Historical Criticism - is defining a literary meaning of a text, as well as its original meaning.

- it includes
facts about the author's life and the historical and social circumstances of his time.

Literary meaning - the imagery, the metaphor/simile, euphemism, etc presented.

Example when Rizal had written his first novel Noli Me Tangere, what were the images, metaphor, etc
that were found in his novel?

Who was Jose Rizal as a writer and as a person? What was the historical and social circumstance (the
situation of the Philippines) at the time Rizal had written his novel?

Different disciplines of Historical Criticism:

a) Source criticism

b) Form criticism

c) Redaction criticism

d) Tradition criticism

e) Radical criticism -is a movement around the late 19th century that, typically, denied authentic
authorship of the Pauline epistles

What do we mean by criticism? - it is the analysis and judgment of the merits(quality: goodness or
worthiness) and faults (the unsatisfactory feature) of a literary work.

External Criticism

- refers to the evaluation of a document in order to test its authencity (validity).

Example:

Is the information concerning the author, the place, and the time it was written correct?

- this process is important regarding analyzing data, because we have to question whether or not we can
trust the data and use the data as reference point.

Internal Criticism

- concerns the content of the document (reliability).

External Criticism:

Primary Document or a Primary Source

Questions asked would be:.

a) When was it written?

b) Where was it written?

c) Why did it survive?

d) Who was the real author?

All these would lead to the answer whether the primary document/source is authentic or not (validity).

Internal Criticism:

Primary Document or a Primary Source

Questions asked would be: a) Eyewitness or a secondary account?

b) Why was it written?

c) What is the literary meaning?

d) What is its internal consistency?

e) What's the connotation?

All these would lead to the meaning in context of the primary document/source (reliability).

Historical Criticism approach recognizes the significance of historical information in interpreting literature.

These perspectives assume that texts both influence and are influenced by the times in which they were
created.

Questions Historical Criticism seeks to answer:

1. How do you think historical influences are reflected in the text?

2. How did the economy, politics or social climate affect the author's attitudes and expression?

3. What key historical figures appear or are alluded to in the text?

4. What commonly held beliefs of the period are shown in the text?