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Fiction & Poetry wk 1
Crystal Noorzad
Critical Approaches: The Big Summary
Purpose of this class..
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Envision texts through multiple perspectives
Encourage you to engage with your own ideas about the world and the relationship of
the humanities to you
Teach you that having questions is more important than having answers
Blow up your brain (in a good way)
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New Criticism
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Considered too formulatic by some
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjHORRHXtyI
They then proposed the Reader Response Theory (placing the reader at the centre of
the analysis)
Ie Dead Poet’s Society Clips
Summary
• Critical Approaches to literature are not easy
• invite you to use your own understanding of the world around you
• ask you to question what you hold as real
• encourage you to think about the relationship of society and the texts we produce
• are scary
• will make you ask your professors questions that stump them
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Apply Story of the Hour
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Biographic & Historic
Students to library. Research Chopin’s life and broader times of society in which her work
was produced.
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Post-Colonial & Neo- Colonial
Discuss colonization of the Congo during time of Conrad’s life. How has Congo changed?
How does it remain colonized? (E.g., show Blood Diamonds clip)
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New Historicism
e.g., Nazis were evil; Aboriginal views of medicine are prehistoric; human beings are more
important than other animals; women are more nurturing than men; seek to understand
the biases of our times for the context of literary production and consumption
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