История литературы / 3. The creative triangle. Different approaches to literary criticism

The creative triangle gives us a clue to understanding of literary process of peculiarities. Сверху – writer, слева – a work of art, справа – reader, между ними objective reality. First comes the writer who shares his experience of the world with some other people. He shares his attitude to things, phenomena, events. Any writer proceeds from the assumption that every kind of experience that people obtain is individual. But at the same time he is sure that there is a general experience that unites all people on the earth. He has to use a word in such a way as to enable people to understand what he means and wants to share. He uses figurative language, images, comparison (1 and the same class), analogy (different classes) and contrast to make his purpose clear and effective. He wants to shape the world to his purpose and may be carried away by his impulse, but there are some laws that come from the relationship between the writer and the reader. The more talented the writer is-the more people come to understand what he wants to say and the greater the impact produced upon the reader. In some way the writer is his own reader. It accounts for writing or rewriting of the story. The reader is the best critic because he judges the quality of the book. But the readers themselves change as the time changes. In this respect any book may be treated as a living being. There is time when it lives and time when it is forgotten together with the writer. But unlike a human being it may come to life again. Literary criticism is an attempt to understand literature and what it means. There are many types, or "schools" of criticism, and they all attempt to do the same thing, but in very different ways. Any reader may approach the work of literature with different purposes. It may be approached as a narrative, pure and simple(the succession of events given by the author to explain what happened to this or that character). Still criticism of a work of art from this prospective should not take only the number of events the story contains, but also who the story-teller is: the author, one of the characters, especially chosen to give his reminiscences, the mixture of the 1st two ways of telling the story or there may be several characters telling the story from different perspectives, as an exhibition of characters In this respect the work of art from the point of view of interrelations that exist & develop between & among the characters. We criticize the book from the perspective “what kind of individual every character was, what was his/her attitude, what were his/her ideals, how he tried to achieve his goals, etc.” We should regard book as a gallery of characters, every character being distinct from the other ones. Why is the character unique?, as a picture of manners We criticize it from the point of view of society, which is described, & from the point of view of cultural background, against which is the society described, as a vehicle of a certain philosophy of life, biographical approach (why the author accepted this ideal life, what influenced him, what his ideas were, how they changed in the cause of time? What shaped his outlook? How were his ideas changed in the course of time? How is all this reflected in his works?), esthetic appr. (deals with the author style, comparative kind of criticism - he history of literature is a subject that deals with our attitude to the fiction of the past & present, which becomes actual for us, because of the actuality of the problem itself. Style should be viewed as a set of devises and as the personal style of the author), psychological approach (kinds of conflicts, why people behave in this or that way), historical approach . When the reader approaches a work of literature professionally, he usually takes into account 2 different types of style: authorial (related to meaning in a general way of writing that recognizably belongs to a particular writer, distinguishes him from others) and text style (related to meaning , linguistic choices which are connected with meaning and effect on the reader). Translators are different from ordinary readers. Any tr-or is 1st and foremost a literal critic because before he starts translating he should draw some conclusions and do a research. Horizontal research – how the manner of writing of this author is unique, specifies the difference of the author from other writers of this period, vertical research – the influence of the writer from next generation. A tr-or`s approach should combine several ones. It should be literary psychological but with a very well pronounced esthetic touch and it should also be socio-semiotic. Socio-semiotic approach emphasizes that everything about a message carries meaning, the unity of text, contest and social structure. The esthetic approach presupposes that the reader will judge objectively the author`s manner of creating typical images and also his style.