Title: AP Literature - Literary Criticism & Theory Flashcards | Quizlet
Headings: AP Literature - Literary Criticism & Theory
AP Literature - Literary Criticism & Theory
Formalist or "New Criticism"
Terms in this set (9)

Content: Historical Criticism
- examine the social and intellectual milieu (environment) in which the author wrote
- consider the politics and social movements prevalent during the time period of the text's creation
- do so in order to determine how the literature under examination is both the product and shaper of society
- How did the text in question influence contemporary events and how did contemporary events influence the author's creative choices? Feminist Criticism
- investigate how a literary work either tends to serve or to challenge a patriarchal (male dominated) view of society
- literature should be analyzed with the goal of explaining how the text exemplifies or reveals important insights about sex roles and society's structure
- traditional "canon" (books that are commonly read and are valued as sacred or genuine) tends to define women as "other", or an object, compared to the male's high statues
- focuses on social relationships, including the patterns of thought, behavior, values, enfranchisement and power between the sexes
- "a political act whose aim is not simply to interpret the world but to change it by changing the consciousness of those who read and their relation to what they read..." (Judith Fetterly)
- How does the text mirror or question a male-dominated (phallocentric) view of reality? - How are feminine and masculine defined and/ or qualified within the text? - How are women represented in texts written by men? - How does the text display the power relationships between genders? Marxist Criticism
- inspired by the historical, economic and sociological theory of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
- focus on the connections between the content or form of a literary work and the economic, class, social or ideological factors that have shaped and determined it
- perpetually oriented to investigating the social realities to condition works of art
- worried about matters of class status, economic conditions, what is published and what is repressed in the literary marketplace, the preferences of the reading public, and so forth
- Who has the power/ money in society? Who does not? What happens as a result? - How are the privileged and working classes conveyed? - How are class distinctions established?