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Contexts for Criticism, 4/e
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Formal Criticism: Poem as Context
Essay Questions
1
Anti-formalist critics have argued that, in privileging form over content, formalism thereby neglects the moral and political import of a work of art. A formalist critic of a Jamesian bent might argue, however, that an imperfect or inconsistent handling of the unreliable narrator in a story like "Benito Cereno" may result in a loss of aesthetic intensity and thus undermine the moral integrity of the text. Can you offer examples of formalist criticism where issues of aesthetic form and morality intersect? Is there a "morality of form"?
2
Poetry -- and lyric poetry, in particular -- continues to serve as the paradigmatic application of New Critical methods (see, for example, Helen Vendler's recent book-length analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnets). Is formalist criticism handicapped by its neglect of larger forms (like the novel and the epic poem) that are less amenable to its analytical premises? How might the methods of close reading be adapted for application to the novel?
2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education
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