Development of Literary Criticism

Context

Writer Text Reader

Context
 Development of Literary Criticism

CONTEXT

HISTORICAL

WRITER TEXT READER

BIOGRAPHICAL PSYCHOLOGICAL FORMALIST READER RESPOSE

 Types of Literary Criticism

 Mimetic Criticism: is that type of criticism which sees

literature as an imitation of nature.
 Pragmatic Criticism: is that type of criticism that is
concerned with the relationship of the work of art to its
audience. [to teach & delight]
 Expressive Criticism: is that type of criticism that is
concerned with literature and its relationship to its author.
 Objective Criticism: is that type of criticism that studies
literature in its relationship to itself solely.
 Formalist Criticism: is that type of criticism that sees
literature as primarily a form.
 Types of Literary Criticism

 Legislative Criticism: is that type of criticism that

teaches writers how to write and lays down rules of
literary composition.
 Historical Criticism: is that type of criticism that
sees literature against the background of the age in
which it was written.
 Biographical Criticism: is that type of criticism that
evaluates literature against the background of the
life of its author.
 Comparative Criticism: is that type of criticism that
evaluates a literary work by comparing it to other
literary works in other languages.
 Types of Literary Criticism

 Psychological Criticism: is that type of literary

criticism that studies the literary work with
reference to the facts of the interior life of its
author.
 Impressionistic Criticism: is that type of criticism
that records the critic’s own appreciation of the
literary work. [subjective]
 Archetypal Criticism: is that type of criticism that
examines literature with the hope of discovering an
underlying mythological patterns.
 Periods of Literary Criticism: Timeline

Activity Critics Place Date Period

Nature of Literature Plato & Aristotle Athens 3rd Century BC Greek

Observations on Horace, Quintillian, Rome 1st Century AD Roman

Poetry, Style & Longinus
Sublimity

Apology for Poetry Philip Sidney England 16th Century Renaissance

Satire, Wit, Nature, Dryden, Pope & England 17th & 18th C’s Neo Classicism
Drama Johnson
Imagination, Poetic Wordsworth, England Early 19th Century Romanticism
Genius Coleridge, Shelley

Method of Mathew Arnold England Late 19th C Victorian

Criticism, Grand
Style

Impersonal Theory T. S. Eliot England 20th century Modern

of Poetry