Introduction to Literary Theories and Criticisms (Enla 422), 2011
Chapter One: Literary Criticism and Literary Periods
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- 1.1 The Period Concept
| Chapter One: Literary Criticism and Literary Periods
General objective: having learned the contents of this chapter, you are expected to conceptualize the definition of literary criticism and the contribution of each of the periods to the emergence of new kinds of literary criticisms across different historical times. Thus, you are expected to: Recognize the concept of different periods, Comprehend the different periods of human history and Familiarize with the essences of the periods and the proponents in each of the periods. Dear students: before you have information about the periods here you are requested to respond to the following questions. What periods do you know in your previous grades? How do the periods influence the prevalent literary criticisms? On what aspects may we possibly differentiate one period to another? 1.1 The Period Concept We are going to see some peculiar historical, philosophical and cultural movements which change the views of different critics across the world. Seeing the literary movements across different historical periods essentially helps critics to see that literary works can be grouped according to what they share with each other within a given period, and that this grouping can be differentiated from one another with fundamental issues that they have raised across the periods. Literary periods share, in Rene Wellek's phrase, "systems of norms," which include such things as conventions, styles, themes, and philosophies. The study of literary periods and movements can be helpful in three ways. The first thing is the prevalence of contemporary allusions that can only be cleared up by study of the age. More significantly, such study may help one avoid the potential danger of misreading a work through ignorance of its historical context. Finally great works of art are salient cultural instruments to capture the reader's possession of certain broad kinds of information about the age in which they were produced. For example, readers can possibly exploit information of different kinds (whether it be religion, cultural, political, social, historical or any) against their immediate contexts. For instance, before we criticize Plato’s attitude towards poetry (that says the artist is three times further than the practical reality), we need to know that Athenians were confused by the poets of the time and changed their attitude from time to time. Having seen the power of poetry in changing the youths’ attitude, Plato said that Poetry is misleading. Thus, the reader's experience of literature will necessarily be enriched by knowledge of the prevailing attitudes toward education, history, money, arranged marriages, duty, ethics; by its attitudes toward human nature, including the importance attached to various human faculties (spirit, reason, feeling, imagination). And especially important to the student of literature is the periodical representative attitudes toward art and the methods of its creation (Brooklyn College, 2008). Since period has paramount influence upon the literary criticism of a certain society in specific period of time, looking thorough different period before the theories of literary criticism is crucially demanding. Download 333 Kb. Share with your friends:
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