TRADITIONAL

LITERARY
CRITICISM
Discussant:
crisa mae rellama
lhyca napase
WHAT IS TRADITIONAL LITERARY
CRITICISM?

Traditional literary criticism is an

approach to the analysis and
interpretation of literature that
has been practiced for centuries.
It evaluates an author’s
biographical information; their
culture, background, and history.
PURPOSE OF TRADITIONAL
LITERARY CRITICISM TRADITIONAL APPROACHES IN
LITERARY CRITICISM

Understand and appreciate Literature Historical-Biographical

Moral-Philosophical
Preserve literary tradition
Sociological criticism
Uncover author intentions
Psychoanalytic criticism
Explore universal themes
Practical Criticism
Formalism
Reader-response
New Criticism
Post-structuralism
Feminist criticism
 APPROACHES
Historical-biographical
critics see works as the
reflection of an author’s
life and times.
it is believed that it is
necessary to know about
the author and political,
economical, and
sociological context of
his/her times in order to
understand his/her works.
Moral-philosophical
critics believed that the larger
purpose of literature is to
teach morality and to probe
philosophical issues.
evaluate literary works based
on the moral statements and
judgements
the characters and author’s
express throughout the literary
text.
 APPROACHES
Sociological criticism Psychoanalytic criticism
evaluates literature based examines literature based on
on it’s relationship to psychological desires and
society. neuroses of the characters
examines the author’s within a particular piece of
status in their society as literature
well as the effect that the
literary work had on its
audience within the
society.
 APPROACHES
Practical criticism Formalism
this study literature compels reader’s to judge the
encourages reader’s to artistic merit of literature by
examine the text without examining formal elements,
regard to any outside like language and technical
context-like the author, skills.
the date and place of
writing, or any other
contextual information
that may enlighten the
reader.
 APPROACHES

Reader-response New criticism

criticism is rooted in the
belief that the reader’s
reaction to or
interpretation of a text is a
valuable source of critical
study as the text itself.
focused on examining the
formal and structural elements
of literature, as opposed to
the emotional or moral
elements.
 APPROACHES
Post-Structuralism Feminist criticism
abandoned ideas of in the mid-twentieth century,
formal and structural literary critics began looking
cohesion, questioning any to gender studies for new
assumed universal truths modes of literary criticism.
as reliant on the social
structure that influenced
them.
Roland Barthes- one of the
writer who shaped post-
structuralism, the father of
semiotics.
THANK
YOU!