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Contexts for Criticism, 4/e
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Historical Criticism I: Author as Context
Essay Questions
1
One of the traditional tasks of literary criticism has been to "rescue" great literature from obscurity. The work of Herman Melville and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, for example, endured decades of neglect before it was brought to wider attention by later generations of discerning critics. What role has genetic/historical data played in this critical enterprise? How might other schools of criticism described in this book critique the use of genetic data (in particular) as a means of enhancing the value of a work of literature for new audiences?
2
Samuel Johnson famously criticized Shakespeare for not taking a clear moral stance towards his characters, while other critics have isolated this ambiguity - what Keats called "negative capability"-- as one of the hallmarks of Shakespeare's genius. Is our inability to discern whether Shakespeare's sympathies lie with Caliban or with Prospero part of the design of the play, or is the indeterminacy simply a product of our accidental ignorance regarding the beliefs of Shakespeare the man? Should we revise our reading of
The Tempest
if it were determined (for example) that the play was ghost-written by an exiled, Prospero-like Christopher Marlowe?
2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education
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