Literary Lenses Flashcards
(60 cards)
way of looking at literature
Literary Criticism
- define theory as speculative.
- It is an established set of principles on which a practice of an activity is based on.
Culler, 2011
Culler 4 Main Points
- Theory is interdisciplinary- discourse with effects outside an original discipline.
- Theory is analytical and speculative- an attempt to work out what is involved in what we call sex or language or writing or meaning or the subject.
- Theory is a critique of common sense, of concepts taken as natural.
- Theory is reflexive, thinking about thinking, enquiry into the categories we use in making sense of things, in literature and in discursive practices.
Uses of Theory in Literary Studies
- assess whether something is worth-reading the Literariness
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.”
Historical Approach
“begins with the simple but central insight that literature is written by actual people and that understanding an author’s life
Biographical Approach
stable societies develop sites of resistance
Karl Marx
applies historical information about the time literary piece was written and could be author’s life experiences
Historical-Biographical Approach
- What is the moral lesson of the story?
- Values judgement within the text: What is good and bad? What is right and wrong?
- What are the characters’ philosophies
- Characterization: author digs deep
Moral-Philosophical
ask what the moral value of the work is and accept it or reject it based upon its compatibility with their moral code or beliefs.
Moral Critics
- He believed that “art was a mediocre reproduction of nature.”
Plato
3 stages of psyche
ego, id, superego
PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOL OF THOUGHTS
“To believe is to see.”
reality exists independent of the human mind
Focus: body/objects. mainly physical
Idealism
a student of Plato who broke with his mentor’s idealist philosophy is called the father of both Realism and the scientific method.
Aristotle
a rose exists whether a person is aware of it.
Cohen, 1999
Art of Questioning
Socratic Method
all things came from idea
Idealism
doing what you want to do
Idealists
“Existence precedes presence.”
- subjective, and lies within the individual.
- no inherent meaning outside of human existence
- Individual choice and individual standards rather than external standards
- what we are
Existentialism
- Deep thinker; out of the world idea
- Realist; existentialist
- Focus: freedom
Existentialism
“Essence precedes existence.”
- concept of predetermination
- Faith, Destiny, Soulmate, Zodiac Signs
- “What is meant to be, will always find its way
- to the belief that people and/or phenomenon have an underlying and unchanging ‘essence’.
Essentialism
teacher of Plato
Aristotle
- Realistic Point of View
Realism
- Religious belief
- Motto in life
- Dead Poets Society
- Carpe Diem: Seize the day
Transcendatalism
