cultural criticism

CULTURAL CRITICISM

•  The practice of describing, interpreting and evaluating culture.
• Cultural criticism makes the term culture refer to popular and classic culture. It breaks down the boundary between high and low culture, and discovers the political reason why a cultural product is more valued than others.

THE GIFT OF MAGI - William Sydney Porter a.k.a O. Henry 

 

Mr. James Dillingham Young ("Jim") and his wife, Della, are a couple living in a modest flat. They each have only one possession in which they take pride: Della's beautiful long, flowing hair, almost to her knees and Jim's shiny gold watch, which had belonged to his father and grandfather.
On Christmas Eve, with only $1.87 in hand, and desperate to find a gift for Jim, Della sells her hair for $20, and eventually finds a platinum fob chain for Jim's watch for $21. She found the perfect gift at last and runs home and begins to prepare dinner.
When Jim comes home, he looks at Della with a strange expression. Della then admits to Jim that she sold her hair to buy him his present. Jim gives Della her present — an assortment of expensive hair accessories (referred to as “The Combs”), useless now that her hair is short. Della then shows Jim the chain she bought for him, to which Jim says he sold his watch to get the money to buy her combs. Although Jim and Della are now left with gifts that neither one can use, they realize how far they are willing to go to show their love for each other, and how priceless their love really is.
The story ends with the narrator comparing the pair's mutually sacrificial gifts of love with those of the Biblical Magi:

The magi, as you know, were wise men – wonderfully wise men – who brought gifts to the new-born King of the Jews in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the Magi.

CRITICISM:

This short story by O. Henry showed how Jim and Della love each other very much. They were husband and wife who were referred to as Magi. As we all know the Magi or the "Three wise men"/The three kings were the king who brought Baby Jesus their gifts. They traveled so far and did not think how hard it is to get their but what matter most to them is how they were going to present the gifts to the Babe on the manger.
Somehow, O. Henry connected the two characters as same as the Magi. The story started with describing how poor the couple were and they were both want to give each a decent gifts for Christmas where in the resolution of the story their gifts came to be useless. there is a twist in this story in the end.
So I think the culture that the story is trying to get through us, the readers is that the culture of giving gifts from your hearts to your most love ones, sacrificing everything even your most valuable possessions just to be sure that you would have a gift.
Those who give gift are the wisest according above.












 

Neo-classicism

NEO CLASSICISM

• Neoclassicism is a revival of the styles and spirit of classic antiquity inspired directly from the classical period, which coincided and reflected the developments in philosophy and other areas of the Age of Enlightenment, and was initially a reaction against the excesses of the preceding Rococo style. While the movement is often described as the opposed counterpart of Romanticism, this is a great over-simplification that tends not to be sustainable when specific artists or works are considered, the case of the supposed main champion of late Neoclassicism, Ingres, demonstrating this especially well
• Literature during this ere are sophisticated, meaning that there is a beauty in it.

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME - Victor Hugo



The story begins on Epiphany (6 January), 1482, the day of the Feast of Fools in Paris, France. Quasimodo, a deformed hunchback who is the bell-ringer of Notre Dame, is introduced by his crowning as the Pope of Fools.
Esmeralda, a beautiful Gypsy with a kind and generous heart, captures the hearts of many men, including those of Captain Phoebus and Pierre Gringoire, a poor street poet, but especially those of Quasimodo and his adoptive father, Claude Frollo, the Archdeacon of Notre Dame. Frollo is torn between his obsessive love and the rules of the church. He orders Quasimodo to kidnap her, but the hunchback is suddenly captured by Phoebus and his guards who save Esmeralda.
Quasimodo is sentenced to be flogged and turned on the pillory for one hour, followed by another hour's public exposure. He calls for water. Esmeralda, seeing his thirst, offers him a drink. It saves him, and she captures his heart.
Esmeralda is later charged with the attempted murder of Phoebus, whom Frollo actually attempted to kill in jealousy after seeing him about to have sex with Esmeralda, and is tortured and sentenced to death by hanging. As she is being led to the gallows, Quasimodo swings down by the bell rope of Notre Dame and carries her off to the cathedral under the law of sanctuary.
Frollo later informs Pierre Gringoire that the Court of Parliament has voted to remove Esmeralda's right to sanctuary so she can no longer seek shelter in the church and will be taken from the church and killed. Clopin, a street performer, hears the news from Gringoire and rallies the Truands (criminals of Paris) to charge the cathedral and rescue Esmeralda.
When Quasimodo sees the Truands, he assumes they are there to hurt Esmeralda, so he drives them off. Likewise, he thinks the King's men want to rescue her, and tries to help them find her. She is rescued by Frollo and her phony husband Gringoire. But after yet another failed attempt to win her love, Frollo betrays Esmeralda by handing her to the troops and watches while she is being hanged.

When Frollo laughs during Esmeralda's hanging, Quasimodo pushes him from the heights of Notre Dame to his death. Quasimodo then goes to the vaults under the huge Gibbet of Montfaucon, and lies next to Esmeralda's corpse, where it had been unceremoniously thrown after the execution. He stays at Montfaucon, and eventually dies of starvation. About eighteen months later, the tomb is opened, and the skeletons are found. As someone tries to separate them, Quasimodo's bones turn to dust.

CRITICISM:

Why Neo Classicism? Victor Hugo describes the importance of architecture and how it is an indication of society's values and ideals. It is also obvious that Hugo is already recognizing the cultural similarities between the ancient and modern times.
In this novel, we can really appreciate the beauty within it. It is shown from the very beginning of the story.
We can also notice that there are so many values that the story gives us. First the movie tells us that physical appearance of a person is not enough fro judging him what is within him. This shows Quasimodo a bell ringer in the tower of the Notre Dame. The people always say that because of his ugliness he is also evil that is very contradictory what really he is because as the story goes on Quasimodo is indeed a very good an a very loving person. Esmerelda on the other hand is also judge by the people as an evil because she is a gypsy where in fact that like Quasimodo she is loving and kind.
Frollo, despite of his being a monk, practice dark magic and trap Esmeralda by giving her a choice whether she will be hanged or she will say she loves Frollo. In short he is very evil.
And many other characters that show how their appearances is very different from their inner thoughts and characters.
Notre Dame was the first work fictional novel that encompasses the whole life.












 

Moral Criticism

MORAL CRITICISM

•  Judge the value of the literature on its moral lesson or ethical teaching

  A. Literature that that is ethically sound and encourages virtue is praised
  B. Literature that misguides and/or corrupts is condemned.

•  Works that are moral (or literature that attempts to teach and instruct as well as entertain) are often seen in contemporary criticism as didactic. 

 THE ROAD TO EL DORADO (MOVIE)

 

 In Spain 1519, two con artists, Tulio (Kevin Kline) and Miguel (Kenneth Branagh) win a map to the legendary City of Gold, El Dorado, in a rigged gambling match (though ironically they end up winning the map fairly). After being accused of cheating with loaded dice, the two evade capture while being chased by a bull and hide in barrels, which are shortly loaded onto one of the ships to be led by Hernán Cortés (Jim Cummings) to the New World. During the trip, they are caught as stowaways, but manage to break free and take a rowboat with the help of Cortés' horse, Altivo (Frank Welker). They land at an unknown shore at the edge of South America, and Miguel begins to recognize landmarks stated on the map. The map leads them to a totem marker outside of a waterfall where a young woman approaches them, chased by a number of guards. The guards see the image of Tulio and Miguel riding Altivo as the same on the totem, and believing them to be gods, escort them and the woman under the falls and into El Dorado, truly a city made of gold.
Tulio and Miguel are brought to the city's elders, Chief Tannabok (Edward James Olmos) and wicked high priest Tzekel-Kan (Armand Assante). While Tannabok warmly welcomes them to the city, Tzekel-Kan mainly sees them as a way to enhance his own standing. Tzekel-Kan also believes that with the arrival of the gods comes "The Year of the Jaguar", a year in which the city will be purged of all wicked people. Tulio and Miguel begin to argue on what to do. Everyone is convinced they are gods when as a volcano is beginning to erupt, Tulio yells at Miguel to "stop!" and the volcano suddenly stops. After celebrations offered by both Tannabok and Tzekel-Kan, the two are taken to private quarters along with the woman they met earlier, Chel (Rosie Perez), who has seen through their ploy but offers to help maintain it as long as they give her a share of the gold and take her with them when they leave. Tulio tells Tannabok the next day that they are only here for a visit, but will need a boat to leave the city with the gifts the city has showered upon them. Tannabok says it will take them at least three days to construct a vessel to carry both them and the gifts given to them by the people of El Dorado.
Chel encourages Miguel to continue to explore the city, allowing her to become closer to Tulio. When Tzekel-Kan sees Miguel playing a ball game with children, he demands that the gods play against the city's best players. During the match, Tulio and Miguel are clearly over-matched, but Chel replaces the ball with a rolled-up armadillo, allowing the two to cheat and win the game. However, when Tzekel-Kan offers to have the defeated players put to death, Miguel orders him to leave the city. As he is leaving, Tzekel-Kan sees a small cut on Miguel's forehead, and realizes that they are not gods because gods do not bleed. Tzekel-Kan conjures a giant stone jaguar to chase them through the city. Tulio and Miguel manage to outwit the stone jaguar, causing both it and Tzekel-Kan to fall into a giant whirlpool, thought to be the entrance to Xibalba, the spirit world. Tzekel-Kan comes to outside El Dorado, where Cortés and his men are searching for gold. Thinking Cortés is a true god, Tzekel-Kan quickly offers to lead them to El Dorado.
With their boat completed and loaded with treasures, Tulio is ready to leave but Miguel announces that he will be staying because he finds the city peaceful. As Tulio and Chel start to leave, they spot smoke on the horizon, realizing that Cortés and his men are approaching the city with the help from Tzekel-Kan. To protect the city from the Spanish troops, Tulio determines they can use the boat to slam against rock formations under the waterfall path that will cave in and block access to the city. The city residents pull down a large statue to create a wave to propel the boat, but Tulio cannot get the sails up to give the boat enough speed to avoid the statue. Miguel forgoes his chance to stay in the city and jumps into the boat with Altivo to finish hoisting the sails. The boat clears the statue in time, and Tulio's plan is successful; though the boat and its treasures are lost, the entrance to El Dorado is sealed for good. Tulio, Miguel, Chel, and Altivo hide as Tzekel-Kan brings Cortés and his men towards the waterfall. Once Tzekal-Kan finds out that the entrance has been blocked, an angry Cortés takes this as a lie. Cortés and his men then march away with a humiliated Tzekel-Kan in their hands. Tulio, Miguel, and Chel, though disappointed they lost their treasure, take off in a different direction for a new adventure, unaware that Altivo still wears the golden horseshoes he was outfitted with in the city.

 CRITICISM:

This movie somehow could be applied to moral criticism. Though if you watch the entire movie, you may find it fictional and comedic but the movie itself shows morals and values.
First, the two main characters, Tulio and Miguel, that when they arrived at El Dorado, their friendship was tested. Secondly, Tsezel-kan, his implicit characteristic is that he is greedy. though somehow he showed respect to their chief, deep inside he wanted to take revenge and to reign El Dorado so that all the Golds will belong to him. Also in the end of the movie he showed his traitorship to his own people, but eventually failed when the passage to El Dorado was blocked. In the end he was the one who received the punishment from the Spaniards troops.
The Movie, though not very highlighted, somehow wants to give some morals to its viewer.
Like friendship is really tested in times of trouble. This was shown by Tulio and Miguel, in the last part of the movie when Miguel Decided to stay to El Dorado while Tulio, Together with the gold decide to leave the city. But when the sails was blocked Miguel eventually jumps to the boat. Together they successfully blocked the entrance to El Dorado when the Spanish Troops planned to invade it.
And, Bad deeds never Succeeds. this is when Tsezel-Kan tried to betray his city by allowing the Spaniards troops to enter the city. but of course he never knew that the entrance was already blocked.
For me, the movie is entertaining and yet gives moral especially to the young ones.

Post modernism

POST MODERNISM

~ Since individual responses tend to differ from one another and change over time, postmodernist thought is skeptical of explanations that claim to be valid for all human groups, cultures, or times. Instead, it encourages the exploration and comparison of individuals' subjective responses to a given poem, painting, or other cultural product. It examines the role that language, power, and motivation play in the formation of ideas and beliefs. It is skeptical about the accuracy and usefulness of describing people or things in terms of sharply defined either/or categories (male/female, straight/gay, white/black, imperial/colonial). It examines how people's social relationships to one another, such as their relative power or place in a hierarchy, affect how they see the world and how they use their knowledge of it. It emphasizes constructivism, idealism, pluralism, relativism, and scepticism.

PIERRE MENARD, AUTHOR OF THE QUIXOTE - Jorge Luis Borges 

The first part of “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” introduces the reader to both the tone and the narrator, both of which are scholarly. The narrator, a French academic, seeks to correct the erroneous and incomplete catalog of the work of an author named Pierre Menard that had been compiled by a Madame Henri Bachelier. The narrator proceeds to enumerate a list of Menard’s “visible” works, which include poems, a number of scholarly works on philosophical and literary topics, a translation, a catalog preface, and other minor academic works.

The narrator then shifts to his primary topic: Menard’s “subterranean, interminably heroic, and unequalled” work, which the narrator feels is “possibly the most significant of our time.” This work consists of “the ninth and thirty-eighth chapters of Part One of Don Quixote and a fragment of the twenty-second chapter.” Justifying the apparent “absurdity” of this statement, the narrator explains, is the purpose of this “note.” Menard did not want to produce another Don Quixote, but the Don Quixote, the narrator stresses. At first, Menard considered recreating the events, circumstances, and cultural surroundings of Miguel de Cervantes’s life in order to “become” the author and therefore be able to create the Quixote again; later, he abandoned this approach as “too easy.” He decided that to remain Menard and still compose the Quixote would be a more arduous and therefore more rewarding undertaking.

The narrator never explains exactly how Menard succeeds in composing these fragments, and instead analyzes Menard’s text. The narrator quotes at length from a letter of Menard’s in which he explains that he chose theQuixote because, as a Frenchman, the book was not prominent in his literary education. The project of rewriting theQuixote is “considerably more difficult” than was the project of writing the novel in the first place, for in Cervantes’ time the work was “perhaps inevitable,” but in Menard’s time it is ”almost impossible.”

The majority of the last half of the section is taken up with an explanation of why the Menard Quixote is “more subtle than that of Cervantes.” Where Quixote simply “indulges in a rather coarse opposition” between chivalry stories and realistic descriptions of seventeenth-century Spain, Menard sets his story in the distant past, yet avoids describing his fictional setting with trite, stereotypical details of gypsies and the Inquisition. A discourse delivered by Don Quixote holding that arms were superior to letters is explicable in the Cervantes text by the fact that Cervantes himself was a soldier, but in the Menard Quixote the idea is distinctly more subtle and ironic. Cervantes’ meditation on history is mere rhetoric while Menard’s is clearly a reaction to the ideas of William James. The narrator concludes by evaluating the impact of Menard. His Quixote has enriched contemporary literature by its technique of “deliberate anachronism and erroneous attributions,” and the narrator recommends applying Menard’s technique in order to “improve” many classic works of literature.

CRITICISM:

The author here focuses on the works of Pierre Menard, the said so author of the Quixote which is very opposite to the original work of Cervantes. For instance, "indulges in a rather coarse opposition between tales of knighthood and the meager, provincial reality of his country". While Menard writes of the distant past ("the land of Carmen during the century of Lepanto and Lope”), in Cervantes “there are neither bands of Gypsies, conquistadors... nor autos de fe. 

so in short, Pierre Menard here is the cause of the questions, or what the queries of the readers about what really is true about the authorship, interpretations and appropriation.

modernism

MODERNISM

~ they making the old thing new.
characteristic of modernist approach
1. new ideas are entertained
2. real and changing times
- content based ideas
- actual happening that fictional
- application of science
- there should be fact to emphasize the literature

THE SUN ALSO RISES - Ernest Miller Hemingway

The protagonist of The Sun Also Rises is Jake Barnes, an expatriate American journalist living in Paris. Jake suffered a war wound that left him impotent; the nature of his injury is not explicitly described. He is in love with Lady Brett Ashley, a twice-divorced Englishwoman. Brett, with her bobbed hair and numerous love affairs, embodies the new sexual freedom of the 1920s.

Book One is set in the café society of Paris. In the opening scenes, Jake plays tennis with his college friend Robert Cohn, picks up a prostitute (Georgette), and runs into Brett and Count Mippipopolous in a nightclub. Later, Brett tells Jake she loves him, but they both know that they have no chance at a stable relationship.

In Book Two, Jake is joined by Bill Gorton, recently arrived from New York, and Brett's fiancé Mike Campbell, who arrives from Scotland. Jake and Bill travel south and meet Robert Cohn at Bayonne for a fishing trip in the hills northeast of Pamplona. Instead of fishing, Cohn stays in Pamplona to wait for the overdue Brett and Mike. Cohn had an affair with Brett a few weeks earlier and still feels possessive of her despite her engagement to Mike. After Jake and Bill enjoy five days of tranquility fishing the streams near Burguete, they rejoin the group in Pamplona where they begin to drink heavily. Cohn's presence is increasingly resented by the others, who taunt him with anti-semitic remarks. During the fiesta the characters drink, eat, watch the running of the bulls, attend bullfights, and bicker with each other. Jake introduces Brett to the 19-year-old matador Romero at the Hotel Montoya; she is smitten with him and seduces him. The jealous tension among the men builds—Jake, Campbell, Cohn, and Romero each love Brett. Cohn, who had been a champion boxer in college, has fistfights with Jake, Mike, and Romero, whom he beats up. Despite his injuries, Romero continues to perform brilliantly in the bullring.

Book Three shows the characters in the aftermath of the fiesta. Sober again, they leave Pamplona; Bill returns to Paris, Mike stays in Bayonne, and Jake goes to San Sebastián in northeastern Spain. As Jake is about to return to Paris, he receives a telegram from Brett asking for help; she had gone to Madrid with Romero. He finds her there in a cheap hotel, without money, and without Romero. She announces she has decided to go back to Mike. The novel ends with Jake and Brett in a taxi speaking of the things that might have been.

CRITICISM:

the novel "the sun also rises" is a novel of E. Hemingway that is a modernist literature
 the novel is a love story between the protagonist Jake Barnes—a man whose war wound has made him impotent—and the promiscuous divorcée Lady Brett Ashley. Brett's affair with Robert Cohn causes Jake to be upset and break off his friendship with Cohn; her seduction of the 19-year-old Romero causes Jake to lose his good reputation among the Spaniards in Pamplona. 
as we can see,  the characters are based on real people and the action is based on real events. In the novel, Hemingway presents his notion that the generation during those times considered to have been dissolutely damaged by world war 1 was resilient and strong. Additionally, Hemingway also includes the theme of love, death, and the renewal of the nature.

Eco-Criticism

ECO-CRITICISM

~ in this kind of literary piece you can see the relationship within the text that involves materials about environment.

THE PRELUDE - William Wordsworth

The poem begins in his boyhood and continues to 1798. By the latter date, he felt that his formative years had passed, that his poetic powers were mature, and that he was ready to begin constructing the huge parent work. Alternating with his almost religious conviction, there is an unremitting strain of dark doubt through the poem. The poem itself therefore may be considered an attempt to stall for time before going on to what the poet imagined would be far more difficult composition. As he tells the reader repeatedly, his purpose was threefold: to provide a reexamination of his qualifications, to honor Coleridge, and to create an introduction to The Recluse.

It was actually finished in 1805 but was carefully and constantly revised until 1850, when it was published posthumously. It had been remarked that Wordsworth had the good sense to hold back an introductory piece until he was certain that what it was to introduce had some chance of being realized. Moreover, The Prelude contained passages which promised to threaten the sensibilities of others, as well as himself, during the rapidly changing course of events after 1805. The year 1805 is the approximate date of his conversion to a more conservative outlook. However, his later-year recollection was that this change occurred some ten years earlier, and he tries in his revisions to push the date back.

The 1805 original draft was resurrected by Ernest de Selincourt and first published in 1926. A comparison of it with the 1850 (and final) version shows the vast change the work underwent. Some passages in the earlier version do not appear at all in the later; others are altered almost beyond recognition. The 1805 draft contains the clearest statement of Wordsworth's philosophy and is fresher and more vigorously written. The toned-down work as published in 1850 represents the shift of his thought toward conservatism and orthodoxy during the intervening years. The student is likely to find the 1850 version much more accessible for the purpose of reading the whole poem. Yet on the whole, critics tend to prefer the 1805 version when citing actual lines from the poem.

The only action in the entire poem is an action of ideas. Similarly, it would be inaccurate to speak of the poem has having a plot in any standard sense. Its "story" is easily summarized. The poem falls rather naturally into three consecutive sections: Books 1-7 offer a half-literal, half-fanciful description of his boyhood and youthful environment; Book 8 is a kind of reprise. Books 9-11, in a more fluid and narrative style, depict his exciting adventures in France and London. Books 12-14 are mostly metaphysical and are devoted to an attempt at a philosophy of art, with the end of the last book giving a little summary.

Each of these three "sections" corresponds roughly to a phase in Wordsworth's poetic development and to a period in his life. The first dates from the time of his intuitive reliance on nature, when he wrote simple and graceful lyrics. The second represents his days of hope for, and then disappointment with, the Revolution, and his adoption of Godwinian rationalism, during which he wrote the strong and inspiring sonnets and odes. The last coincides with his later years of reaction and orthodoxy, when he wrote dull and proper works such as The Excursion and Ecclesiastical Sonnets. The Prelude is critically central to his life work because it contains passages representing all three styles.

In the last analysis, The Prelude is valuable because it does precisely what its subtitle implies: It describes the creation of a poet, and one who was pivotal in English letters. In fact, The Prelude was so successful in its attempt that there was nothing left to deal with in The Recluse. Wordsworth could reach the high level of abstraction needed for a true philosophical epic only sporadically, in some of the shorter lyrics and odes, and could not sustain the tone.

CRITICISM:

The poem is kind too long that is why I decided to get the summary only.

The Prelude is the poem by William Wordsworth that can be a best example of an eco-criticism piece because it relates the author feeling of the environment.

the poem started by the speaker youth hood. He tells in the poem how he felt every time he sees the nature; the breeze, the green field. we can obviously see that the speaker in the poem reminisce his past or his youth hood, how he felt so happy or comfortable with his surroundings. 

also that he also see the nature as a living things that are very pleasing to the eyes every time they move.