E23F TOPICS COVERED: MODULE THREE: THE MODERN PERIOD (c.1890-c.1960)

From the beginning of the twentieth century, criticism becomes more a question of schools, rather than periods, even though their respective heydays can be dated roughly as follows:

Generally speaking, in the nineteenth century, the author is a very important concept as a result of which the dominant approach to criticism is ‘expressive.’ However, from around 1890 with the advent of the ‘Art for Art’s Sake’ movement, there progressively arises a greater and greater emphasis on studying the form of the text above all. This is sometimes referred to as the ‘formalist turn’ in the history of criticism which gives rise to an emphasis on the ‘objective’ approach to criticism.

 

ISSUES

ANGLO-AMERICAN SCHOOLS

FEMINIST & POST-COLONIAL PERSPECTIVES

Cultural Identity / Philosophy of Language

Descartes (Rationalism) and Locke (Empiricism) remain big influences, even on the Feminists and Post-colonial theorists.

Feminism:

Wolstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Post-colonial Theory:

Brathwaite "Timehri"

Representation I: Neo-Aristotelian Realism

 T Watt, Ian The Rise of the Novel [1957]: "Realism and the Novel Form"

Feminism:

T Rich On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: "Writing as Re-Vision"

T Ferguson Images of Women in Literature: Introduction

Post-colonial Theory:

T Ramchand The West Indian Novel and its Background:

  • "Introduction"

  • "The Contemporary Linguistic Situation"

  • "Dialect and West Indian Fiction"

Achebe Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays:

  • "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart Of Darkness"

  • "The Truth of Fiction"

Representation II: Neo-Platonic Symbolism

Yeats "The Symbolism of Poetry"

–

Form

New Criticism:

T Ransom "Criticism as Pure Speculation"

T Wimsatt and Beardsley

  • "The Intentional Fallacy"

  • "The Affective Fallacy"

T Brooks The Well-Wrought Urn:

  • "The Language of Paradox"

  • "The Heresy of Paraphrase")

  • "Irony as a Principle of Structure"

Neo-Aristotelianism:

T Watt, Ian The Rise of the Novel [1957]: "Realism and the Novel Form"

Feminism:

See Rich and Ferguson (above)

Post-colonial Theory:

See Ramchand (above)

The Author

T Eliot:

  • "Tradition and the Individual Talent": part II

  • "Hamlet"

Feminism:

Woolf "Woman and Fiction"

T Showalter "Towards a Feminist Poetics"

Post-colonial Theory:

TBrathwaite "Caribbean Critics"

The Reader

Arnold "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time"

Richards Practical Criticism

 

Feminism:

T Wolstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

T Fetterley The Resisting Reader

Post-colonial Theory:

Ramchand "Concern for Criticism"

T Achebe Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays:

  • "The Novelist as Teacher"

  • "The Duty and Involvement of the African Writer"

Literary History

Arnold "From The Study of Poetry"

Eliot "Tradition and the Individual Talent": Part I

Feminism:

T Showalter "Towards a Feminist Poetics"

Post-colonial Theory:

T Brathwaite "Caribbean Critics"

T indicates critical theorists whom we focused on in the tutorials (in the case of the last three lectures devoted to Feminist and Post-colonial perspectives for which there was no corresponding tutorial, rely on my emphases in the lectures. For example, in the lecture on ‘Representation and Form,’ I skimmed Woolf but zeroed in on Showalter and I emphasised Ramchand but left you to look at Achebe on your own.)

Where a theorist appears in more than one slot, please focus on the specific sections listed on the reading schedule to grasp his views on a particular issue.