What will you do if a literary

text is difficult to
understand?
Approaches
to Literary
Criticism
What is a Literary
Criticism?
- It is the practice of studying, evaluating, and
interpreting works of literature
- It provides a broader philosophical framework for
how to analyze literature
- It offers readers new ways to understand an
author’s work
What is the
purpose of
Literary
Criticism?
 To broaden a reader’s understanding of an author’s
work by summarizing, interpreting, and exploring
its value.

 To challenge another reader’s understanding of the

text.

 This creates space for readers to better understand

the complexity of the world through literature.
 At the end of the lesson, you’ll be able to:

a. define the concept of literary theory and its

types;
b. read and understand the texts
comprehensively; and
c. analyze the literary texts in terms of its form
and theme.
 Feminism

Historical - Biographical

Formalism

Marxism
FEMINISM
- a theory of the political,
economic, social equality of the
sexes

- organized activities on behalf

of women’s rights and interests

- Against gender stereotypes

and gender based expectations
Historical
Background
First Wave of Feminism (late 1700 - 1900)

- inequalities between sexes

- women fight for the right to

vote

- women fought for equal

opportunities to education and
employment
Second Wave of Feminism (1960 - 1970)

- More equal working

conditions necessary
during the World War II

- Feminist Political
Activism
Third Wave of Feminism (1990 - present)

- resisting the white,

heterosexual middle class

- borrows from the

contemporary gender and
race theories to expand
marginalized populations’
experiences
 Misconceptions about FEMINISM

● Feminists are reverse sexists ● Feminists do not seek to

oppress men.

● Feminism is about hating men ● Feminism simply calls for

equality of genders

● Feminism is a fight for power ● It is about restoring power to the

and forming the matriarchy “subordinated” gender

● Only women can be feminists ● It resists patriarchal mindset

Feminist
Literary
Criticism
 The Lens of a Feminist Critic

- ask readers to consider the relationship between men and

women in their relative societal roles

- Reclaiming the "female voice" as a valuable contribution to

literature, even if formerly marginalized or ignored

- Examining the text to find ways in which patriarchy is

resisted or could have been resisted
 Guide Questions:

- Is the author male or female?

- Is the text narrated by a male or female?
- What types of roles do women have in the text?
- Are the female characters the protagonists or
secondary and minor characters?
 Guide Questions:

- How does the author’s culture influence his/her attitude?

- Do the female characters speak differently that the male
characters?
- Compare the frequency of speech for the male character to
the frequency of speech for the female characters
 Guide Questions:

- What roles do women have in the text/literary

piece?
- Are the female characters the protagonists or
secondary and minor characters? Elaborate
-Do any stereotypical characterizations of women
appear? Elaborate
 Guide Questions:

- What are the attitudes toward women held by the

male characters?
-What is the author’s attitude toward women in
society?
MARXISM
- it examines the effect of
capitalism on labor,
productivity, and economic
development and argues for a
worker revolution to overthrow
capitalism.

- society is propelled by its

economy which is manipulated
by the class system
MARXISM
PROLETARIAT - Workers

BOURGEOIS - Owners

- This attempts to reveal the

ways in which our
socioeconomic system is the
ultimate source of our
experience
MARXISM
CLASS: Social and Economic
Standing

- How those in power seek to

maintain that power

- The primary influence of life

is economic aspect
Through the LENS of a Marxist
- It focuses on individuals in the
grips of a class struggle

- It emphasizes persons of the

lower class and their constant
oppression by the upper class

- The poor may try to escape

their situation bu falls back
under the ruthless dominion
 Guide Questions:

- What are the character’s economic situation?

Elaborate
- What happens to them as a result of their economic
status? Elaborate
- How are the characters’ lives influenced by social,
political, and economic status?
 Guide Questions:

- What social forces and institutions are represented in

the text?

- Does the text overlook the economic, social, and

political implications of its characters?
FORMALISM
- is a literary criticism style that
enables the readers to
comprehend and appreciate a
work for its intrinsic merit

- is an object-centered theory of
critical approach to literature.
 Brief History:

1st proponent : Roman Jakobson (1915) - French

Formalism / Prague Linguistic Circle

2nd proponent: Victor Shklovsk (1916) - Russian

Formalism /OPOYAZ ( Society for the study of Poetic
Language) in Moscow
 Major Points:

- Examines text as a self-contained object

- Focused on the form/structure of a literary work
- Comprehend text as how various parts of a literary work
together to make a whole
- Stresses the importance of a literary form.
- Applicable to poems and short stories
 Major Points:

- The reader should analyze the parts of the text:

- POV
- Setting
- Characters
- Plot
- Symbols
- Theme
- Structure / style / tone / imagery
 Major Points:

The formal properties of a literary work include:

- Words (meaning of the words)
- Shape/structure of the text
- Harmony of the words
- The rhythm of the sentences
- Rhyming of the words
- Meaning of the text as a whole
 Checklist for Formalist Criticism:

- How the work is structured or organized (formed)

- How it begins
- How it is advancing/transiting to the next lines
- How it ends
- How the plot is built
- How the plot relates to its structure
- How each part relates to the work as a whole
- How all the parts relate to one another
 Checklist for Formalist Criticism:

- How the narrator/speaker narrates the story

- Point of view of the narrator
- The major and the minor characters
- How the characters are related to one another
- Actions of the characters
- The language of the literary work
- Style of the writing
- Literary devices such as imageries, similes, metaphors,
ironies, paradox, etc.
HISTORICAL-BIOGRAPHICAL
- see works as the reflection of
an author’s life and times

- deems it necessary to know

about the author and the
political, economical, and
sociological context of his
times in order to truly
understand the work
 Brief History:

•Samuel Johnson : Lives of the Poets (1779–81)

was the first thorough-going exercise in biographical
criticism, the attempt to relate a writer’s background and
life to his works
 Brief History:

•Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve : was a literary critic

and one of the major figures of French literary
history. One of Sainte-Beuve's major critical
contentions was that in order understand an artist
it was first necessary to understand that artist's
biography
 Major Points:

- It focuses on links between a work’s content and the

writer’s life; often use the writer’s intentions, experiences,
motives, or beliefs to interpret his/her literary texts.

- It seeks to illuminate the deeper meaning of themes,

conflicts, characters, settings and literary allusions based
on the author's own concerns and conflicts
 Major Points:

- - Facts from the author's life are used to help the reader
better understand the work; the focus is always on the
literary work under investigation.

- It shouldn’t be interchanged with Autobiographical

which is often defined, “the biography of a person
narrated by that person”, or “the story of a person’s life as
told by him or herself”.
 Checklist for Historical Criticism:

- When was the work written?

- When was it published?
- How was it received by the critics and public and why?
- What does the work’s reception reveal about the
standards of taste and value during the time it was
published and reviewed?
- What social attitudes and cultural practices related to the
action of the word were prevalent during the time the work
was written and published?
 Checklist for Historical Criticism:

- What kinds of power relationships does the word describe, reflect,

or embody?

-How do the power relationships reflected in the literary work

manifest themselves in the cultural practices and social institutions
prevalent during the time the work was written and published?

- To what extent can we understand the past as it is reflected in the

literary work?
 Checklist for Biographical Criticism:

- What influences—people, ideas, movements, events—

evident in the writer’s life does the work reflect?

- To what extent are the events described in the word a

direct transfer of what happened in the writer’s actual life?

- What modifications of the actual events has the writer

made in the literary work? For what possible purposes?
 Checklist for Biographical Criticism:

- What are the effects of the differences between actual

events and their literary transformation in the poem, story,
play, or essay?

- What has the author revealed in the work about his/her

characteristic modes of thought, perception, or emotion?

- What place does this work have in the artist’s literary

development and career?
 ACTIVITY: 1 whole sheet of paper

- Using a Formalist Approach, analyze the poem titled “

Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington

- Use the checklist to analyze the poem using a formalist

lens.
 Assignment: 1 Long Bond Paper / Arial / 11

By pair:

- Using a Biographical approach, analyze the poem

“Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert
Frost