Introduction to Literary

Theory & Literary

Criticism
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The Term ‘Criticism’

• The term ‘criticism’ is often understood to be:
• The act of finding fault; censure; disapproval
• The act of criticizing, especially adversely
• But the term ‘criticism’ as it is used in this course
signifies:
• The act of interpreting, analyzing and making
judgments of individual and comparative worth of
works of art such as literature
• A critical comment, review, article, essay, etc
expressing such analysis and judgment
• The art, principles, or methods of a critic or critics
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What is literary criticism?

• Literary criticism is the interpretation,
analysis, classification and ultimately the
judgment of literary works.
• It is usually in the form of a critical essay,
but in- depth book reviews can sometimes
be considered as literary criticism.
• Criticism may examine a particular
literary work, or may look at an
author's writings as a whole.
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A Critic
Etymology
• 1580s: Critic is "one who passes judgment," from
M.Fr. critique (14c.), from L. criticus "a judge,
literary critic," from Gk. kritikos "able to make
judgments," from krinein "to separate, decide."
Meaning "one who judges merits of books, plays,
etc.“
• 17th and 18th centuries: the critic was considered
a judge who finds the faults and merits of a
literary work.
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A Literary Critic
• A literary critic is not someone who merely
evaluates the worth or quality of a piece of
literature but, rather, is someone who argues on
behalf of an interpretation or understanding of the
particular meaning(s) of literary texts.
• The task of a literary critic is to explain and
attempt to reach a critical understanding of what
literary texts mean in terms of their aesthetic, as
well as social, political, and cultural statements and
suggestions.
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A Literary Critic
• A literary critic does more than simply discuss or
evaluate the importance of a literary text; rather,

• a literary critic seeks to reach a logical and

reasonable understanding of not only what a text’s
author intends for it to mean but, also, what
different cultures and ideologies render it capable
of meaning
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Literary Theory
• A very basic way of thinking about literary
theory is that these ideas act as different
lenses critics use to view and talk about
art, literature, and even culture.

• These different lenses allow critics to consider

works of art based on certain assumptions
within that school of theory.

• The different lenses also allow critics to focus on

particular aspects of a work they consider
important
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Literary Criticism vs. Lit Theory

• Literary theory can be defined simply as the
various methods we use to analyze and
understand literature. In other words, when we
try to understand literature, we use certain
methods to help us understand the meaning, and
those methods comprise literary theory. Literary
criticism, on the other hand, is the practical
application of those theories or methods to
particular works of literature--the actual use of a
method to better understand a text's meaning.
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Types of Literary Criticism

A broad division can be made between the types of
literary criticism:
1. Practical criticism
2. Theoretical criticism
3. Descriptive criticism
4. Prescriptive criticism
These Four types can be grouped in to two
classes:
1. Practical and Theoretical criticism
2. Descriptive and Prescriptive criticism
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Practical and Theoretical Criticism:

• Practical criticism focuses on the
examination of individual text, while
theoretical criticism discusses the
nature of literature, and the relation
between literature, critics and society.
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Descriptive and Prescriptive Criticism:

• Descriptive criticism tends to explain

the piece of literature as it is, in its
original form, while prescriptive
criticism argues on how it ought to
be.
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The various theories of lit criticism are

categorized into four major classes.
1. Mimetic Theory
2. Pragmatic Theory
3. Expressive Theory
4. Objective Theory
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The Four Theories

Universe/World
Mimetic Theory

Author/Artist Audience
Works of
Expressive Theory Pragmatic Theory
Literature

Text
Objective Theory
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1. Mimetic Theory of Arts:

• Mimetic theory sees a work of literature as if it is
reflecting the universe like a mirror.

• It regards literature as imitating or reflecting life,

and therefore emphasizes on the truth and
accuracy of its representation.

• That is why it is said that it is realism in general

sense. (mimetic means imitation and the word is
first used by Aristotle in 4th century B.C, where
he states that tragedy is the imitation of an
action).
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2. Pragmatic Theory of Arts:

• It sees literature as designed to achieve its effects on
the audience (instructions, aesthetics, joy etc), and
judge it according to the successful achievement of
this assumed aim.
• Pragmatic theories emphasize on the reader’s
relation to the work. The work is treated as
something that is constructed to achieve certain
effects on the audience.
• Effects may be for the aesthetic pleasure,
instruction or any kind of emotion.
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3. Expressive Theory
• Expressive theories center on the artist.
Wordsworth’s definition of the poetry as the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings is typical
and nearly all Romantic and 19th Century criticism
generally regards art as primarily concerned with
expressing the poet’s feelings or psyche.
• It examines text as an expression of the writer’s
feelings, imagination and personality. It tends to
judge the work by its sincerity or the extent to which
it has successfully revealed the author’s state of
mind.
• Romantic Critics such as Coleridge and
Wordsworth were expressive critics in this sense.
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4. Objective Theory
• focus more on the text without the influences of
the writer or the reader.
• The text here is supreme and once this text is
produced the writers fizzles out and the only
interpretation to be gotten is what can be
inferred from the text, the direct message which
the text itself has which has to be inferred within
the text.
• to them there is no correspondence between the
universe and the work and we cannot know the
true nature of either the audience or the author.
Assessment
Answer Discussion 10:
Introduction to Literary
Criticism