Literary Appreciation
Criticism
is the overall term for studies concerned with defining, classifying,
analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating the works of literature.
· Theoretical
Criticism proposes a theory of literature in the sense of general
principles, together with a set of terms, distinctions, and categories,
to be applied to identifying and analyzing works of literature, as well
as the criteria ( the standard, or norms ) by which these works and
their writers are to be evaluated.
· Practical
Criticism or Applied Criticism concerns itself with the discussion of
particular works and writers; in applied critique, the theoretical
principles controlling the mode of the analysis, interpretation, and
evaluation are often left implicit.
· Practical Criticism is sometimes distinguished into impressionistic criticism and judicial criticism.
+
Impressionistic Criticism attempts to represent in words the felt
qualities of a particular passage or work, and to express the responses
that the work directly evokes from the critic.
+ Judicial
Criticism, attempts not merely to communicate, but to analyze and
explain the effects of a work by reference to its subject, organization,
techniques, and style, and to base the critic’s individual judgements
or general standards of literary excellence.
+
Types of traditional critic theories and applied criticism can be
usefully classified according to whether, in explaining and judging a
work of literature, they refer the work primarily to the author world,
or to the reader, or to the author, or else treat the work as an entity
in itself.
+
Mimetic Criticism views the literary work as an imitation, or
reflection, or representation of the world and human life, and the
primary criterion applied to a work is that of the “truth” of its
representation to the subject matter that it represents, or should
represent.
+
Pragmatic Criticism views the work as something which is constructed in
order to achieve certain effects on the audience ( effects such as
aesthetic pleasure, instruction, or kinds of emotion ), and it tends to
judge the value of the work according to its success in achieving that
aim.
+
Expressive Criticism treats a literary work primarily in relation to
its author. It defines poetry as an expression, or overflow, or
utterance of feelings, or as the product of the poet’s imagination
operating on his or her perceptions, thoughts, and feelings; it tends to
judge the work by its sincerity, or its adequacy to the poet’s
individual vision or state of mind; and it often looks in the work for
evidences of the particular temperament and experiences of the author
who, consciously or unconsciously, has revealed himself in it.
+
Objective Criticism approaches a work of literature as something which
stands free from what is often called “ extrinsic “ reference to the
poet, or to the audience, or to the environing world. Instead it
describes the literary product as a self-sufficient and autonomous
object, or else as a world-in-itself, which is to be analyzed and judged
solely by “ intrinsic “ criteria such as complexity, coherence,
equilibrium, integrity, and the interrelations of its component
elements.
==00==
