Sir Gaffud 2

• Background, environment, setting, framework or surroundings of events or occurence.

  Context
• Context refers to the background, environment, setting, framework, or surroundings of events or occurences.
• Detail that adds meaning to text.

  Context
• Circumstance that informs event, idea or statement.


  Context
• Circumstance that informs, event, idea, or statement.


  Context
• Understanding the text has four steps:

  1. Context
  2. Getting out of the text itself
  3. Deeper Understanding
  4. Appreciation of Text
• Significance of Context:

  • Context adds RICHNESS to a work of literature and HELPS engage readers in text.
  • Context is essential to ACCURATELY CONVEY (writers) and UNDERSTAND (readers) the meaning of a work or writing.
• Why Context Matters

  • When writers include CONTEXTUAL INFORMATION, they provide details that make it easier for readers to process and accurately interpret the text.
  • When readers consider FACTORS RELEVANT TO THE CONTEXT OF THE WORK, whether or not such factors are specifically stated, they can look at the text through lens of a relevant perspective.
• How Writers Use Context

  • To ENGAGE, INFORM and ENTERTAIN readers.
  • To add AUTHENTICITY, helping story reflect readers’ experiences and securing their investment in the texts.
• A short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book or chapter, intended to suggest its theme or give a gist.

  Epigraph
• What? Does no Caesar, does no Achilles, appear on your stage now?

  Not an Andromache e’en, not an Orestes, my friend?

  No! there is nought to be seen there but parsons, and syndics of commerce,

  Secretaries perchance, ensigns and majors of horse.

  But, my good friend, pray tell, what can such people e’er meet with

  That can be truly call’d great?—what that is great can they do?

  SCHILLER: Shakespeare’s Ghost. This appears before Noli me Tangere and is an example of...

  Epigraph
• Types of Literary Context

  • Writer's Context
  • Reader's Context
  • Text's Context
  • Social and Socio-Cultural Context
• Context for Literary Works

  • Biographical Context
  • Linguistic Context
  • Socio-historical or Socio-cultural Context
  • Geographical Context
  • Political Context
  • Philosophical or Religious Context
  • Psychological Context
• Different perspectives to consider when looking at a piece or several pieces of literature.

  Critical Approaches or Lenses
• Background information about life of author.

  Biographical Context
• Everything happens somewhere.

  Geographical Context
• Connection of particular work to life of author.

  Bioraphical Context
• Language used in literary text and how it’s used to convey meaning

  Linguistic Context
• Aspects of Linguistic Context:

  ·       STRIKING WORDS

  ·       LITERARY DEVICES

  ·       TONE – POSITIVE/NEGATIVE

  ·       STRUCTURE – POV

  ·       LITERARY ELEMENTS
• Reflection/response to the society in which they were written, and oftentimes that response takes the form of CRITICISM.

  Socio-historical or Socio-cultural Context
• The response of socio-historical or socio-cultural context takes the form of...

  Criticism
• Understanding social, economic, political and cultural forces affecting literary work.

  Socio-historical or Socio-cultural Context
• Socio-historical or socio-cultural context entails understanding social, economic, political, and cultural forces affecting literary work.
• Aspects of Geographical Context

  ·       REGIONAL WRITER

  ·       INFLUENCE OF DIALECT IN TEXT
• Questions of morality and behavior

  ETHICS
• Inclusion of ETHICS (questions of morality and behavior), pleasure and pain, fate and free will, kindness and cruelty, and anything else concerning HUMAN ACTIONS.

  Philosophical or Religious Context
• Philosophical or Religious Context covers anything that concerns...

  HUMAN ACTIONS
• Purpose of life, the nature of God or the universe, right versus wrong, death, etc.

  Philosophical or Religious Context
• Theories of human behavior.

  Psychological Context
• Different critical pproaches/lenses help us discover the RICHNESS and DEEPER MEANING of text.
• Each lens has its STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES.
• Each lens, nevertheless, remains VALUABLE.
• With lenses, try to become a PLURALIST than an inflexible supporter of one.
• The purpose of critical approaches or lenses:

  • WHAT do we read?
  • HOW do we read?
  • WHY do we read?
• Literary criticism helps us UNDERSTAND what is IMPORTANT about the text:

  ·       Structure

  ·       Context: social, economic, historical

  ·       What is Written

  ·       How Text Manipulates Reader
• Literary criticism helps us UNDERSTAND the RELATIONSHIP between authors, readers, and texts.
• Literary criticism ultimately ENHANCES the ENJOYMENT of our reading of the literary work.
• Literary criticism can BROADEN a reader’s UNDERSTANDING of an author’s work by SUMMARIZING, INTERPRETING, and EXPLORING its VALUE.
• Benefits of Literary Criticism

  ·       EXPANDS worldview.

  ·       HELPS better UNDERSTAND LITERATURE.

  ·       Creates OPPORTUNITIES for NEW STYLES of writing.
• Critical Approaches in Literature

  • Formalism
  • Structuralism
  • Marxism
  • Historicism or Traditional Historical Criticism
  • Reader-Response
  • Post-Colonialism
  • Feminism
  • Queer Theory