INTRODUCTION TO
LITERARY CRITICISM
Day 1
Hapag ng
Pagasa by
Joey Velasco
What do you think of the
painting is all about ?
How do you feel about
the painting?
Does it remind you of any
other paintings you have
seen? If so, what painting
or artists?
What do you think the
painter was trying to
convey?
Monalisa by
Leonardo Davinci
◦ What do you think of the painting is all about ?
◦ How do you feel about the painting?
◦ Does it remind you of any other paintings you have
seen? If so, what painting or artists?
◦ What do you think the painter was trying to convey?
Colorfield paintings
by Rothko
◦ What do you think of the painting is all
about ?
◦ How do you feel about the painting?
◦ Does it remind you of any other
paintings you have seen? If so, what
painting or artists?
◦ What do you think the painter was
trying to convey?
LITERARY + CRITICISM
“Literary”
◦ Artistry
◦ Suggestiveness
◦ Intellectual value
◦ Spiritual value
◦ Permanence
◦ Universality
◦ Style
Criticism
The term ‘criticism’ is often understood to be:
• The act of finding fault; censure;
disapproval
• The act of criticizing, especially adversely
• But the term ‘criticism’ as it is used in
this course signifies:
• The act of interpreting, analyzing and
making judgments of individual and
comparative worth of works of art such as
literature
• A critical comment, review, article,
essay, etc expressing such analysis and
judgment
• The art, principles, or methods of a critic
or critics
What is literary criticism?
Literary criticism is the interpretation, analysis, classification and
ultimately the judgment of literary works.
• It is usually in the form of a critical essay, but in-depth book
reviews can sometimes be considered as literary criticism.
• Criticism may examine a particular literary work or may look at
an author's writings as a whole.
The goal is to
become a literary
critic
◦ The task of a literary critic is to
explain and attempt to reach
a critical understanding of
what literary texts mean in
terms of their aesthetic, as well
as social, political, and cultural
statements and suggestions.
Literary Theory
A very basic way of thinking about
literary theory is that these ideas act as
different lenses critics use to view and
talk about art, literature, and even
culture.
◦ These different lenses allow critics to
consider works of art based on certain
assumptions within that school of
theory.
◦ The different lenses also allow critics to
focus on aspects of a work they
consider important
◦Literary Theory. . .
◦ Literary theory proposes particular, systematic
◦approaches to literary texts that impose a
particular line of intellectual reasoning to it.
◦ Historical-biographgical
◦ Formalism
◦ Reader’s Response
◦ Feminist
◦ Psychoanalysis
◦ Marxist
◦ Structuralism
◦ Deconstruction
◦ Queer
History = colonialism
Biographical = Rizal’s Life
Marxist = Mayaman vs
Mahirap
Feminist = Maria Clara
Psychological = Identity
crisis?
Readers response = enjoy
or not?