CRITICAL APPROACHES

 

A critical approach may be defined as a specialized mode of analysis, which is based on a detailed body of ideas or assumptions that constitutes its conceptual basis. There are many critical approaches available for consideration, of which three may be regarded as quintessential in character. These are the sociological, the psychological and the textual approach respectively. The reason as to why the three mentioned are identified as quintessential is because each provide a distinct analytic take on the literary work of art under scrutiny, via focusing on diverse aspects concerning the text. The idea becomes clear when we appraise the approaches separately, as it has been attempted below.

 

SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH

 

    Sociological approach refers to a method of literary analysis in which the work of art is examined in relation to the sociopolitical context in which it was written. According to this approach, the sensibilities of an author is invariably influenced by the various social factors prevalent at any given time or place. This influence subsequently spills over into the literary text which that author produces, thereby making the text in question a sociologically motivated production. The natural conclusion is that in order to understand what the text contains as content, it is required that it be scrutinized in the light of the many probable factors which could have possibly shaped its making. So in a sociological approach it is vital that the critic is adequately familiar with the knowledge pertaining to the social or historical context corresponding to the text to make sense of it. A classic example is Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice.

 

    In this work, Mrs. Bennet is constantly shown to be fretting over the marriage of her five daughters, and is portrayed as trying her best at every turn to arrange for it. Now on the face of it this might be thought of as an undue worry, and at best as expressing a mother’s concern for her children. However, this is not so. Not only is her fretting well founded, but it is also not just a matter of maternal concern. The thing is at the time the novel was written, which is early 19^th century, women in England did not have the legal right to inherit their family property. The family wealth could only be inherited by a male heir, and if there is no son in the family, then the property would pass on to the closest male relative outside the immediate family circle. Mrs. Bennet’s worry is founded on the fact that she has no son, and if something were to happen to her aging husband, then the family wealth would pass over to a relative outside the family. This would naturally mean that her daughters would be left at the mercy of a relative, who can choose to help or ignore them. However, if they were all married well before anything fatal could befall their father, they could be saved from enduring such a plight. The piece of information regarding female inheritance therefore becomes a critical factor in understanding Mrs. Bennet’s true intentions, and by extension the novel’s overall meaning. It is also noteworthy that the author who wrote the novel is a woman. So the concern expressed in the work, was a very real concern that Austen herself must have experienced in her actual life. The social factor concerning the legal right of women to inherit thus must have initially influenced the sensibility of Austen, which then spilled over into the text.

 

    The sociological approach epitomises a vast framework that encompasses several subtypes within it. Of the many such types, the Marxist and the feminist are by far the most prominent. The basic difference between the sociological approach in general and its subtypes lies in the fact that in the former the social context is regarded as a holistic phenomenon, while in the latter it is viewed in specialized terms. In the Marxist approach for instance the social context is conceived essentially along the lines of the socialist theory outlined by the German thinker Karl Marx, while in the feminist it is done so with specific reference to the aspect of sexual politics embedded in its makeup. However, no matter what specialized form one adopts, the literary text in a sociological approach is ultimately considered as fundamentally an artifact whose significance is derived from the social milieu that envelops it. The age old cliché regarding literature that it is a mirror of life is essentially a sentiment founded on the basic claims of sociological approach.

 

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH

 

    Psychological approach derives itself from the theory of psychoanalysis formulated by the thinker Sigmund Freud. The basic assumption advocated in this approach is that the literary text epitomizes in essence a form of substitute gratification, in which the author seeks to fulfil socially inappropriate urges in a perfectly acceptable form. This is technically known as sublimation. A classic example would be that of a man of God such as for instance a catholic priest, writing love poetry to fulfil the romantic inclinations that may arise in him. As a priest, it is unacceptable for him to actually fulfil in reality his wish for romance as he is bound by his oath of celibacy. However, if he does not fulfil that wish, there is a very real possibility he might experience anxiety. So the wish for romance must not be repressed, but at the same time it cannot also be gratified in the normal way. The option of writing love poetry in which he can express his romantic inclinations thus serves as both an effective and acceptable means of avoiding anxiety. The process is called sublimation because in this way what is essentially regarded as an inappropriate desire is transformed into something that is worthy of admiration. To clearly understand how sublimation works, it is vital that we become familiar with Freud’s conception of the human psyche.

    According to Freud, the human psyche contains three zones, the id, the ego, and the super ego. The id or instinctual drives represent the biological urges that naturally arise in a subject. The super ego epitomizes the social sanctions or laws by which a community functions. The critical point of contention here is that the id and the super ego are almost always at odds with each other. After all, the very idea of enforcing sanctions is to keep one’s biological urges under check. The problem however is that the urges have to be fulfilled or else it might lead to psychological breakdown, but the social sanctions will not allow it to be fulfilled in its original form. A conflict therefore ensues which is subsequently settled by the ego that exemplifies the voice of reason. Typically what an ego does is strike a compromise between the conflicting demands of the id and the super ego, so as to gratify both of them in an acceptable yet fulfilling way. To take the example stated above, the id of the priest urges him to fulfil his wish for romance by seeking out a woman, the super ego which is his religious calling demands him to repress the desire as it is inappropriate, but his ego eventually resolves the conflict by getting him to write love poetry which typifies a compromise.

 

    Having become acquainted with the way in which a literary work is considered in the psychological approach, let us now turn our attention to how it is to be analysed from the point of view of the reader. This is to say, to take the mentioned example again, how for instance is the love poetry written by the priest to be analysed from a psychological perspective? The simple answer is to view the poems in relation to the psychology of the priest who is of course the poet in this regard. So what a reader adopting a psychological approach has to do is become familiar with details relating to the personal life of the priest, and then read his work in the context of the information discerned. This will enable the reader to make sense of the psychological impulse behind the poems, and in doing so, obtain a peep into the psyche of its poet. In psychological approach thus, the literary work is invariably read in the context of biographical details pertaining to its author, and the literary work itself is treated as a medium for gaining insights into the author’s psyche. The literary work in other words is characterized as an extension of the author’s psychic makeup, and the avowed goal of the analysis is to find out how effectively the literary work reveals it.

 

PRACTICAL CRITICISM

 

    Practical criticism is a mode of literary analysis pioneered by the Cambridge professor of poetry I. A. Richards during the early years of the 20^th century. The method basically epitomizes a type of textual approach in which the literary work of art is subjected to critical scrutiny as an object in its own right, without being related to any factors external to it. The approach was actually initiated by Richards as an experiment to come up with a method of criticism in which personal impressions or preconceived notions of the readers could be prevented from influencing the reading of the text. His avowed aim was to render the endeavor of literary criticism utterly objective, so as to impart to it an aura of scientific credibility. As it turned out, the method he initiated became an extremely popular trend both in England and the United States, laying the foundation for what subsequently materialized as new criticism.

 

The experiment that paved way to practical criticism essentially comes down to a simple exercise of close textual reading, which fundamentally involved Richards circulating pieces of poetry to his students for analysis in the classroom. As his primary intention was to prevent the personal opinions of the readers from affecting their criticism of the text, he ensured that the poetic pieces he circulated were anonymous and were largely unknown. With no information provided about the poem, the students naturally had no choice but focus their investigation of the text purely on its linguistic framework. The text thus came to represent in effect nothing more than a linguistic construct, a thing made up of language, which demanded to be analysed closely with nothing except the words on the page to contend with. Upon reviewing the results of his experiment, Richards realized that when key information regarding the text are withheld from the readers, their critical energies could be pressed into criticizing the text impersonally. This idea was reinforced by his discovery that many students had actually rated texts by relatively unknown authors highly, while conversely condemning those by well-known poets as rather below par. This of course would have never happened, in any event the probability of such a thing happening would have been extremely low, if the students were given the details relating to the poem to work with in the first place. The ultimate goal that Richards attempted to accomplish through his method of practical criticism is twofold. His first was to render criticism into an essentially objective endeavor, a disinterested activity in which personal thoughts and feelings should be at all cost prevented from having a say on the critical observations made about the text under scrutiny. The second was to elicit what he himself called an ‘organised response’ to the text, a kind of holistic reaction in which all aspects of the readers sensibility are actively engaged during the process of reading.