01 2nd Quarter

Introduction to World Literature

• What is metaphor?
• What is simile?
Verse 1:
Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind, wanting
to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper
thin
Like a house of cards, one blow
from cavin' in?
Refrain:
You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July
Chorus:
'Cause baby, you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, "Oh, oh, oh"
As you shoot across the sky
Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, "Oh, oh, oh"
You're gonna leave 'em all in awe,
awe, awe
Chorus:
'Cause baby, you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, "Oh, oh, oh"
As you shoot across the sky
Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, "Oh, oh, oh"
You're gonna leave 'em all in awe,
awe, awe
 ONE THING

"Shot me out of the sky

You're my kryptonite
You keep making me weak
Yeah, frozen and can't breathe"
 RED

Loving him is like driving a new

Maserati down a dead end street
Faster than the wind, passionate
as sin, ending so suddenly
INTRO TO WORLD INTRO TO LITERARY LITERARY APPROACHES
LITERATURE CRITICISM
01 2nd Quarter
Introduction to World Literature
 LESSON OBJECTIVES
• To develop an understanding of literary works from
different cultures and time periods.

• Foster an appreciation for the diversity and richness of

global literary traditions Engage in discussions and
debates about the significance and impact of world
literature.

• Identify the different literary approaches and effective

writing skills by composing essays and responses that
analyze and interpret literary works.
WHAT IS
• Refers to the body of literary works that
have been created, distributed, and
circulated beyond their country of origin.

• It encompasses literary texts from

different cultures and languages,
highlighting the diversity and
interconnectedness of global literature.
• Literature has been proven to be one
of the best ways to understand and
combat the different social issues
around the world.

• Social issues are problems that affect

certain groups of people in negative
ways that shape our world.
Give any local or global issue in
2023 based on the following topics:

• Human Rights
• Gender
• Education
• Financial / Political Corruption
• Climate Change / Natural
Environment
• Asian Literature
• Anglo-American Literature
• European Literature
• Latin American Literature
• African Literature
“Literary criticism is the study,
analysis, and evaluation of
imaginative literature. Everyone
who expresses an opinion about a
book, a song, a play, or a movie is
a critic, but not everyone’s opinion
is based upon thought, reflection,
analysis, or consistently articulated
principles.” Mark Lund, 96
Critical Approaches,
sometimes called lenses,
are different
perspectives we
consider when looking
at a piece of literature.
 Critical Approaches seek to give us answers to these
questions, in addition to aiding us in interpreting literature:
1. Readers-response Criticism
2. Sociological Criticism
2A. Marxism
2B. Feminism
2C. Gender Criticism
3. Deconstructionism
4. Psychological
5. Historical
• Removes the focus from the text and places
it on the reader instead, by attempting to
describe what goes on in the reader’s mind
during the reading of a text.

• Reader-response critics are not interested in

a “correct” interpretation of a text or what
the author intended. They are interested in
the reader’s individual experience with a text.

• There is no single definitive reading of a text,

because the reader is creating, as opposed
to discovering, absolute meanings in texts.
2 IMPORTANT IDEAS IN
READERS-RESPONSE
APPROACH
1. An individual reader’s
interpretation usually changes
over time.

2. Readers from different

generations and different
periods interpret texts
differently.
1. Who is the reader? Who is
the implied reader?

2. What experiences, thoughts,

or knowledge does the text
evoke?

3. What aspects or characters

of the text do you identify or
disidentify with, and how
does this process of
identification affect your
response to the text?
Sociological
criticism analyzes
how society
functions within
literature and
how literature
functions within
society.
Sociological criticism is directed to understanding (or placing)
literature in its larger social context; it codifies the literary
strategies that are employed to represent social constructs
through a sociological methodology.

There are many subcategories of sociological criticism, two of

the most prominent being Marxist criticism and feminist criticism.
Subcategory of Sociological Criticism
 also attempt to
tries to correct Asserts that most understand
predominantly literature representation from a
male-dominated throughout time has woman’s point of view
critical perspective been written by and analyze women’s
with a feminist men, for men. writing strategies in the
consciousness. context of their social
conditions.
A. How are women’s lives portrayed in the work?
B. Is the form and content of the work influenced by the writer’s
gender?
C. How do male and female characters relate to one another? Are
these relationships sources of conflict? Are these conflicts resolved?
D. Does the work challenge or affirm traditional views of women?
E. How do the images of women in the story reflect patriarchal social
forces that have impede women’s efforts to achieve full equality
with men?
F. What marital expectations are imposed on the characters? What
effect do these expectations have?
G. What behavioral expectations are imposed on the characters?
What effect do these expectation have?
H. If a female character were male, how would the story be different
(and vice versa)?
I. How does the marital status of a character affect her decisions or
happiness?
How do you
view these
Disney
Princesses
with the lens
of a feminist?
Subcategory of Sociological Criticism
• This approach examines how sexual identity influences the creation and
reception of literary works.

• is a relatively recent and evolving school of criticism, which questions and

problematizes the issues of gender identity and sexual orientation in literary
texts.

• Queer theory overlaps in many respects

with feminist theory in its aims and goals,
being at once political and practical. To
many queer theorists, gender is not a
fixed identity that shapes actions and
thoughts, but rather a “role” that is
“performed.”
Subcategory of Sociological Criticism
Marxist criticism is a strongly politically-oriented
criticism, deriving from the theories of the
social philosopher Karl Marx.

Marxist criticism examines literature to see how it

reflects:

1. The way in which dominant groups (typically, the

majority) exploits the subordinate groups (typically,
the minority)
2. The way in which people become alienated from
one another through power, money and politics.
1. What role does class play in the work;
what is the author's analysis of class
relations?

2. How do characters overcome oppression?

3. In what ways does the work serve as

propaganda for the status quo; or does it
try to undermine it?

4. What does the work say about

oppression; or are social conflicts ignored
or blamed elsewhere?
A. What is the relationship between the characters and their
society?
B. Does the story address societal issues, such as race, gender, and
class?
C. How do social forces shape the power relationships between
groups or classes of people in the story? Who has the power,
and who doesn’t? Why?
D. How does the story reflect the Great American Dream?
E. How does the story reflect urban, rural, or suburban values?
F. What does the work say about economic or social power? Who
has it and who doesn’t? Any Marxist leanings evident? etc.?
G. Does the story address issues of economic exploitation? What role
does money play?
H. How do economic conditions determine the direction of the
characters’ lives?
I. Does the work challenge or affirm the social order it depicts. Can
the protagonist’s struggle be seen as symbolic of a larger class
struggle?
J. How does the microcosm (small world) of the story reflect the
macrocosm (large world) of the society in which it was composed?
K. Do any of the characters correspond to types of government, such
as a dictatorship, democracy, communism, socialism, fascism,
Psychological Criticism, also
known as Psychoanalytical
Criticism, is the analysis of an
author's unintended
message.

The main goal is to analyze

the unconscious elements
within a literary text based
on the background of the
author.
This psychological approach mainly
influenced by the work of Sigmund
Freud and Carl Jung.

Sigmund Freud put forward the theory

that literary texts are a manifestation of
the secret unconscious desires and
anxieties of the author. Thus, evaluating
the behavior of a character will help
the reader to trace the childhood, SIGMUND FREUD
family life, fixations, traumas, conflicts.
However, these facts are not directly
expressed in the work; they are often CARL JUNG
expressed indirectly in the form of
dreams, symbols, and images.
A. What forces are motivating the characters?
B. Which behaviors of the characters are conscious ones?
C. Which are unconscious?
D. What conscious or unconscious conflicts exist between the
characters?
E. Given their backgrounds, how plausible is the characters’
behavior?
F. Are the theories of Freud or other psychologists applicable to
this work? To what degree?
G. Do any of the characters correspond to the parts of the
tripartite self? (Id, ego, superego)
H. What roles do psychological disorders and dreams play in this
story?
I. Are the characters recognizable psychological types?
J. How might a psychological approach account for different
responses in female and male readers?
K. How does the work reflect the writer’s personal psychology?
L. What do the characters’ emotions and behaviors reveal about
their psychological states?
M. How does the work reflect the unconscious dimensions of the
writer’s mind?
N. How does the reader’s own psychology affect his response to
the work?
• Suggests that language is not a stable entity, and that we can never exactly
say what we mean. Therefore, literature cannot give a reader any one single
meaning, because the language itself is simply too ambiguous.

• Deconstructionists value the idea that literature cannot provide any outside
meaning; texts cannot represent reality.

• Thus, a deconstructionist critic will deliberately emphasize the ambiguities of

the language that produce a variety of meanings and possible readings of a
text.
• Historical criticism seeks to
interpret the work of literature
through understanding the time
and culture in which the work
was written. The historical critic
is more interested in the
meaning that the literary work
had for its own time than in the
meaning the work might have
today.
A. How does it reflect the time in which it was written?
B. How accurately does the story depict the time in which it is set?
C. What literary or historical influences helped to shape the form and content of the
work?
D. How does the story reflect the attitudes and beliefs of the time in which it was
written or set?
E. What other literary works may have influenced the writer?
F. What historical events or movements might have influenced this writer?
G. How would characters and events in this story have been viewed by the writer’s
contemporaries?
H. Does the story reveal or contradict the prevailing values of the time in which it
was written? Does it provide an opposing view of the period’s prevailing values?
I. How important is it the historical context (the work’s and the reader’s) to
interpreting the work?
• Formalist Approach: Analyzing a poem based on its structure, language, and form, without considering the historical or biographical context of
the author.

• Historical Approach: Interpreting a play in the context of the time period it was written, such as analyzing "Macbeth" in relation to the political
and social climate of Shakespeare's era.

• Feminist Approach: the analysis of "The Handmaid's Tale" by ​Margaret Atwood. A feminist approach would involve examining the portrayal of
women in a dystopian society and how the novel explores themes of gender oppression, control over women's bodies, and the resilience of
female characters in the face of patriarchal dominance.

• Psychological Approach: Interpreting a text based on the psychological motivations and behaviors of the characters, such as analyzing the
complex psyche of the characters in "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

• Gender Approach: Examining literature through the lens of gender roles and identities, such as analyzing "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker for
its portrayal of female empowerment and oppression.

• Reader-Response Criticism: Analyzing how readers respond to and interpret a text, such as studying the diverse reader reactions to "The Catcher
in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger.

• Deconstructionist Criticism: Examining the underlying assumptions and biases in a literary work, such as deconstructing the power dynamics and
language in "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad.

• ​New Criticism Approach: Analysis of "​The Road Not Taken" by ​Robert Frost. A New Critic would focus on close reading of the ​poem, emphasizing
the text itself rather than considering the author's intention or the historical context of the poem. This approach would involve examining the use
of ​symbolism, imagery, diction, and structure within the poem to derive meaning and explore the layers of complexity present within the text.
• It evolved out of the same root theoretical
system as deconstructionism, called formalist
criticism.

• New criticism suggests that the text is a self-

contained entity, and that everything that
the reader needs to know to understand it is
already in the text.

• It takes a close reading of a work and

analyzes the content, such as by looking at
themes, structures like iambic pentameter,
and literary devices.