Introduction to the Study of Cultures and Literatures in English

- Introduction to the Study of Cultures and Literatures in English
- Előszó
- Contents
- Part 1 What is English Studies?
  - 1. What is a university? A proseminary
  - 2. Paradigms and paradigm shifts
  - 3. What is English Studies? English as a university subject
  - 4. Ideology, criticism, history
  - 5. Registers of Culture
  - 6. Canon formation and alternative reading practices
- Part 2 Fields of English Studies. Language, Literature, Culture, and Critical Approaches
  - 1. Preliminary problems: definitions, scientific expectations
  - 2. Ontological problems: the way literature exists
    - Semiotics
    - Literary communication
    - Language and Critical Thinking
    - The Language of the Sciences and the Language of Literature
  - 3. Methodological problems: the way we understand texts
    - Meaning and context
    - The Process of Interpretation
  - 4. The Theory of Genres
    - Genres and Their Historical Changes
    - Genre-generating Factors and Historical Changes
  - 5. Poetry and Figurative Language
    - Exercise in Interpretation / 1
      - I First level of meaning
      - II Second level of meaning
      - III Third level of meaning
      - IV Fourth level of meaning
  - 6. Narrative Fiction
    - Exercise in Interpretation / 2
      - I First level of meaning
      - II Second level of meaning
      - III Third level of meaning
  - 7. Drama
    - Exercise in Interpretation / 3
      - I First level of meaning
      - II Second level of meaning
  - Self test I
  - 8. Literature, Culture, and the Reading Subject: An Overview of Major Trends in Literary and Cultural Theory
    - I Preliminaries
    - II Formal critical trends: from the authorial intention to the close reading of the text (1st shift)
    - III Contextual aproaches: from text to context
    - The critique of structuralism
  - Self test II
  - 9. Critical Literature Consulted and Recommended
  - 10. Appendix

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# Self test II

You will now apply these critical considerations to the texts we were working with in the first chapter. On the basis of these critical approaches and their most important theses, decide whether the following critical statements are true (t) or false (f):

### Question 1

1. According to formalism, the form of Blake’s “The Tyger” is the four-line stanza and the frame that is produced by the first and the last stanza.

True False

#### Feedback

False

### Question 2

2. According to formalism, the quatrain and the frame are important formal features of Blake’s “The Tyger”, but the real form of the poem is the continuously intensified interrogative mood which culminates in the question “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

True False

#### Feedback

True

### Question 3

3. Reader-response criticism would argue that “r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r” by E. E. Cummings has its effect as a joke, since the ridiculous confusion of letters involves the reader in a joyful reaction.

True False

#### Feedback

False

### Question 4

4. Reader-response criticism would argue that “r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r” by E. E. Cummings tries to achieve an effect by actually involving the reader into the activity that is also performed by the insect the poem tries to represent. The reader’s eyes have to start jumping here and there in the page just like to grasshopper does in the grass, and in this way we will feel the thing the text wants to represent, and this is a more intensive and successful representation than saying things about the grasshopper.

True False

#### Feedback

True

### Question 5

5. Reader-response criticism would argue that “r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r” by E. E. Cummings cannot be the object of a literary analysis because it is a visual poem.

True False

#### Feedback

False

### Question 6

6. Traditional autobiographical approaches would be interested in whether Blake had any episode or traumatic event in his life involving tigers or large animals.

True False

#### Feedback

True

### Question 7

7. A moral-philosophical approach would argue that “The Tyger” is a poetic representation of the ancient, archetypal and always present fear of evil and negativity in the human being, the essential anxiety that has always characterized our existence since the beginnings of human civilization.

True False

#### Feedback

True

### Question 8

8. New Criticism would argue that the poetic power of “The Tyger” arises from the tension which is the result of the paradoxical nature of the tiger. The tiger is beautiful and threatening, perfect and base, mysteriously tempting and horrifying at the same time, and through its figure the poet can grasp the complexity of the universe much better than our ordinary vision and perception.

True False

#### Feedback

True

### Question 9

9. Psychoanalytical semiotic interpretations would argue that “The Tyger” has a special effect on us because it is an indirect representation of the father figure.

True False

#### Feedback

False

### Question 10

10. Psychoanalytical semiotic interpretations would argue that “The Tyger” has a special effect on us because it involves us in a state of undecidedness, ambiguity, a special in-betweenness where we cannot decide how to relate to the figure of the tiger and thus we fall into a vacuum, a loss of our ego-position because of the impossibility of meaning-creation.

True False

#### Feedback

True

### Question 11

11. Psychoanalytical semiotic interpretations would argue that “The Tyger” has a special effect on us because it is an indirect representation of the mother figure.

True False

#### Feedback

False

### Question 12

12. Traditional biographical approaches would be interested in whether Shakespeare was in love with a woman who did not meet the standard expectations of beauty of his time.

True False

#### Feedback

True

### Question 13

13. New Criticism would argue that Shakespeare’s sonnet builds up an inner structure of tension and resolution because the poem accumulates repeated images of mocking the traditional and boring Petrarchan tradition, and then with a twist in the punch line the poetic voice argues against the negative list and claim that he truly loves the woman.

True False

#### Feedback

True

### Question 14

14. Formalist interpretations would claim that Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse” has a special form because it mixes literary expression with colloquial and technical instructions.

True False

#### Feedback

False

### Question 15

15. Formalist interpretations would claim that Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse” employs the technique of “baring the device”: it draws the attention of the reader to the very medium, the language of the text, revealing its artificial, representational nature, and in this way it becomes metafictional.

True False

#### Feedback

True

### Question 16

16. Formalist interpretations would claim that Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse” deautomatizes our perception and expectations because it employs Ambrose, a very young boy as the protagonist in the plot, instead of the parents or adults in general.

True False

#### Feedback

False

### Question 17

17. Traditional biographical approaches would be interested in whether Keats had any frustrating love affairs around the time when he wrote his ballad.

True False

#### Feedback

True

### Question 18

18. Structuralist readings would claim that “La Belle Dame sans Merci”has a special structure because on the surface it is about a tragic love affair, but on the deep structure level the opposition between male and female is resolved.

True False

#### Feedback

False

### Question 19

19. Structuralist readings would claim that “La Belle Dame sans Merci” in its deep structure represents the fundamental binary opposition of male and female, man and woman, an antagonism which is impossible to resolve in our existence.

True False

#### Feedback

True

### Question 20

20. A moral-philosophical approach would argue that “The Artist of the Beautiful” is a statement by the romantic artist about the importance of perseverance and devotion to your aspirations and goals, an ars poetica in which Hawthorne represents the most essential and universal human desire to transcend the limits of our existence.

True False

#### Feedback

True

### Question 21

21. A moral-philosophical approach would argue that “The Artist of the Beautiful” is a romantic teaching about the dangers and pitfalls of esoteric and occult experimentations.

True False

#### Feedback

False

### Question 22

22. A deconstructive feminist interpretation would claim that “The Artist of the Beautiful” enforces the patriarchal ideology of our society because it propagates the stereotypical image of woman as beautiful but ignorant and useless, and the image of man as specially talented and productive.

True False

#### Feedback

True

### Question 23

23. Traditional biographical approaches would interpret Purgatory as a personal statement by Yeats about his own private mythology in which souls return to suffer in the places where they had committed their sins.

True False

#### Feedback

True

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