Get premium membership and access questions with answers, video lessons as well as revision papers.

Nature and function of literary criticism in literature

      

Nature and function of literary criticism in literature

  

Answers

Faith
Literary criticism is basically an evaluation i.e. a judgment of value of literary works. It involves Understanding, analyzing and interpreting literary phenomena (facts or occurrence) in order to arrive at a balanced judgment.
An underlying assumption is that the critic knows the laws which govern the nature of literary
phenomena and that what is being interpreted has value arising out of its nature.
Hence, literary criticism investigates the nature of literary phenomena in an attempt to establish their function and hence their value. Literary criticism explains how and why literary value is realized in and through the nature of a literary work.
It explains and conducts and inquiry into how and why language is used in order to reveal the
cognitive and aesthetic nature and function of literary works.
Hence, the general nature and function of literary phenomena are established and this helps us to distinguish between what is literary and what is non-literary and to recognize quality when we encounter it. Also, literary criticism underlines the fact that all literary works have something in common as they fall under the general term literature. However, we recognize that every literary work is in a sense unique since it reveals something about human experience and man's
relationship with his environment in a new way. Consequently, a literary work is evaluated on its own terms.
NB: Although there exist common laws governing the nature of literary phenomena. Not all
works of literature use language and other literary techniques in the same way.
e.g. A poet may decide to use figurative language but not irony. But, the significance lies in what and how they tell us about life. Literary criticism focuses on human experiences reflected and expressed aesthetically and accounts for how this is done and why it is of value for man kind and life. Literature demands that criticism should account for its humanistic, universal and eternal value. The evaluation of a written literary work on its own terms calls for intensive reading so as to arrive at the value of a literary work and a balanced judgment. Literary criticism does not mean a condemnation of literary works although it can condemn them at times.
Literary works are created by man for man hence, should be handled with compassion and
approached with a sense of humility and modesty. However, the need for compassion does not
condone dishonest, flattery and cowardly literary criticism. Literature, as the soviet novelist
Mikhail Shekhov says, should be talked about in a straight, fearless way and to call a spade a
spade. This calls for objectivity in literary criticism and hence a balanced evaluation of what is written. Thus, literary criticism does not condemn works on flimsy grounds such as dislike of the subject –matter or the racial origins of creators of literary works. What is of lasting value- both cognitively and aesthetically for mankind?
Objectivity frowns upon subjectivism. i.e. the assertion that only one interpretation is valid
objectivity demand that we look at a literary work in its totality putting into consideration that in its nature a literary work is a complete autonomous world.
Consequently, literary criticism does not see literature purely in terms of its aesthetic features, its content, its background, its psychology or its form. Since a literary work is more than any of these though literary criticism admits that a focus on what a critic thinks is an important feature in a particular work. Literary criticism demands coherence not scattered impressions. The nature of the illusion of reality demands that the critic does distinguish between life and its reflection in literature. A critic should develop critical faculties so as to appreciate works produced by sensitive literary writers in an attempt to understand and cope with life aesthetically for the good of mankind.
Titany answered the question on November 11, 2021 at 09:31

Next: The place of theory and literary criticism in literature
Previous: What is complex emergency?

View More Kenyan Literature Questions and Answers | Return to Questions Index


Learn High School English on YouTube

Related Questions

© 2008-2024 by KenyaPlex.com. All Rights Reserved | Home | About Us | Contact Us | Copyright | Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Advertise