Literature in English

• Theory

  A set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based
• Theory

  A statement of an opinion or an explanation of an idea that is believed to be true, but might be wrong
• Literary

  Concerning the writing, study, or content of literature, especially of the kind valued for quality of form
• Literature

  Written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit
• Literary

  Relating to literature
• Literally

  Something means exactly what it says
• The difference between literary and literally is in spelling/visual form
• Paul Karason was 62 when he died
• Criticism

  1. The analysis and judgement of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work.

  2. The scholarly investigation of literary or historical texts to determine their origin or intended form.
• Literary Criticism

  The art or practice of judging and commenting on the qualities and character of literary works
• Literary Criticism

  • The practice of studying, evaluating, and interpreting works of literature
  • Similar to literary theory, which provides a broader philosophical framework for how to analyze literature, literary criticism offers readers new ways to understand an author's work
  • Examples of literary theories include new historicism, queer theory, critical theory, and post-colonial theory
• Literary Criticism

  • Comparison, analysis, interpretation, and/or evaluation of works of literature
  • An opinion, supported by evidence, relating to theme, style, setting or historical or political context
  • Usually includes discussion of the work's content and integrates your ideas with other insights gained from research
  • NOT a plot summary, a biography of the author, or simply finding fault with the literature
• Researching, reading, and writing works of literary criticism will help you to make better sense of the work, form judgments about literature, study ideas from different points of view, and determine on an individual level whether a literary work is worth reading
• Types of Literary Criticism

  • Biographical
  • Psychological
  • Social
  • Textual
  • Theoretical
  • Comparative
  • Ethical
  • Expressive
  • Feminist
  • Historical
• Literary Theory

  The practice of theoretical, methodological, and sociological reflection that accompanies the reading and interpretation of literary texts; it investigates the conceptual foundations of textual scholarship, the dynamics of textuality, the relations between literary and other texts, and the categories and social conditions through which our engagement with texts is organized
• Literary Criticism

  The study, evaluation and interpretation of literature
• Literary Theory

  The different frameworks used to evaluate and interpret a particular work
• Middle Eastern men on TV are often betrayed as terrorists, Latino women is having fiery temperaments and Asian manners math whizzes
• These are casual ways of marginalizing other races and cultural groups within Western media
• Post-colonial literary theory


  Critics consider the view that the Western literary canon traditionally ignores and marginalizes the experiences of other cultures and races, depicting these races as alien, other or lesser to Westerners
• Post-colonial literature


  Literature from former colonies like Africa, India and the Caribbean, discussing subjects such as life under colonization, their sense of national identity or their sense of dual identity, dynamics of power and race
• Post-colonial criticism


  A literary theory that focuses on the impacts of colonialism, examining the ways in which a writer of a colonized country will attempt to describe their own or marginalized experience and articulate their own identity under or in the aftermath of colonization
• The Wretched of the Earth published, establishing post-colonial criticism as a field of literary study


  1961
• Orientalism


  Edward Said's 1978 work that argued the West divided the world into the Occident (the West) and the Orient (the East), with the West's view of the East often being an exotic or misrepresented version of reality
• Other significant post-colonial theorists

  • Gayatri Spivak
  • Homi Bhabha
• Edward Said's essay on Jane Austen's Mansfield Park is an example of post-colonial criticism
• Ways post-colonial critics approach texts

  • Challenge the idea that the Western perspective is the universal experience
  • Show the limitations of the perspective of much canonical Western literature
  • Examine the author's presentation of cultures different to their own
  • Expose literature silent on distasteful areas of colonial history like slavery
  • Examine ideas of cultural difference and diversity
  • Celebrate multiculturalism and cultural pluralism
  • Focus on states of marginalization and otherness as a potential starting point for change
  • Celebrate narrative voices from relatively marginalized groups
• Poetic forms


  A poem's structure: elements like line lengths, meters, stanza lengths, rhyme schemes, and systems of repetition
• Vladimir Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin
• In the struggle for power following Vladimir Ilich Lenin's death, Joseph Stalin emerged as victor, while Trotsky was removed from all positions of power and later exiled (1929)
• Lyric poetry


  A poem that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet
• Joseph Stalin


  • Powerful Communist leader of the Soviet Union (1879-1953)
  • Dictator who terrorized the population and sent many people to prisons and labour camps in Siberia
  • Created a secret police and a big intelligence agency with a network of spies collecting information from all over the world
• Lyric poetry


  Poem sung to the music of a lyre, second earliest and most enduring poetry (first is epic poetry)
• Leon Trotsky


  • One of those who waged Russia's 1917 revolution
  • Engaged in a power struggle against Joseph Stalin which led to his death
• Types of lyric poetry

  • Elegy
  • Ode
  • Sonnet
  • Dramatic Monologue
• Stalin supported "socialism in one country"

  Trotsky believed the focus should stay on world revolution
• Words used to describe lyric poems

  • Musical
  • Melodic
  • Melodious
  • Expressive
  • Emotional
  • Personal
• Joseph Stalin: '"One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic"'
• Communism


  • All people are the same and therefore classes make no sense
  • The government should own all means of production and land and also everything else
  • People should work for the government and the collective output should be redistributed equally
  • In theory, all members of the state are considered equal
• Elegy


  A sad and thoughtful poem lamenting the death of a person