Complete+Lit+Crit+notes

Literary Criticism notes – looking at a text through the “lens” of one particular concern.

Reader Response Lens –
 * What we use when we read for fun. Also in grade school and middle school.
 * Assumes the reader can’t know the writer’s intentions
 * Readers actively make meaning, and this process is valuable
 * Ex.: This book makes me sad because it reminds me of my sister and I worry about her.
 * How did I like the book? How does it affect me?

Archetypal criticism (recurrent cultural symbols)
 * Looking in texts for narrative patterns, character types, or images
 * These archetypes are assumed to be universal and deeply embedded within us all, so they evoke a strong response
 * Ex.: forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden or the poison apple in Snow White
 * How does this story reflect the deep beliefs and myths of a culture?

Privilege and Social Power Lens
 * The economic organization of a society determines its attitudes and institutions
 * i.e., how wealth is produced makes society what it is
 * Who has the most opportunities in the story?
 * Is power shared? Is power transparent?
 * Focuses on money and power and control.

Gender lens
 * Assumptions:
 * Each reader’s status affects that person’s reading
 * Men and women have not had equal access to power and opportunities
 * Men and women are different.
 * Recognizes patterns in our culture.
 * Patriarchal
 * Men’s power is overt. (open)
 * Women are often passive objects.
 * Women’s power is forced to be covert. (hidden)
 * Neither men nor women have options regarding their traditional roles.
 * How does the text reinforce or undermine traditional gender roles?
 * How does affect the power roles in the text?

Psychological lens –
 * Reference to the author’s personality is used to interpret a literary work.
 * Reference to a literary work is used to understand the author.
 * Reading is a way of experiencing the consciousness of the author.

Historical lens –
 * How does the work reflect the time and place it was written?
 * How has that affected the author?
 * Apply specific information (social, political, economic, etc.) to explain the work.
 * Ex.: Faulkner wrote many of his novels during WWII, a fact that explains the struggles and darkness in his work.

Ecological lens –
 * How does this work reflect the author or culture’s attitude toward land use and awareness of ecological balance?
 * This looks at underlying assumptions of the author and society, as reflected in the text, toward the role of humans in the environment.
 * Ex.: In //Cuckoo’s Nest//, the government builds a huge dam, sure that they have taken care of the salmon problem and unaware of any other problems they may be causing.

Post-colonial criticism – (after Columbus, after colonization)


 * How does this text show the attitudes of the conquering culture and the culture they are ignoring or attempting to overrun? What are the longer-term implications of these attitudes?
 * Successful colonialism depends on a process of “Othering” the people colonized, making the conquered people seem dramatically lesser and different than the conquerors.
 * Literature written by the colonizers often distorts the experiences of the colonized.
 * Literature written by the colonized includes attempts to reclaim culture and identity in the face of colonization.