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Biographical Approach

By: Robbie Liza E. Caytiles

What is Biographical Approach? Critics doing biographical analysis


carefully examine incidents in the lives of
Biographical criticism uses details authors and try to identify events,
about an author's personal life to settings, objects, buildings, people, etc.
analyse the author's works. found in the novels with historical
sources.
It relies on autobiographies, The difficultly with this sort of criticism,
and reason it has somewhat fallen out of
correspondence, and other primary favour, is that fictionalized accounts,
materials about the author and is a even when they may have been inspired
form of historical criticism. by actual events and people, often suffer
a sea change when they are introduced
into novels.

Disadvantages:
Advantages: "The intentional fallacy". Tends to
Works well for some which are reduce art to the level of biography
obviously political or biographical in and make it relative rather than
nature. universal.
It also is necessary to take a historical New Critics refer to the historical /
approach in order to place allusions in biographical critic's belief that the
there proper classical, political, or meaning or value of a work may be
biblical background. determined by the author's intention
as "the intentional fallacy." They
believe that this approach tends to
Origin of the approach reduce art to the level of biography
As early as the nineteenth century, and make it relative (to the times)
scholars considered literary texts against rather than universal.
the background of the authors
biography. The aim was to find
references to the authors life, Barthes and critics following him have
education and socio-cultural argued that an authors biography is
environment in a literary work. irrelevant since the meaning of a text only
Ever since the French critic Roland emerges in the reading process and the
Barthes announced the death of the reader thus becomes the real author of
author in 1968, the biographical the text.
approach has lost its appeal for many
scholars.

One could argue against this radical viewpoint that there are texts where knowledge of an authors
biography can sometimes help us understand the text better because otherwise we would not be
able to decipher certain allusions or references. Bearing this knowledge in mind, it is then
interesting to see where the literary text deviates from references to the authors real life.

The Glass Menagerie


Tennessee Williams
Deconstructionism

Vocabularies:
Ahistorical not related to history. It is initiated by Jacques Derrida
Apolitical no interest in politics. 1960
Logocentricism excessive attention It is a theory of literary criticism
paid to the meaning of words. Questions traditional assumptions:
Metalanguage language or certainty,
vocabulary used to describe language. identity, and truth;
Nihilistic- A doctrine holding that all asserts that words can only refer to other
values are baseless and that nothing words.
can be known or communicated. He denied it was a doctrine or method.

The development was initiated at the


Deconstruction in philosophy
Yale University between the 1960s to
It is binary or hierarchical- involving a pair of terms,
1980s.
one is fundamental and the other one is secondary.
Other Yale philosophers who
Examples: nature and culture, speech and writing,
contributed in deconstructionism are
mind and body, inside and outside
Paul de Man, Geoffrey Hartman and J.
To deconstruct an opposition is to explore the
Hillis Miller.
tensions and contradictions between the hierarchical
Other influences
in the text and its other meaning.
Richard Rorty (1931 -2007)
Accidental features of a text.
-------------------------------------------------
In the 1970s the term was applied to
work by Derrida, Paul de Man, J. Hillis According to Jean - Jacques Rousseau, society
Miller, and Barbara Johnson, among and culture are both oppressing in state of
other scholars. nature, in which humans exist in self-sufficient
In the 1980s it designated more loosely and peaceful isolation.
a range of radical theoretical Then nature is prior to culture, yet in other
enterprises in diverse areas of the sense culture is prior to nature.
humanities and social sciences.

Derrida also contends logocentrism which there is the realm of truth.


Logocentrism encourages us to treat linguistic signs as distinct from and inessential to the phenomena they represent.
The tendency to conceive fundamental philosophical concepts such as :
truth
reality
being in terms of ideas such as presence/ essence, identity, and originand in the process to ignore the crucial
role of absence and difference.
Deconstruction in Social science In the U.S.A , the Legal
and arts Studies applied
Influenced by the deconstruction to legal
Psychoanalysis of writing in an effort to reveal
Sigmund Freud, drew principles and counter
attention to the principles.
formation of psyche.

Influence and criticism


In all fields it called attention.
It encouraged scholars to look beyond the relationship and the
potential conflict between what the text says from what it does.
It prompted exploration of fundamental oppositions and re-
examination of ultimate goals.
On the other hand, it receives criticisms from others calling it as
nihilistic, ahistorical and apolitical .
Despite some attacks it is still has some intellectual enterprises.
Historical Criticism

WHAT IS HISTORICAL CRITICISM?

A branch of history which looked at literature of evidence about economic and political events
going on at the time at which the works were produced, and that also looked at historical events
to explain the content of literary works.

Historical criticism insisted that to understand a literary piece, we need to understand the
authors biography and social background, ideas circulating at the time, and the cultural milieu

______________________________________________________________________________

METHOD OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM

New Historicism

Is a theory in literary criticism that suggests literature must be studied and interpreted within
the context of both the history of the author and the history of the critic.

Critics using this approach look at the work and consider other writing that may have inspired it
or inspired by it , as well as the life of the author and how it relates to the text.

Old Historicism

Insisted that a literary work be read with a sense of time and place of its creation.

This is necessary, insist historical critics, because every literary work is a product of its time and
its world. Understanding the social background and the intellectual currents of that time and
that world illuminate literary works for later generation of readers.

In the first quatrain, the author is talking about how he is walking through every
transitory street. The adjective chartered seems to suggest the idea of the importance of
money to live everyday in this ephemeral world, where everything is focused around money,
richness and its value to reach anything. But, in despite of the role of money has in the world
and happiness because of its value, many people are dominated by sorrow and sadness. The
verses In every cry of every man and in every infants cry of fear are examples of this fact.
People are not happy. They are living in fear all the time, inside the dark of a society influenced
by materialism. Human beings are loosing the real sense of life.

The materialism of words is reflected in the second quatrain with the mind-forged manacles,
which represents peoples obsession for money and the dependence to the important
institutions.
In the third quatrain, the author is comparing two different representations: a chimney-sweeper
and a soldier. Both of them are archetypal that represent the most important institutions of that
time: Monarchy and the Church, which are the reason of the suffering of human beings. This
one has a clear connotation of power and manipulation in society.

The fourth quatrain represents the author talking again about what he hears metaphorically
while he is walking through the street. The youthful harlots curse makes reference to the
disease of syphilis, very frequent in that time, in the 18th century, which is the principal cause of
death. The term harlot has negative connotations, as curse. It is interpreted as something
which destroys life and society. Syphilis destroys life, whereas harlots destroy families, and
family is the most important part in society, in this case, in English society. The marriage-
hearse could be understood as a vehicle in which love and desire combine with death and
destruction (Elite Skills classics, 2004).

Marxist Criticism

Based on Marxism, a historical and political theory that deals with society rather than literature

Marxism is based on the ideas of Karl Marx, a political scientist

Principles of Marxism

Focus on matters such as culture, class, race and power

Marx believed that history is created and change occurs because of the struggles between social
and economic classes

The current struggle in modern history, is the struggle between the rich (owner) called the
bourgeoisies and the poor (worker) called the proletariat

Marxism and Literature

The Marxist critic finds a reflection of the same conflicts in literature (whether intended by the
author or not)

Marxist critics suggest that the struggle is inherent in our society so it is also reflected in our
literature

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