Activity 1: ILLUStratIONs

Share what you see in the following

pictures:
 Literary Approaches
in the Study of Great Books

Ms. Karla Jane P. Cabiling, LPT, MAEd

Notre Dame of Marbel University
Objectives:
a. discerningly reflect on the importance of the
critical approaches in the study of great books
through a reflection paper;
b. critically interpret the meaning of a song
using the critical approaches through a song
critique; and
c. share insights on the use of denotation and
connotation in understanding literary pieces
through online recitation.
Critical Approaches are different
perspectives we consider when
looking at a piece of literature.
Major Critical Approaches to Consider

1. Reader-Response Criticism
2. Formalist Criticism
3. Psychological/Psychoanalytic Criticism
4. Sociological Criticism
A.Marxist Criticism
5. Biographical Criticism
6. Feminist/Gender Criticism
7. Structuralism
 1. The Reader-Response Approach
Reader-Response Criticism asserts that a great deal of
meaning in a text lies with how the reader responds to
it.
 Focuses on the act of reading and how it affects our
perception of meaning in a text (how we feel at the
beginning vs. the end)
 Deals more with the process of creating meaning and
experiencing a text as we read. A text is an experience, not
an object.
 The text is a living thing that lives in the reader’s
imagination.

READER + READING SITUATION + TEXT = MEANING

 1. The Reader-Response Approach
2 Important Ideas in Reader-Response
1. An individual reader’s interpretation
usually changes over time.
2. Readers from different generations and
different time periods interpret texts
differently.

Ultimately… How do YOU feel about what

you have read? What do YOU think it
means?
2. The Formalist Approach
Two Major Principles of Formalism

1. A literary text exists independent of

any particular reader and, in a sense,
has a fixed meaning.

2. The greatest literary texts are “timeless”

and “universal.”
 2. The Formalist Approach
Formalist Criticism emphasizes the form of a literary
work to determine its meaning, focusing on literary
elements and how they work to create meaning.

• Examines a text as independent from its time period, social

setting, and author’s background. A text is an independent
entity.
• Focuses on close readings of texts and analysis of the
effects of literary elements and techniques on the text.
 2. The Formalist Approach
• Is there a relationship between the beginning and the end of
the story? What tone and mood are created at various parts of
the work? How does the author create tone and mood? What
relationship is there between tone and mood and the effect of
the story?
• How does repetition reinforce the theme(s)? How does the
writer’s diction reveal or reflect the work’s meaning? What is
the effect of the plot, and what parts specifically produce that
effect?
 3. The Psychological/ Psychoanalytic Approach

Psychological Criticism views a text

as a revelation of its author’s mind
and personality. It is based on the
work of Sigmund Freud.
• Also focuses on the hidden
motivations of literary
characters
• Looks at literary characters as a
reflection of the writer
4. The Sociological Approach
Sociological criticism argues that social
contexts (the social environment) must
be considered when analyzing a text.
 Focuses on the values of a society
and how those views are reflected in
a text
 Emphasizes the economic, political,
and cultural issues within literary
texts
 Core Belief: Literature is a reflection
of its society.
 4A. The Marxist Approach
Marxist Criticism emphasizes
economic and social
conditions. It is based on the
political theory of Karl Marx

 Concerned with
understanding the role of
power, politics, and money
in literary texts
 4A. The Marxist Approach
Marxist Criticism examines literature to see how
it reflects:

1. The way in which dominant groups (typically,

the majority) exploit the subordinate groups
(typically, the minority)

2. The way in which people become alienated

from one another through power, money, and
politics
 5. The Biographical Approach

Biographical Criticism argues

that we must take an
author’s life and
background into account
when we study a text.
5. The Biographical Approach
Three Benefits:
1. Facts about an author’s experience can help a
reader decide how to interpret a text.
2. A reader can better appreciate a text by knowing a
writer’s struggles or difficulties in creating that
text.
3. A reader can understand a writer’s preoccupation
by studying the way they apply and modify their
own life experiences in their works.
 6. Gender Criticism Approach:
-This approach “examines how sexual identity influences the
creation and reception of literary works.”
- Originally an offshoot of feminist movements, gender criticism
today includes a number of approaches, including the so-called
“masculinist” approach recently advocated by poet Robert Bly.
The bulk of gender criticism, however, is feminist and takes as a
central precept that the patriarchal attitudes that have
dominated western thought have resulted, consciously or
unconsciously, in literature “full of unexamined ‘male-produced’
assumptions.”
 6. Gender Criticism Approach:
-Other goals of feminist critics include “analyzing how sexual
identity influences the reader of a text” and “examining how the
images of men and women in imaginative literature reflect or
reject the social forces that have historically kept the sexes from
achieving total equality.
 7. STRUCTURALISM
It is a theory in which all elements of human culture, including literature,
are thought to be parts of a system of signs. Its essence is the belief that
things cannot be understood in isolation, they have to be seen in the
context of larger structures they are part of. With its penchant for scientific
categorization, Structuralism suggests the interrelationship between
“units” (surface phenomena) and “rules” (the ways in which units can be
put together). In language, units are words and rules are the forms of
grammar which order words.
 7. STRUCTURALISM
Structuralists relate the text to some larger containing structure,
such as the:
a. conventions of a particular literary genre,
b. network of intertextual connections,
c. projected model of an underlying universal narrative structure,
or
d. notion of narrative as a complex of recurrent patterns of motifs.
REMEMBER…

• We will never look at a text STRICTLY

from one standpoint or another, ignoring
all other views.

• We should always keep our focus on the

text and use these critical approaches to
clarify our understanding of a text and
develop an interpretation of it.
 Activity 2: Beyond the Pictures

What do these pictures symbolize to

you?
 Connotation
and
Denotation
in Understanding
Literary Pieces
Connotation and Denotation
• Connotation is the • Denotation is the
emotional and strict dictionary
imaginative meaning of a word.
association
surrounding a word.
• A word's denotation is • A word's connotation
its literal definition. is all the associations
For example: 'Snake' a we have with it.
limbless reptile with a For example: 'Snake'
long, scaly body. could also mean a
  malevolent (evil, bad)
person
“You may live in a house, but we live in a home.”
• If you were to look up • However, the word
the words house and home has an
home in a dictionary, additional meaning.
you would find that
both words have
approximately the
same meaning- "a
dwelling place." home

house
Connotation
• The various feelings, feelings
images, and memories
that surround a word memorie
images
s
make up its
connotation.
Connotation
• Although both house
and home have the
same denotation, or
dictionary meaning,
home also has many
connotations
 love
• Aside from the strict
dictionary definition, comfort
or denotation, many
people associate such
things as comfort,
love, security, or security
privacy with a home
but do not necessarily HOME

make the same

associations with a privacy
house.
Connotation in Literature

-provides basis for SYMBOLISMS in literary

pieces

-a symbolism is when you use one thing

(usually, but not always, a tangible physical
thing) to represent something else (usually,
but not always, an intangible idea)
 -Connotations are affected by the social,
cultural, and personal experiences of
individuals.

Example: youthful , childish, and childlike.

-Connotations may be POSITIVE, NEGATIVE

or NEUTRAL
Examples:
• While "serpent" is literally a snake, the word "serpent" is also usually
associated with evil.
• In today's society, "politician" has somewhat negative associations,
while "statesman" sounds more positive.
THANK YOU!