Critical Approaches
- Formalism: focuses on the text
- New Historicism: the historical/cultural context in which a text is written affects the said text
- Psychoanalytical Criticism: the unconscious mind affects texts
- Archetypal and Mythological Criticism: Effects of archetypes and mythology on a text
- Feminist Criticism: Effects of gender on a text
- Marxist Criticism: Effects of Marx on a piece of text
- Postcolonial Criticism: Effects of post-colonialism on a text
A good website that introduces some of the above critical approaches: http://www.charlesyoungs.com/english12honors/criticalapproachestoliterature.html
Poetry
Poetry quickens our senses and deepens our experience. It is at the heart of literature, figuratively and literally speaking. Pretty much all of the earliest works of literature of the various civilizations are poetry. Think The Epic of Gilgamesh of Mesopotamia, The Illiad and The Odyssey of the Greeks, The Aeneid of the Romans, and Beowulf of the English. Poetry is language condensed to artistic effect. It is, in the words of Wordsworth, “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Wordsworth). Because poetry is so powerful, yet so condensed, it is intense. All that we have to do for literature, we have to do for poetry, and more. Yet for all that we get from literature, we get from poetry, and more. One definition of poetry is that it takes longer to explain it than read it and is intended to create an artistic effect.
“The Eagle”by Lord Tennyson is a good example of this definition of poetry because it takes longer to explain this poem than it takes to read it, and it also creates an artistic effect by helping us imagine the eagle better. Another poem that we discussed in class was “Winter”. It takes longer to explain than read, and it has an artistic appeal because instead of telling us what winter is like, the poem shows us through different personal perspectives what winter is like, allowing the reader to more easily connect with the text.
Delving deeper into poetry: “Hidden Meanings” by Dabney Stuart
The poem “Hidden Meanings” by Dabney Stuart contains many hidden sexual connotations. For example, when Dabney mentions, “Both Hansel and Jack hated their mothers: / Jack sold the old cow / so she threw his seeds away; / Hansel let his feel his fingers a lot / and then stuffed her in the oven” (1-5), he is saying that Jack didn’t feel sexually attracted to his mom so she tried to castrate his mom, and there was incest going on between Jack and his mom. There are sexual connotations in the poem regarding the fathers too. For example, the poem mentions “Their fathers were troublesome, too: / one was a wimp…the other…had to be cut down, stalk first” (6-9). This is in essence saying that one of the fathers was impotent, and the other had to be castrated. The poem then goes on to mention that Rumpelstiltskin “played by himself” (11), “couldn’t get a baby by proxy” (12), and “stuck his wooden leg through the floor” (13), implying that Rumpelstiltskin performed autoeroticism and was impotent. Then, the poem moves on to its final message, “the two boys finally got rich, like Cinderella” (14), saying that males and females are treated differently in fairy tales. All Cinderella had to do to become rich was to look pretty at a ball. But for the guys, they had to embark on adventures and overcome adversaries to get to their “happy ending”. In essence, Dabney Stuart is saying that women are leeches. In the 1960s, when this poem was written, society was training women to think that they can be like the princesses of fairy tales, sponge off men, and make men their “plaything”, and Stuart is saying here that this is wrong.
This poem reminds me of a book that I’m currently reading, The Girl Who Played with Fire by Steig Larsson. This book is about two people who get deeply embroiled in a sex trafficking investigation, and I feel like the book is the completely opposite of “Hidden Meanings”. “Hidden Meanings” is talking about women exploiting men for money, while The Girl Who Played with Fire is mostly about men exploiting women for money.
In reading this poem, we had to apply the techniques of close reading that we learned last week.
Diction
- Diction is powerful and revealing because words are chosen for a reason
- For example thin is a neutral word. Yet if you describe someone as slender, or svelte, you are being more honorific. On the other end of the spectrum, if you describe someone as skinny or gaunt, you are being more and more pejorative
- If you say a kid is svelte, then you are a pedophile. If you say a kid is gaunt, then you are implying that the kid’s bones are prominent. Word choice matters.
- Connotation v. denotation
- Connotation is the dictionary definition of a word. Denotation is the non-dictionary, cultural definition of a word.
- For example, the word Eden’s definition is the residence of Adam and Even before their Fall. Yet the denotation of Eden is a paradise, a place of perfect bliss.
- Concreteness v. abstraction
- An author’s choice of either depends on what they were looking for
- For example, clothes, pants, jeans, Levis, show an increase in concrete-ness, and one’s word choice of any depends on the context. “She jumped like her pants were on fire” v. “She jumped like her clothes were on fire”. In the first instance, we may think that she’s really excited. But in the second instance, we may think that her clothes are really on fire.
- In AP Government, we’re analyzing the Declaration of Independence, which starts with, “when in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth..." (Jefferson). Here, Jefferson aims for a lot of concreteness because he does not want the English to mistake his, and America’s intent for writing this document.
- In writing, concreteness can be used to convey intimacy whereas abstractness and be used to convey aloofness and distance
- Precision, vagueness, and specificity
- Which one of the above an author decides to use depends on the situation
- For example, if I voice an opinion, the teacher is expected to say, “good!”, not “I am so happy that for once you said something in class!”. Vagueness is valued in this situation because that is the only socially accepted route.
- If an author is vague, it can mean that he’s trying to convey suspense, ambiguity, or imply that there are multiple meanings behind what he’s saying.
- Elevation v. colloquialism
- The most casual form of language is slang (outsiders’ language that they use to bond), then colloquial language (ordinary speech). Then there is elevated language, which is epic language. It’s used in inaugural addresses or Nobel acceptance speeches.
- Dialect, jargon, regionalisms, etc.
- Dialect is the different ways a language is spoken in different geographical areas of a country
- Regionalisms are words unique to a region smaller than a dialect region: for example, the varied use of pop, soda, and coke in the U. S.
- Jargon is technical vocabulary
- In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s characters use the word scuppernong instead of grape to show that her characters have limited knowledge, so they can only speak in this way, instead of changing their diction to fit that of the reader
Homework
- Class Notes Journal due Monday, September 20th
- Comment analytically on “Kitchenette Building” and respond to two peers’ posts due Thursday, September 16th
- Comment analytically diction or imagery in “The Widow’s Lament” and “The Naming of Parts” and respond to two peers’ posts due Monday, September 20th
Works Cited
Jefferson, Thomas. "The Declaration of Independence." U.S. History. The Independence Hall Association (IHA), 4 July 1776. Web. 19 Sept. 2010.Stuart, Dabney. "Hidden Meanings." Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. Ed. Laurence Perrine, Thomas R. Arp, and Greg Johnson. Boston: Heinle & Heinle: Thomson Learning, Inc., 2002. 754-55. Print.
Wordsworth, William, and Samuel T. Coleridge. Lyrical Ballads. N.p.: n.p., 1798. Web. 19 Sept. 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment