Criticism: Theory and Practice 19th & 20th Centuries PDF

Criticism: Theory and Practice 19th & 20th Centuries Introduced by Prof. Iman A. Hanafy For Fourth Year Course Title: Criticism: Theory and Practice 19th & 20th Centuries Course code: BU_FART_ENGL49 Program : The Department of English Language & Literature Course Instructor: Prof. Iman Adawy Hanafy Course Description: The course focuses on 20th century criticism, which has been called the Age of Criticism. The course, which is both theoretical and practical, is designed to pinpoint the various critical trends of the twentieth century and show the students how to apply them to works of literature. Such major disciplines as Psychology and Marxist dialectic were found to have valid application to works of literature. Freudian analysis became a tool for literary biographers. Carl Jung's theory of the collective unconscious also became a tool, along with anthropological methodology. By means of the so-called New Criticism—the technique of close reading largely ignores biographical and historical concerns. Feminist and multicultural literary criticism also were important forces throughout the second half of the 20th century. In addition, the historical approach of such New Historicists as Stephen Greenblatt also found many adherents. 1 Contents - Introduction 3 - A Survey of Twentieth Century Theories 6 - Traditional Criticism (Historical/Biographical) 15 - Traditional Criticism in Practice 20 - Russian Formalism and New Criticism 27 - Formalistic criticism in Practice 36 - Reader-oriented Criticism 47 - Reader-oriented Criticism in Practice 53 - Psychoanalytic Criticism 57 - Psychoanalytic Criticism in Practice 63 - Cultural Studies 71 - Cultural Studies in Practice 78 - References 83 2 Introduction Literary criticism is the study, interpretation and evaluation of literature and it is a practical application of literary theory to literature. So, criticism is the branch of study concerned with defining, classifying, interpreting, and evaluating works of literature. When literary theory has an application orientation it becomes literary criticism. A theory of literature in the sense of general principles, together with a set of terms, characteristics, and categories, is applied to analysing works of literature. Theory is also the criteria, the standard or norm by which literary works and their writers are evaluated. Thus, theory and practice interact with each other. Literary criticism aims at enlightening the reader of the author’s larger sense of the meaning of life. The true critic is the one whose insight and comprehension lead to a better understanding of the literary work, penetrating beneath the lines to indicate unperceived aspect which pass unnoticed. He teaches us how to read with intelligence and appreciation. He tells us how to discover the merits of the literary work and how to evaluate it. The critic’s purpose is to penetrate to the heart of the book to analyse and formulate its meaning, to explain and judge the artistic principles. By doing that, he unfolds the book show its real sense and build up a theory of literature. The dominant critical views can be divided into three groupings: formal, those concerned with the structure or form of texts (formalism, structuralism, deconstruction); social, those concerned with texts in 3 relation to social contexts (new historicism, feminism, Marxism); and personal, those concerned with the interaction of the individual (author or reader) and texts (reader-response criticism, psychoanalytic criticism). This book is designed to Fourth year students of the department of English language and literature. It seeks to introduce students to some of the most important schools of literary theory and criticism that have been developed in the 19th and 20th century and leave a significant impact on the study of literature. It explores the philosophical framework informing the school in question as well as its central tenets and main interpretative strategies. The book is divided into two parts: theory and practice. Each school of criticism is followed by a practice on literary texts to enable students to approach literature from a variety of practical and theoretical perspectives and to equip them with a theoretical and a practical understanding of how critics develop their interpretations. The discipline of literary criticism is the discipline which is defined by its insistence on such strategies, operating through both theory and practice. At the most basic level, we might say that theory is a systematic explanation of the practice of literary criticism which is applied to various given texts; above all, the theory examines the principles behind such practice. By studying literary theories, you are reminded that multiple viewpoints are important if you are to see the whole picture and to grasp the very process of understanding that underlies literary works. Literary 4 theory provides us with lenses, which reveal important aspects of the literary work. It helps readers gain a deeper understanding of works of arts. It provides readers alternative ways of reading or interpreting a text by showing how there may be multiple interpretations of the same text. Iman A. Hanafy 5 A Survey of Twentieth Century Theories Formalism The formalist movement in English language criticism began in England with I. A. Richards’s Practical Criticism (1929). To explain and introduce his theory, Richards asked students to interpret famous poems without telling them the poet’s names. Of course, this strategy encouraged close reading of the text rather than reliance on a poet’s reputation. Formalism stresses the importance of literary form in determining the meaning of the literary work. Each piece of literature should be examined by itself, in isolation. Formalist critics consider biographical, historical, and social questions to be irrelevant to the meaning of a play, novel, or poem. Their aim is to produce a theory of literature concerned with the writer’s technique and structure. They avoid the role played by the artist as a producer of the object, retain the mechanistic view of the literary process and stress the self-contained pattern of words. The readers’ responses to a work of art would also be regarded by formalists as irrelevant. Instead, formalists ask an interpreter to read the text closely, paying attention to the text itself. The literary work is viewed as an isolated and autonomous object and the act of interpretation is a rational act chosen by the reader to 6 preserve the objectivity of interpretation. Thus, the Formalist views the text as an object and a container of all the possible meaning. Structuralism Structuralism is a literary movement with roots in linguistics and anthropology that concentrates on literature as a system of signs which have no inherent meaning in the text except in their agreed-upon or conventional relation to one another. For them, the text is only a system to show how such a construct of language can contain meaning for us. Structuralism is usually described by its proponents not as a new way to interpret literary works, but rather as a way to understand how works of literature come to have meaning for us. Such a view denied any privileged for any author, any school or any period. Because structuralism developed from linguistic theory, some structuralists use linguistic approaches to literature. That is, they talk about literary texts using terms employed by linguists (such as morpheme and phoneme) as they study the nature of language. The French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (Course in General Lin- guistics, 1915) suggested that the relationship between an object and the name we use to designate it is purely arbitrary. What, for example, makes “C-A-T” signify a small, furry animal with pointed ears and whiskers? It is only our learned expectation that makes us associate “cat” with the family pet. Had we grown up in France, we would make the same association with chat. Therefore, the words we use to 7 designate objects (linguists call these words signs) make sense only within the large context of our entire language system and would not be understood as meaningful by someone who did not know that language system. Further, Saussure pointed out, signs become truly useful only when we use them to designate difference. For instance, “cat” becomes useful when we want to differentiate a small furry animal that meows from a small furry animal that barks. Saussure was interested in how language, as a structure of conventions, worked. He asked intriguing questions about the underlying rules that allowed this made-up structure of signs to work. Literary structuralism leads readers to think of the literary work not as self-contained and individual entities that have some kind of inherent meaning, but rather as part of a larger literary system. In order to fully appreciate and analyze the work, the reader must understand the system within which it operates. Deconstruction Deconstruction is a literary movement developed from struc- turalism. It is considered a reaction against the certainties of structuralism. Whereas structuralism finds order and meaning in the text as in the sentence, deconstruction finds disorder and a constant tendency of the language to refute its apparent sense. Hence texts are found to deconstruct themselves rather than to provide a stable identifiable meaning. It argues that every text contains within it some ingredient undermining its system of meaning. In other words, the 8 structure that seems to hold the text together is unstable because it de- pends on the conclusions of a particular ideology, conclusions that are not really inevitable as the text may pretend. Instead of having one ultimate meaning, deconstruction describes the text as always in a state of change, providing only provisional meanings. Because all text are open-ended constructs, and sign and significance have only arbitrary relationship. Deconstructive theorists share with formalists and structuralists a concern for the work itself rather than for biographical, historical, or sociological influences. Like structuralists, deconstructionists see literary texts as part of larger systems of discourse. A key structuralist technique is identifying opposites in an attempt to show the structure of language used in a work. Having identified the opposites, the structuralist rests the case. Deconstructionists, however, go further. Jacques Derrida, a French philosopher, noticed that these oppositions do not simply reflect linguistic structures but are the linguistic response to the way people deal with their beliefs and ideas. Sociological Criticism Sociological theorists maintain that the literary work cannot be separated from the social context in which it was created. Literature reflects society and derives its essential existence and significance from the social circumstances to which it responds. Sociological critics 9 speculate about why a particular work might have been written and ex- plore the ways in which it reacts to a specific situation. In the twentieth century two strong arms of sociological criticism have emerged as dominant: feminist criticism and Marxist criticism. They are particularly forceful theories because most of their practitioners have a strong commitment to these ideologies, which they apply as they read literature. Feminism and Marxism share a concern with some aspects of society that have been. Feminism Feminist criticism began as a defined approach to literature in the late 1960s. It has evolved from a small movement to an influential community of thought. Unlike many critical approaches, it does not consist of a particular technique by which to interpret texts. Its distinctive element is the belief in certain principles rather than technique. It comes as a reaction to male dominance and female subordination in Western institutions, including literary institutions. Feminist criticism focuses on the negative female stereotypes in books authored by men and points out alternative feminine characteristics suggested by women authors. Female characters, when they do appear, are often subordinate to male characters. Consequently, a female reader of these works must either identify with the male protagonist or accept a marginalized role. As a result, feminists ask for looking at how women depicted and oppressed in texts, especially texts written by 10 male author, examining the signification women’s presence in stories, and describing the difficulties that women writers faced and defining a tradition of literature written by women. By analysing, and evaluating little-known works by women, feminist scholars have rediscovered women writers who were ignored or shunned by the reading public and by critics of their own times. Marxist Criticism In Marxist criticism, readings of literature are based on the social and economic theories of Karl Marx and his colleague Friedrich Engels. Marx and Engels believed that the dominant capitalist middle class would eventually be challenged and overthrown by the working class. In the meantime, however, middle-class capitalists exploit the working class, who produce excess products and profits yet do not share in the benefits of their labor. Marx and Engels further regarded all parts of the society in which they lived—religious, legal, edu- cational, and governmental—as influenced by what they saw as the corrupt values of middle-class capitalists. Marxist criticism may be regarded an extension of social theory. It builds on the assumption that literature develops out of social context and adheres to the concern of society. Marxist critics apply their views to their readings of poetry, fiction, and drama. They attempt to approach literature from social and economic points of view. Such as literature mirrors and interpret social life, criticism should aim at 11 improving the conditions of society, it should contribute to the well- being of society. Marxist critics see Western literature as distorted, rejecting the distorted views of their society and instead see clearly the wrongs to which working class people have been subjected. Thus the task of literary critic is to understand how literary work is related to social activity and how it contributes to the development of society. Neo Historicism The term Neo Historicism is commonly used to identify a literary critical movement that aroused in American universities in 1980s. New historicist critics focus on a text in relation to the historical and cultural contexts of the period in which it was created. These contexts are not considered simply as “background” to a text but as integral parts of a text. Neo Historicism differs from older models of literary history by interpreting literature as a cultural product rather than by documenting literary or biographical record. History itself is not an entity composed of objective fact; rather, like literature, history is interpreted according to the power structure of a society. Literature is recognized as part of a broader cultural development. So, it is fallacy to consider a literary text as an organic whole, ignoring the historical cultural manifestation exists in the text. Psychoanalytic Criticism For Psychoanalytic criticism, a work of literature is an expression of the inner workings of the human mind. The procedures used in 12 psychoanalytic criticism were developed by Sigmund Freud (1846— 1939), Freud’s theories based on the idea that much of our behaviour does not take place in our conscious life. He emphasizes the unconscious aspects of human psychology. Freud believed that we have been forced to repress much of our experience and many of our desires to live peacefully with others. He believed that literature could often be interpreted as the reflection of our unconscious life. A French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan (1901—1981), combined Freudian theories with structuralist literary theories to argue that the essential experience of the human psyche is the acquisition of language. Lacan believes that once you can name yourself and distinguish yourself from others, you have entered the difficult social world that requires you to repress your instincts. Like Lacan, who modified and adapted psychoanalytic criticism to connect it to structuralism, many twentieth-century literary critics, including Marxists and feminists, have found psychoanalytic literary theory a useful approach. Reader-Response/Reader-oriented Criticism Reader-response criticism is regarded as a revolution in literary critical thought, which has been brought about by the weakness in Formalism, seeing the reader’s interaction with the text as central to interpretation. Unlike formalists, reader-response critics do not believe that a work of literature exists as a separate, independent entity. Instead, they consider the reader’s contribution to the text as essential. The 13 meaning of the text is the function of the interaction between reader and text. Therefore, Reader-response theory is a movement designed to place an emphasis on the reader’s active participation in the reading process, reflecting his confidence and capability of creating meaning. The meaning of the work of art is not something inherent in the text, but rather is constituted through the reader’s interaction with the work drawing on their own experiences and knowledge. During reading, every reader supplies personal meanings and observations, making each reader’s experience unique and distinctive from every other reader’s experience with the same work. Consequently, differing interpretations produced by different readers can be seen as the effect of the different personalities. 14 Traditional Criticism (Historical/Biographical) Historical/Biographical Criticism views literature as the reflection of an author's life and times (or of the characters' life and times). It is necessary to know about the author and the political, economical, and sociological context of his times in order to truly understand his works Such an approach often (many would say inevitably) led to the study of literature as essentially biography, history. it must be affirmed also that art does not exist in a vacuum. It is a creation by someone at some time in history, arid it is intended to speak to other human beings about some idea or issue that has human relevance. It is a creation by someone at some time in history, it is intended to speak to other human beings about some idea or issue that has human relevance. It is certainly dangerous to assume that a work of art must always be evaluated or interpreted as if it were disembodied from all experience except its self-contained aesthetic; metaphor, tension, paradox, ambiguity, etc. Although the historical-biographical criticism has been evolving over many years, its basic tenets are perhaps most clearly articulated in the writings of the nineteenth-century French critic H. A. Taine. It is a mistake to think that poets do not concern themselves with social and political themes or that good art cannot be written about such themes. Actually, literary writers have from earliest times been the historians, the interpreters of contemporary culture, and the prophets of their 15 people. for example, of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the plays of Shakespeare, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Many of William Blake’s poems can be read meaningfully only in terms of Blake’s England. His “London” is an outcry against the oppression of man by society. These concerns are, in fact, central to one of the most recent literary theory-the New Historicism. New Historicism (https://images.app.goo.gl/XTeWHFh7SNjTuDUw9) New Historicism begins with the publication of Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning (1982). this literary criticism is an interpretation that understands literature as “a part of the system of signs that constitutes a given culture” (Greenblatt Renaissance Self- Fashioning 4). New historicist critics view literature as part of history, and furthermore, as an expression of forces on history. For example, the literary work tells something about the surrounding culture and 16 ideology (slavery, women status, oppression, kingship etc.) and. Of course, knowing such culture and ideology help us in interpreting the work. New historicists assert that literature “does not exist outside time and place and cannot be interpreted without reference to the era in which it was written” (Kirszner and Mandell). Greenblatt’s Shakespearean Negotiations(1989) asserts that the main task of the critic is the quest for the “poetics of culture,” which he define as a network of exchanges and “negotiations” that allows a social unit to synthesize often contradictory ideas and produce a coherent reading. He, then, argues that the critic must often regard the “margins of the text” so that he can discover and learn about the cultural premises of thinking and feeling that structure any given society. This new historicist practice seeks to reveal the ways in which culture and history are the main sources for the human experience. New historicists participate in the activity of interpreting and explaining material documentation as the representations that a society produces of itself. They tend to view society as a web of cultural discourses that circulate within it and are created by particular conditions in a particular place and time. This critical approach, therefore, is interested in examining the process by which a society organizes and produces its own ideological and material practices through representations embedded in texts of all kinds. All texts and documents are representations of beliefs, values, and forms of power circulating in a society at a given period in specific circumstances. 17 Therefore, all texts of a given time are in some ways interconnecting and interactive. New Historicism, then, differs drastically in its beliefs about the nature of history and literature, as cultural discourses, from those of the other approaches. The practice emerged a reaction against New Criticism, which proposes a formal analysis of a literary work. In addition, new historicists draw from other forms of criticism, particularly the work of Michael Foucault. One of the significant peculiarities of New Historicism is its refusal to separate literary texts from non-literary texts. New historicists recognize all texts, whether they are literary or non-literary, as cultural artifacts. As a result, in a new historicist reading of a literary text, it is essential to understand the culture and society that produced the text. New historicists have made a return to history in literary criticism, accepting history itself as a text and considering that the historian himself is trapped within his own historicity. New historicists’ approach to literature and history constitutes the key phrases in New Historicism “historicity of text” and “textuality of history.” New historicists, in studying Renaissance texts, tended to see themselves, not just as literary critics, but also (even primarily) as historians. They used methods of historical investigation sponsored by traditional ethos of history, but rather by the contemporary insights associated with post-structuralism, cultural anthropology, and “the view that history writing is an interpretative activity” (52). The most remarkable of these studies are Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self- 18 Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (1980) and Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England (1988), Louis Montrose’s “ ‘Eliza, Queene of Shepherds,’ and the Pastoral of Power,” (1980), Jonathan Goldberg’s James I and politics of Literature: Jonson, Shakespeare, Donne, and their Contemporaries (1983). For instance, “A Study on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, and Nostromo in a New Historicist Perspective” (2007) uses new historicist methods to enable the readers to read these novels both in their biographical and historical contexts and alongside the historical and travel writings written in the period in which Conrad wrote these novels. It attempts to reflect the period that saw the expansion of imperialism, colonialism, and pre-capitalism in the world arena. Another study, “New Historicism and Arundhati Roy’s Works” (2009), attempts to understand how power operates and hegemonic forces always remain active through different agencies in order to contain the subversive forces when they suffer threat to their existence. In “A New Historicist Approach to John Galsworthy’s The Forsyte Saga” (2010), the scholar establishes the historicity of text of Galsworthy by tracing the intertextual relationship with reference to his other writings, contemporary historical documents, archives, letters, diary entries, newspaper accounts, etc. 19 Traditional Criticism in Practice Shelley’s Ozymandias I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away’. Historically, Shelley wrote about the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II ("Ozymandias" is the Greek name for Ramesses II). Earlier in 1817, it was announced that archaeologists had discovered the remains of a statue of Ramesses II and were sending the fragments to the British 20 Museum. This may have been the inspiration behind the theme of the poem. Ancient Egypt in general was also very much in vogue among the British upper classes, and many of Shelley's contemporaries took a great interest in the period and any new archaeological discoveries in Egypt. In writing his poem, Shelley was highly influenced by ancient Greek writings on Egypt, particularly those of a historian named Diodorus Siculus. In his Bibliotheca Historica, Diodorus states that the following phrase was inscribed at the base of a statue of Ramesses II: "King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work." Diodorus is the "traveler from an antique land" Shelley refers to in the poem's opening line. Shelley published the poem in 1819 in his collection Rosalind and Helen. Although it didn't receive much attention when it was published, "Ozymandias" eventually became Shelley's most well-known work, and the phrase "look on my works, ye mighty, and despair" is often referenced in popular culture. What Is the Meaning Behind "Ozymandias"? What message was Shelley trying to convey with the poem Ozymandias? The major theme behind "Ozymandias" is that all power is temporary, no matter how prideful or tyrannical a ruler is. Ramesses II was one of the ancient world's most powerful rulers. He reigned as pharaoh for 66 years, led the Egyptians to numerous military victories, built massive monuments and temples, and accumulated huge 21 stores of wealth. He eventually became known as Ramesses the Great and was revered for centuries after his death. 22 Shakespeare’s Hamlet Moreover, it will be doubtless to know that Hamlet is considered by some critics to be autobiographical in certain places. Historically, Queen Elizabeth's advanced age and poor health and internally disordered state are portrayed in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. There is some ground for thinking that Ophelia's famous characterization of 23 Hamlet may be intended to suggest the Earl of Essex, formerly Elizabeth's favorite, who had incurred her severe displeasure and been tried for treason and executed: The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, The observed of all observers.... (III.i) Also, something of Essex may be seen in Claudius's observation on Hamlet's madness and his popularity with the masses: How dangerous it is that this man goes loose! Yet must we not put the strong law on him: He's loved of the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgment but their eyes; And where 'tis so, the offender's scourge is weighed, But never the offence. (IY.viii) Yet another contemporary historical figure, the Lord Treasurer, Burghley, has been seen by some in the character of Polonius. Burghley possessed most of the shortcomings Shakespeare gave to Polonius; he was boring, meddling, and given to wise old adages and truisms. The historical critic might be expected to ask, What do we need to know about eleventh-century Danish court life or about Elizabethan 24 England to understand this play? In Hamlet, the historical critic might be expected to ask, why Hamlet does not automatically succeed to the throne after the death of his father. He is not just the oldest son; he is the only son. Such students need to know that in Hamlet’s Day the Danish throne was an elective one. The royal council, composed of the most powerful nobles in the land, named the next king. The custom of the throne's descending to the oldest son of the late monarch had not yet crystallized into law. J. Dover Wilson asserts that Shakespeare's audience conceived Hamlet to be the lawful heir to his father and Claudius to be a usurper and the usurpation to be one of the main factors in the play. It is certain that Hamlet thought of Claudius as a usurper, for he describes him to Gertrude as A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole And put it in his pocket! (lII.iv) and to Horatio as one... that hath killed my king and whored my mother, Popped in between th' election and my hopes.... (V.ii) This last speech suggests strongly that Hamlet certainly expected to succeed his father by election if not by heritage. One reason for the significance of Hamlet with Elizabethan audiences was that it dealt with a theme of revenge. The typical revenge tragedy began with a crime; continued with an injunction by some 25 agent (often a ghost) to the next of relations to avenge the crime; grew complicated by various impediments to the revenge, such as identifying the criminal and deciding the proper time, place, and mode of the revenge; and concluded with the death of the criminal, the avenger, and frequently all the principals in the drama. This is the standard of revenge play which Shakespeare follows in his play. Another fact to be mentioned in Shakespeare's day it was popularly believed that repentance had to be vocal to be effective. When Claudius asks Laertes how to avenge his father's death, Laertes answers that he would "cut [Hamlet's] throat i' th' church" (IV.vii). It is probably no accident that Laertes is so specific about the method by which he would readily kill Hamlet. By cutting Hamlet's throat, presumably before he could confess his sins, Laertes would deprive Hamlet of having repentance. Thus Laertes would destroy both Hamlet's soul and his body. Claudius's response No place indeed should murder sanctuarize; Revenge should have no bounds Elizabethan audiences were well acquainted with these conventions. There was almost a ritual about revenge. 26 Russian Formalism and New Criticism Formalism is a literary theory which views literature primarily as a specialised use of language. It regards literature as a unique form of human knowledge that needs to be examined on its own terms. A literary work is independent of the author, reader and historical context during which it was written. To a formalist therefore, a poem or story is not primarily a social, historical, or biographical document; it is a literary work that can be understood only by reference to its intrinsic literary features, that is, those elements found in the text itself. To analyse a poem or story, therefore, the formalist critic focuses on the words of the text rather than facts about the author's life or the historical milieu in which it was written. The critic pays special attention to the formal features of the text—irony, paradox, imagery, and metaphor. He also interested in the work's setting, characters, symbols, and point of view. Close reading of the text A formalistic approach to literature involves a close reading of the text. Formalistic critics believe that all information essential to the 27 interpretation of a work must be found within the work itself. It views text as existing independently. Meaning is discovered by doing a close reading and not by examining outside sources. It Focuses on the meanings and interactions of words, figures of speech, and symbols. It looks for complex interrelations and ambiguities within a text. Intensive reading begins with a sensitivity to the words of the text and all their denotative and connotative values and implications. Then to look for structural relationships and pattern-not just in words and their relationship, but also in larger units. Form becomes much more than sentence patterns; it becomes the relationship of stanzas in a poem, chapters in a novel and scenes in a play. It becomes the sequence of plot elements, even episodes, in a narrative, or the juxtaposition of scenes in a play. The repetition of images also contributes to the whole theme emerging from the work. Those internal relationships gradually reveal a form, a principle by which all subordinate patterns can be accounted for. Formalism proposes a fundamental opposition between the literary use of language and the ordinary, practical use of language. Literature is a special mode of language that is different from everyday language. According to the formalists, the function of literary language is not to convey information by making extrinsic references, but to offer the reader a special mode of experience by drawing attention to its own ‘formal’ features. The distinctive features of literary language are called literariness. From the Formalist‘s perspective, a work of literature is evaluated on the basis of its literary devices and the liability 28 of the same to scientific investigation. The critic‘s concern therefore is to identify and study those devices in order to determine the literariness‘ of such a text. (Jide Balogun, 2011). Origin of Formalism Formalism originated in Russia in 1915 with the founding of the Moscow Linguistic Circle. Its pioneers include Victor Shklovsky, Roman Jakobson, and Boris Eikhenbaum. Formalism as a critical perspective began by rejecting the unsystematic critical approaches which had previously dominated literary study. It attempted to create a 'literary science' by paying attention to the study of poetic language. (https://images.app.goo.gl/BdqkYLSowN7XRHaz7) 29 The formalist movement began in England with the publication of I.A. Richards’ Practical Criticism (1929). (https://images.app.goo.gl/fBUpCSAXLwcBMc3u7) To explain and introduce his theory, Richards asked students to interpret famous poems without telling them the poet’s names. Of course this strategy encouraged close reading of the text rather than dependence on a poet’s name. T. S. Eliot was also central to many of the tendencies of formalism and his early essay ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ (1919) has been perhaps the most influential work in Anglo-American criticism. Eliot enforces the necessary “depersonalization” of the artist if his or her art is to attain the “impersonality” it must have if it is ‘to approach the condition of science’. Famously, he wrote: ‘Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality’. In another famous phrase from his essay on ‘Hamlet’ (1919), Eliot describes the work of art as an ‘objective correlative’ for the experience which may have engendered it: an impersonal re-creation which is the autonomous object of attention. What emerges from all this is the anti-romantic thrust of Eliot’s thinking (a new ‘classicism’); 30 the emphasis on ‘science’, ‘objectivity’, ‘impersonality’, and the ‘medium’ as the focal object of analysis. New Criticism American critics such as John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren, and Cleanth Brooks adapted formalism and termed their adaptation “New Criticism.” The New Critics paid close and careful attention to the language, form, and structure of literary texts. New Criticism viewed the work of literature as an aesthetic object independent of historical context and the life and times of the author. 31 The New Critics Cleanth Brooks John Crowe Ransom Allen Tate Robert Penn Warren Like Formalism, New Criticism received its name from John Crowe Ransom’s 1941 book The New Criticism. New Critics treat a work of literature as if it were a self-contained, self-referential object. Rather than basing their interpretations of a text on the reader’s 32 response, the author’s intentions, or parallels between the text and historical contexts. New Critics perform a close reading, concentrating on the relationships within the text that give it its own distinguishing form. They emphasize that the structure of a work should not be separated from meaning, viewing the two as constituting an organic unity. The New Criticism has sometimes been called an "objective" approach to literature. New Critics are more likely than certain other critics to believe and say that the meaning of a text can be known objectively. The literary work is viewed as an isolated and autonomous object and the act of interpretation is a rational act chosen by the reader to preserve the objectivity of interpretation. Thus, the New critics view the text as an object and a container of all the possible meaning. Terms Used in New Criticism: Intentional fallacy - the belief that the meaning or value of a work may be determined by the author's intention. ‘the intentional fallacy’ (Wimsatt and Beardsley 1995). In what became a conceptual cornerstone of Anglo-American New Criticism, they argued that ‘the design or intention 33 of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a literary work’ (Wimsatt and Beardsley 1995, 90). Affective fallacy - the belief that the meaning or value of a work may be determined by its affect on the reader External form - rhyme scheme, meter, stanza form, etc. Objective correlative - originated by T.S. Eliot, this term refers to a collection of objects, situations, or events that instantly evoke a particular emotion. Texture- The consistency of imagery in a lyric, whether it be a single dominant image throughout the _ poem or a pattern of multiple but related images, became for some an index to the quality of a given poem. Such consistency of imagery helped to create what John Crowe Ransom among others called texture. Tension - the integral unity of the poem which results from the resolution of opposites, often in irony of paradox. Ambiguity occurs when a word, image, or event generates two or more different meanings. In literary language, however, ambiguity is considered a source of richness, depth, and complexity that adds to the text’s value. For example, the image of the tree can express about endurance (trees can live for hundreds of years), and renewal (like the trees that lose their leaves in the fall and are “reborn” every spring to make a new life). 34 Symbol When an image takes on meaning beyond its objective self, it moves into the realm of symbol. Here is a dilemma for some formalistic critics, those who espouse the autonomous concept of a literary work. Symbols may sometimes remain within the work, as it were; but it is the nature of symbols to have extensional possibilities, to open out to the world beyond the art object itself. 35 Formalistic Criticism in Practice What do you do when you come across a poem like this? I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away’. In Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous sonnet ‘Ozymandias’ (1818) the narrator speaks of meeting a traveller who reports having seen a vast shattered statue strewn across the desert. The statue is of Ozymandias, the thirteenth-century King Rameses II of Egypt 36 (Ozymandias is the Greek name for this king). All that remains of the King of Kings and of his ‘works’ are a few broken fragments, a couple of legs and an inscription which commands the reader to despair. "Ozymandias" is full of poetic devices. A poetic device is a linguistic tool that a poet can use to help convey their message, as well as make the poem more interesting to read or hear. "Ozymandias" is a sonnet, which is a type of poetic structure. All sonnets, including "Ozymandias" are fourteen lines long and written in iambic pentameter. The iambic pentameter sounds more natural than many other rhythms, but it still has a purposeful enough rhythm to easily differentiate it from normal speech. "Ozymandias" has an unusual rhyming scheme, following the pattern ABABA CDCEDEFE. It is different from the traditional rhyme 37 scheme. Shelley has used the mixture of an octet and Shakespearian rhyme scheme. The purpose of this rhymes scheme is to show the progress of time. As the poem progresses, the old pattern of rhyme is replaced with the new pattern which makes the poem unique in its structure. Sonnets have been a standard poetry format for a long time— Shakespeare famously wrote sonnets—and it would have been an obvious choice for Shelley and Smith to use for their competition since sonnets have a set structure but still allow the poet a great deal of freedom within that structure. Alliteration is the repetition of a sound or letter at the beginning of multiple words in a sentence or paragraph. There are several instances of alliteration in "Ozymandias" including the phrases "cold command" and " boundless and bare." The repetition in alliteration often makes a poem sound more interesting and pleasant, and it can also create a soothing rhythm in contrast to the tension caused by enjambment. enjambment refers to lines that end without any punctuation marks. Shelley has used enjambments in the second and sixth line of the poem where it is stated, “Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone” and “Tell that its sculptor well those passions read”.In "Ozymandias" there are numerous examples of enjambment, including "Who said— "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone/Stand in the desert.... Near them, on the sand," and "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/Of 38 that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare" In both examples, the line break occurs in the middle of a sentence. Enjambment is a way for the poet to build action and tension within a poem. The tension comes from the fact that the poet's thought isn't finished at the end of a sentence. Each line with enjambment makes the reader want to keep reading to learn what happens next. Enjambment can also create drama, especially when the following line isn't what the reader expected it to be. An apostrophe is a poetic device where the writer addresses an exclamation to a person or thing that isn't present. In "Ozymandias" the apostrophe occurs in the inscription on the statue's pedestal: "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" This isn't being spoken to anyone in particular, just whoever happens to come across the statue. Assonance is the repetition of vowel or diphthong sounds in one or more words found close together. It occurs in the phrase "Half sunk a shattered visage lies." The short "a" sound in "half" and "shattered" is repeated. The "a" sound is actually repeated throughout the poem, in words like "traveller," "antique," "vast," and even "Ozymandias"himself. Irony is when tone or exaggeration is used to convey a meaning opposite to what's being literally said. The Ozymandias meaning is full of irony. In the poem, Shelley contrasts Ozymandias' boastful words of power with the image of his ruined statue lying broken and 39 forgotten in the sand. The statue is of course ruined - the legs remain but the body has fallen. The face ('visage') lies on the sand, 'half-sunk' and 'shattered', making it hard to recognise. According to the inscription, which has survived, the king Ozymandias set up the statue to draw attention to his 'works' - but his own face has not survived, let alone the empire he may have once ruled. The stretching of the 'lone and level sands' in every direction cover any buildings or rich farmland that may have flourished here. However, one survivor beside Ozymandias' words is the sculptor's skill: it is witnessed by the success of the statue in capturing 'those passions' of the king, even when partly ruined. Nameless, it is the sculptor whose works are still valued, just as Shelley's poem survives from his own day. Metaphor: There is one extended metaphor used in the poem. The statue of Ozymandias metaphorically represents power, legacy, and command. It clarifies the meanings of the object and makes it clear that once the king was mighty and all-powerful. It also shows that the sand has eroded the actual shape of the statue, representing the destructive power of time. Personification: Shelley has used personification that means to use human emotions for inanimate objects. He has used personification twice in the poem. The fifth line “And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,” refers to the broken head of the statue. However, the lifeless statue Ozymandias is referred to as a real person. The second example is in the sixth line of the poem where “Tell that its sculptor 40 well those passions read” shows as if the statue is commanding the sculptor how to carve or express his emotions. Imagery: Imagery is used to make the reader feel things through five senses. The poet has used images involving a sense of sights such as two vast and trunk-less legs, shattered face, wrinkled lip and desert. These images help readers visualize the status of the broken statue. Concluding the literary devices, it can be stated that on the one hand, these literary devices have provided uniqueness to the text, and on the other, they have opened up new vistas for interpretations. 41 Shakespeare’s Hamlet The Trap Metaphor in Hamlet In the play, but in varying images, there are allusions to different kinds of traps. Polonius uses the metaphor to warn Ophelia away from Hamlet's "holy vows of heaven," vows that he says are "springes to catch woodcocks" (I.iii). More significant is Hamlet's deliberate naming "The Murder of Gonzago"; he calls it "The Mousetrap" (Ill.ii) because it is, as he says elsewhere, "the thing / Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King" (II.ii). Claudius feels that he is trapped: "O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, / Art more engag'd" (Ill.iii). Hamlet, in the hands of plotters, finds himself "thus be-netted round with villainies" and one for whom Claudius has "Thrown out his angle [fish hook] for my proper life" (V.ii). The dying Laertes echoes his father's metaphor when he tells Osric that he is "as a woodcock to mine own springe" (Vii). Thus, there are more than one pattern of trap images in the play- springs, lime, nets, mousetraps, and angles or hooks. Although traps are usually for animals, but here in the play, it has been used with human beings who are trapped in their own dilemmas and problems. The Cosmological Trap Another kind of traps appeared in Hamlet is that connected with the whole universe. From the first scene of the play, the reader discovers 42 that it is a disturbed world, that a sense of mystery and deep anxiety because of the appearance of the ghost. The guards unconsciously assume that the apparition of the former king has closely connected with the welfare of the state. They are anxious about the mysterious preparations for war The sense of cosmic implication; in the special situation of Denmark emerges strongly in the conversation between Hamlet and his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: HAMLET. Denmark's a prison. ROSENCRANTZ. Then is the world one. HAMLET. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being the one o' th' worst. (ll.ii) These remarks recall Marcellus’s assertion: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (I iv). Indeed, Hamlet acknowledges that the rottenness of Denmark pervades all of nature: ",.. this goodly ; frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o' erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire-why, it ap-peareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors" (II.ii). The play constitutes a vast speculation about nature, human nature and the health of the state. 43 Much earlier, before his meeting with the ghost, Hamlet expressed his pessimism at man's having to tolerate earthly existence within nature's distasteful domain. As he speaks these lines, Hamlet is seemingly dismayed over his mother's hasty marriage to the new king. How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't, ah, fie, 'tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. (l.ii) Thus, a pattern of parallels between Denmark and the universe and between man and nature develops. Double meaning My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent; And like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect. (lll.iii) The words are not those of Hamlet. They are spoken by Claudius, as he tries to pray for forgiveness, even as he knows that he cannot give up those things for which he murdered his brother-his crown, his fulfilled ambition, and his wife. But the words may easily have been Hamlet's. Indeed, much of the play centres on doubleness. We see that every statement of Hamlet is dialectic: that is, it tends toward double meaning-the superficial meaning of the world of Denmark and the subtler meaning for Hamlet and the reader. 44 Instead of the ideal world Hamlet seeks, the real world that he finds is the murder of his father, his mother's remarriage, the infidelity of his supposed friends, and the fallen state of man. Yet though Hamlet seems to speak only in riddle and to act solely with evasion, his utterances and acts always actually bespeak the full measure of his feelings. His honesty lies in his full knowledge that others cannot realize his real meanings because they are hardly concerned with profound truths about the state and humanity. When the king demands some explanation for his extraordinary melancholy, Hamlet replies, "I am too much in the sun" (I.ii). The reply thus establishes, although Claudius does not perceive it, Hamlet's judgment of and opposition to the easy acceptance of "things as they are.“ when the queen tries to reconcile him to the inevitability of death in the natural scheme and asks, "Why seems it so particular with thee?" he responds with a revealing contrast between the seeming evidences of mourning and real woe Commenting on the plight of mankind, Hamlet says: What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not 45 That capability and godlike reason To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on th'event- A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward-I do not know Why yet I live to say, "This thing's to do," Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means To do't. (IV. vi) 46 Reader-Oriented Criticism Wolfgang Iser Stanley Fish The origins of reader-oriented criticism can be located in the United States of America with Louise Rosenblatt’s development of theories in the 1930s (Literature as Exploration). Then, in the late 1960s and becoming increasingly influential in the 1970s and early 1980s, critics such as Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish questioned the principles of new criticism; the question that of the literary text and its meaning cannot be detached from the role the reader takes. Reader-oriented theory of criticism is a movement which emphasizes the reader's active participation in interpreting the text rejecting the idea that there is a single, fixed meaning inherent in the text. Reading is no longer viewed as the discovery of meaning but as the creation of it. Reader-response critics examine reading as a process, an activity through which meaning is created. It "presents a challenge to traditional measurement of comprehension"(Sebesta, "A Hierarchy to Assess Reader-response", 444). 47 Thereby, attention has been directed to questions of how the text contributes to the reader's understanding of that text, and how the reader's responses determine the text's meaning. R. B. Gill in "The Moral Implications of Interpretive communities" summarizes the pursuit of Reader-response critics: We no longer find an object-perceiver separation, but a process in which both parties undergo change. Meaning, in such a case, is not the impenetrable union of form and content that New Critics insisted on, but the evolving interaction of text with reader values, conventions, and understanding. (5) Hence, the Reader-oriented theory of criticism grows out of the acknowledgment of the authority of the reader and his relationship to the text in determining its meaning. The term "Reader-response" has come to be associated with words such as "reader", "the reading process", and "response", that is to say that what the text means depends on how it is read, and its value depends on the value of the reading experience of the reader. Indeed, the term Reader-oriented criticism has provided a framework for a number of different approaches that basically investigate the reading process—phenomenology, psychology, and sociology. Although each of these approaches illuminates a different facet of reader text interaction, the delineation of these classifications is not absolute, i.e. they interrelate and overlap. 48 Mostly, Reader-oriented critics stress the phenomenological position. The meaning of the text results from the dynamic interaction between reader and text. Louis Rosenblatt propounds the first transactional theory of Reader-response. She formulates the concept of reading experience as a "transaction". Text and reader are no longer viewed as separate entities and become aspects of the transactive process in which each element contributes to the other. The text gains its significance "from the way in which the minds and emotions of particular readers respond to the linguistic stimuli offered by the text" (Literature as Exploration, 28). Wolfgang Iser also believes that the text can never be separated from the person reading it. For Iser, the text is "a frame within which the reader must construct for himself the aesthetic object"( The Act of Reading, 107). The text is a set of constructions for the production of meaning. In this way, the text guides the reader's personal response. the text has an impact on the reader's assumptions and expectations, but it does not have meaning until it is experienced by the reader. It is during the development of the interaction between reader and a text that meaning is conceived. On the other hand, Norman Holland's theory of reading finds its roots in psychology. Holland demonstrates that the reader constitutes meaning from the interaction of personality with text. Here, the psychological nature of the reader interacts with the text to create meaning. Through this process the reader shifts from the conscious to the unconscious. On the conscious level, the reader actively perceives 49 the text in an attempt to formulate meaning. On the unconscious level, the reader brings his experience and association to the text. For Holland, the readers internalize texts differently because they internalize them according to their "identity theme"( 5 Readers Reading,128). Holland emphasizes his belief that the text is a subjective re-creation of the reader. His theory assumes an unchanging core in each human personality which filters all experiences, builds defences and informs all decisions whether conscious or unconscious. Each reader responds to the text by "assimilating it to his own psychological process, that is, to his search for successful solutions within his identity theme to the multiple demands, both inner and outer, on his ego" (Ibid, 128). Furthermore, In Subjective Criticism, David Bleich draws on his psychological attitude to establish the connection between the text's interpretation and the reader's involvement with the text. To Bleich, an interpretation of a text is no more than a manifestation of the reader's personal motivations and desires. Any act of interpretation is motivated and the only way to determine the motivations behind our interpretations of a text is to look at our subjective response to it. The reader expresses a whole life style—cognition, education, beliefs, purposes, and goals—in the process of interpreting the text. Meaning becomes "a direct outgrowth of the reader's emotional grasp of the story"( Bleich, "The Subjective Character of Critical Interpretation",746). 50 Moving from a psychological position toward a sociological one, Bleich finds out that this subjective response is fundamental to the founding of any social understanding, "any 'objective' social mutuality requires the participation of one's transcendental subjectivity"( Bleich, The Double Prespective, 50). In other words, in whatever community of which one is a member, every reader brings forth his individual response. Priya Venkatesan concludes that " the social is not inherently distanced from an individual aesthetics"(4). A much more radical departure into the sociological approach has been clear in Stanley Fish. To Fish, the reader will interpret the text he reads according to the interpretive strategy of the interpretive community to which he belongs. It is his membership in a particular interpretive community that constitutes the meaning of the text. Fish's notion of "interpretive community" (Is There A Text In This Class?,180) involves a link between interpretation and society. He asserts the social dimension in his models of reading and considers the text as part of a larger system of social activity. For Fish, the texts are social because they are interpreted by readers who belong to a particular interpretive community. Advantages: Reader-oriented criticism creates a link between real-life experience and work –helping the reader to connect-and then builds on that connection, , enabling readers to provide their responses and building the interpretation on group understanding of the text, as well as individual readers’ responses. 51 Disadvantages: Reader-oriented criticism neglects the author’s intentions and meaning given to the text by the author, overly focusing on the perceptions of the reader, thus neglecting different perspectives. In addition, the perceptions of the reader can be too subjective, therefore imposing limitations on text interpretations. 52 Reader-oriented Criticism in Practice There is no right or wrong answer to a reading response. However, it is important that you demonstrate an understanding of the reading and clearly explain and support your reactions. Do not use the standard approach of just writing: “I liked this text because it made me feel happy,” or “I hated it because it was negative and boring.” In writing a response do not summarize the contents of the text. Instead, take an analytical approach to the text, is to connect with it and have a “conversation” with the text. Answer the followings: What does the text have to do with you, personally, and with your life (past, present or future)? Or with other humans. How much does the text agree or clash with your view of the world, and what you consider right and wrong? Use several quotes How well does the text address things that you, personally, care about and consider important to the world? 53 How does it address things that are important to your family, your community, your ethnic group, to people of your economic or social class? How well did you enjoy the text (or not) as entertainment or as a work of art? Shelley’s Ozymandias But we might also notice that the poem is about readers and reading – the traveller reads a piece of writing, an inscription on the pedestal of a fragmented statue. The inscription commands the reader. And, rather differently, the word ‘read’ appears in line six, referring to the way that the sculptor understood the ‘passions’ of Ozymandias and was able to immortalize them in stone. Both the traveller and the sculptor are explicitly figured as readers, and we might also think about the ‘I’ of the first line as another kind of reader –a listener to the traveller’s tale. The poem, then, concerns a series of framed acts of reading. The sculptor reads the face of the king, the traveller reads the inscription, the narrative ‘I’ listens to the tale and, finally, we read the poem. One of the things that we might do with this poem is to think about these acts of reading. The poem can be thought about as what Paul de Man calls an ‘allegory of reading’: it is not only a poem which can be read, it is also a poem which tells an allegory or subtextual story about reading. One of the crucial questions of reading, for example, is how we can justify any particular reading: how can we tell if a particular reading or interpretation is valid? This is a question that goes 54 to the heart of almost every debate in criticism and theory. In this respect the poem presents a paradox in that the traveller says that only a few fragments of the statue remain, that this is all that is left of Ozymandias and his great works. But if this is the case, how can the traveller know that the sculptor read the king’s passions ‘well’? In this way Shelley’s poem can be understood as telling a story or allegory about one of the central paradoxes of reading. To read ‘well’ is generally taken as meaning to read accurately or faithfully. But the question of which reading of a text is the most accurate is itself a question of reading. For example, in his book The Romantic Poets, Graham Hough declares that ‘Ozymandias is an extremely clear and direct poem, advancing to a predetermined end by means of one firmly held image’ (Hough 1967, 142). Dismissing the poem in this way is odd in view of the fact that irony, ambiguity and paradox are key elements in the new critical weaponry of reading, and that all three are dramatically at stake in lines ten and eleven of the poem, the inscription on the pedestal. ‘Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ is ironic, for example, from at least two perspectives. First, the line can be read as an example of ‘hubris’ or excessive pride on the part of Ozymandias, who is thus shown to be absurd. Second, it can be read as ironic from Ozymandias’s point of view: knowing that even he will die, Ozymandias inscribes these words for future generations, reminding us that even the greatest will be forgotten in time. These conflicting ironies produce both ambiguity and paradox – ambiguity concerning which reading is more 55 valid, and paradox in the fact that the inscription appears to say two conflicting things. You'll be reading a poem. Thinking about Reader Response Criticism, interpret your poem based on experiences (with the poem, with the narrative of the poem, with the author), attitudes, values, and the text itself (the fact that it is poetry, the format, the structure of the text, the way it is lined out, the typology of the author). At its most basic level, reader-response criticism considers readers' reactions to literature as vital to interpreting the meaning of the text. However, reader-response criticism can take a number of different approaches. A reader applying reader-response theory can use the phenomenological position, or the psychoanalytic position, or the sociological one. Thus, reader-response critics share two beliefs: 1) that the readers cannot be absent from their understandings of literature and 2) that readers do not passively explicate the meaning presented to them by an objective literary text; rather they actively make the meaning they find in literature. 56 Psychoanalytic Criticism Sigmund Freud Psychoanalytical criticism carefully examines the literary work, it speculates on what lies underneath the text—the unspoken or perhaps unspeakable memories, motives, and fears that covertly shape the work, especially in fictional characterisations. Moreover, Psychoanalytical criticism employs psychology to understand the authors’ subject's motivations and behaviour. Psychoanalytic (also called psychological) literary criticism has its roots in the work of the Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud (1856-1930). Freud was the first to employ this approach to the analysis of literature. Originally, psychoanalysis is a medical technique, a method of therapy for the treatment of mentally ill or distressed patients which helps them understand the source of their symptoms. Freud used examples from literature to diagnose his patient's illnesses. He referred to Oedipus Complex‘ to explain the natural erotic attachment of a young infant to the mother. According to Freud, most of the individual's mental processes are unconscious. 57 Freud's contribution to modern psychology is his emphasis on the unconscious aspects of the human psyche; that most of our actions are motivated by psychological forces over which we have very limited control. In "The Anatomy of the Mental Personality," Freud discriminates between the levels of conscious and unconscious mental activity: we call "unconscious" any mental process the existence of which we are obligated to assume-because, for instance, we infer it in some way from its effects-but of which we are not directly aware.... that we call a process "unconscious" when we have to assume that it was active at a certain time, although at that time we knew nothing about it. (99-100) Freud divides the psyche of mankind into three parts: 58 Freud clarifies the relationship between ego, id, and superego, as well as their collective relationship to the conscious and the unconscious. The id is the primary source of all psychic energy. It functions to fulfil the primeval life principle, which Freud considers to be the pleasure principle. Freud explains this "obscure inaccessible part of our personality’!... only an impulsion to obtain satisfaction for the instinctual needs, in accordance with the pleasure principle" (103-4). The id is, thus, the source of all our aggressions and desires. It is lawless, and amoral. Its function is to satisfy our instincts for pleasure without regard for social conventions, lawful ethics, or moral restraint. It would lead to destruction and even to self-injury. The id as defined by Freud is identical in many respects to the Devil as defined by theologians. The ego is the first of these regulating agencies, that which protects the individual and society. It is the rational governing agent of the psyche. As Freud points out, "the ego stands for reason and circumspection, while the id stands for the untamed passions." Whereas the id is governed only by the pleasure principle, the ego is governed by the reality principle. Subsequently, the ego works as intermediary between the world within and the world without. The superego is the regulating agent, that which primarily functions to protect society. Largely unconscious, the superego is the moral agency, the source of conscience and pride. It is, as Freud says in "The Anatomy of the Mental Personality," the "representative of all moral 59 restrictions, the advocate of the impulse toward perfection”. The superego serves to repress the drives of the id that society regards as unacceptable. Whereas the id is controlled by the pleasure principle and the ego by the reality principle, the superego is dominated by the morality principle. We might say that the id plays the role of the devil, whereas the superego is the angel, and that the ego helps human being to maintain a balance between these two opposing forces. (https://images.app.goo.gl/NAdV5McCCCxMqhby5) 60 Carl Jung is another psychoanalytic critic: In 1907 Jung meet Freud where they studied alongside each other for a number of years to develop their own theory. Jung disagreed with Freud’s belief that the sexual component was the only part of the human personality that controlled our unconscious thoughts. Carl Jung went on to develop his own theory of psychoanalysis. His view of archetypes and the collective unconscious shape his theory. Carl Jung divides the human psyche into three layers: The immediate consciousness, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. The immediate consciousness is the ego to which Jung denoted the term, “persona, the mask of the actor” (43), which is the face an individual presents to the external world. While the personal unconscious is the forgotten and repressed psychic content which is related to the person himself, the collective unconscious is “a psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals”. This collective unconscious consists of “pre-existent forms, the archetypes…which give definite form to certain psychic contents” (Jung 43). 61 According to Jung, the archetypes are “forms which are unconscious but nonetheless active-living dispositions… that perform and continually influence our thoughts and feelings and actions” (78). All archetypes give rise to “similar feelings, thoughts, images, mythologems, and ideas in people, irrespective of their class, creed, race, geographical location, or historical epoch” (Stevens 48). Jung’s theory of archetypes is not a representation of abstract images, but ones that emerge in specific situations. For example, disability representations involve the endless repetition of a small number of images: the poor, pathetic victim, dependent on others for pity and charity. They are individualized characters that represent the archetypal idea of disability. The archetypes become the parameters by which Jung interprets the actions of humanity. Jung argues that humans have unconscious contents imprinted upon their psyche from their conceptions. 62 Psychoanalytic Criticism in Practice (https://images.app.goo.gl/RtQ5HWeiBr6hnpez6) In 2005, MTV Movies and ThinkFilm released Murderball, an American documentary film about physically disabled athletes who challenge disability and play wheelchair rugby. When Murderball was introduced at the Sundance Film Festival, it won the American Documentary Audience Award and the Special Jury Prize for Editing, besides, best documentary awards and an Academy Award nomination. Murderball traces the rivalry between the United States and Canadian 63 quadriplegic teams in international competitions, interspersed with stories of the athletes’ everyday lives and personal relationships. The film reflects on the disabled hero’s journey to achieve himself. Murderball reflects on the disabled hero’s journey to achieve himself. In this context, the study analyzes the hero’s journey in the light of Carl Jung’s theories of archetypes and the collective unconscious. The goal of this journey is a whole integrated personality that maintains a careful balance between the conscious and the unconscious. Murderball constructs new myth that subverts the old image of disability. It demonstrates that it is possible for people with quadriplegia to live fulfilling lives. In this context, the study analyzes the hero’s journey in the light of Carl Jung’s theories of archetypes and the collective unconscious. The goal of this journey is a whole integrated personality that maintains a careful balance between the conscious and the unconscious. Disability has long been associated with loss, abnormality, and fragility. It has heavily loaded with cultural meaning, indicating an impairment and individual deficit. This identification creates a corresponding archetype which is projected onto living people and institutions. These collective patterns through which archetypes emerge are established throughout time and across cultures. These archetypes can take the form of figures the chief among them, “the shadow”, “the wise old man”, and “the mother” (Jung 309). 64 The shadow archetype takes its manifested form from the dark repressed feeling of the personality; those characteristics or traits that a person refuses to acknowledge about himself. The shadow usually appears as the dark side of the hero. This dark side might be an obstacle for the hero to perform his heroic function. The confrontation with the shadow is a must for man’s integration. The hero should accept his shadow as part of himself. Once the shadow has been made conscious, its negative effects are minimized, and it becomes possible to learn from it. But if the shadow remains unconscious and only gives rise to feelings of shame and inferiority. The wise old man is the guidance and advice needed when personal experience and the consciousness are insufficient. Jung argues that the wise old man appears when “insight, understanding, good advice, determination, planning, etc. are needed but cannot be mustered on one’s own resources” (216). His appearance can rescue the hero in his journey, to help him to look within himself, reflect on his own identity and find an answer to his dilemma. The wise old man is the archetype that uses the rational consciousness to achieve self-realization. The mother archetype may be projected onto any woman with whom a relationship exists; any figure that fulfils the collective unconscious’s expectation of the role of a “mother” and “mothering” in the development of the hero’s personality (Jung 81). These three figures are some of those typical stages in the journey of the hero; these figures that the hero has to confront or depend upon 65 during his journey are archetypes. According to Jung, it is absolutely necessary for a person to realize the collective unconscious and to integrate its contents into his consciousness before a person can complete the journey to “self- individuation” or “self-actualization” (Jung 70). (https://images.app.goo.gl/T9Gs71zKhch7WFZR6) Murderball constructs new myth that subverts the old image of disability. It demonstrates that it is possible for people with quadriplegia to live fulfilling lives. All the characters in Murderball are top athletes in international competitions. They are energetic and powerful. The featured personalities and their stories defy any notion that a person with a disability is necessarily weak or helpless. 66 Indeed, the negative conceptions of disability in which people with disabilities are perceived are criticized by a player in the film who says, “when people see you in a wheelchair they kinda treat you like you are made of glass, and you’re fragile and things like that, but in wheelchair rugby its just kinda nice to be like bumper cars, it’s a different way of thinking about it” (Muderball, 2005). In experiencing the unconscious aspects of the psyche and recognizing their presence as such, the shadow forces an individual to confront the negative side of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities the one likes to hide. In effect, all players feel conscious of their disability and take the first step to confront it. Andy Cohn humorously begins to equate his arms and hands to instruments. Zupan’s independence and athletic body has been clear in the first shot of the film. In spite of his quadriplegia, Zupan is clearly capable of dressing himself. The confrontation with the shadow is “the first test of courage on the inner way” (Jung 20), not only because it challenges a person’s inner strength, but also because it reminds him of his own weakness and helplessness. Despite their disability, the players cannot admit that they need help. Their experience of the shadow only increases their determinations to control events and people. In the journey to self- actualization, the players are forced to confront their disability and evaluate their own weaknesses, which in turn will prompt a change in their personality. 67 Further, Bob Lujano not only has to fight his physical impairment, he also has to face his society which constitutes the collective unconscious; the shared characteristics that a person refuses to acknowledge about himself. Bob Lujano says, “My father was very instrumental in helping me deal with everything. I remember times, I remember kids would kind of laugh or point and he would laugh along with them and kind of joke about it. Once I saw him kind of lightening the situation, you know it didn't make me feel upset, or you know, hurt” (Murderball, 2005). The person is required to suppress the values which tell them that they are inferior and to smile bravely. In this case, the father plays the role of the wise old man in his attempt to alleviate the situation. It is the archetype that appears in the life of the individual and provides an answer when the person is faced with a situation that cannot be resolved on the basis of personal experience. For Jung, the wise old man is the guide and therefore the archetype of meaning (35). In this manner, the rehabilitation hospital plays an important role in guiding people with disability to come to terms with their life. It helps them to empower themselves by building muscles and developing more control over the movement of their bodies. Further, the mother archetype exists in the collective unconscious as a universal image of the way a mother should be. Any woman who embodies aspects of this image, may therefore become a concrete manifestation of the mother archetype. The mother archetype has only limited appearance in Murderball, but when it does appear it plays an 68 important part in the journey of self-actualization. They are always supporting the heroes in their journey. To conclude, the disabled athletes’ development towards individuation consists in recognizing and coming to terms with the archetypes that represent different stages in their life cycle. The archetypes of the shadow, the wise old man and the mother necessitate a process of harmonization and assimilation that force the athletes to acknowledge their capabilities and to confront their potentialities instead of continually repressing them. They willingly accept their current positions. Here, it is worth mentioning that Zupan, has achieved celebrity status. He says: Breaking my neck was the best thing that ever happened to me. I have an Olympic medal. I’ve been to so many countries I would never have been, met so many people I would never have met. I’ve done more in the chair,… than a whole hell of a lot of people who aren’t in chairs. (Murderball, 2005) In this moment, Zupan has completed the Jungian journey of individuation. By accepting his own status quo, he finally acquires the ability to transcend the limitations of being human. This process of individuation acknowledges the presence of a realm of psychic activity within the mind that lies beneath the persona. This leads to the understanding of dual personalities: the conscious and the unconscious which involves an encounter with the unconscious aspects of the self. 69 The goal of individuation is to achieve a status of self-hood and embracing all layers of the psyche, including both the positive and negative attributes of each layer. Individuation became the process by which Jung promoted the idea of becoming a whole and mentally stable individual. 70 Cultural Studies It is hard to define cultural studies mostly because the word "culture" is hard to define. Unlike most of the other approaches, cultural studies is not really a discrete "approach" at all, but rather a set of practices. As Patrick Brantlinger points out, cultural studies is not "a tightly coherent, unified movement with a fixed agenda," but a "loosely coherent group of tendencies, issues, and questions" (ix). Cultural studies is composed of elements of Marxism, new historicism, feminism, gender studies, anthropology, studies of race and ethnicity, film theory, sociology, urban studies, public policy studies, popular culture studies, and postcolonial studies: those fields that focus on social and cultural forces that either create community or cause division and alienation. Cultural studies approaches generally share four goals: 1. Cultural studies transcends the confines of a particular discipline such as literary criticism or history. In their introduction to Cultural Studies, Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula Treichler emphasize that the intellectual promise of cultural studies lies in its attempts to "cut across diverse social and political interests and address many of the struggles within the current scene." 2. Cultural studies is politically engaged. Cultural critics see themselves as "oppositional" to the power structures of society; they question inequalities within power structures, including the classroom, and seek to restructure relationships among dominant and subordinated 71 cultures. Because meaning and individual subjectivity are culturally constructed, they can thus be re-constructed. 3. Cultural studies denies the separation of "high" and "low" or elite and popular culture. All forms of cultural production need to be studied in relation to other cultural practices. Cultural studies is committed to examining the entire range of a society's beliefs, institutions, and communicative practices, including arts. Cultural studies is seen by some as a route to bringing the university back into contact with the public with a "counter" -disciplinary breaking down of intellectual barriers. 4. Cultural studies analyzes not only the cultural work that is produced but also the means of production. Marxist critics have long recognized the importance of such paraliterary questions as these: Who supports a given artist? Who publishes his or her books, and how are these books distributed? Who buys books, and how are they marketed? Cultural studies thus joins subjectivity-that is, culture in relation to individual lives-with engagement, a direct approach to attacking class inequities in society. Though cultural studies practitioners deny "humanism" or "the humanities" as valid categories, they strive for what they call "social reason," which often strongly resembles (humanist) democratic ideals. What difference does a cultural studies approach make for the student? Gerald Graff and James Phelan observe that "It is a common prediction that the culture of the next century will put a premium on 72 people's ability to deal productively with conflict and cultural difference. Learning by controversy is sound training for citizenship in that future" (v). They advise: "If you have felt alienated from traditional, impersonal academic criticism, your alienation may be reduced by the recent insistence that we all read from particular 'subject positions' and perspectives rather than as objective minds contemplating universal values" (11). And to the question, "Why study critical controversies?" they note that today a student can go from one class in which the value of Western culture is never questioned to another class during the next hour in which the notion that Western culture is hopelessly compromised by racism, sexism, and imperialism is equally beyond question: ",.. constructing a conversation for yourself out of such different courses can be the most exciting part of your education" (8).. Advocates of cultural studies are waging what are sometimes called the "culture wars" of the academy. On the one hand are offered valuable defences of the notion of humanism as a foundation-since the time of the ancient Greeks-of Western civilization and modem democratic values. On the other hand, as Marxist theorist Terry Eagleton believes, the current "crisis" in the humanities can be seen as a result of the failure of the humanities. 73 British Cultural Materialism in Britain, Matthew Arnold and his contemporary intellectuals worked to redefine the" givens" of British culture. Edward Burnett Tyler was an anthropologist whose pioneering study, Primitive Culture (1871), begins, "Culture or civilization, taken in its widest ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society" (1). In Britain, two trajectories developed for "culture." One led back to the past and the feudal hierarchies that ordered community: culture in its sacred function as preserver of the past against the present. The second led toward the future, a socialist utopia that would annul the distinction between labor and leisure and make transformation, not fixity, the rule. Cultural materialism as we know it today began in the 1950s in Britain in the work of F. R. Leavis, which was heavily influenced by Arnold. Leavis sought to use the educational system to distribute literary knowledge and appreciation more widely; Leavisites promoted the "great tradition" of Shakespeare and Milton in order to improve the moral sensibilities of readers. The threat to this project was mass culture. Raymond Williams and Simon Hoggart, two theorists from working-class backgrounds who responded ambivalently to Leavisism, applauded the richness of canonical texts but found that they tended to erase the communal forms of life that surrounded them. 74 Based on the work of Louis Althusser and Jacques Lacan, a structuralist form of thinking emerged that identified individuals as constructs of an ideology necessary if the state and capitalism are to reproduce themselves without fear of revolution. Identifying with such an ideology makes people feel strong, for, as Lacan's psychoanalytic theory argues, people see themselves mirrored in the dominant ideology and act to "take the father's place" out of "fear of castration" or anxieties that true independence can never be attained. Its lure is always imaginary (During 5--6). According to Althusser, ideologies are "misrecognitions" that act upon people through a process which escapes them. But historical materialism such as Karl Marx's allows people to recognize the workings of ideology, what Frederic Jameson called the "political unconscious" (Althusser, For Marx 233 The semiotics-or study of language as "signs" -of Roland Barthes and others arose as a method that would allow culture to be "read" with the same kind of critical acumen that it takes to read literature. English critics were led to "read" the "sign" as ideological or hegemonic and uncover "maps of meaning" within their codes. Meaning became the site of class struggle. As the Russian Formalist Mikhail Bakhtin and his colleagues also argued, meaning is dialogically produced within that struggle, at once conflictual and communal, individual and social. 75 American Multiculturalism In 1966, the year the first edition of this Handbook was published, race riots erupted in Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Atlanta, San Francisco, and other American cities; the previous year the Watts riots had drawn worldwide attention; and the following year's "long, hot summer" saw more violent insurrections in Newark, New York, Detroit, and many other places. The very television screens seemed ablaze. In 1966 the Black Panther Party was founded; James Meredith, the first African American to enroll at the University of Mississippi, was shot by a white segregationist; black State Representative Julian Bond was denied his seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. Murders and attacks on civil rights activists followed the march on Selma, Alabama, and President Lyndon Johnson's signing of the Voting Rights Act. In 1966 nearly all African American students in the South attended segregated schools, and discrimination was largely unquestioned in most industries-despite the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Cowan and Maguire 248-52). Interracial marriage was still illegal in many parts of the United States in 1966, though the following year the United States Supreme Court struck down all state laws against miscegenation. Thirty years later, interracial marriage had increased dramatically. By 1993, of all new marriages by blacks, 12.1 percent were to white partners, up from 2.6 percent in 1976 (The New York Times, 4 July 1996, A10). According to the 1990 U.S. Census, 2 million children under 18 identified themselves as "multiracial." Evolving identities of non- 76 European racial and ethnic groups have challenged the very notion of "race" in the United States: "race" has increasingly been seen by historians and social scientists as a construct invented largely to assign social status and privilege. Yet today race is a feature of American life riven with powerful contradictions and ambiguities; it is arguably both the greatest source of social conflict and the richest source of cultural development in America. Since children of multiracial backgrounds could very well be the norm rather than the exception. Multicultural questions pervade art and literature: Which "Cultures" are to be canonized? Who decides? What constitutes a "culture"? Does it have to be ethnic, or could gays and lesbians be considered "cultures"? What does "we" mean? And who are "they"- "the other"? Should "multicultural" or "ethnic" texts be incorporated into the mainstream, or should the existing "we" even think in terms of a "mainstream"? Does celebrating "the other" actually reaffirm a structure of center/margin, that is, of a mainstream culture that "admits" for special study marginalized cultures within it? These ambiguities demonstrate that complacency about ethnic or cultural politics is unrealistic and undesirable. 77 Cultural Studies in Practice Marginalization Let us now approach Shakespeare's Hamlet with a view to seeing power in its cultural context. Shortly after the play within the play, Claudius is talking privately with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet's fellow students from Wittenberg (I1I.iii). In response to Claudius's plan to send Hamlet. to England, Rosencrantz delivers a speech that-if read out of context-is both an excellent set of metaphors (almost in the shape of a sonnet) and a summation of the Elizabethan concept of the role and power of kingship: The singular and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armor of the mind To keep itself from noyance, but much more That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it. It is a massy wheel Fixed on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortised and adjoined; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, 78 Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone Did the King sigh but with a general groan. (III.iii) The meanings of their names hardly match what seems to be the essence of their characters. Murray J. Levith, for example, has written that "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are from the Dutch-German: literally, 'garland of roses' and 'golden star.' Although of religious origin, both names together sound singsong and odd to English ears. Their jingling gives them a lightness, and blurs the individuality of the characters they label" (50). Simply, they have been students at Wittenberg. They return to Denmark, apparently at the direct request of Claudius (Il.ii). They try to pry from Hamlet some of his inner thoughts, especially of ambition and frustration about the crown (II.ii). Hamlet foils them. They crumble before his own questioning. As noted above, Claudius later sends them on an embassy with Hamlet, carrying a letter to the King of England that would have Hamlet summarily executed. Though they may not have known the contents of that "grand commission," Hamlet's suspicion of them is enough for him to contemplate their future-and to "trust them as adders fanged": They must sweep my way, And marshal me to knavery. Let it work, For 'tis the sport to have the engineer 79 Hoist with his own petard. And 't shall go hard But I will delve one yard below their mines And blow them to the moon: Oh, 'tis most sweet When in one line two crafts directly meet. (III.iv) In a moment, Hamlet substitutes a forged document bearing their names rather than his as the ones to be "put to sudden death,/Not shriving time allowed" (Vii). When Horatio responds: Why, man, they did make love to this employment. They are not near my conscience. Their defeat Does by their own insinuation grow. 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes Between the pass and fell incensed points. Of mighty opposites. And with that Shakespeare-as well as Hamlet-is done with these two characters. "They are not near [Hamlet's] conscience." Clearly Hamlet makes reference in the lines just noted to the "mighty opposites" represented by himself and Claudius. Clearly, too, the ones of "baser nature" who "[made] love to this employment" do not matter much in this struggle between powerful antagonists. It is almost as if Hamlet had tried before the sea voyage to warn them of 80 their insignificant state; he calls Rosencrantz a sponge, provoking this exchange: HAMLET:... ' Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! What replication should be made by the son of a king? ROSENCRANTZ: Take you me for a sponge, my lord? HAMLET: Aye, sir, that soaks up the King's countenance,

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