Literary criticism: Difference between revisions

An example of Moral Criticism can be found in the works of Plato and Aristotle.  Plato’s book The Republic was an example of some of the earliest literary criticism.  [[Aristotle's Poetics]] was another early writing that gave Moral Criticism a start and has continued since.

Some of works that are considered to be good examples of Formalism, New Criticism, and Neo –Aristotelian Criticism are written by authors many authors.  Formalist critics, Roman Jakobson and Viktor Shklovsky are two of the most well-known for this type.  Jakobson’s Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics, and Sholovsky’s Theory of Prose are examples of Formalist Criticism.  , [[Cleanth Brooks]], [[David Daiches]], John Crowe Ransome, and [[T. S. Eliot]] are all authors where examples of New Criticism can be found. Ransome’s book The New Criticism, or Eliot’s essay Tradition and the Individual Talent provide some of the best examples of New Criticism.  R.S. Crane’s Critics and Criticism: Ancient and Modern, and Wayne C. Booth’s The Rhetoric of Fiction are works that can be read to get a better understanding on the subject of Neo-Aristotelian Criticism.

Some examples of Psychoanalytic and Jungian Criticism can be found in the works of [[Sigmund Freud]] and [[C.G. Jung]].  Psychoanalytic Criticism builds on Freudian theories of psychology (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/722/). His work, Creative Writers and Daydreamers, or The Interpretation of Dreams are good starting points to understanding this form of criticism.  Jung, who was a student of Freud, wrote On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry, a good source for understanding Jungian Criticism.

Marxist Criticisms are based on the theories of [[Karl Marx]].  The writings of [[Leon Trotsky]]’s Literature and Revolution, and [[Georg Lukács]]’ The Ideology of Modernism, are available to assist with the understanding of Marxist Criticism in literature.

The works of authors Peter Rabinowitz’s Before Reading, or Norman Holland’s - The Dynamics of Literary Response, are well known sources for expanding your understanding of Reader-Response Criticism.  Hans Robert Jauss’ Horizons for Reading is also another source for information on this type of literary criticism

Two important theorists form the framework of structuralism are Charles Sanders Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure. Syntactic Structures, written by Noam Chomsky, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays by Northrop Frye, and The Elementary Structure of Kinship by [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] are good sources for better understanding on Structuralism.

New Historicism has been studied and explored extensively in many works. Clifford Geertz’s The Interpretation of Cultures or Pierre Bourdieu’s Outline of a Theory of Practice are good places to start when researching important examples of New Historicism literature. Stephen Greenblatt, who coined the phrase “New Historicism”, wrote The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance, another good source for information on this form of literary criticism.