Literary Approaches

Literature

* Choose six of the following approaches and find one article for each approach.

* Writing:

 One page per article

 2 pgs summary

Critical approaches important in the study of literature:

MORAL/INTELLECTUAL

* Concerned with content and values

* Used not only to discover meaning, but also to determine whether works of literature are both true and significant.

* To study lit from this perspective is to determine whether a work conveys a lesson or a message and whether it can help readers lead better lives and improve their understanding of the world.

* Answer these questions:

 What ideas does the work contain?

 How strongly does the work bring forth its ideas?

 What application do the ideas have to the work's characters and situations?

 How may the ideas be evaluated intellectually? Morally?

TOPICAL/HISTORICAL

* Stresses the relationship of lit to its historical period

* Investigates relationships of this sort, including the elucidation of words and concepts that today's readers may not immediately understand.

* Common criticism is that in the extreme, it deals with background knowledge rather than with lit itself.

NEW CRITICAL/FORMALIST

* Focuses on literary texts as formal works of art, and for this reason it can be seen as a reaction against the topical/historical approach.

* Most brilliant in the formal analysis of smaller units such as poems and short passages.

* Discussions of point of view, tone, plot, character, and structure are formal ways of looking at lit from this point of view.

STRUCTURALIST

* Stems from the attempt to find relationships and connections among elements that appear to be separate and discrete.

* Attempts to discover the forms unifying all lit

* Important because it enables critics to discuss works from widely disparate cultures and historical periods.

* Furnishes an ideal approach for comparative lit and the method also enables critics to consolidate genres such as modern romances, detective tales, soap operas and film.

* Best in the analysis of narratives and larger units.

FEMINIST

* Holds that most of lit presents a masculine/patriarchal view in which the role of women is negated or at best minimized.

* Seeks to raise consciousness about the importance and unique nature