An Overview
Benefits
Limitations
The Metamorphosis
Random Lit Crit
100
What is Historical Criticism?
Criticism that views works of literature not only as products of the Artist's imagination but also products of historical circumstances
100
What must be known to understand books through the lens of Historical Criticism?
Background Knowledge!
100
Name any limit
Pieces of Literature are works of fiction, historical context can distract from the work, historical background isn't strictly necessary to appreciate the work, etc.
100
What Kind of laws oppressing Jewish peoples were in affect in Austria-Hungry when Kafka wrote the Metamorphosis?
None, just anti-sematic attitudes
100
When did Abraham Lincoln write the Gettysburg Address?
1863
200
What is it shaped by?
Social and Political context, norms, hopes, fears, customs, attitudes, limitations of the time
200
Who said 'History had been transformed...by the study of literature'?
Hippolyte Taine
200
How does Shakespeare's play Othello illustrate Shakespeare's ability to break free from the historical determinants of his age?
Othello is a Moor and a full, complex, noble human being
200
When was the Metamorphosis written?
Around the time of World War One
200
What period of American literature followed the Romantic Period (1830-1865)?
Realistic Period
300
How do we use Historical Criticism to understand literature?
By understanding the time it takes place in, the problems, anxieties, and biases of the time period
300
How can the diary of Anne Frank or other first hand accounts of tragedies like the Holocaust have more impact than statistics or facts?
First hand accounts force us to experience historical tragedies like the Holocaust through the eyes of other human beings
300
What does history have that literature does not?
Professional boundaries (finding evidence, confirming facts, presenting multiple viewpoints, crediting sources)
300
What impact does the history of the time have on the Metamorphosis?
Very Little
300
What stands for certain definite ideas and attitudes mainly drawn from the critical utterances of the Greeks and Romans?
Classicism
400
What happens as a result of the ever changing attitudes of society?
The interpretation of a work will mutate over time and, be perverted from the interpretation the author intended
400
A historical critic would believe that all artworks are determined by what?
The author's personal background, environment, and historic era
400
Why do some critics believe some of the world's great and lasting pieces of literature have lasted so long?
They are transcendent because of their timeless significance
400
Why does the history of the time have such very little impact on the Metamorphosis?
Since it all takes place inside Gregor’s house and we don’t even know the name of the town, there is little that we need background information for to understand.
400
Who was associated with the Knickerbocker group of writers?
Washington Irving
500
Explain how Shakespeare's Hamlet could be viewed through the eyes of a historical critic
Political Status of the Elizabethan Era
500
What is the main way literature can illuminate history?
In the way it focuses on the individual
500
Explain Hamlet through the eyes of a critic of historical criticism.
Hamlet's lasting value is not what it teaches us about the history of Elizabethan England but what it teaches us about the eternal human condition.
500
Explain how BIOGRAPHICAL Criticism can be used to analyze the Metamorphosis
Any example given in group one's presentation is acceptable
500
What was the English Literary period between the execution of Charles I and the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II?
Commonwealth Interregnum
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