M.A. (English) First Semester – 2022
Paper – II: Approaches to Literary Criticism – I
Time Allowed: 3 Hours
Maximum Marks: 80
Note: Attempt all questions. Each question carries 16 marks.
I.
Why did M H Abrams write the essay “Orientation of Critical Theories”? What has he to say on pragmatic theories?
OR
Attempt a critical summary of Section IV of Abrams’s prescribed essay. What has Abrams to say on John Stuart Mill’s ideas on expressive poetry?
II.
What are the major concerns of the historical-biographical approach to literature?
OR
Attempt a critique of Taine’s ideas on literature.
III.
Discuss in detail what the Guerin Handbook has to say on Point of View and The Speaker’s Voice. Are both applicable to all literary modes: the lyric, the dramatic and the narrative? Illustrate your answer.
OR
Why is Brooks’s prescribed essay titled “The Heresy of Paraphrase”? Explain what he means when he writes, “Unless one asserts the primacy of the pattern, a poem becomes merely a sequence of potentially irrelevant items.”
IV.
Discuss Sigmund Freud’s ideas on dream symbolism and his theories concerning child psychology. Illustrate your answer.
OR
Attempt a critical summary of Section II of Trilling’s prescribed essay. What does Freud mean by saying that art is a “substitute gratification”?
V.
Comment critically on the archetypal insights of Jungian psychology.
OR
Discuss in detail what Frye writes on the central pattern of the comic and tragic visions. What has he to say on the comic and tragic vision in the human, animal, vegetable, mineral, and unformed world? Do you agree with him?
ma english question paper punjabi university 2022 Paper – II with solution
M.A. (English) First Semester – 2022
Paper – II: Approaches to Literary Criticism – I
SOLUTIONS
I. Why did M H Abrams write the essay “Orientation of Critical Theories”? What has he to say on pragmatic theories?
Answer
M. H. Abrams wrote his essay “Orientation of Critical Theories” to provide a systematic way of understanding the major approaches to literary criticism. He explains that different theories of literature can be understood by examining the relationship among four basic elements: the universe, the artist, the work, and the audience.
On this basis, Abrams identifies four major orientations:
- Mimetic
- Pragmatic
- Expressive
- Objective
Mimetic Orientation
The mimetic orientation considers the relationship between literature and the universe or reality. It asks how far a literary work imitates or represents life.
Plato and Aristotle are important representatives of this tradition. Aristotle’s theory of mimesis gives an important place to the representation of human action.
Expressive Orientation
The expressive orientation focuses on the relationship between the artist and the work. Literature is viewed as an expression of the author’s imagination, emotions, experiences and personality.
This orientation became particularly important during Romantic criticism.
Objective Orientation
The objective orientation focuses on the literary work itself. The critic examines language, structure, imagery, symbolism, irony, paradox and other internal features.
Formalism and New Criticism are closely related to this orientation.
Pragmatic Theories
Abrams explains that pragmatic theories focus on the relationship between the work and its audience.
The main concern is the effect that a literary work produces on the reader.
Literature may aim to:
- instruct,
- delight,
- persuade,
- educate,
- move emotionally,
- or produce a moral effect.
The classical principle of “dulce et utile”, or pleasure and instruction, is an important example.
Aristotle’s theory of tragedy can also be viewed pragmatically because tragedy produces emotions such as pity and fear and leads toward catharsis.
Horace similarly emphasized the combination of pleasure and instruction.
Merits
Pragmatic criticism recognizes that literature is written for communication and that readers respond emotionally and intellectually to literary works.
Limitations
However, if literary value is judged entirely by the effect on the reader, the artistic qualities of the work may be neglected. A work can possess great artistic value even when its immediate practical effect is uncertain.
Conclusion
Abrams’s classification is valuable because it organizes major approaches to literary criticism. Pragmatic criticism is especially concerned with the reader and the effect produced by literature. It is therefore an important orientation, though it should not be treated as the only way of judging literary value.
OR
Attempt a critical summary of Section IV of Abrams’s prescribed essay. What has Abrams to say on John Stuart Mill’s ideas on expressive poetry?
Answer
Section IV of Abrams’s discussion deals with the expressive orientation of literary criticism. This orientation places the artist or poet at the centre of literary creation.
According to expressive theory, literature is not simply an imitation of external reality. It is an expression of the poet’s inner experience, emotions, imagination and creative personality.
The Romantic movement gave particular importance to this idea. The poet’s individual consciousness became a major source of literary creation.
John Stuart Mill’s Ideas
John Stuart Mill makes an important distinction between poetry and eloquence.
For Mill, poetry is essentially associated with the expression of inward feeling. It is not primarily a deliberate attempt to influence an audience.
Eloquence, in contrast, is directed toward other people and seeks to persuade or affect them.
Mill’s view therefore gives poetry a strongly personal and expressive character.
The poet may experience an emotion privately and transform that experience into poetry. The poem is consequently an artistic manifestation of inner feeling.
Importance of Imagination
The expressive theory does not mean that poetry is merely a diary of personal experiences. The poet transforms experience through imagination and artistic form.
Critical Evaluation
Mill’s theory helps establish the importance of the poet’s personality and emotional life. However, a literary work cannot be completely reduced to its author’s personal experience.
The work also has its own structure, language, imagery and artistic organization.
Conclusion
Abrams uses the expressive tradition to show the historical movement toward viewing literature as an expression of the poet’s inner life. Mill’s distinction between poetry and eloquence is particularly important because it emphasizes poetry as inward expression rather than direct persuasion.
II. What are the major concerns of the historical-biographical approach to literature?
Answer
The historical-biographical approach studies literature in relation to the author’s life and the historical circumstances in which the work was produced.
Its basic assumption is that a literary work is influenced by the writer’s personal experiences as well as by the social and historical environment.
Major Concerns
1. Author’s Life
The critic studies the writer’s childhood, education, family, relationships, beliefs, experiences and personality.
Such information may help explain recurring themes and concerns.
2. Historical Background
The historical period of the writer is examined.
Wars, political movements, revolutions, social changes and intellectual developments can influence literary production.
3. Social Environment
The critic studies the author’s social and cultural surroundings, including class, religion, education, family and institutions.
4. Authorial Intention
Letters, diaries and other personal documents may provide information about what the author intended to communicate.
5. Literary Development
The biographical approach may examine how the author’s style and ideas changed during different stages of life.
Advantages
This approach can provide valuable context and explain references that may otherwise be difficult to understand.
Limitations
Literature cannot be reduced to biography. Fictional characters are not necessarily representations of the author, and literary events may be products of imagination.
Excessive dependence on biography may also cause the critic to ignore the independent structure and language of the literary work.
Conclusion
The historical-biographical approach is useful when the author’s life and historical context genuinely illuminate the text. However, it should be combined with textual analysis.
OR
Attempt a critique of Taine’s ideas on literature.
Answer
Hippolyte Taine developed a historical and sociological theory of literature based on three major factors:
Race, Moment and Milieu.
1. Race
“Race” refers to inherited national and cultural characteristics. Taine believed that such characteristics influence the intellectual and artistic tendencies of a people.
This aspect of his theory is controversial today because it can lead to broad racial generalizations.
2. Moment
“Moment” refers to the historical period in which the writer lives.
Political events, intellectual movements, wars and social changes influence literary production.
3. Milieu
“Milieu” means the social environment surrounding the writer.
Family, class, education, religion, institutions and cultural traditions all form part of this environment.
Determinism
The major weakness of Taine’s theory is its deterministic tendency.
If literature is explained entirely through race, moment and milieu, the individual creativity of the writer may be ignored.
Writers can resist, modify or challenge the conditions in which they live.
Importance
Despite its limitations, Taine’s theory was important because it encouraged critics to study literature in relation to society and history rather than treating literary works as completely isolated objects.
Conclusion
Race, moment and milieu are important contextual influences, but they cannot completely explain literary creation. Individual imagination and artistic creativity must also be considered.
III. Discuss in detail what the Guerin Handbook has to say on Point of View and The Speaker’s Voice. Are both applicable to all literary modes: the lyric, the dramatic and the narrative? Illustrate your answer.
Answer
Point of view refers to the perspective from which a literary work is presented. Speaker’s voice refers to the voice through which a literary work communicates its thoughts, feelings or events.
These concepts are particularly important because the author and the speaker or narrator are not necessarily the same person.
Point of View
Point of view may be:
- first person,
- third person,
- limited,
- omniscient.
First Person
The narrator uses “I” or “we”. The reader receives information through the narrator’s experience.
Third Person
The narrator uses “he,” “she” or “they”. The narrator may have limited or extensive knowledge.
Speaker’s Voice
The speaker is the voice that speaks in a literary work.
In poetry, the speaker should not automatically be identified with the poet. A poet can create a fictional speaker.
Application to Literary Modes
Lyric
The speaker’s voice is especially important in lyric poetry. The poem may present personal emotions, thoughts and reflections.
But the speaker is not necessarily identical to the poet.
Dramatic
Drama contains several speakers because different characters speak.
Meaning develops through dialogue, action and interaction.
The playwright does not necessarily act as a single narrator.
Narrative
Point of view is particularly important in narrative literature.
A story may have a first-person narrator, third-person limited narrator or omniscient narrator.
The choice of narrator determines what the reader knows.
Conclusion
Both concepts are applicable to lyric, drama and narrative, but their functions differ according to genre. Speaker’s voice is particularly important in lyric, while point of view is especially significant in narrative. Drama generally presents multiple voices through its characters.
OR
Why is Brooks’s prescribed essay titled “The Heresy of Paraphrase”? Explain what he means when he writes, “Unless one asserts the primacy of the pattern, a poem becomes merely a sequence of potentially irrelevant items.”
Answer
Cleanth Brooks’s “The Heresy of Paraphrase” is an important essay of New Criticism.
Brooks argues that a poem cannot be reduced to a simple prose statement because its meaning depends upon its complete artistic structure.
Meaning of “Heresy of Paraphrase”
Brooks calls paraphrase a “heresy” because paraphrasing a poem assumes that the poem contains a simple message that can be separated from its form.
For Brooks, a poem is an organic whole.
Its meaning emerges through the interaction of:
- imagery,
- metaphor,
- symbolism,
- irony,
- paradox,
- rhythm,
- diction,
- structure.
“Primacy of the Pattern”
By “primacy of the pattern,” Brooks means that the individual parts of a poem receive their significance from their relationship to the complete structure.
If the individual lines or images are separated from the overall pattern, they may appear unrelated or insignificant.
The complete pattern gives them meaning.
Why Paraphrase Is Inadequate
A paraphrase may tell us the basic subject of a poem, but it cannot reproduce its:
- rhythm,
- imagery,
- irony,
- ambiguity,
- symbolism,
- sound,
- structural relationships.
Therefore, a poem is not simply a collection of statements.
Conclusion
Brooks argues that the poem’s meaning exists in its total pattern. Paraphrase destroys the organic relationship between form and meaning. Therefore, close reading of the original text is essential for genuine appreciation.
IV. Discuss Sigmund Freud’s ideas on dream symbolism and his theories concerning child psychology. Illustrate your answer.
Answer
Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory has deeply influenced literary criticism. His ideas concerning dreams and childhood provide important ways of understanding hidden psychological meanings in literary works.
Dream Symbolism
Freud discusses dreams in The Interpretation of Dreams.
He distinguishes between:
Manifest Content
The dream as it is consciously remembered.
Latent Content
The hidden psychological meaning underlying the dream.
According to Freud, unconscious wishes may appear indirectly through dream symbols.
Dream Work
Unconscious material is transformed through processes such as condensation and displacement.
As a result, the actual desire may not appear directly in the dream.
Literary Application
Freudian criticism can use dream symbolism to examine hidden desires, fears and psychological conflicts in literature.
Dreams in literary works may therefore be interpreted as expressions of unconscious mental processes.
Child Psychology
Freud believed that early childhood experiences play an important role in the development of personality.
He proposed five major stages:
- Oral
- Anal
- Phallic
- Latency
- Genital
Unresolved conflicts during childhood may influence later personality.
Oedipus Complex
Freud’s Oedipus complex describes a child’s unconscious emotional attachment to one parent and rivalry with the other during the phallic stage.
The idea has been widely applied to literature dealing with family relationships.
Critical Evaluation
Freudian theory can reveal hidden psychological dimensions of literary characters and narratives.
However, it should not be applied mechanically. Not every literary symbol has a fixed Freudian meaning.
Conclusion
Freud’s theories of dreams and childhood provide useful tools for interpreting unconscious desires and psychological conflicts in literature. Their greatest value lies in revealing dimensions of a text that may not be immediately visible.
OR
Attempt a critical summary of Section II of Trilling’s prescribed essay. What does Freud mean by saying that art is a “substitute gratification”?
Answer
Lionel Trilling’s discussion of Freud and literature examines the relationship between artistic creation, desire and psychological experience.
Freud believed that human beings possess many desires that cannot always be satisfied directly because of social restrictions and the demands of reality.
Art can provide an alternative form through which these desires receive expression.
Substitute Gratification
A substitute gratification is an indirect form of satisfaction that takes the place of a desire that cannot be fulfilled directly.
For example, an individual may have desires that cannot be acted upon in ordinary social life. Through imagination and artistic creation, these desires can receive symbolic expression.
Literature therefore allows both the writer and reader to experience emotions and desires indirectly.
Sublimation
Freud’s concept of sublimation is closely connected with this idea.
In sublimation, instinctive energy is redirected toward socially acceptable and culturally valuable activities such as:
- art,
- literature,
- intellectual activity,
- creative work.
The artist transforms psychological impulses into an artistic form.
Art and the Reader
The reader can also experience substitute gratification.
A reader may identify with fictional characters and experience emotions that cannot be experienced directly in ordinary life.
Thus literature can provide pleasure while dealing with forbidden, frightening or painful subjects.
Critical Evaluation
Art cannot, however, be reduced entirely to psychological gratification.
Literature also involves form, language, imagination, cultural tradition and intellectual ideas.
Conclusion
When Freud calls art a “substitute gratification,” he means that art offers an indirect and socially acceptable form of satisfaction for desires that cannot be fulfilled directly. This concept helps explain both artistic creativity and the pleasure readers derive from literature.
V. Comment critically on the archetypal insights of Jungian psychology.
Answer
Carl Gustav Jung developed an influential psychological theory that later became important in literary criticism.
Jung accepted the existence of the unconscious but went beyond Freud by proposing the idea of the collective unconscious.
Collective Unconscious
According to Jung, human beings possess a deeper psychological level containing inherited patterns shared across humanity.
These patterns are expressed through archetypes.
Major Archetypes
Persona
The social mask or identity presented to society.
Shadow
The hidden and rejected aspects of personality.
Anima and Animus
Jung used these terms for unconscious feminine and masculine aspects of personality.
Self
The archetype of psychological wholeness and integration.
Hero
A recurring figure who faces obstacles and undergoes transformation.
Wise Old Man
A symbolic figure representing wisdom and guidance.
Great Mother
A figure associated with nourishment, fertility and life, but sometimes also with destructive forces.
Literary Importance
Jungian criticism uses archetypes to identify recurring patterns in:
- myths,
- dreams,
- stories,
- poems,
- religious narratives,
- literary characters.
A hero’s journey, for example, appears in many different literary and cultural traditions.
Strengths
Jungian theory helps critics compare works from different cultures and identify recurring symbols.
It also provides a psychological explanation for the persistence of certain literary images.
Limitations
However, archetypal criticism may become too universalizing.
Symbols do not necessarily have identical meanings in every culture.
It may also ignore historical circumstances and individual creativity.
Conclusion
Jungian psychology provides a powerful framework for understanding recurring literary symbols and patterns. However, archetypal interpretation should be combined with historical, cultural and textual analysis.
OR
Discuss in detail what Frye writes on the central pattern of the comic and tragic visions. What has he to say on the comic and tragic vision in the human, animal, vegetable, mineral, and unformed world? Do you agree with him?
Answer
Northrop Frye’s archetypal criticism studies recurring patterns in literature. He distinguishes between comic and tragic visions and examines how these patterns appear through different forms of imagery.
Comic Vision
The comic vision generally moves toward:
- reconciliation,
- community,
- renewal,
- fertility,
- social integration.
Comedy usually ends with restoration and the creation of a renewed social order.
Tragic Vision
The tragic vision moves toward:
- isolation,
- suffering,
- separation,
- destruction,
- death.
Tragedy usually ends with the fall or isolation of the central figure.
Human World
Comic
The human comic world represents community, social harmony and reconciliation.
Tragic
The tragic human world represents isolation, conflict and suffering.
Animal World
Comic
The comic animal world includes friendly, domesticated and peaceful animals.
Tragic
The tragic animal world includes predators and threatening beasts.
Vegetable World
Comic
The comic vegetable world is associated with gardens, forests, crops, flowers and fertility.
Tragic
The tragic vegetable world is represented by deserts, barren landscapes, wilderness and decay.
Mineral World
Comic
The comic mineral world includes houses, cities, temples and organized human structures.
Tragic
The tragic mineral world includes prisons, ruins, wastelands and destructive structures.
Unformed World
The unformed world represents chaos and the absence of organized form.
The comic movement attempts to transform chaos into order, while the tragic movement may move toward darkness, chaos and dissolution.
Evaluation
Frye’s theory is valuable because it provides a systematic method for identifying recurring patterns across literature.
However, literary works are often more complex than a simple comic-tragic division. A work may contain both comic and tragic elements.
Cultural and historical differences can also change the meaning of symbols.
Conclusion
I agree with Frye to a considerable extent because literature frequently uses recurring patterns of renewal, harmony, isolation and destruction. However, these patterns should be treated as interpretative frameworks rather than rigid rules. Individual writers can modify and transform archetypal patterns according to their own experiences and artistic purposes.