently evaluative and judgmental.
Nonetheless, Marxist criticism “can illuminate political and
economic dimensions of literature other approaches
overlook.”
STRUCTURALISM
It focused on how human
behavior is determined by social,
cultural and psychological
structures. It tended to offer a
single unified approach to human
life that would embrace all The essence of structuralism is the
disciplines. belief that “things cannot be
understood in isolation, they have to
be seen in the context of larger
structures which contain them.
