Moulay Ismail UniversityFaculty Of Letters And Humanities

English Department

Master program Communication in contexts

Approaches To Criticism

Prof. Kh. Amar

Reda Lamtiri

Reda_lamtiri@hotmail.com

Criticism

Outline:

Criticism, Art, what are they? Any relations?

Functions of Literary Criticism. The double task of Criticism. New Criticism.

Criticism

Criticism, Art, what are they? Any relations?

Criticism

Criticism

Criticism: The word ‘Criticism’ is derived from the Greek root ‘krinei’

which means to judge and the term ‘kritikos’ which means a judge of literature.

Criticism is the reasoned consideration of literary works and issues. It applies, as a term, to any argumentation

about literature, whether or not specific works are analyzed. Plato’s cautions against the risky

consequences of poetic inspiration in general in his Republic are thus often taken as the earliest important

example of literary criticism. "literary criticism." Encyclopædia Britannica. Ultimate Reference Suite. 

Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010.

Criticism

Art: Over the centuries art has been considered to be

imitation and expression. Traditionally the word art has referred to skill in the making of something and the artist is the one who makes it.

What the artist makes is considered in some respect imitative of the real world. A painting may mirror some small portion of nature. A statue may imitate a person or animal. A play imitates the human characteristics in real life situations. A shoe both imitates and protects the foot. It was only in the 19th century that art came to be looked upon as expression because it expresses the feelings, ideas, and notions of the artist as well as the skill involved.

Criticism

Literary criticism is an independent field of

study. It justifies the literary work. It is a systematic study of literature. It examines the excellencies and defects of a literary work and finally evaluates its artistic worth.

Criticism

Functions of Literary Criticism:

People specialized in the field of Criticism are called critics.

Critics may appreciate a work of art, but their professional task is to analyze ,evaluate ,and describe it according to some standards and relating to some conceptual frameworks. A critic's business is not only to appreciate but to know. Every critic must understand the nature and quality of the art being criticized. A literary critic, for example, must have a thorough knowledge of the work being written.

Criticism

The critic’s chief duty is to interpret and expose the taste and value of

the targeted literary work. From this regard the main goal of Criticism is :

1-To interpret2-To evaluate3-To justify

Criticism

1- Interpretation:

Interpretation includes assessment and appreciation. The critic analyses and formulates the meaning he elucidates by direct examination of the artistic and moral principles he encounters in the targeted literary work.

Criticism

2- Evaluation:

The critic’s role is to study and examine the literary work carefully and decide how good or bad it is.

Criticism

3- Justification:

a critic is an interpreter first and a judge later he should judge it impartially, without personal likes and dislikes, prejudices and predilections.(The notion of objectivity)

Criticism

Matthew Arnold, “Criticism is a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.”

T. S. Eliot, “Criticism is the commentation and exposition of works of art by means of written words.”

Criticism

The double task of Criticism:

Objectivity versus subjectivity

Criticism

Objectivity Subjectivity

What makes one critic's assumptions any truer than another's ?

Criticism

The critic’s job is not as easy as making a

simple comment on a literary work, because he has to handle this latter tactfully, bearing in mind and being concsious that he may fail in the trap of subjectivity.

New Criticism: New Criticism is a type of formalist literary criticism that

developed in the 1920s-30s and peaked in the 1940s-50s. New Critics treat a work of literature as if it were self-contained. They do not consider the reader's response, author's intention, or historical and cultural contexts. New Critics perform a close reading of the text, and believe the structure and meaning of the text should not be examined separately. New Critics especially appreciate the use of literary devices in a text. The New Criticism has sometimes been called an objective approach to literature, similar to the approach students in public schools are taught to take.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Criticism)

Criticism

New Criticism:

New Criticism goes under the general name of ‘Formalism’. Later it came to be called ‘Modernism’.

T.S Eliot is one of the central figures who provided foundational texts for New Criticism.

Modernists believe that a work can be read objectively and accurately in light of its actual structure, form, aestheticity and unity.

Criticism