ENG53 Children's Literature

LITERARY CRITICISM

TYPES:

Formal Criticism - assumes that the important thing is the text-and text alone.

* Makes considerable use of the terminology we have just examined, and formal criticism prefers to categorize literature into kinds or genres-much like this book does.

* Would look for the essential unity of the text, perhaps focusing on the rising and falling dramatic action and the bldg. of suspense in the children's overhearing their parents plotting.

* The strength of formal criticism is that it causes us to read the literature carefully & thoughtfully.

Archetypal Criticism - The psychologist and physician Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) believed in a collective unconscious that lay deep within all of us and contained the “cumulative knowledge, experiences, and images of the entire human race.”

* Depends heavily on symbols, and patterns operating on a universal scale.

* The Hero with a Thousand Faces - explores patterns in his book.

* Allows us to see the larger patterns of literature, although it tends to ignore the individual contributions of the author and specific cultural and societal influences.

Historical Criticism - examines the culture and the society from which a literary work came and how these influences affect the literature.

* Often overlooks the literary elements and structure as well as the author's individual contributions.

Psychoanalytical Criticism - The psychoanalytical reading of a text attempts to “offer maps to unconscious stages of psychic development.”

* Based on the work of Sigmund Freud in the early 20^th century, Psychoanalytical Criticism attempts to explain the reasons for human actions.

* Psychoanalytic critic sees a work of literature as the outward expression of an author's unconscious mind, and it becomes the reader's or critic's task to discover the author's hidden fears, desires, and motivations.

* This type of criticism can coexist comfortably with other types

* The most famous modern example in children's literature of psychoanalytical reading is Bruno Bettelheim's study of folktales.

Feminist Criticism - an offspring of the feminist movement of the mid-twentieth century

* It's focus of how gender affects literary work, writer, or reader.

* A major concern of feminist criticism is the masculine bias in literature.

* The feminist looks for the presence of females’ stereotypes, for example, the woman as the dark-haired, sensuous submissive femine fatale, or as the fair-haired, vaginal, plaster saint.

* To challenge the way we have traditionally read literature & that is from the point of view of a male-dominated society. The feminist critic believes that, in the words of Simon de Beauvior, “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.” Or another critic says: “Feminists do not deny that women exhibit group characteristics. However, they do not accept the thesis that similarities in female behavior are biologically determined.”

* Feminist Criticism therefore ultimately becomes cultural criticism

Reported by: Melanie Bernadette Borja

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