LITERARY CRITICISM

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
At the end of the class, students were able to:
1. Define literary criticism.
2. Differentiate critic vs. literary critic.
3. Use the different schools of literary criticism in
analyzing a literary piece.
4. Classify the different schools of literary
criticism.
 WHAT IS LITERARY CRITICISM?
-is the study, discussion, evaluation, and
interpretation of literature.
-is the evaluation of literary works. This includes
the classification by genre, analysis of structure,
and judgement of value.
-Beckson & Ganz
"Literary criticism asks what
literature is, what it does, and what
it is worth. “
-Encyclopedia Britannica
 WHY DO WE HAVE TO ANALYZE
EVERYTHING?
-Talking about experiences enhances our enjoyment of them
-Talking about experiences involves the search for meaning which
increases our understanding of them
-Literary criticism helps us to understand what is important about
the text
▪its structure
▪its context: social, economic, historical
▪what is written
-Improves critical thinking - you make inferences, analyze
and synthesize a text.
-Encourages close reading - you read text in depth, paying
attention to details, including figurative language,
symbolism and diction.
-Enables different perspective taking - you have the chance
to see a text in different perspectives, understand different
way of life thus having a broader horizon.
-Encourages empathy - you learn and begin
to empathize with different causes, beliefs,
and value systems.
-You become more relevant - you will know
the reasons why you need to know about a
text and consequently determine what is it
for.
GENERALLY:
▪Literary criticism helps us to
understand the relationship
between authors, readers,
and texts.
CRITIC VS. LITERARY CRITIC
-A critic is one who likes or dislikes a book, a movie, a
dinner. A critic does evaluate but only on the basis of
personal preference.

-A literary critic is usually a professor of literature.

Literary criticism is the act of interpreting literature
and must be published in an academic publication
such as a journal.
SCHOOLS OF LITERARY CRITICISM
1. FORMALIST CRITICISM (1930S-PRESENT)
▪it is particularly interested with the elements of
form -- style, structure, tone, imagery, etc. that are
found within the text.
The primary goal of formalist critics is to determine
how such elements work together with the text's
content to shape its effects upon readers.
▪ For example, a formalist reading of a poem
would focus on its rhythms, rhymes, cadences,
and structure. It would not seek to locate the
poem in a wider political or cultural context
except in so far as it helped to improve the
reader's understanding of the text itself.
 TYPICAL QUESTIONS IN FORMALIST
▪Who is the protagonist?
▪What conflicts does the protagonist experience?
▪What is the climax of the story?
▪What is the protagonist’s role in the climax?
▪ How is the setting relevant for this particular story?
▪What is the theme of the story?
▪ How do the character, plot and setting develop the
story?
 2. HISTORICAL CRITICISM
-seeks to understand a literary work by
investigating the social, cultural and intellectual
context that produced it- a context that
necessarily includes the artist's biography and
milieu.
-key goal is to understand the effect of a literary
work upon its original readers.
▪ it is important to understand the author
and his world in order to understand his
intent and to make sense of his work.
▪ In this view, the work is informed by the
author's beliefs, prejudices, time, and
history, and to fully understand the work,
we must understand the author and his
EXAMPLE: THE NOVEL "DEKADA '70"
BY: LUALHATI BAUTISTA.
"Dekada '70" was originally published in
1983, but its relevance and impact continue
to be felt in the 21st century as it explores
the socio political landscape of the
Philippines during the 1970s, a tumultuous
period marked by martial law under the
dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
3. BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM
▪begins with the simple but central
insight that literature is written by
actual people and that
understanding an author's life can
help readers more thoroughly
comprehend the work.
“THE BLACK CAT” IS A FAMOUS SHORT
STORY FROM EDGAR ALLAN POE.
▪Edgar Allan Poe is known as a
fascinating person, and has a
popular reputation as a creepy
guy, some readers are tempted to
imagine that Poe and his narrators
are one in the same.
▪ It is a story about domestic violence and
brutal murder. It’s the confession of nameless
man who destroys himself, his wife, and his
pets. The Black Cat tells about a man who
loved his pet so much, but because the effect
of alcoholism, he changed from a lover into a
brutal man. He killed his pet named Pluto, the
black cat.
 THE NOVEL "INSURRECTO"
BY: GINA APOSTOL
"Insurrecto" was published in 2018 and
tells the story of a Filipino-American
translator, Magsalin, who is hired to
translate the accounts of a massacre that
occurred during the Philippine-American
War in 1901.
4. HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL
CRITICISM
In using this method:
▪ research on the author's life and relate the information
to the work.
▪ research on the author's time (political history,
intellectual history, and economic history) and relate it to
the work.
▪ research on the belief structures and ways of thinking
and relate them to the work.
5. READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM
▪Reader-oriented criticism;
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
▪ takes as a fundamental tenet that “literature” exists
not as an artifact upon a printed page but
the mind of a reader.
▪ is concerned with how the work is viewed by the
audience. In this approach, the reader creates meaning,
not the author or the work.
▪ attempts to describe what happens in the
reader's mind while interpreting a text and
reflects that reading, like writing, is a
creative process.
▪ According to critics, literary texts has no
meaning; meanings derive only from the act
of individual readings.
 CRITICISM QUESTIONS TO ASK:
▪ Who is the reader?
▪ Does the text overtly or subtly ask the reader to sympathize or
empathize in any way? ▪ What
experiences, thoughts, or knowledge does the text raise?
▪ What aspects or characters of the text do you identify or
disidentify with, and how does this
process of identification affect your response to the text?
▪ What is the difference between your general reaction to (e.g.,
like or dislike) and reader-oriented interpretation.
 THE POEM "KUNG SAAN SA LANGIT"
BY JUAN MIGUEL SEVERO.
-"Kung Saan Sa Langit" is a contemporary Filipino poem written in
the form of spoken word poetry, which has gained popularity in the
Philippines in recent years.
-Reader response criticism in "Kung Saan Sa Langit" also involves
the poem's exploration of universal themes of love, heartbreak, and
human emotions. Readers may relate to the poet's experiences of
love and loss, and interpret the poem in light of their own
relationships and emotions. The poem's imagery, metaphors, and
emotional intensity can evoke different responses from readers,
based on their own feelings and experiences.
 6. GENDER CRITICISM
▪ 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
-Feminist criticism attempts to correct this imbalance by
analyzing and combatting such attitudes—by questioning, for
example, why none of the characters in Shakespeare’s play
Othello ever challenge the right of a husband to murder a wife
accused of adultery.
-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. PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICISM
▪ Psychology – a science of human mind and human behavior
▪ Deals with the work of literature as a fictional expression of the
personality, state of mind, feelings, and desires of the author
▪ The idea is to evaluate the psychology of the character or the
author to find meaning in the text.
▪ Critics look either at the psychological motivations of the
characters or of the authors themselves
▪ Psychological criticism is a way to understand the character, not
diagnose them.
 EXAMPLE: GONE GIRL
BY: GILLIAN FLYNN
▪ In the 21st century novel "Gone
Girl" by Gillian Flynn, psychological
criticism can be applied to analyze
the complex and manipulative
characters of Amy Dunne and Nick
Dunne, who are central to the plot.
 8. MYTHOLOGICAL CRITICISM
▪ This approach emphasizes “the recurrent
universal patterns underlying most literary works.”
Combining the insights from anthropology,
psychology, history, and comparative religion,
mythological criticism “explores the artist’s
common humanity by tracing how the individual
imagination uses myths and symbols common to
different cultures and epochs.”
One key concept in mythlogical
criticism is the archetype, “a
symbol, character, situation, or
image that evokes a deep universal
response, ” which entered literary
criticism from Swiss psychologist
Carl Jung.
 EXAMPLE: THE NOVEL "TRESE"
BY: BUDJETTE TAN AND KAJO BALDISIMO
▪The novel "Trese" by Budjette Tan and Kajo
Baldisimo is a popular Filipino graphic novel
series that incorporates mythological elements
from Philippine folklore. The story follows
Alexandra Trese, a paranormal investigator
who deals with supernatural creatures from
Philippine mythology in modern-day Manila.
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-end!