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Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals. Though the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists. ...
Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ...
A critic (from Greek κÏιτικός, kritikós - one who discerns, from Ancient Greek κÏιτής, krités, a judge) is a person who offers judgement or analysis, value judgement, interpretation, or observation. ...
Modern literary criticism is often published in essay or book form. Academic literary critics teach in literature departments and publish in academic journals, and more popular critics publish their criticism in broadly circulating periodicals such as the New York Times Book Review, the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, The Nation, and The New Yorker. Academic publishing describes a system of publishing that is necessary in order for academic scholars to review work and make it available for a wider audience. ...
The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ...
The New York Review of Books (or NYRB) is a biweekly magazine on literature, culture, and current affairs published in New York which takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity. ...
The London Review of Books (or LRB) is a twice-monthly British literary magazine. ...
The Nation is the name of several newspapers, periodicals or magazines in different countries, including: The Nation, an Irish Nationalist newspaper founded by Thomas Davis and Charles Gavan Duffy in the 1840s. ...
The New Yorkers first cover, which is reprinted most years on the magazines anniversary. ...
History of literary criticism
Classical and medieval criticism Literary criticism has probably existed for as long as literature. Aristotle wrote the Poetics, a typology and description of literary forms with many specific criticisms of contemporary works, in the 4th century BC. Poetics developed for the first time the concepts of mimesis and catharsis, which are still crucial in literary study. Plato's attacks on poetry as imitative, secondary, and false were formative as well. Aristotle, marble copy of bronze by Lysippos. ...
Aristotles Poetics aims to give an account of poetry. ...
(5th century BC - 4th century BC - 3rd century BC - other centuries) (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium AD) // Events Invasion of the Celts into Ireland Battle of the Allia and subsequent Gaulish sack of Rome 383 BCE Second Buddhist Councel at Vesali. ...
Mimesis in its simplest context means imitation or representation in Greek. ...
Catharsis is a sudden emotional breakdown or climax that constitutes overwhelming feelings of great pity, sorrow, laughter, or any extreme change in emotion that results in the renewal, restoration and revitalization for living. ...
Plato (Greek: Πλάτων PlátÅn) (ca. ...
Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is traditionally a written art form (although there is also an ancient and modern poetry which relies mainly upon oral or pictorial representations) in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ...
Later classical and medieval criticism often focused on religious texts, and the several long religious traditions of hermeneutics and textual exegesis have had a profound influence on the study of secular texts. The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. ...
Hermeneutics may be described as the theory of interpretation and understanding of a text through empirical means. ...
This article discusses textual hermeneutics. ...
Renaissance criticism The literary criticism of the Renaissance developed classical ideas of unity of form and content into a literary neoclassicism which proclaimed literature to be central to culture and entrusted the poet or author with the preservation of a long literary tradition. By region Italian Renaissance Spanish Renaissance Northern Renaissance French Renaissance German Renaissance English Renaissance The Renaissance, also known as Il Rinascimento (in Italian), was an influential cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern European history. ...
Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture. ...
The word culture, from the Latin colere, with its root meaning to cultivate, generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. ...
Much more could be said about pre-19th-century literary interpretation.
19th-century criticism The British Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century brought new aesthetic ideas to the study of literature, including the idea that the object of literature did not always have to be beautiful, noble, or perfect, but that literature itself could elevate a common subject to the level of the sublime. German Romanticism, which followed closely after the late development of German classicism, emphasized an aesthetic of fragmentation which can seem startlingly modern to a reader of English literature, and valued Witz – that is, "wit" or "humor" of a certain sort – more highly than the apparently serious Anglophone Romanticism. Romantic and romanticism have a number of uses: Titles: Romantic (song) by Karyn White. ...
Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Aesthetics (or esthetics) (from the Greek word αισθητική) is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty. ...
In aesthetics, the sublime (from the Latin sublimis (exalted)) is the quality of transcendent greatness, whether physical, moral, intellectual or artistic. ...
In the philosophy, art, and culture of German-speaking countries, German Romanticism was the dominant cultural movement of much of the nineteenth century. ...
Classicism door in Olomouc, The Czech Republic. ...
The late nineteenth century brought several authors better known for their critical writings than for their own literary work, such as Matthew Arnold. Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Caricature from Punch, 1881: Admit that Homer sometimes nods, That poets do write trash, Our Bard has written Balder Dead, And also Balder-dash Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic, who worked as an inspector of schools. ...
The New Criticism However important all of these aesthetic movements were as antecedents, current ideas about literary criticism derive almost entirely from the new direction taken in the early twentieth century. Early in the century the school of criticism known as Russian Formalism, and slightly later the New Criticism in Britain and America, came to dominate the study and discussion of literature. Both schools emphasized the close reading of texts, elevating it far above generalizing discussion and speculation about either authorial intention (to say nothing of the author's psychology or biography, which became almost taboo subjects) or reader response. This emphasis on form and precise attention to "the words themselves" has persisted, after the decline of these critical doctrines themselves. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar (often from (1900 to 1999 in common usage). ...
// Introduction The distinctive feature of Russian Formalism is the emphasis on the functional role of literary devices and the original conception of the evolution of literary history. ...
New Criticism was the dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the early twentieth century, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. ...
In literary criticism, close reading describes the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. ...
Theory In the British and American literary establishment, the New Criticism was more or less dominant until the late 1960s. Around that time Anglo-American university literature departments began to witness a rise of a more explicitly philosophical literary theory, influenced by structuralism, then post-structuralism, and other kinds of Continental philosophy. It continued until the mid-1980s, when interest in "theory" peaked. Many later critics, though undoubtedly still influenced by theoretical work, have been comfortable simply interpreting literature rather than writing explicitly about methodology and philosophical presumptions. New Criticism was the dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the early twentieth century, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. ...
The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ...
Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ...
Structuralism is a general approach in various academic disciplines that explores the inter-relationships between fundamental elements of some kind, upon which some higher mental, linguistic, social, cultural etc structures are built, through which then meaning is produced within a particular person, system, culture. ...
Post-structuralism is a term coined in the United States in the mid- to late 1960s to describe mostly French language scholarship that challenged the primacy of structuralism in the humanities. ...
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The 1980s, in its most obvious sense, was the decade between 1980 and 1989. ...
The current state of literary criticism Today interest in literary theory and Continental philosophy coexists in university literature departments with a more conservative literary criticism of which the New Critics would probably have approved. Acrimonious disagreements over the goals and methods of literary criticism, which characterized both sides taken by critics during the "rise" of theory, have declined (though they still happen), and many critics feel that they now have a great plurality of methods and approaches from which to choose. Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ...
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New Criticism was the dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the early twentieth century, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. ...
Some critics work largely with theoretical texts, while others read traditional literature; interest in the literary canon is still great, but many critics are also interested in minority and women's literatures, while some critics influenced by cultural studies read popular texts like comic books or pulp/genre fiction. Many literary critics also work in film criticism or media studies. Some write intellectual history; others bring the results and methods of social history to bear on reading literature. The Western canon is a canon of books and art (and specifically one with very loose boundaries) that has allegedly been highly influential in shaping Western culture. ...
Cultural studies combines sociology, literary theory, film/video studies, and cultural anthropology to study cultural phenomena in industrial societies. ...
A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ...
Pulp magazines (or pulp fiction; often referred to as the pulps ) were inexpensive fiction magazines. ...
Genre fiction is a term for fictional works (novels, short stories) written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to the fans of that genre. ...
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. ...
Media studies is a social science that studies the nature and effects of mass media upon individuals and society, as well as analysing actual media content and representations. ...
Intellectual history means either: the history of intellectuals, or: the history of the people who create, discuss, write about and in other ways propagate ideas. ...
Social history is an area of historical study considered by some to be a social science that attempts to view historical evidence from the point of view of developing social trends. ...
Bibliography - Encyclopedia of literary critics and criticism, ed. by Chris Murray, London [etc.] : Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999
See also Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ...
Marxist literary criticism is a loose term describing literary criticism informed by the philosophy or the politics of Marxism. ...
Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or by the politics of feminism more broadly. ...
Psychoanalytic literary criticism is literary criticism which, in method, concept, theory or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud. ...
Semiotic literary criticism, also called literary semiotics, is the approach to literary criticism informed by the theory of signs or semiotics. ...
Genre studies are a structuralist approach to literary criticism, film criticism, and other cultural criticism. ...
Hysterical realism, also called recherché postmodernism or maximalism is a literary genre characterized by chronic length, manic characters, frenzied action, and frequent digressions on topics secondary to the story. ...
The Modern Language Association of America (often abbreviated MLA) is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of literature and literary criticism. ...
External link - Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Literary Criticism
- Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism Award Winners
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