Kinds and Types of Criticism
- 1. Kinds & Types of Criticism Prepared by: Genito, Benjiro D.
- 2. Two Types of Criticism Criticism is loosely divided into two major types: • Constructive Criticism • Projected Criticism
- 3. Constructive Criticism - Is the type of criticism a person seeks if they are trying to improve themselves and/or the tasks they are given. - Asks, “What could I do better?” - It is well thought out, objective, and is given by a level-headed critic. Contains no bias. - Through constructive criticism, you learn what ways you can improve the tasks you are given.
- 4. Projected Criticism - Is an emotional, negative reaction to something you’ve said or done. - If a critic rants about something you’ve done, it’s because what you’ve written has threatened them on an emotional level. - Projected Criticism is simply a projection of a person’s psyche. - Is the result of envy, insecurity, or anger. - Should be always ignored, but may prove to be beneficial in improving your work.
- 5. Kinds of Criticism 4 Major Kinds of Criticism
- 6. Formalism - Is a critical approach, doctrine, or technique that places heavy emphasis on style, form, or technique in art or literature. - Formalism sees these as more important than determining content. According to: Formal Criticism. (n.d.) -Ologies & -Isms. (2008). Retrieved September 3 2018 from https://www.thefreedictionary.com/formal+criticism - Claims that literary works contain essential properties and considers each work as an artform in and of itself. - States that the key to understanding a text is through the text itself. - The historical context, the author, or any other external criteria are not necessary when interpreting a text. Taken from: English for Academic and Professional Purposes Aspects analyzed in Formalism: • A central passage that sums up the entirety of the work • Contributions of rhymes and rhythms to the meaning of a text • Unity in the work • Usage of imagery to develop the symbols used in a text
- 8. 1. Central passages are analyzed because they provide insight on what an author wants to relay in a text; usually, these passages contain very important information that may summarize thoughts effectively. 2. Rhymes and rhythms are analyzed because they develop points in a text. They add musicality to a piece or poem, and gives a predictable pleasure to the audience and adds emotion in a text. Helps give poems a feel of excitement. 3. Unity in a text is deemed important because it establishes how much knowledge an author has about his/her work. It also aids in helping the audience understand how bits and pieces of a text relate to each other. 4. Imagery in a text is valuable because it fleshes out an Experience or an event described in a text. It appeals to our senses, and may help a reader visualize an event described in the text.
- 9. Feminist Criticism - Aims to understand the nature of inequality and focus on the analyzation of gender equality and the promotion of women’s rights. Has 2 distinct variations: 1. “Feminist Critique” 2. “Gynocritics” Feminist Critique - Scholars under this school of thought sought to divorce literary analysis from abstract diction-based arguments to recognize the perceived implicit misogyny of the story itself. - Basically, it focuses on the “woman as a reader – with the woman as the consumer of male-produced literature”. Gynocritics - Uses a historicist approach to literature by exposing exemplary female scholarship in literature and the way in which their relation to the gender structure relayed in their portrayal of both fiction and reality in their texts. - Enlists “the grace of imagination in a disinterested search for the essential difference of women’s writing.” 1. Basically, it is concerned with the woman as a writer, with the woman as the producer of textual meaning. "Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism". Purdue OWL. Retrieved 1 September.
- 10. Feminist Criticism - Focuses on how literature presents women as subjects of socio-political, psychological, and economic oppression. - Reveals how much of our culture is patriarchal (Seeing men as more superior in society). Aspects analyzed in when using Feminism: • How culture determines Gender • How gender equality (and lack thereof) is presented in a text • How patriarchal ideology is an overpowering presence 1. Understanding how culture determines a gender’s role is essential in understanding a text through a feminist perspective because it shows what role a specific gender possesses in society. Social stigma, such as women being naturally weaker than men, is also analyzed in this type of criticism. 2. Understanding how gender equality is presented in a text is essential in order to assert a stand in how a specific gender possesses more rights than another. Misogyny is a major issue that is analyzed in a feminist text, with critiques describing how an author depicts women as fragile beings who need protection from people who are ‘superior’ to them. 3. Identifying how patriarchal our society is may assist Feminist Critiques understand how society views the male population as ‘superior’ and through that understanding, create a critique on how society can improve their morals and norms in order to update how people treat those of an opposite gender. Feminist critique is basically pushing for equality through the proper use of knowledge. However, it is valuable to note that feminism is not created to attack or belittle the opposite gender; it is a movement created to push for equal rights and opportunities for women to have equal standing with men.
- 11. Reader Response Criticism - Is a school of literary work that focuses on the reader and their experience when reading a literary work. - This school of thought recognizes the reader as an active agent who gives ‘real existence’ to a work and completes the meaning of a text through their interpretation. Cahill M (1996). "'Reader-response criticism and the allegorizing reader'". Theological Studies. 57 (1): 89–97. - Is concerned with the viewer’s reaction as the audience of a work. - This approach claims that a reader cannot be separated from the understanding of a text. - Believes that a text does not have meaning until a reader reads it and interprets it. - Believes that readers are active consumers of the texts given to them. Taken from: English for Academic and Professional Purposes Aspects Analyzed in Reader Response Criticism: • Interaction between the reader and the text to create meaning • The impact of a reader’s delivery of sounds and visuals on enhancing and changing the meaning of a text.
- 12. Why are these Aspects Analyzed? A reader and his/her interaction with the text is valuable to understand when making a critique that determines how a text can affect a reader on an emotional level. It helps explain how much emotion is contained within a text. The impact and delivery of a reader when reading a text is beneficial in order to help us understand how a reader feels about a text (i.e., they feel the emotion of the text and is able to relay it orally.)
- 13. Marxist Criticism - Is a loose term that describes literary criticism based on socialist and dialectic theories. - Views literary works as reflections of the social institutions from which they originate. - According to Marxists, even literature itself is a social institution and holds a specific ideological function based on the background and ideology of the author. Taken from: https://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/marxist.crit.html - Is concerned with differences between economic classes and implications of a capitalist system. - Attempts to reveal that the ultimate source of a society’s experience is the socioeconomic system. Taken from: English for Academic and Professional Purposes Aspects Analyzed in Marxist Criticism: • Social Class as represented in a text • Social Class of the writer • Social Class of the Characters
- 14. Why are these Aspects Analyzed? The social strata of the characters in a text are important to analyze because they show what stand or position a character has in a story or text. It determines how they act and in what regard they hold themselves in a society. The Social Classes in texts are beneficial in the analysis of a text because it posits the stand of an author about a specific class in society, be it positive or negative. The Social Class of a writer is considered when creating a critique because it determines how the author sees other classes in society (e.g. The rich admonishing the lower class, the poor despising the upper class). Examples of Texts with Social Implications: • Huckleberry Finn • To Kill A Mockingbird • Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Editor's Notes
- #14: Dialectic: Art of Investigating or discussing the truth of opinions Socialism: A range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership