Part 1: Course Overview
Literary theory and criticism are sibling branches that go hand in hand with literature. Without a doubt, they both are also as old as literature herself. It is certain that ancient poets, say Homer, had their critics. Homer, as many other ancient and modern poets tend to, invokes the muses. This act in itself is a theory of poetry. The muses are invoked at the beginning epics of Homer or the likes of him. This is a theory that posits poetry as an artistic utterance inspired by the divine. Plato calls the same notion divine madness. Aristotle later challenged this; emphasizing the sophistication and necessity of verbal art. Later, he brought forth the most famous and most efficient theory of poetics and tragedy. We will discuss critics, philosophers, and poets who contributed significant efforts to answer the following queries: “What is good literature? What is literature good for? How are we to interpret literature? What is the relationship between author, text, reader, and world?” Texts from classical, neoclassical, Romantic, Victorian, Modernist, and Postmodernist traditions and contemporary trends will be introduced and perused. In choosing these texts two criteria have been considered: First, they are pivotal texts of their respective literary traditions; in some cases, they inaugurated or influenced certain traditions significantly. In several historical discourses, they are the high points. The second reason is that some of these texts are still shaping the discourse of literary criticism/theory.