1. Literary Critical Perspectives and Strategies
The Art and Science of Interpretation

2. Objectives and Standards
Objective: categorize, compare, and contrast various critical perspectives
Distinguish between critical perspectives
Standards: : Analyze the clarity and consistency of political assumptions (statements that take for granted something is true), beliefs, or intentions in a selection of literary works or essays on a topic.
11.3.8: Analyze the philosophical arguments presented in literary works to determine whether the authors’ positions have contributed to the quality of each work and the credibility of the characters.

3. What We Read.
What is literature and who determines what counts as literature?
What are the criteria for determining literary value?

4. Why We Read. What is literature’s place or role in society?
Why should we study it?
Why do we read?

5. How We Read. How do we read? How should we read?
Where does a text’s meaning reside?
What do we owe a text? What does a text owe us?
How do a reader’s interests, experiences, and concerns shape/re-shape/misshape a text?

6. Formalist Perspectives
Concerned with the text itself
Meaning can be established and understood
A text exists independent of a reader
Great literature is universal
“New” Criticism
Texts are complex: characterized by tension, ambiguity, opposition, irony, levels of meaning
Goal is to explain text’s organic unity

7. Reader-Response Criticism
Since we can’t know what an author intended, a text is meaningless without a reader
Readers create (rather than discover) meaning
Meaning is process, not product
To what degree does the text limit the reader?

8. Historical Perspectives
Texts are a product of their time and place in history
How does a text reflect, challenge, or betray the attitudes and ideas of its time
How was it perceived/received in its time
History creates context or background

9. Historical Perspectives
“New Historical” Criticism
Examines “real-life” texts, i.e. diaries and historical documents, alongside a literary text
Attempts to ascertain any hidden assumptions, biases, or prevailing cultural attitudes
History is not mere background, it is an equally important “text”

10. Historical Perspectives
“Biographical” Criticism
Facts about an author’s experience help readers make decisions
Adds to reader appreciation knowing possible struggles of an author in creating a text
How does an author’s experience translate to the text? What does this reveal about the author?

11. Psychological Perspectives
A text is the revelation of an author’s mind or personality
Requires an understanding of basic psychology: Interpreter applies a developmental concept to the text
Can be applied to both author of a text and characters within a text

12. Political, or Sociological, Perspectives
Interpretation influenced by status: gender, race, class, religion, and more
Emphasizes power relations
Belief that not all people have had equal access to writing, publishing, and reading
Marxist and Feminist interpretations are examples

13. Deconstruction
A “structuralist” perspective that emphasizes difference, and the instability of language
Meaning through binary opposition: happy/sad, man/woman, black/white
Encourages imaginative and playful reading, hoping to undermine conventional thinking, showing meaning to be open-ended and unstable

14. Other Perspectives
Mythological: deals with archetypal symbols, universal story patterns
Cultural Studies: an umbrella term for that includes political and sociological categories
Includes interdisciplinary studies: women’s studies, Asian studies, Native American, Latino, etc.

15. Conclusions None of these are set in stone
Multiple perspectives are often combined in the act of interpretation
Which perspectives do you identify with? Which are intriguing to you? For which do you still have questions?