ENGL63: LITERARY CRITICISM
Literary Interpretation
REVIEWER
- What can you say about the picture?
- It’s all about our own perspective
- What is Literary?
- concerning the writing, study, or content of
literature, especially of the kind valued for
quality of form.
- What is Criticism?
- the analysis and judgment of the merits and
faults of a literary or artistic work.
- What is Literary Criticism?
- The study, discussion, evaluation, and
interpretation of the text.
- This includes the classification of genre.
- Asks what the literature is, what it does,
and what it is worth.
->> Purposes of Literary Criticism
- Why do we have to analyze everything?
- “The life which is unexamined is not worth
living” - Socrates
1. Helps us understand what is important
about the text.
2. Helps us understand the relationship
between the author, reader, and the text.
3. Enhances our enjoyment in reading a
literary work.
->> Literary Discussion vs. Literary Analysis vs.
- Literary Discussion
- Casual Conversation about a literary texts.
- Literary Analysis
- Structured examination of a literary piece.
- Literary Interpretation
- In-depth understanding of the literary
piece. Provision of meaning and explanation.
LITERARY PERIODS
->> I. Classical Period (1200 BCE - 455 BCE) - oral
tradition
a. Homeric/Heroic Period (Iliad & Odyssey) -
Homer
b. Classical Greek Period (Golden Age of
Greece) (city-state & democracy - polis) -
Philosphers (Aesop)
c. Classical Roman Period (Dictatorship/Julius
Caesar) orid, Horace & Virgil
d. Patristic Period (Bible) - Saint Jerome
->> II. The Medieval Period (455 BCE - 485 CE)
a. The Old English (Anglo-Saxon Period)
- "Dark Ages" - Rome fell & the Barbarians
tribe moved into Europe.
- rise of poetry
- Epic story (Beowulf)
b. The Middle English Period
- rise of tales
 - Geoffrey Chaucer (father of english - Queen Victoria
literature)
- Sentimental Novels
- 24 Canterbury Tales (ex. The Wife of a
Bath's Tale) - British Writers:

->> III. The Renaissance Period & Reformation 1. Elizabeth Browning (How Do I Love Thee)
(1485 - 1660 CE) 2. Robert Browning (My Last Duchess)
a. Early Tudor Period (Henry VII) 3. Charles Dickens (The Tale of Two Cities)
- emergence of Protestantism - American Writers:
- Edmund Spencer (poet) 1. Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
b. Elizabethan Peiod 2. Emily Dickinson (Hope is the Things with
- Queen Elizabeth Feathers)

- rise of sonnet (William Shakespeare, - Rise of Aesthetic Movement

Christopher Marlowe) - Intellectual Movement
->> IV. The Enlightenment Period (Neo-classical) ->> VII. The Modern Period (1914 - 1945 CE)
(1660 - 1970 CE)
- The Harlem Renaissance - Black Writers
- Neoclassical - influence of classical
literature - British Writers:

a. The Age of Johnson - transition toward 1. Dylan Thomas

romanticism
- Don't Go Gentle Into That Goodnight
- Writers: Dr. Samuel Johnson, Edward
- American Writers:
Gibbon, Thomas Gray, Thomas Paine (The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) 1. Robert Frost
->> V. The Romantic Period (1790 - 1830 BCE) - The Road Not Taken
- Theme: Love, Nature, and Imagination - A Time to Talk
- Writers: Jane Austen - Pride & Prejudice 2. Flannery O'Connor
- Gothic Writings - (horror novels) - A Good Man is Hard to Find (short story)
- Writer - Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven, The 3. Ernest Hemingway
Black Cat)
- The Old Man & The Sea
->> VII. The Victorian Period (1832 - 1901 CE)
 - Realism - dominant fashion, realistic
characters over complicated plot

- Theme - social issues, truths about everyday

life

->> VIII. Post-Modern Period (1945 - onward)

1. Multiculturalism - use of different cultures

2. Metafiction - a story within a story

3. Fragmented Poetry - intertextuality

- Writers:

1. T.S. Eliot (Thomas Stearns)

- "Only those who will risk go far" -The

Waste Land

2. Langston Hughes

- dreams deffered

- Magical Realism - magical/supernatural

- Gabriel Garcia Manner/Magner

- J.K. Rowling