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Academic Study about Literature,Approaches to literature How to form your ideas and Topics,Approaches to literature,1.Approaches to literature 1.1. The traditional approaches 1.1. 1 Historical Biographical approach 1.1.2 Moral philosophical approach 1.2. The Formalistic approach: new criticism 1.3. Theoretical approaches: 1.3. 1. Feminist approach 1.3. 2. Post-colonial approaches,The analysis that dominated the study of literature until the 1930s is usually called the traditional approach, particularly the biographical-historical approach. In this view, the work is informed by the authors beliefs, prejudices, time, and history, and to fully understand the work, we must understand the author and his age.,1.1. The traditional approaches,1.1. Historical Biographical approach,One must know Milton was blind, for instance, for On His Blindness to have any meaning. In this case, The knowledge of the authors life experiences can help to understand and clarify some factual reference and allusions in literary works, thereby enriching a readers appreciation for that authors work. So, the authors letter, diaries, and essays were combed for evidence of authorial intentions in writing.,Frankenstein by Mary Shelley The Awakening by Kate Chopin Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf David Copperfield by Dickens,Closely connected with the biographical approach is the approach to literature with the reference with the historical and social context in which the authors had lived.,There are some works that are more likely to invite readers to interpret them from the aspect of the broader extrinsic range of social experience. In this case, the authors are likely to be thought as historians, the interpreters of contemporary culture, thinkers of the social life. Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist, Dombey and Son Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe,with arrival of the New Criticism in 1920s, scholars began to reject biographical-historical approaches But the history seemed to prove that historical-biographical approach refused to be out of the historical stage.,1.1.2 Moral philosophical approach,Moral-philosophical critics believe that the larger purpose of literature is to teach morality and to probe philosophical issues. They would interpret literature within the context of the philosophical thought of a period.,Example 1 the conflict between the head and heart, mans inhumanity to man in Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn Henry James: The Portrait of the Lady Twain and Henry Jamess works were concerned with the contemporary scene and were exploration of the very basis of social life and values.,Example 2 Moby Dick also frequently invite critics interest in their moral meanings: the theme of the sin. Ahabs raging egoism has something in common with the Hubris of Greek tragedy, and still more, in common with the Christian sin of pride Paradise Lost,1.2. The Formalistic approach,1.2.1 The Formalistic approach: new criticism,First, for new criticism, a literary work is a timeless and self-sufficient verbal object. All the elements of a text ideally formed a coherent whole both on the formal and the content level. And the meaning must reside within its own structure.,So, it is the critics job to analyze the poetic diction to ascertain such tension. In methodology, New Critical reading pays close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they are read.,Example 1,Ezra Pound, In A Station of the Metro: “The apparition of these faces in the crowd, Petals on a wet, black bough.”,In this brief poem, Pound uses the fewest possible words to convey an accurate image.,With such images as “apparition” and “petals”, the poet tries to render exactly his observation of human faces seen in an underground. The word “apparition” means something which seems real but perhaps is not is not real; something ghostly which can not be clearly observed. He sees the faces, turned variously toward light and darkness, like flower petals which are half absorbed by, half resisting, the wet, dark texture of a bough.,Some novels such as Wuthering Heights and Lord Jim are famous for their narrative technique. In Wuthering Heights, the story is told by two relatively peripheral characters: Nelly Dean, the old family nurse, and Mr. Lockwood, the tenant at Thrushcross Grange. It is traditionally agreed that both Nelly Dean and Mr. Lockwood serve the function of the intermediaries who stand midway between the reader and the books chief characters.,Example 2,* Like biographical-historical and moral-philosophical approaches, new criticism is rarely practiced by literary critics. Yet it has left a lasting influence on the way we read and write about literature.,1.3. Theoretical approaches 1.3. 1. Feminist approach 1.3. 2. Psychoanalytic approach 1.3. 3. Post-colonial approaches 1.3. 3. Political approaches ,II. How to choose the topic: Pre-writing suggestions,2.1. Taking notes 2.2. Making reasonable inferences 2. 3. Arriving at an idea of interest and finding a topic 2. 4. Creating a thesis statement and outline,At the outset, it is important to remember that writing is a process that begins in uncertainty. Peoples their writing process will follow three basic stages: discovering ideas, creating the early, rough draft of a critical paper, and preparing a finished essay. The first stage here, discovering ideas, is a phase of pre-writing,2.1. Taking notes,2.1.1. The function of note-taking As a research paper aims to explore, discuss, analyze and finally to find new opinions, so it draws its materials from many sources. The materials of literary research may be divided into two sorts, primary and secondary.,The first step to write an academic essay will include both of themthe assembling of writers early response to the literary text itself based on a close reading as well as the collection of the valuable materials about the subject of study from all kinds of reference books or other materials.,The function of reading the criticism is: 1. to enlarge the vision of the essay writer and help him to form his own views; 2. to enable him to get a good idea of the state of current scholarship on his topic and locate his voice in the landscape of the research 3. to provide detailed evidence to back up any argument his wish to make.,2.2. Recording your first responses,Follow the work and understand its details; while at the same time, respond to the words, get at the ideas, and understand the implications of what is happening.,Two steps: The first reading: to highlight or annotate certain things, such as passages that you consider significant. The second reading: to annotate the text and to jot down notes, not necessarily focusing on a specific topic, but rather taking account of your early responses to the work.,2. 3. Arriving at an idea of interest and finding a topic Whatever the type of essay in literature, each will require you to develop an argument about a particular aspect of the literary text.,An important way to discover ideas about a work is to raise questions you find in your reading and then to try to answer them by examining your notes and further reading. We might begin our analysis of Look Back in Anger with the most obvious and central question: why is Jimmy Porter angry? What is he angry with?,In reading Huckleberry Finn, we might begin our analysis with the obvious and central question : Why does Huck run away? Why does the Negro run away? What is his relationship with Jim? How does the river serve as a contrasting setting to the villages and towns along the river?,The notes gathered in your reading reveal that the natural setting of Mississippi stands a contrast to the social values of the white south at that time. Hucks floating with Jim stands as a spiritual journey.,Example 1,Hester 1. 2. 3. Hester, A Non-conformist in Conformity,Sample topics in fiction, drama, and poetry,THEME: Ahabs sin in Moby Dick Melvilles religious thought in Moby Dick The theme of carpe diem in “To His Coy Mistress” The tragic motif of Moby Dick Lord Jim: A tragedy or a moral sermon? To Obey Rebelling: The Quaker Dilemma in Moby Dick,CHARACTER,Antonias Jim: a social outcast Hulks dilemma between Head and Heart The character analysis of Jane Eyre and Tess The Character of Simbathe Hero of The Lion King,SYMBOLISM,Allegory and symbolism in “Young Goodman Brown” Virgin land: the American west as symbol and myth The biblical images in Moby Dick The fire symbolism in Moby Dick The Corporeal Self : Allegories of the Body in Melville Pasteboard Masks; fact as a spiritual symbol in Moby Dick and The Scarlet Letter,STRUCTURE,The form and structure in the novel: Adventures of huckleberry Finn An analysis of the circular dramatic structure Look Back in Anger The short story as formal structure: juxtaposition in “Young Goodman Brown”,HISTORICAL-BIPGHRICAL APPROCHES,Lord Jim and Marlowe The Bronte Myth and Jane Eyre Frankenstein, a nightmare of a females psyche,MYTHOLOGICAL AND ARCHETYPAL APPROCHES,The sacrificial hero: Hamlet Archetypes of time and immortality: “To His Coy Mistress” Syntheses of Jung and Anthropology Huckleberry Finn as the American Adam The American Adam: innocence, tragedy, and tradition,FEMINIST APPROCH,Gender and narrative in the fiction of Kate Chopin Politics and moral idealism: the achievement of some early women novelists Woolfs feminism and feminisms Woolf Women and madness: the critical phallicy Womens rights as espoused in the works of Gertrude Stein and Willa Cather,SYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH,Hamlet: the Oedipus complex The Human Psyche in James Joyces The Dead Rebellion against the father in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn “Young Goodman Brown”: Id versus Superego The turn of the screw: the consequences of sexual repression The death-wishes in Allen Poes fiction Love and death in William Blakes “The Sick Rose” Sexual imagery in “To His Coy Mistress”,OTHER CRITICAL APPROCH,Postcolonial reading The Tempest Ishmaels white world; a phenomenological reading Of Moby Dick Whaling and difference: Moby-Dick deconstructed. The MTV generation and Hollywoods post-modern adaptation of Romeo + Juliet,Another common method of discovering ideas:,to develop a set of contrasts, that is, “pro-con” method as Edgar V. Roberts calls. Once you begin putting contrasts ideas side by side, new discoveries will occur to you. Example 1, The Scarlet Letter: Your reading can be built on the opposite evidence from the text to see if Hester is a conformist or non-conformist. Using the “pro-con” method, you can list contrasting ideas side by side and draw your conclusion.,2. 4. Creating a thesis statement and outline Ill leave this to Pro. Hes coming Academic Writing Course.,
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