Literary Criticism

Literary Genre: NOVEL

Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe

Neoclassicism (from Greek νέος neos, Latin classicus and Greek -ισμός ismos) is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome. The main Neoclassical movement coincided with the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, and continued into the early 19th century, latterly competing with Romanticism. In architecture the style continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and into the 21st.

The Plot Summary

Robinson Crusoe is a young man that lives with his parents, they advise him to choose a suitable life, but Robinson is attracted by a different kind of life, a sea life.

On 1 September 1651, Hull,a Robinson's friend invites him for a trip on a ship going to London. A big storm caught them, and Robinson is so scared that he promises himself to give up his dreams and obey his parents.

Once the storm is over and they reached the coast, Robinson soon forgets everything and decides to set sail to Guinea. Robinson also goes on a second voyage to Guinea, but this time he is captured by Moorish pirates and sold as a slave in North Africa. After sometime, providing himself with a gun and some provisions, Robinson escapes in a little boat with Xury, another slave. In their adventure sailing with no direction, Robinson is aware of the threats of the unknown West African coast, inhabited by wild animals and savage tribes. After an initial examination of the land, Robinson is able to rescue some provisions from the shipwrecked: muskets, pistols, gunpowder, food, clothes, ink, paper, tools, bibles, two cats and a dog. He builds a hut incrusted in a rock to protect himself from the tropical climate and to store safely all his provisions. He sets a calendar and writes a journal with his experiences, and teaches a parrot some words.

Initially, Robinson hunts goats and turtles to feed himself. Later, he explores deeply the island and found rich grapes. He set traps to get goats alive to get them domesticated in order to assure him meat provision during the seasons of bad weather. He also sows wheat and he makes pottery and baskets.

One night, Robinson dreams that he saves a savage from death in a cannibal ritual, and like a premonition it happens later. The savage is named Friday and becomes his servant. Robinson teaches him English language, Christian religion principles and civi lised habits. Friday reveals Robinson that the cannibals have Spanish prisoners. Eventually, after twenty years living on the desert island, Robinson returns to England with Friday. Robinson is a rich man, his wealth proceeds from the Brazilian plantation and from the shipwrecked. Robinson goes to Portugal crossing Spain and France, and passing the Pyrenees, his convoy is attacked by wolfs and a wild bear, which is killed by Friday with amazing skill.

In his latest days, his adventurous spirit makes him to travel to the East Indies as a tradesman. Robinson also revisits his solitude island. He also travels to China, where he is involved in a real battle against looters. Finally, he returns to England.

The Interpretation

Robinson Crusoe is based on a real incident. In 1704, Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor, was thrown onto a desolate island by the mutinous crew of his ship. He lived there alone for 5 years. Defoe read about his adventures in a newspaper and went to interview him to get first-hand information. He then embellished the sailor’s tale with many incidents out of his own imagination. Robinson Crusoe has the appearance of a picaresque novel, showing a lowly person’s wonderings over the world.

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Directed by: Frank Coraci

The term “moral criticism” has sometimes been applied to a tendency in modern anglophone Literary CRITICISM since  Arnold , and particularly to the positions of such critics as F.R. Leavis and Lionel Trilling. Distinguishing these critical positions from various kinds of Formalism , it indicates the prominence of moral and ethical vocabularies in their terms of judgment: maturity, sincerity, honesty, sensitivity, or courage become important criteria in the valuation of literary and other works. From a strict formalist standpoint, such terminology betrays habits of reading that are imperfectly emancipated from the Intentional FALLACY in their apparent confounding of textual with authorial characteristics. And although moral criticism is rarely as theoretically naive as its opponents claim, it encounters genuine problems of this kind in its attempts to read through the text to the originating “quality of mind” that has produced it. Moral criticism should by no means by confused with a merely censorious or moralistic attitude to culture.

Literary Genre: POEM

THE WASTE LAND

T. S Elliot

Literary Modernism has its origins in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly in Europe and North America. Modernism is characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional styles of poetry and verse. Modernists experimented with literary form and expression, adhering to the modernist maxim to "Make it new." The modernist literary movement was driven by a desire to overturn traditional modes of representation and express the new sensibilities of their time.

The Summary of the Poem

The poem begins with a section entitled "The Burial of the Dead." In it, the narrator -- perhaps a representation of Eliot himself -- describes the seasons. Spring brings "memory and desire," and so the narrator's memory drifts back to times in Munich, to childhood sled rides, and to a possible romance with a "hyacinth girl." The memories only go so far, however. The narrator is now surrounded by a desolate land full of "stony rubbish."
He remembers a fortune-teller named Madame Sosostris who said he was "the drowned Phoenician Sailor" and that he should "fear death by water." Next he finds himself on London Bridge, surrounded by a crowd of people. He spots a friend of his from wartime, and calls out to him.

The next section, "A Game of Chess," transports the reader abruptly from the streets of London to a gilded drawing room, in which sits a rich, jewel-bedecked lady who complains about her nerves and wonders what to do. The poem drifts again, this time to a pub at closing time in which two Cockney women gossip. Within a few stanzas, we have moved from the upper crust of society to London's low-life.

"The Fire Sermon" opens with an image of a river. The narrator sits on the banks and muses on the deplorable state of the world. As Tiresias, he sees a young "carbuncular" man hop into bed with a lonely female typist, only to aggressively make love to her and then leave without hesitation. The poem returns to the river, where maidens sing a song of lament, one of them crying over her loss of innocence to a similarly lustful man.

"Death by Water," the fourth section of the poem, describes a dead Phoenician lying in the water -- perhaps the same drowned sailor of whom Madame Sosostris spoke. "What the Thunder Said" shifts locales from the sea to rocks and mountains. The narrator cries for rain, and it finally comes. The thunder that accompanies it ushers in the three-pronged dictum sprung from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: "Datta, dayadhvam, damyata": to give, to sympathize, to control. With these commandments, benediction is possible, despite the collapse of civilization that is under way -- "London bridge is falling down falling down falling down."

The Interpretation

The Waste Land is a 434-line modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity—its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its elegiac but intimidating summoning up of a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures—the poem has become a familiar touchstone of modern literature. Among its famous phrases are "April is the cruellest month," "I will show you fear in a handful of dust," and the mantra in the Sanskrit language "Shantih shantih shantih."
Since the human level is an extension of the societal level, the basic themes are the same for both. The main theme is "modern life as a waste land." Eliot supports the theme by showing what was wrong with society in the early twentieth century. These shortcomings include lack of faith, lack of communication, fear of both life and death, corruption of the life-water symbol, and corruption of sex.

Literary Genre: ESSAY

NATURE

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ecocriticism  is the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view where all sciences come together to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation.

Ecocritics investigate such things as the underlying ecological values, what, precisely, is meant by the word nature, and whether the examination of "place" should be a distinctive category, much like class, gender or race. Ecocritics examine human perception of wilderness, and how it has changed throughout history and whether or not current environmental issues are accurately represented or even mentioned in popular culture and modern literature. Other disciplines, such as history, philosophy, ethics, and psychology, are also considered by ecocritics to be possible contributors to ecocriticism.

The Text

The essay tries to implies us that we should protect and support our nature. Nature always wears the color of our spirits. People need to be responsible enough in protecting and saving our nature. It shows us ecological values that we must try to practice for us to save and preserve our natural resources. We also need to be aware about the environmental issues we may encounter as we continue to ignore the dying condition of our nature.

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THE FILMS OF JOHN CASSAVETES: 

PRAGMATISM, MODERNISM, AND THE MOVIES

 MOVIE

FISHING A BORDERLESS SEA

Brian J. Payne

Territorialism / Possessions (objects of desire) are metaphors for who we are or how we wish to be perceived—aspects of the “self.”. It may be tangible or intangible (my car or my idea, e.g.)
They occupy mental space: cognitive, affective, and conative.
These spaces strongly resemble territories—with rights of ownership, markers, boundaries, rules of “in” and “out,” defensive strategies, etc.

The Summary:

Over the centuries, processing and distribution of products from land and sea has stimulated the growth of a global economy. In the broad sweep of world history, it may be hard to imagine a place for the meager little herring baitfish. Yet, as Brian Payne adeptly recounts, the baitfish trade was hotly contested in the Anglo-American world throughout the nineteenth century. Politicians called for wars, navies were dispatched with guns at the ready, vessels were seized at sea, and violence erupted at sea.
Yet, the battle over baitfish was not simply a diplomatic or political affair. Fishermen from hundreds of villages along the coastline of Atlantic Canada and New England played essential roles in the construction of legal authority that granted or denied access to these profitable bait fisheries.

LITERARY GENRE: NOVEL

According to Marxists, and to other scholars in fact, literature reflects those social institutions out of which it emerges and is itself a social institution with a particular ideological function. Literature reflects class struggle and materialism: think how often the quest for wealth traditionally defines characters. So Marxists generally view literature "not as works created in accordance with timeless artistic criteria, but as 'products' of the economic and ideological determinants specific to that era" (Abrams 149). Literature reflects an author's own class or analysis of class relations, however piercing or shallow that analysis may be.

The Plot Summary:

The story begins with a description of the Dursleys, an utterly normal family in England, who are left with baby Harry Potter on their doorsteps. Aunt Petunia's sister Lily married James Potter and became a powerful couple in the wizard's world. They were killed by the evil Voldemort, leaving Harry with a large scar on his forehead and legacy as the only wizard to escape Voldemort alive. Head wizard Albus Dumbledore decides to have Harry grow up with the Dursleys until he is ready to attend Hogwarts, the premiere magic school in England. At age 11, Harry is whisked away to Hogwarts by the giant gamekeeper, Hagrid, to find himself lost amongst a new world of magic and power.

Hagrid takes Harry to Diagon Alley, where he retrieves some of his inheritance from Gringotts, the wizard bank, and purchases his books, wand, and robes from the Leaky Cauldron and Ollivanders. On the train to Hogwarts at platform Nine and Three Quarters, Harry meets his new friend Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Everyone is amazed to meet the famous Harry Potter. On the train Harry also meets Draco Malfoy, a boy with whom he develops a distrust and hatred. At Hogwarts, the children meet Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, and Quirrell, all professors and wizards. At the opening banquet, the Sorting Hat decides in which house the children live, sorting Hermione, Neville, Ron, and Harry into Gryffindor, and Draco Malfoy into Slytherin, the house run by Snape and known to have schooled Voldemort in years past.

Hermione busies herself with studies, Ron with chess, and Harry with learning about his family and powers. He becomes an expert at flying and is allowed to play Quidditch for Gryffindor's team. Draco Malfoy continually tries to get the Gryffindor kids in trouble, by setting them up and dragging them away from their beds at the wrong time. One day, Ron and Harry come across a large troll and rescue Hermione from death. From then on, the threesome spies on Snape and Quirrell and seek to discover the secrets at Hogwarts. They realize that the Sorceror's Stone is hidden by a three-headed dog at Hogwarts and is the secret to eternal life created by Nicholas Flamel. They believe Snape is the culprit behind the evil and try to stop him from destroying Harry and Hogwarts.

Meanwhile, Hagrid keeps an eye on Harry and looks out for him. They visit Hagrid and meet his new pet dragon, Norbert. Norbert causes problems for everyone, as dragons are illegal animals. The three send the dragon away to Romania under Harry's Invisibility Cloak and are discovered out of bed doing so. They are branded and punished with detention and stricken of fifty points each. As detention the kids must help clean up the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid. They find a unicorn slaughtered, with its blood scattered across the ground, and are frightened by an evil spirit. The good centaur Firenze flies Harry away from danger in the forest as soon as he discovers who Harry is.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione discover that Voldemort tricked Hagrid into revealing the method by which to get past the three-headed dog and to the Sorcerer's Stone. They rush past the dog, and through the chambers to stop Voldemort from killing Harry. Ron gets everyone past the life sized Wizard's Chess board, while Hermione breaks the riddle that allows Harry to proceed to the ultimate chamber under ground. He sees the Mirror of Erised, the same mirror that shows the hopes and dreams of the person who looks inside. He finds Quirrell in the chamber without his stutter. He admits to hosting Voldemort and trying to destroy Harry in the forest. When his turban is removed, Harry sees a double face on top of Quirrell's head - it is Voldemort, and he wants to use Harry to get the Stone and then kill him. Harry discovers the Stone in his pocket and tries to kill Voldemort/Quirrel until he blacks out.

Harry awakens in the infirmary to Dumbledore congratulating him. He saved the Stone, Hogwarts, and his own life. Because of his bravery and that of Hermione, Ron, and Neville, Gryffindor wins the House Cup for the year. Harry must go back to the Dursleys for the summer, but looks forward to all the magic he will practice and learn in the future.

THE INTERPRETATION:

Marxist literary criticism is based upon the political and economic theories of the German philosopher Karl Marx. His theory is formulated specifically to analyze how society functions in a state of upheaval and constant change. Harry Potter's world, the Muggle (non-magical) world, but especially his magical world illustrates the properties of a Marxist society.

In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone a group known as the Ministry of Magic governs the magical world. It is reiterated time after time in the novel that the rules set down by this governing body must be adhered at all times or the punishment shall be severe, for example imprisonment in the Wizard's prison of Azkaban where the mind is virtually erased. Or a much worse sentence could be handed down that being death. This ministry uses the veil of intimidation to coerce the witches and wizards into following their rules much like Karl Marx wanted his followers to do.