The purpose of the lecture is to introduce MA students to contemporary critical and theoretical approaches to literature and to show how they work in practice. The questions to be considered include the relatedness of criticism and literature, expressive, pragmatic and mimetic concerns of a literary text, the influence of historical, social and cultural contexts on our understanding of literature, the ethical stance in literary studies, intertextuality and discursive nature of language and interpretation, the role of the reader in the meaning-making process. To explore those concerns, the lecture covers major critical modes such as New Criticism, intertextual studies, structuralism, psychoanalysis, feminist criticism, reader-response criticism, intermedial studies, and postcolonial approaches. The examples chosen to illustrate each approach will be taken from various literary genres, with a view of exposing students to a wide range of formal and interpretative aspects of literature.
- Nauczyciel: Paulina Ambroży