NEW CRITICISM: FEBRUARY 23

NEW CRITICISM: FEBRUARY 23 

by David Lehman

NEW CRITICISM - A method of literary evaluation and interpretation practiced chiefly in the mid-20th century that emphasizes close examination of a text with minimum regard for the biographical or historical circumstances in which it was produced.

POEM

Light rain is falling in Central Park
but not on Upper Fifth Avenue or Central Park West

where sun and sky are yellow and blue

Winds are gusting on Washington Square

through the arches and on to LaGuardia Place

but calm is the corner of 8th Street and Second Avenue

which reminds me of something John Ashbery said

about his poem "Crazy Weather" he said

he was in favor of all kinds of weather

just so long as it's genuine weather

which is always unusually bad, unusually

good, or unusually indifferent,

since there isn't really any norm for weather

When he was a boy his mother met a friend

who said, "Isn't this funny weather?"

CRITIQUE:

New Criticism emphasizes explication, or "close reading," of "the work itself." It rejects old historicism's attention to biographical and sociological matters. Instead, the objective determination as to "how a piece works" can be found through close focus and analysis, rather than through extraneous and erudite special knowledge. It has long been the pervasive and standard approach to literature in college and high school curricula. February 23 caught the new criticism approach because it focuses on the text regardless of the other elements of literary piece.

PSYCHOANALYTIC: LIMITLESS 2011

PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM: LIMITLESS 2011 (film) by Neil Burger

PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM -  adopts the methods of "reading" employed by Freud and later theorists to interpret texts. It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. One may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are projections of the author's psyche. Like psychoanalysis itself, this critical endeavor seeks evidence of unresolved emotions, psychological conflicts, guilt, ambivalence  and so forth within what may well be a dis unified literary work. The author's own childhood traumas, family life, sexual conflicts, fixations, and such will be traceable within the behavior of the characters in the literary work. But psychological material will be expressed indirectly, disguised, or encoded (as in dreams) through principles such as "symbolism" (the repressed object represented in disguise), "condensation" (several thoughts or persons represented in a single image), and "displacement" (anxiety located onto another image by means of association).

PLOT

Aspiring author Eddie Morra (Cooper) is suffering from chronic writer's block, but his life changes instantly when an old friend introduces him to NZT, a revolutionary new pharmaceutical that allows him to tap his full potential. Soon Eddie takes Wall Street by storm, parlaying a small stake into millions. His accomplishments catch the eye of mega-mogul Carl Van Loon (De Niro),who invites him to help broker the largest merger in corporate history. But they also bring Eddie to the attention of people willing to do anything to get their hands on his stash of NZT. With his life in jeopardy and the drug's brutal side effects grinding him down, Eddie dodges mysterious stalkers, a vicious gangster and an intense police investigation as he attempts to hang on to his dwindling supply long enough to outwit his enemies.-- (C) Relativity

CRITIQUE:

The merging of brilliant minds in this immensely made film has caught the attention of every audience by its sci-fi thriller genre. It has made people think of what-ifs conclusions. Even I, myself, think of the probabilities if I were on the situation of the main protagonist in the film. It had made me change my impressions on drugs, seriously. This is really a so-so good film that made me ga-ga over. (Okay, I'm being informal now LOL) It blows one's imagination all throughout the movie. Limitless film has the manifestation of the writer's own neuroses. Of course, who would not want 100% full potential working brain of our own? Eddie Morra's behavior in this film ideally depicts psychoanalysis. Neil Burger's film is impeccably projected to author's psyche. The patterns presented are traceable not only to the author but also in everyone's secret unconscious desires in life. Getting high is good as long as you know how to handle yourself.

HUMANISM: CLOUD ATLAS

HUMANISM: CLOUD ATLAS 

by David Mitchell

HUMANISM -  A system of thought that rejects religious beliefs and centers on humans and their values, capacities, and worth. Concern with the interests, needs, and welfare of humans. A cultural and intellectual movement of the Renaissance that emphasized secular concerns as a result of the rediscovery and study of the literature, art, and civilization of ancient Greece and Rome.

PLOT

Cloud Atlas is a novel composed of six interlacing narratives, each one housed within the next, so that the first is a book read by a character in the second, the second a series of letters cherished by a character in the third, the third a populist novel being considered by a publisher in the third, and so on. To fully realize this Russian-doll experiment Mitchell divides each tale in half and places them, sandwich fashion, at opposite ends of the book. Thus the opening narrative is the last to be concluded, the second the penultimate, etc. At the centre of the novel lies the indivisible doll, an unbroken post-apocalyptic tale wrapped fivefold. Despite this symbiotic, intra-textual concept, further emphasized by the unifying themes of recurrence and predation, each narrative stands as a novella in its own right.

'The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing' is an eighteenth century maritime romp in diarised form. Ewing, an American notary, waits upon repairs to his ship on the Chatham Islands where he hears a detailed and brutal account of the indigenous people. Aboard the tyrannically captained schooner he discovers that his medical companion is more foe than friend, more dupe than doctor and that the treatment he receives for his apocryphal brain disorder is devised to kill not cure. Ewing narrowly escapes loss of life and property and the infamous ‘Arsenick Goose’ flies off to filch elsewhere. 

 ‘Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery’ assumes a populist prose style to rework the classic ‘intrepid journalist takes on ruthless captain of industry’ formula. It is 1970's California and Luisa Rey discovers that the much hyped local nuclear power plant is not as safe as it seems. Unlike two of her moral allies she survives the inevitable car chases, explosions and fisticuffs to deliver the equally inevitable, all-vindicating report to the authorities. 

Set in 1931, ‘Letters from Zedelghem’ adopts the epistolary form to capture the final brilliant months of the precariously bi-polar, precociously bi-sexual Robert Frobisher. Fleeing ignominiously from his debtors in England, he arrives in Brussels to realize his whim of serving as amanuensis to a dying world-class composer. Whilst aiding the irascible genius in the creation of a masterpiece or two, he sleeps with his wife, surreptitiously sells off some of his property then falls unrequitedly in love with his daughter.  In a final fit of manic creativity he produces his own magnum opus then kills himself.

‘The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish’ is the comic tale of an over educated underachieving vanity publisher who unexpectedly finds one of his books flying off the shelves when its author propels a scoffing reviewer from a rooftop. Unable to meet the demands of the author’s thuggish brothers, who violently demand a slice of the profits, he flees to Hull where he ends up incarcerated in a high security nursing home. Along with two of the homes more spirited inmates, he masterminds then executes an escape plan that delivers him into a bucolic, wealthy retirement.

 ‘An Orison of Somni~451’ is the dark dystopian autobiography of a service industry slave who evolves beyond her laboratory controlled, genetically engineered social function to become a martyr for the abolitionist cause. It is set in a futuristic Korea where eugenics and corpocracy have combined to create a nightmarishly Orwellian world and everything, including Somni~451’s insurrection, is dictated by a state intent on maintaining its grip on power.

 ‘Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After’ is a grim post-apocalyptic narrative set on the island of Hawaii where life has reverted to the days of tribal pre-civilization.  Valleysman Zachry loses his brother and father to a neighbouring tribe of savages when he is young, and his remaining family later play host to Meronym - a mysterious dark skinned member of an advanced tribe from across the seas. Though he at first suspects her of espionage, he is at last persuaded of her good intentions when she uses her ‘smart’ to liberate him from the marauding savages.

CRITIQUE:

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilization – the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.Cloud Atlas‘s humanist ideas about reincarnation, all races are one, love transcending lifetimes, everything is connected which are brilliantly realized.

ROMANTICISM: ANG TUNDO MAN MAY LANGIT DIN

ROMANTICISM: ANG TUNDO MAN MAY LANGIT DIN 

ni Andres Cristobal Cruz

ROMANTICISM - An artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions. Romantic quality or spirit in thought, expression, or action.

PLOT

Tumawag si Flor kay Victor upang anyayahan itong makipagkita sa kanya sa isang palamigan sa Quiapo. Napag-alaman ni Victor na si Flor ay dalawang buwan ng nagdadalantao. Nangangaba si Flor na totoo ang sinasabi ng babaing pumunta sa kanyang apartment at sinabing siya ang totoong asawa ni Tonyo na ama ng dinadala ni Flor. Nangako si Victor na aalamin kung totoo ang kinatatakutan ni Flor. Nahuli si Victor sa usapan nilang pagkikita ni Alma sa lobby ng pamantasang kanilang pinapasukan. Pagkatapos ng kanilang klase ay napagpasiyahan niyang dumalaw sa apartment ni Flor. Pagkatapos ng kanyang pagdalaw kay Flor ay umuwi na siya. Namataan niyang nag-iinuman sina Lukas at ang mga kaibigan nito sa isang restawran sa Looban ng Tundo. Muntik ng magkagulo sa loob ng restawran. Buti na lamang at napigilan iyon ni Victor. Ngunit ng papauwi na sila ni Lukas ay nakaharap muli nila ang mga Waray at nakipagbabakan ang mga iyon sa kanila. Kumalat sa Looban ang tungkol sa pakikipagbakbakan nila Victor at Lukas.

Sa klase nila Victor at Alma na Philippine History ay kinuwestiyon ni Victor ang librong isinulat ni Agila na isang awtoridad ng Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas. Sa araw din na iyon ay bumili si Alma ng bago niyang talaarawan.

Sa gabing iyon ay nagkaroon muli ng masamang panaginip si Alma tungkol sa kanyang ama at kay Dolores na dati nilang katulong. Kinabukasan ay nagpaalam si Alma sa kanyang Daddy at Mommy na magkaroon ng party para sa nalalapit niyang graduation. Inanyayahan ni Alma ang kanyang mga kaklase at si Victor. Dumating ang araw ng party ni Alma ngunit siya ay malungkot dahil sa hindi sinunod ng kanyang mga magulang ang kagustuhan niya na sila-sila lamang ng kanyang mga kaklase ang magpaparty. Nagtungo muli si Victor sa apartment ni Flor bago pumunta sa party ni Alma. Nagtalo silang dalawa tungkol sa kagustuhan ni Flor na hindi na maaari pang mangyari. Pagkatapos ng pagtatalong iyon ay pumunta na si Victor sa bahay nila Alma.

Dahil sa pamimilit ni Alma at dahil na rin sa pamilya ni Victor ay napagpasiya nitong dumalo sa kanilang baccalaureate at graduation dahil sa ayaw niyang ipagkait ang kaligayahan sa kanyang pamilya. Dumating ang araw ng Baccalaureat nila Alma at Victor, sa araw na iyon ay niregaluhan ni Victor si Alma. Kinabukasan ay araw ng graduation nila Alma at Victor, sa araw naman na iyon ay nagregalo si Alma kay Victor ng isang fountain pen na may naka-engraved na "Victor-Alma." Si Flor naman ay nagregalo kay Victor ng isang relo.

Lumipas ang ilan pang mga araw. Nabalitaan ni Victor na nakapagtayo si Flor ng isang patahian kung saan katulong niya sa pagpapatakbo nito si Dolores. Dinala ni Victor si Alma sa patahian ni Flor at doon nakita ni Alma ang matagal na niyang hinahanap na si Dolores, ang dati nilang katulong na sa kanyang paniniwala ay nagawan ng masama ng kanyang ama.

Dumating ang buwan ng Hunyo. Nagsimula na si Alma sa pagtuturo sa Torres High. Ilan pang mga araw ang nakalipas at pumunta si Alma sa patahian nila Flor upang kausapin si Dolores at ibigay ang sustento nito para makatulong at makabawi sa maling nagawa ng kanyang ama.

Si Victor naman ay tinulungan ni Paking upang makapagturo sa Torres High. Nakatanggap agad siya ng appointment bilang substitute teacher sa paaralan. Nagkita muli sina Alma at Victor sa Torres High kung saan pareho silang magtuturo.

Dumating ang araw ng panganganak ni Flor at sa araw na iyon ay hindi nagpahuli si Tonyo. Naroroon siya upang makita ang kanyang anak kay Flor. Pagkatapos ng pangyayaring iyon ay napagpasiyahan ni Tonyo na ipagtapat sa kanyang maybahay na siya'y may anak ka Flor. Naging maayos ang usapan ng mag-asawa at napagpasiyahan nilang dumalaw kay Flor sa ospital.

Hindi na napigilan ni Alma ang kanyang damdamin at napagpasiyahan niyang ipagtapat na kay Victor ang kanyang nadarama. Sa araw din na iyon ay ipinagtapat ni Alma sa kanyang Daddy na alam niya ang tungkol sa kanilang dalawa ni Dolores. Nasabi niya iyon ng dahil pagtatalo nila tungkol sa pagkikita nila ni Victor.

Kinabukasan ay ipinadala ni Alma ang kanyang bag kay Victor at sa di sinasadya ay nakita ni Victor ang talaarawan ni Alma. Hindi umaamin si Victor kay Alma nang tanungin siya nito kung nabasa niya ang talaarawan nito.

Lumipas ang mga araw at mas lalong nagkamabutihan sina Victor at Alma hanggang sa dumating ang isang araw na hindi na nila napigilan ang damdamin ng isa't isa at sila ay nagpasiya ng magpakasal. Pumunta si Victor sa bahay nila Alma upang hingin ang kamay ni Alma sa ama nito. Hindi naman tumutol ang ama ni Alma at masaya pa ito para sa dalawa. Napagpasiyahan nilang sa lalong madaling panahon ay ikakasal sila.

Dumating ang araw ng kasal. Simple lamang ang pag-aayos dito at kakaunti lamang ang inimbitahan ngunit sa kabila nito ay masayang idinaos nila Alma at Victor ang araw ng kanilang pag-iisang dibdib. Sa gabi ng kanilang kasal ay nakapag-isa ang bagong kasal. Inihandog ni Alma ang kanyang talaarawan kay Victor at Ibinigay naman ni Victor kay Alma ang panganay nilang halik sa isa't isa. Doon ay ipinagtapat na ni Victor na nabasa niya ang talaarawan ni Alma. At pagkaraan ng ilan pang sandal, doon sa pook na iyon ng Tundo'y sinimulang likhain, sa kabila ng ingay ng mga nagsusumbatang pulitiko, ng dalawang nagkakaisa't nagkakaugnay ng pangarap ang isang bago't matapang na daigdig. Isang daigdig na kaypala'y may sariling langit na biyaya ng pag-ibig.

CRITIQUE:


In limelight modern age of Philippine literature, the highly critically acclaimed novel of Andres Cristobal Cruz has greatly influenced the life of Filipinos today. Ang Tundo Man May Langit Din generates Romanticism theory in a fact that the story's center point is the characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions.

POST-COLONIALISM: MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN

POST-COLONIAL CRITICISM: 

MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie

POST-COLONIAL CRITICISM - A type of cultural criticism, postcolonial criticism usually involves the analysis of literary texts produced in countries and cultures that have come under the control of European colonial powers at some point in their history. Alternatively, it can refer to the analysis of texts written about colonized places by writers hailing from the colonizing culture.

PLOT

Midnight's Children is a loose allegory for events in India both before and, primarily, after the independence and partition of India. The protagonist and narrator of the story is Saleem Sinai, born at the exact moment when India became an independent country. He was born with telepathic powers, as well as an enormous and constantly dripping nose with an extremely sensitive sense of smell. The novel is divided into three books.

The book begins with the story of the Sinai family, particularly with events leading up to India's Independence and Partition. Saleem is born precisely at midnight, August 15, 1947, and is, therefore, exactly as old as the independent republic of India. He later discovers that all children born in India between 12 a.m. and 1 a.m. on that date are imbued with special powers. Saleem, using his telepathic powers, assembles a Midnight Children's Conference, reflective of the issues India faced in its early statehood concerning the cultural, linguistic, religious, and political differences faced by a vastly diverse nation. Saleem acts as a telepathic conduit, bringing hundreds of geographically disparate children into contact while also attempting to discover the meaning of their gifts. In particular, those children born closest to the stroke of midnight wield more powerful gifts than the others. Shiva "of the Knees", Saleem's nemesis, and Parvati, called "Parvati-the-witch," are two of these children with notable gifts and roles in Saleem's story.

Meanwhile, Saleem's family begin a number of migrations and endure the numerous wars which plague the subcontinent. During this period he also suffers amnesia until he enters a quasi-mythological exile in the jungle of Sundarban, where he is re-endowed with his memory. In doing so, he reconnects with his childhood friends. Saleem later becomes involved with the Indira Gandhi-proclaimed Emergency and her son Sanjay's "cleansing" of the Jama Masjid slum. For a time Saleem is held as a political prisoner; these passages contain scathing criticisms of Indira Gandhi's overreach during the Emergency as well as a personal lust for power bordering on godhood. The Emergency signals the end of the potency of the Midnight Children, and there is little left for Saleem to do but pick up the few pieces of his life he may still find and write the chronicle that encompasses both his personal history and that of his still-young nation; a chronicle written for his son, who, like his father, is both chained and supernaturally endowed by history.

CRITIQUE:

Salman Rushdie’s  Midnight’s Children marked the beginning of a new era for Indian English novels both in India and abroad  and went on to win ‘the Booker of Bookers’, the best novel to have won the Booker Prize for Fiction in the award’s 25 years of history.  Midnight’s Children is being regarded as a foundational text of postcolonialism. The reason for this immeasurable popularity of Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is to be found in its unique style. Finally there appeared an Indian writer who told the story, the way it should be told, and who did not write about village life and social ills.  The days of R.K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and their peer group witnessed a sunset. Rushdie ‘chutnified’ both the Indian history and language with his acute sense of humour and invented new metaphors of nationhood.

READER-RESPONSE: FUNERAL BLUES

READER-RESPONSE: FUNERAL BLUES 

by W H Auden

READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM -  the primary focus falls on the reader and the process of reading rather than on the author or the text.

POEM

Funeral Blues (Song IX / from Two Songs for Hedli Anderson)

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,

Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

CRITIQUE:

At its most basic level, reader response criticism considers readers' reactions to literature as vital to interpreting the meaning of the text. However, reader-response criticism can take a number of different approaches. Funeral blues interpretation varies upon the readers' response to the text. This Elegy poem has deep sense of words used and its form.

FEMINISM: THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET

FEMINISM: THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET by Sandra Cisneros

FEMINISM - 

PLOT

Initial Situation

Esperanza and her family move to the house on Mango Street.

We meet Esperanza and learn that she and her family have just moved into their first ever house. She's disappointed with it – this is not the house she's been dreaming of her whole life. It's tiny and falling apart and she has to share one bedroom with her three siblings and her parents.

Conflict

Meet the neighbors.

Esperanza introduces us to the other residents of Mango Street. Esperanza's just a kid, but even from her perspective we can see that most of her neighbors live difficult and complicated lives. Poverty, crime, and apathy are endemic. Whole families are crowded into tiny apartments. Single mothers struggle to raise too many children.

Complication

Uh-oh, it's everyone's least favorite developmental stage – puberty!

One day Esperanza and her friends are talking about hips, and the next she's slammed with the responsibilities of adulthood. Like consoling her father on the death of his father, and having to get a job to help pay for her high school education. As she enters into adolescence, Esperanza is torn between her desire to remain independent and free, and her curiosity about boys and sex. To make matters much, much worse, Esperanza begins to notice that being a woman on Mango Street often means being mistreated by men – her female friends and neighbors are physically abused, confined to their homes by their overprotective husbands, and abandoned to raise children on their own. Maybe she doesn't want to grow up, after all.

Climax

Esperanza is raped.

While she waits for her more sexually experienced friend Sally to finish hooking up with a guy at the carnival, some boys accost Esperanza. It's so painful for her to recount that she never says exactly what happens, but it seems that one of the boys rapes her.

Suspense

Sally gets married young, and Esperanza fantasizes about escape.

Esperanza's friend Sally, whose father frequently abuses her, gets married to escape the beatings, only to end up living in a virtual suburban prison. Esperanza, on the other hand, longs for freedom. At a funeral, she meets three elderly sisters who read her palm and divine her secret wish to leave Mango Street. They confirm that she'll achieve her dream, with one hitch – she has to promise to come back. Esperanza's reaction? No freaking way – she's never coming back to this crummy neighborhood!

Denouement

Esperanza accepts her past.

Esperanza's friend Alicia helps her realize that she has a responsibility to return to Mango Street to help the people who can't leave as easily as she can. After all, if she doesn't do anything to help, no one else will.

Conclusion

Esperanza strikes a balance.

Esperanza clings to her dream of leaving Mango Street to live independently and pursue a career in writing, but she accepts that she can never forget where she came from. She resolves to come back some day for the people who cannot escape

CRITIQUE:

The House on Mango Street is a coming of age story of a young girl named Esperanza living in a poor neighborhood she had never dream of.  Each chapter is an individual story or vignette of young Esperanza's neighbors and friends. The young narrator shows different facets of her own personality through each portrait- a sense of humor, a sense of outrage, hope, optimism, sadness, pity, pride, shame, and compassion. The House on Mango Street attacks the other side of feminism. In this collection, each chapter signifies Esperanza's growth developmental stages - be it emotional, physical, mental, and sexual aspect. Esperanza experienced series of awakenings, specifically sexual awakening when she hit her puberty stage. As the stories got deeper, themes of desperation and fear run throughout. It is more of the narrator's emotions and how Esperanza and her female friends struggle from the maltreatment of men and the reality of women's role in their neighborhood. These are the reasons why Esperanza finally decided to escape the Mango Street but promises to comeback in hope to help others who cannot leave. Sandra Cisnero's feminist work shows how Esperanza found hope despite of all the turning points and obstacles in her life. Sandra also depicts various elements of how woman thinks, generally, in this theme.