Lc theoritical-2

1. Literary Criticism
Dr. Abdel-Fattah Adel
Class (2)

2. Class (2) Items
• Dealing with Literature
• Making Meaning from Text.
• The Reading Response and literary Theory
• What is Literature?
• Literary Theory and the Definition of Literature.
• The Function of Literature and Literary Theory

3. 1. Realize the nature and function of literature.
2. Describe the reading process and meaning making
in literary theory.
3. Illustrate the differences among literary theories.
4. Discuss the different factors in defining literature.
5. Identify the source of beauty in Art.
6. Explain the function of literature.
Class (2)
Objectives
By the end of this part, you will be able to:

4. Class (2)
Questions
1. Meaning making involves issues related to the makeup of
our life. Explain.
2. Louise M. Rosenblatt described the reading process as a
transaction. Illustrate.
3. Why cannot we have one correct and comprehensive theory
in literature?
4. Why do Literary Theories differ? Give examples.
5. Why is literary theory important?
6. The “written” and the “imaginative” determines what is
literature. Discuss.
7. What is aesthetics and what is the source of beauty in art?
8. A “story” is a defining element in literature. Explain.
9. Why cannot we have one single definition of literature?
10. There are two debatable views about the function of
literature. Discuss.

5. ➢ Reading is the same for all
people. Do you agree?
➢ Why?
Discuss

6. ➢ Is meaning in the text or the
reader’s mind ?
➢ How?
Discuss

7. Meaning Making
Framework Worldview
Assumptions or
presuppositions
(either consciously
or unconsciously)
about the basic
makeup of our
world.
What is the basis of
morality or ethics?
What is the meaning of
human history?
What happens at the
moment of death?
Is there an overarching
purpose for humanity's
existence?
What is beauty? Truth?
Goodness?
Is there an ultimate
reality?

8. Meaning Making
Readers respond to works of art via their worldview.
A Worldview is dynamic not static.
From this philosophical core of beliefs spring their evaluations of the goodness, worthiness, and
value of art itself.
Using their worldviews either consciously or unconsciously as a yardstick by which to measure
and value their experiences, readers respond to individual works of literature, ordering and
valuing each separate or collective experience in each text based on the system of beliefs housed
in their worldviews.

9. The Reading Process:
Reading as a Transaction
Read Pamphlet P. 10
Louise M. Rosenblatt's text The Reader, the Text, the Poem (1978)

10. The Reading Process:
Reading as a Transaction
“A reader brings to the text his or her past
experience and present personality. Under the
magnetism of the ordered symbols of the text,
the reader marshals his or her resources and
crystallizes out from the stuff of memory,
thought, and feeling a new order, a new
experience, which he/she sees as the poem. This
becomes part of the ongoing stream of the
reader's life experience, to be reflected on from
any angle important to him or her as a human
being.”
Louise M. Rosenblatt's text The Reader, the Text, the Poem (1978)

11. ➢ Is there a metatheory:
(single correct comprehensive)
theory?
➢ Why?
Discuss

12. No MetatheoryTHEREISNO
Single overarching
(comprehensive)
literary theory
Theory that encompasses all possible
interpretations of a text suggested by
its readers
Single correct literary
theory.
Theory that is capable of
exhausting all legitimate
questions to be asked about any
text

13. Why do literary theories differ?
Read Pamphlet P. 11

14. Each theory focuses primarily on one element of
the interpretative process, although in practice
different theories may address several areas of
concern in interpreting a text.
Work
Emphasize work
itself
Place a text in its
historical,
political,
sociological,
religious, and
economic settings.
Direct its chief
concern toward
the text's
audience.
Why do literary theories differ?

15. Why do we
need theory?
Read Pamphlet P. 12

16. ➢ What is literature?
Discuss

17. What is literature?
Literature
A
Written
work
An
Imaginati
ve art
A
Publishe
d work
Time
Test
By
artistic
elements
With
aesthetic
quality
A story

18. •Includes any written works, excludes Oral literature (Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the English epic Beowulf)
A Written work (Littera)
•Included all types of art, excludes factual works.
An Imaginative art (Wortkunst)
•Excludes unpublished works: the hyperprotected cooperative principle
A Published work
•Depends on social and cultural value only: Dante's Divine Comedy.
Time Test
•Define by functional elements
By artistic elements
Whatisliterature?

19. Aesthetic Quality
• Most critics agree that a work of
literature does have an appealing
aesthetic quality.
• Aesthetics, is a branch of
philosophy that deals with the
concept of the beautiful and strives
to determine the criteria for beauty
in a work of art.

20. Source of Beauty
The source of
beauty is
inherent within
the art object
itself: Plato and
Aristotle.

21. Story: a defining factor
Read Pamphlet P. 14

22. The spheres of Literature
Universe
Writer
Text
The definition of literature
depends on the particular
kind of literary theory or
school of criticism that the
reader or critic espouses

23. ➢ Why do we read literature?
Discuss

24. The Function of Literature
To teach
(extrinsic)
To entertain
(intrinsic)
Plato
5th C. BC
Aristotle
4th C. BC

25. Class (2)
Questions
1. Meaning making involves issues related to the makeup of
our life. Explain.
2. Louise M. Rosenblatt described the reading process as a
transaction. Illustrate.
3. Why cannot we have one correct and comprehensive theory
in literature?
4. Why do Literary Theories differ? Give examples.
5. Why is literary theory important?
6. The “written” and the “imaginative” determines what is
literature. Discuss.
7. What is aesthetics and what is the source of beauty in art?
8. A “story” is a defining element in literature. Explain.
9. Why cannot we have one single definition of literature?
10. There are two debatable views about the function of
literature. Discuss.