Homework English Literature 06.10.2022

Lecture 1
LITERARY THEORY
A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY THOUGHT
 the subject of literary theory;
 literary theory vs literary criticism;
 ancient sources of literary theory (Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Poetics);
Literary theory:
 Essence and functions of literary creativity
 A branch of literary studies
 to scientifically comprehend, generalize the patterns and features of the
development of artistic creativity, development and systematization of
literary concepts
The term “theory” from the Greek “theoria” (the word 'theory' derives from the
Greek 'theorein', which means 'to look at') alerts us to the partial nature of
theoretical approaches to literature. “Theoria” (“watching”) indicates a view or
perspective of the Greek stage. Literary theory is the ideas and methods we use to
interpret and analyze literature from a variety of perspectives. It opens up the
possibilities of what literature can MEAN to the reader. It is a toolbox for
explaining and interpreting literary texts.
Theory is a way of thinking:
 Deductive (the theorist begins with a general idea and then investigates
individual instances of it (literary texts) in order to prove its validity);
 Inductive (the study of individual instances leads to the formation of general
ideas based on them)
In deduction, knowledge is built up through generalizations that test the limits of
what can be included in general categories. Deductive reasoning, particularly in
literary analysis, assumes the possibility of alternative viewpoints and thus requires
the power of persuasion to make an argument based on a general idea, because
other general ideas could account equally well for the same individual texts.
Despite this openness to alternatives, the thought process in literary theory remains
the same in large part because we are always moving from general principles to
particular instances, from general ideas to individual texts.
Distinctions:
 Descriptive or prescriptive?
(how things are or how they should be)
 Literature-specific?
(“top-down” and “bottom-up” theories)
 Butcher or biologist? (extrinsic or intrinsic)
Literary Theory is the body of ideas and methods we use in the practical reading
of literature.
 description of the underlying principles (tools) by which we attempt to
understand literature;
 formulates the relationship between author and work;
 develops the significance of race, class, and gender for literary study, both
from the standpoint of the biography of the author and an analysis of
their thematic presence within texts;
 offers varying approaches for understanding the role of historical
context in interpretation as well as the relevance of linguistic and
unconscious elements of the text;
 Literary theorists trace the history and evolution of the different genres –
narrative, dramatic, lyric – in addition to the more recent emergence of the
novel and the short story, while also investigating the importance of content
and formal elements of literary structure.
 develops the methods of literary research and the methodology how to
apply scientific methods into interpretation of literary phenomena.
Literary Criticism is the practice of judging and commenting on the qualities and
character of literary works. During the process of criticism, a person may use
literary theory to support the judging and commenting of the literary works.
Literary theory is the ideas and methods we use to interpret and analyze literature
from a variety of perspectives.
Plato The Republic:
 Man and Poetry are untrustworthy (imitation is like a bed: Plato tells
of Socrates's metaphor of the three beds: one bed exists as an idea made
by God (the Platonic ideal); one is made by the carpenter, in imitation of
God's idea; one is made by the artist in imitation of the carpenter's.)
 Literature can mislead the seeker of truth
Aristotle Poetics:
 Imitation is a noble action
 Katharsis (purification of feelings/tragedy)
 Inductive treatment of the elements of poetry: plot, character, diction,
thought, spectacle, song
 Forms of art depend on object, medium, manner of imitation
Аn English major vs a casual reader:
 Pay particular attention to the  Read the surface of the text to
way that language affects understand the basic content
meaning
 Identify and explore the multiple  Find the immediately obvious
effects, influences, and implied meaning communicated in any
meanings created by the text
particular way language is used
 Study the way that meaning is
created in that exchange between
writers/speakers,
readers/listeners, and the
complexity of language itself
We use literary theory to help us uncover and make sense of those subtle, below-
the-surface effects of language.
Antiquity (Plato’s and Aristotle’s ideas)
Overview of Medieval British Literature

In medieval England (12th–15th century), the ascendancy of Norman-French
culture in the post-Conquest era, followed by the re-emergence of native English
works – by such authors as Chaucer, Langland, and Malory, and numerous
anonymous authors, – marked the Middle English period of English literature.
Towards the end of the Middle Ages, more lay people were literate, and the Paston
Letters form one of the first records of one family's ordinary lives. These, together
with a growing number of financial and legal records, sermons, chronicles, poems,
and charters, form the basis of modern historical knowledge of the period.
Although the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle continued to be written until 1154, with the
arrival of a Norman ruling class at the end of the 11th century, the ascendancy of
Norman-French in cultural life began, and it was not until the 13th century that
English literature regained its strength. Prose was concerned chiefly with popular
devotional use, but verse emerged typically in the metrical chronicles, such as
Layamon's Brut, and the numerous romances based on the stories of Charlemagne,
the legends of King Arthur and the Holy Grail, and the classical episodes of Troy,
derived from Homer's Iliad (c. 700 BC).
First of the great English poets was Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury
Tales (c. 1387), whose early work reflected the formality of the predominant
French influence, but later the realism of Renaissance Italy. Of purely native
inspiration was the medieval alliterative poem Piers Plowman (1367–86) by
William Langland, and the anonymous Pearl, Patience, and Gawayne and the
Grene Knight. Chaucer remained unmatched in the period, although the poet John
Skelton was one of Chaucer's more original successors; the first secular morality
play in English, Magnyfycence (1516), was written by Skelton. More successful
were the anonymous authors of songs and carols, and of the ballads, which often
formed a complete cycle, such as those concerned with the outlaw Robin Hood.
Many stories were carried by travelling minstrels. Drama flourished in the form of
mystery plays and morality plays. Prose reached new heights in the 15th century
with Thomas Malory's retelling of the Arthurian legends in Le Morte d'Arthur (c.
1470).
The Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European
intellectual life in the early modern period. Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the
rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence was felt in art, architecture,
philosophy, literature, music, science, technology, politics, religion, and other
aspects of intellectual inquiry. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist
method in study, and searched for realism and human emotion in art.[21]
Renaissance humanists such as Poggio Bracciolini sought out in Europe's monastic
libraries the Latin literary, historical, and oratorical texts of antiquity, while the
Fall of Constantinople (1453) generated a wave of émigré Greek scholars bringing
precious manuscripts in ancient Greek, many of which had fallen into obscurity in
the West. It is in their new focus on literary and historical texts that Renaissance
scholars differed so markedly from the medieval scholars of the Renaissance of the
12th century, who had focused on studying Greek and Arabic works of natural
sciences, philosophy, and mathematics, rather than on such cultural texts.
In the revival of neoplatonism Renaissance humanists did not reject Christianity;
quite the contrary, many of the greatest works of the Renaissance were devoted to
it, and the Church patronized many works of Renaissance art. However, a subtle
shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected
in many other areas of cultural life.[22] In addition, many Greek Christian works,
including the Greek New Testament, were brought back from Byzantium to
Western Europe and engaged Western scholars for the first time since late
antiquity. This new engagement with Greek Christian works, and particularly the
return to the original Greek of the New Testament promoted by humanists Lorenzo
Valla and Erasmus, would help pave the way for the Reformation.
Well after the first artistic return to classicism had been exemplified in the
sculpture of Nicola Pisano, Florentine painters led by Masaccio strove to portray
the human form realistically, developing techniques to render perspective and light
more naturally. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought
to describe political life as it really was, that is to understand it rationally. A
critical contribution to Italian Renaissance humanism, Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola wrote the famous text De hominis dignitate (Oration on the Dignity of
Man, 1486), which consists of a series of theses on philosophy, natural thought,
faith, and magic defended against any opponent on the grounds of reason. In
addition to studying classical Latin and Greek, Renaissance authors also began
increasingly to use vernacular languages; combined with the introduction of the
printing press, this would allow many more people access to books, especially the
Bible.[23]
In all, the Renaissance could be viewed as an attempt by intellectuals to study and
improve the secular and worldly, both through the revival of ideas from antiquity,
and through novel approaches to thought. Some scholars, such as Rodney Stark,
[24] play down the Renaissance in favor of the earlier innovations of the Italian
city-states in the High Middle Ages, which married responsive government,
Christianity and the birth of capitalism. This analysis argues that, whereas the great
European states (France and Spain) were absolute monarchies, and others were
under direct Church control, the independent city-republics of Italy took over the
principles of capitalism invented on monastic estates and set off a vast
unprecedented Commercial Revolution that preceded and financed the
Renaissance.

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Lecture 1

Overview of Medieval British Literature

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