Literary Criticism / Analysis:

Putting Theory into Practice

Chapter 4
 Types
• Close Textual Reading
– Encapsulation of liberal humanism, Russian formalism, and
New Criticism
• Biographical Approach
• Reader Response Criticism
• Structuralism, Semiotics, and Narratology
• Post structuralism – Deconstruction
• Post modernism
• Psychoanalytic/ Psychological Criticism
• Feminism – Gender Criticism
• Historical/Cultural Criticism
 Reader/Viewer Response Criticism
• Also known as Reader reception criticism

• Terry Eagleton – Literary Theory (2008)

– History of modern literary theory in 3 stages
• A preoccupation with the author/auteur (romanticism and
the nineteenth century) (Hitchcock, Spielberg, Kubrick)
• An exclusive concern with the text (New criticism) (MDick)
• A marked shift of attention to the reader over recent years
(Bond, Bourne, Narnia, HP)
• Looks at the text
– Not from the current reader’s perspective (TTM)
– Takes into account readers of the text from various historical
periods (LOTR, Narnia, Ivanhoe)
– How time period and contextual situation of a reader might
affect the reading or the interpretation of the text (NCFOM 22:00)

• “Horizon of expectations” of the reading audience –

(Hans Robert Jauss) depend on
– What do the readers value (Paycheck – thrill; GWTW – drama;
Jurassic Park – adventure; Casino Royale – action; Twilight – fantasy; )
– What do they look for in a work
• At a particular point in time (TIOBE, IALegend, MReport )
• And history (Ivanhoe, W&P, TSList, TTM, TP)
 The Lord of the Rings - Book
• Set in the fictional world of Middle-earth
• an epic high-fantasy novel English J. R. R. Tolkien.
•  Although a major work in itself, the story was only the last movement of a larger epic
Tolkien had worked on since 1917
• The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit, but eventually
developed into a much larger work
• Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, 
• The Lord of the Rings was published in three volumes over the course of a year from 29
July 1954 to 20 October 1955.
•  The three volumes were titled The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and 
The Return of the King.
• Tolkien had written multiple times that Middle-earth is located on our Earth. He has
described it as an imaginary period in earth's past, not only in The Lord of the Rings (see
Prologue and Appendices), but also in several correspondence letters, estimating the end
of the Third Age to about 6,000 years before his own time, and in N.W.
Europe (Hobbiton for example was set in same latitude as Oxford), though at times he
would also describe elements of the stories as a kind of "...secondary or sub-creational
reality" or "Secondary belief" in replies to letters.
 The Lord of the Rings - Movie
• Release dates
– 19 December 2001(The Fellowship of the Ring)
– 18 December 2002(The Two Towers)
– 17 December 2003(The Return of the King)
• Running time
– 558 minutes (Theatrical edition length)
– 682 minutes (Extended edition length)
– 726 (Extended Blu-Ray edition)
• Country
– New Zealand
– United States
 No Country for Old Men
• No Country for Old Men is a 2005 novel by 
American  Cormac McCarthy. The story occurs in
the vicinity of the United States–Mexico border in
1980 and concerns an illegal drug deal gone awry in
the Texas desert back country.
• The title of the novel derives from the first line of
the 1926 poem "Sailing to Byzantium" by W. B. Yeats
.
• The book was adapted into the 2007 movie 
No Country for Old Men which won 4 
Academy Awards, including for Best Picture.
 TIOBE, IALegend, MReport
• The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People -
a play by Oscar Wilde
– First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in
London
– (1952) is a British film adaptation of the play by Oscar Wilde directed
by Anthony Asquith
– a 2002 British-American romantic comedy-drama film directed by 
Oliver Parker
• I Am Legend  (1954) horror fiction by American Richard Matheson.
• Movie as The Last Man on Earth in 1964, as The Omega Man in 1971,
and as I Am Legend in 2007 (American post-apocalyptic horror film by 
Francis Lawrence), along with a direct-to-video 2007 production
capitalizing on that film, I Am Omega.
• "The Minority Report" (1956) science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick
• In 2002, the story was adapted into a film directed by Steven Spielberg
 Ivanhoe, W&P, TSList
• Ivanhoe /a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott, first
published in 1820 in three volumes and subtitled A
Romance (set in 1194) 12th century England
• Movie – 1911, 1913, 1913, 1952, 1983
• War and Peace (Historical novel) (Serialised 1865–1867;
book 1869) Leo Tolstoy (set in 1805-12)
• Schindler's Ark (released in America as Schindler's List)
Booker Prize-published in 1982 Australian  Thomas Keneally,
• Movie Schindler's List - Steven Spielberg
• Release dates
– November 30, 1993(Washington, D.C.)
– December 15, 1993(United States)
 TTM, TP
• The Three Musketeers a historical novel by French 
Alexandre Dumas, set in 1625–1628,March–July 1844
(serialised)
• a 2011 3D romantic action adventure film directed by 
Paul W. S. Anderson
• The Pianist  a 2002 historical drama film - 
Roman Polanski,
• based on the autobiographical book The Pianist
(1946), a World War II memoir by the Polish-Jewish
 pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman
• The film was a co-production between France, the 
United Kingdom, Germany, and Poland.
 Characteristics
• Reader response approach • Formalist or close textual
assumes text is always reading critics assume that
unfinished and it has no a literary work is finished
fixed meaning (AK - with fixed formal
Suicide) properties (AK - Suicide)

• A literary work is an Aslan’s death on the altar?

evolving creation of the
reader as s/he processes the
characters, plots, images, and
other elements while
reading (SI, WH, GWTW, SR)
• Michael Meyer
– Act of creative writing is, to a degree, controlled by a text
– But it may have many interpretations
– No definitive reading of a book (TCOMChristo)
– Crucial assumption is that readers create rather than
discover meanings in texts (MDick) (Falstaff, Satan)
– Different meanings for the same readers at different
points of readings (GWTW - Scarlett)
• Stanley Fish “Is There A Text in This Class?”
– Impossible to think of a sentence independent of a context
(Bond, James Bond; Elementary Dr. Watson elementary)
– When no context specified – automatically place it in the
most encountered one (No Country for Old Men – stand still)
• Each reader will come to the text with their own
understanding of the subjects it broaches (SIsland)
• It will influence their reading of the text
• It is difficult to believe that texts have one fixed
meaning ??? (Formalist and New critics insist on it)
• The meaning of text grows and changes as the reader
grows and changes (grand/parents opinion)
• Stanley
– The change from one structure of understanding to another is
not a rupture but a modification of the interests and concerns
that are already in place (Next stage of understanding)
• More readings add a fuller understanding, a new
perspective