RELS 1210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Church Bell, Adrienne Rich, Lyric Poetry
19 Jun 2018
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ENGLISH 2205 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Jan. 8, 2018
What is Practical Criticism?
Theory of criticism vs. practice
oCriticism: understanding meaning; interpreting significance; evaluating the worth of a
text
Criticism with a pragmatic function or value
Something you learn by practice
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Biographia Literaria (1817)
In chapter 15, Coleridge speaks of applying his theoretical principles "to purposes of practical
criticism"
I.A. Richards (1893-1979)
Principles of Literary Criticism, 1924
Practical Criticism, 1929
Four Kinds of Meaning
1.Sense
2.Feeling
3.Tone
4.Intention
Practical Criticism
Obstacles to good reading, e.g., stock responses, irrelevant associations
American "New Criticism"
Focussed on "the poem itself" or "the words on the page"
Critic's task is "practical criticism" or "close reading"
Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren,
Understanding Poetry (1939)
Brooks, The Well Wrought Urn (1947)
The New Criticism
Disregard author's intention and look at poem as a "verbal icon"
W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley, "The Intentional Fallacy" (1946)
Text and Content
Jonathan Culler: "Meaning is context-bound, but context is boundless."
On Deconstruction, 1982
Leo Spitzer, "Linguistics and Literary History" (1948)
Although a great literary scholar, Spitzer confessed that he often stared at a page of literary
work, trying to work out what was goin on in the same way that he did as a beginning student.
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Then a word or line would suddenly stand out as significant, beginning the process of
understanding.
The "philological circle": process of understanding a literary work
detail understanding of the whole
"The detail can only be understood by the whole and any explanation of detail presupposes the
understanding of the whole."
Sir Geoffrey Hill, 1932-2016
For the Unfallen 1959
Genre?
What kind of poem is "In Memory of Jane Fraser"?
Elgy: a poem of mourning, lamenting the death of a loved one or a prominent public figure
Usually includes some form of consolation
(Originally the term referred to a poetic metre in a classical literature - hexameter followed by
pentameter)
Jan. 10, 2018
Metaphors Poem
oShe is pregnant (Elephant in the ponderous home, a cow in calf, a Melon or two tendrils)
oHow she feel about being pregnant? She's having cravings for applies, she's boarded a
train and cant get off. She feels uncomfortable and self conscious about it.
oBoarded the train and cannot get off. There is no going back.
Dover Beach poem
oCould be worried about his marriage
oNothing to rely on
oSays there's no love in the world but why would he call her love?
**Metaphors 1961, pg. 240**
**Page 12**
Jan. 15, 2018
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"Kubla Khan"
Pg. 57
Analyze the imagery of the poem in terms of gender division: which images are associated with
traditionally masculine and feminine qualities?
Opening lines: masculine due to the line "Through caverns measureless to man"
The emperor of China; masculine
The walls
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