2.3.3 Text-oriented Approaches ……………………………………………………..30
2.3.3.1 Russian Formalism/Prague Linguistic Circle/Linguistic Criticism/Dialogic Theory ……………………………………………..30
2.3.3.2 Structuralism and Semiotics …………………………………………..33
2.3.3.3 Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction ………………………………35
2.3.3.4 Postmodernism …………………………………………………………..38
2.3.4 Literary Criticism Approaches Related to the Reader ……………………...39
2.3.4.1 Reception and Reader-Response Theory ……………………………..39
2.3.4.2 Phenomenology and Hermeneutics ……………………………………...41
2.3.5 Neutral/undecided Critical Approaches: Psychoanalytic Criticism (Psychological Approach)………………………………………………………………………..43
Introduction
This course is prepared to raise your awareness in literary criticisms, to enable you introduce with literary criticism approaches through different periods and to empower you with the methods, techniques and guidelines so as to analyze, evaluate and interpret a literary works of art.
Literary texts offer us with much aesthetic, intellectual and emotional pleasure in that the writers often seek to delineate their vision of human experience through a creative, imaginative and emotive use of language. Consequently, it is only through a close interaction with the text that reaction to the text, looking unique use of language and appreciation of literary works can be achieved (Widdowson, 1975:75). In unraveling the possible meanings of a literary work, one engages in an exercise to make inferences, formulate ideas, and analyze a text closely for evidence and all these activities contribute to sharpening one's critical faculty. The basic reason that compels us to give criticism is for universal human values and the values of the culture from which they spring from literary materials contribute to our understanding of ourselves and our relations with our fellow beings (Marckwardt, 1978:6). Besides, critics and readers will benefit from literary materials by exploiting the "codes and preoccupations” of the society they represent (Collie and Slater, 1987:4) and see as the mirror to untie problems and to argue on controversies and to forward new overviews.
Since critically analyzing literary works has immense uses, students of literature, language teachers and advanced readers need to use literary theories and philosophies to give critics to different kinds of oral and written works of arts. It is to this end that this course is given to you. In this course we will see the dominant contemporary literary theories with practical examples. Thus, we are going to see author oriented, text oriented, context oriented and reader oriented approaches of literary criticisms.
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