Literary Criticism

Aristotle’s Poetics states that a successful tragedy exploits and appeals to the emotions: fear and pity. These emotions offer a catharsis or purgation. This has influenced the works of Shakespeare. Which of the Shakespeare’s works does not reflect this belief?

• Twelfth Night
• Othello
• Romeo and Juliet
• King Lear

Dante Alighieri contends that the use of the vernacular is an excellent vehicle full understanding the literary piece, Which Philippine literary piece supports this claim?

• Walang sugat
• Dilim at Liwanag
• Three Generations
• The Fence

According to Sir Philip Sidney in his “An Analogy for Poetry,” poetry embodies. What truth may critic see in these lines of the poem, Change, by Angela. And then I shall outgrow this love of youSooner or later I shall put away jeweled ecstasy Brand me not fickle on that fatal day.

• Life is a puzzle.
• Nothing is permanent in this world except change
• Love is everywhere
• Teenagers are fickle-minded.

In “The Art of Fiction” of Henry James, a critic is advised to see that a text should have these qualities, EXCEPT _______

• realistic
• interesting
• either romantic or scientific
• recognizable to readers

Based from Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism, bad criticism does greater harm than bad writing. So Pope advises a critic to have these characteristics, EXCEPT one _________.

• emotion
• fact
• modesty
• integrity

A formalistic approach to John Milton’s Paradise Lost would take into account the following EXCEPT_________

• The characters of Adam, Eve, Satan and God
• The point of view in which the story is told
• Plot analysis
• The blindness of the writer

If the biographical approach is used to analyze Milton’s Paradise Lost, the critic will consider the ____

• Author’s Puritan belief
• the symbolism of the paradise
• Description of the Eden and its prescribed location
• Interrelated actions

Using the feminist perspective in Alice Walker’s Beauty: When the other dancer is the self, the will consider ______

• the time when the story was written
• who the other dancer is
• The author’s perception of “beauty” and the world she lives in
• the figure of speech used in the title

If the psychological approach is use to analyze Alice Walker’s Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self, the reader will consider the _____

• Meaning of beauty
• Point of view of the story
• Effect of the cataract in Alice’s life
• Setting of the story

The historical approach CANNOT be used to analyze the events of the times in

• The declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson
• The Crisis by Thomas Paine
• Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”
• The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls by Longfellow