Literary

Criticism
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What is Literary Criticism?
• Is a way of looking at literature. It’s all about perspective.
• Writing that analyzes, evaluates, interprets, and criticizes literature.
• There is one general agreement among critics, however, when it comes
to any kind of critique: it has to be “practical”.
• It interprets meaning in text and judges the text’s quality so that it may
bring forth new ideas, new realization, and necessary changes in society.

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Functions of Literary
Critisism
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◈ Literary criticism may be
the simple review of books
that you often read online
or in local newspapers, or a
systematic theoretical
discussion of a story’s
impact on society.
◈ Reevaluate any given text to
shed new light or to give
new meanings to old texts.
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◈ It may also be used to invoke
discussions, reassess society,
and redefine culture based
on literary text.
◈ It is also common for
criticism to dip its toes into
social and political
arguments, especially if the
literary work is social or
political in nature.
Some forms of critical work done in the Philippines have dealt with the following:

◈ The abuse of overseas foreign workers (OFWs)

◈ The marginalization of women and/or members of the lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.
◈ The environmental degradation and injustice
◈ Postcolonial theories that dispute the years of colonization in which
the country has endured.

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Critics may be seen as
lawgivers when it comes
to books, stories, poems,
and the like.
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Critics may still
persuade the public to
place their own
judgments on the work,
according to how they
see fit.
 The Other Other:
Towards a
Postcolonial Poetics
By Isagani R. Cruz
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Colonial Discourse- is the collection of narratives, statements and opinions that deals with colonized
peoples- told from the perspective of European colonizers.
Precipitated- to cause(something) to happen quickly or suddenly
Orientalism- is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually
done by writers, designers, and artists from the West.
Ethnocentricity- having or based on the idea that your own group or culture is better or more important
than others.
Hegemony- influence or control over another country, a group of people, etc.
Marginalization- to put or keep(someone) in a powerless or unimportant position within a society or
group.
Corpus- a collection of writings, conversations, speeches, etc., that people use to study and describe a
language.
 An Anti-Western West Style Introduction, or What I Said at Cardiff
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