Formalist Criticism Essay

within his text. The New Critic Theory believes that the key to understanding a text “exists within the text itself”, otherwise known as “Formalism” which is very evident in Lynn’s opinion on Brendan Gill’s article. Lynn covers majority of the New Criticism concepts in his essay including; Paradox, Irony, Tensions and concludes his text with evidence behind a unifying idea. A paradox is when the outcome is opposite of the reasonable expectation. Lynn states that this is evident in Gill’s reading by

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” A Reader- Oriented approach to Edgar Alan Poe’s The Tell- Tale Heart The Titular question is an old philosophical riddle for which a wide range of metaphysical and non-metaphysical solution has been offered. The answers differ based on the perspective of the interpreter. Judging these answers is neither possible nor desirable for us, but the riddle and the ensuing debates attest to the veracity of one of the most

Week One In the first week of scholarship we began with an introduction to the module. I understood that the module focuses on helping us to develop various skills, such as study skills, research skills, and how to work at a degree level in general. This will be helpful because I can learn new skills and develop my current skills, which will be beneficial for my improvement as I progress through my degree. We also looked at the poem ‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley. What I took from the poem

into a male dominated profession by taking on the role of detective. According to Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide written by Lois Tyson, a reader-response critique focuses on an individual’s response to a literary text. Reader-response criticism “maintains that what a text is cannot be separated from what it does” (Tyson 170). There are several different approaches to reader-response theory that I would be applying, such as transactional reader response theory and affective stylistics.

Reader Response to Joyce's The Dead     James Joyce's story "The Dead" has a tremendous impact on the readers, especially those who are familiar with the political situation in Ireland at the time about which the Joyce wrote the final story in Dubliners.  In exploring the meaning of James Joyce's long short-story, "The Dead", there are many critical approaches to take.  Each approach gives readers a lens, a set of guidelines through which to examine and express ideas

Reader Response Theory The Reader Response Theory emerged as a reaction against the New Criticism or formalistic approach, which focused on the text, finding all the meaning, the value in it and regarding everything else as extraneous, including readers. Despite the ideas of the Reader Response in the 1920’s, the late Louise Rosenblatt pioneered the Reader Response theory. She was a literary theorist and an English Educator. In her writing, Literature as Exploration written in 1938, she emphasizes

CHAPTER II Archetypal criticism The roots of archetypal criticism Archetypal criticism is a type of literary criticism that focuses on particular narrative patterns, archetypes, motifs, themes or characters that recur in a particular literary work or in literature in general. Archetypal criticism has its basis in the application of concepts developed in psychoanalysis and in mythology to the study of literature. The main tendency of this approach to criticism resembles to the early conception of

Response to Didion Readings Throughout her writing Joan Didion brings up many important points and reasons to write that apply to all types of people from professional writers to average people. Didion uses an approach that allows many people to understand the importance of writing in everyone’s life. In both “Why I Write” and “On Keeping a Notebook” readers are able to find the personal importance of writing from recalling the past, to finding an answer, and even simply expressing personal thoughts

Outcome One is the ability to write in a way that reaches one’s intended audience. That means the author must understand the differences between audiences, genres, and formal versus informal writing. For instance, while writing a movie review, the author assumes the reader has not seen the movie. Therefore, to be able to reach the intended audience, the author must summarize the movie’s plot and specific scenes to familiarize the reader before they reveal why they liked or disliked the film. Outcome

Technically, I can still take this view because Reader-response criticism allows me too. I don’t have to worry about what the author wanted, and maybe that is why the opinion that The Silmarillion is a biblical allegory is a widely shared opinion.      One of the advantages to reader-response is that the reader can read a novel the way they desire. It beats adhering to Marxist, Psychoanalytical or Feminist criticism. It gives more of a chance for the reader to be creative, and