Approaches in Studying Literature

Approaches in Studying Literature

A Short Guide

The “greatness” of literature cannot be determined solely by literary standards; though we must remember that whether it is literature or not can be determined only by literary standards.”

T.S. Eliot

ARTISTRY

INTELLECTUAL VALUE

SUGGESTIVENESS

SPIRITUAL VALUE

PERMANENCE

UNIVERSALITY

STYLE

Typical analytical approachesTypical analytical approaches

psychological

formalsociological

archetypal

moral

Moral ApproachMoral Approach

“Though we may read literature merely for pleasure, of entertainment or of aesthetic enjoyment, this reading never affects simply a sort of special sense: it affects us as entire human beings; it affects our moral and religious existence.”

T.S. Eliot

MORALMORAL• Concerned with the ends of

literature as affecting Man as it takes its place in the human forum of ideas and attitudes.

• Judged only according to the moral code accepted by each generation, whether it lives according to that code or not.

Our religion imposes our ethics, our judgment and criticism of ourselves, and our behavior towards our fellow men.

The fiction that we read affects our behavior towards our fellow men, affects our patterns of ourselves.

Psychological ApproachPsychological Approach

“The key to understanding psychoanalytic literary criticism is to recognize that literary criticism is about books and psychoanalysis is about minds. Therefore, the psychoanalytic critic can only talk about the minds associated with the book.“

Norman N. Holland

PsychologicalPsychological • It argues that literary texts, like

dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses.

• It concentrates on the symbols, events, including the dialogues that affect the character.

• Follows reader-response criticism

A Study of Three Minds

Author - The relationship between author and his art.

Character - Fictional characters are treated as patients.

Audience - Reader-response.

Sociological ApproachSociological Approach

“Art is not created in a vacuum; it is a work not simply of a person, but of an author fixed in time and space, answering to a community of which he is important.”

Wilbur Scott

SociologicalSociological

• The work of art must be placed in its social atmosphere and have that relationship defined.

• It must also be noted that “literature is not only the effect of social causes, it is also the cause of social effects.” – Harry Levin

The sociological critic is interested in understanding the social milieu and the extent to which and manner in which the artist responds to it.

Formalistic ApproachFormalistic Approach

“Nothing can permanently please which does not contain in itself the reason why it is so, and not otherwise.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

FormalisticFormalistic

• Analyzes the relation between what the work means and how it conveys its meaning.

• Good work is one that is interesting because it conveys meaning in an interesting way, an intriguing way to say the "same old thing."

All information essential to the interpretation of a work must be found within the work itself; there is no need to bring in outside information about the history, politics, or society of the time of about the author's life.

Archetypal ApproachArchetypal Approach

“There are universal patterns of man, whatever his time and place, which enabled the poet to make simultaneous parallels to and contrasts with figures and situations in the contemporary wasteland.”

T.S. Eliot

• Asserts the validity of myth and its retention in the social memory.

• Acts as a demonstration of some basic cultural pattern of great meaning and appeal to humanity in a work of art.

It does necessarily not go back to specific myths; it may discover basic cultural patterns which assume a mythic quality in their permanence within a particular culture.

Athena

THAT’S ALL, FOLKS!THAT’S ALL, FOLKS!

Sometimes the only way to find out which approach is best is to find out the type of theme the literature tries to imply.