basic approaches to literary interpretation

8/11/2019 Basic Approaches to Literary Interpretation

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Basic Approaches to Literary

Interpretation

M.H. AbramsThe Mirror and the Lamp

1. Mimetic Approach2. Pragmatic Approach3. Expressive Approach

4. Objective Approach


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1. Literature as Art: The theory of

Imitation, Mimetic

o Literature is a form of imitation

o It defines literature in relation to life

o It sees literature as a way of reproducing orrecreating of life in words, just as paintingsreproduces or recreates certain figure orscenes of life in outline and color.

o Example: George Elliot, and Thackerays

novels imitates middle-class life in19th century England


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1.1.PlatoRepublic

o Literature and paint is removed twice fromreality

o Reality is an ideal form, essence, or theabsolutethe One behind the many, the light

whose shadows only are visible to a man inits cave

o Anything in this world and particularlyanything man-made, even a chair or a bed,

seems to be only a copy at one remove fromthe real.

o The arts, which Plato thought as copies ofman-made objects, are only copies of acopy.


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1.2.AristotlePoetics

o Literature is a Mode of imitation [mimesis]

o It is simply the copying or the representationor recreation of life

o Sir Philip SidneyApology for Poetry

oPoesy is an art of imitation, for so Aristotletermeth it in his word mimesis, that is to say,a representing, counterfeiting, or figuringforth: to speak metaphorically, a speaking

picture.

o Criticism: ....because a literary work is onlyanimitation, it is not true or not the real thing


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2. The theory of effect: pragmatic

o Literature and public view or its effectreaders or spectators.

o Psychological experience of audience

o Catharsis [the purging feeling of pity and

fear which he believed the audienceundergoes in the course of a tragedy]

o Horacepoets either teach or delight, attheir best combining the two.

o Interrelationto instruct literature mustdelight; or to delight, it must also instruct

o Criticism: various people have variouspsychological responsesIt is thepsychologistsfield


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3. The Theory of Expression

o Literature is seen in the view of its creator

o Poets and his work concept:

3.1.The poet is divinely inspired, a prophet,possessedby a muse or divinity whospeaks through him:

on the process of the creation, the poet isalmost out of his senses, in the power of adivine madness (Platos term).

Literature is the profoundest, divinelyinspired wisdoma testament of prophecy-created spontaneously in an ecstatic state.


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Continued

3.2. The poet is fundamentally craftsman (poeta,maker)

o He is fully conscious of what he is doing bothat the moment of composition and afterwards,

when he is willing to polish and re-polish thework. (Horace term: the labor of the file.)

o Literary work is regarded as a piece of art inthe literal senseas something man-made

which can be labored over, changed, andrefined.

o Historically, this view was dominant in 17thand 18th centuries of neoclassicism.


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Continued

3.3. The poet is capable of extraordinaryinspiration.

o He is genius who, through his imagination andemotions, is able to grasp and record truthsabout man which ordinary people may no

recognize or feel.o Literature is a form of expression (in the basic

sense of a process whereby strong andirrepressible feelings are forced out).

o Poetry : spontaneous overflow of powerfulfeeling.(Wordsworths term).

o Criticism: .It focuses on the poetspsychology it is for the sake of psychology

than that of literature.


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Criticism of the approaches

o Those approaches are incomplete andunsatisfying

o They emphasize the relationship betweenliterature and something else

o its subject matter, its audience, or itsoriginator

o Critics say:

we should look for ways of describing the

special and distinctive quality of a literaryworkper se(in itself: in itself, by itself, orintrinsically)


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4. Objective approach

o It proposes that one must find what happenswithina literary work.

o It is a reflection or recreation of the world and oflife but it is not the world and not real life.

o The best literary work describing the real worldwhere we find familiar characters is moving inthe fictional world or their own, not in the realworld.

o Poet expresses his idea by presenting himself in

a single mood: as a lover, mourner, etc.o Thus, he is already fictional character in incipient

form, and he is moving about in a fictional world,which may resemble ours but is not world in

which we move.


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Continued

o To explore the world the following ideas areproposed:

1. The Idea of Structure

o Literature is regarded as a structure.Fundamentally, each work is a highly complexorganization and that its many components orfacets are interrelated in such a way that thewhole is greater than its parts.

o The term does not merely refers only to theformal aspects but it includes the whole of aliterary work.

o Each work not only has a structure but it isstructure.


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Continued

o A structure used is not just as the mechanicalputting together of assorted ingredients but as avital and dynamic interrelationship of plot,character, tone, style, and all the other

component parts.o Integrity and unity of a work of literature can

been in this way.

o Form and content: How can we know the

dancer from the dance?(W. B. Yeats)


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Continued

o The idea of a virtual world is a useful way ofdistinguishing literature from actualexperience

o In literature people are interested not only inwhat is being said but also in how thelanguage is used.

o The plot and the characters owe their veryexistence to the words which recount themthey have no other being than in these words.

o The style is quite as much as integral part ofthe whole as the larger elements of plot,character, or setting. Paraphrase is not

tolerable.


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Continued

o We may less concerned with how accuratelyone of these works transcribes an actualoccurrences since the characters and actionsare invented.

o It is a distinctive feature which literatureshares with the other arts but whichdifferentiates it from other uses of languagethat, rather than making us look from what isbeing expressed to what is being referred to,it makes us look squarely AT ITSELF, at itsinternal relationships.

o Like the other arts, literature can be studiesand appreciated for ITS OWN SAKE, AS A

VALUE IN ITSELF.


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