2.2 Historical-Biographical and Moral-Philosophical Approaches
The historical- biographical approach sees a literary work as a reflection of its author’s life
and times or the life and times of the characters in the work.
Historical approach is divided into two approaches: The old historicism which aims to
provide context of background information necessary for understanding how literary works
were perceived during their time and new historicism which emphasizes the analysis of
the historical documents, diaries culture artifacts, journals and the like.
James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans, Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, Charles
Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities, and John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath
The moral-philosophical approach emphasizes that the larger function of literature is to
teach morality and to probe philosophical issues. Literature is interpreted within a context
of the philosophical thought of a period or group.
Plato’s criteria for good literature were moralism and utilitarianism; Horace’s were delight
and instruction. The basic position of such critics is that the larger function of narrative art
is to teach morality. Sometimes such teaching is religiously oriented, sometimes
philosophically.
Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus can be read profitably only if one understands
existentialism. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter is seen as a study of the effects of sin
on a human soul.
2.3 Romantic Theory Romantic Theory
refers to a movement in art and literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in
revolt against the neoclassicism of the previous centuries.
The German poet Friedrich Schlegel defined literature as depicting emotional matter in
an imaginative form. Imagination, emotion, and freedom are certainly the focal points of
romanticism.
particular characteristics of the literature of romanticism includes subjectivity and an
emphasis on individualism; spontaneity; freedom from rules; solitary life rather than life in
society; the beliefs that imagination is superior to reason and devotion to beauty; love of
and worship of nature; and fascination with the past, especially the myths and mysticism
of the middle ages.
Among the English poets are William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron,
Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats and American poets are Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Walt
Whitman.
The historical- biographical approach sees a literary work as a reflection of its author’s life
and times or the life and times of the characters in the work.
Historical approach is divided into two approaches: The old historicism which aims to
provide context of background information necessary for understanding how literary works
were perceived during their time and new historicism which emphasizes the analysis of
the historical documents, diaries culture artifacts, journals and the like.
James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans, Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, Charles
Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities, and John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath
The moral-philosophical approach emphasizes that the larger function of literature is to
teach morality and to probe philosophical issues. Literature is interpreted within a context
of the philosophical thought of a period or group.
Plato’s criteria for good literature were moralism and utilitarianism; Horace’s were delight
and instruction. The basic position of such critics is that the larger function of narrative art
is to teach morality. Sometimes such teaching is religiously oriented, sometimes
philosophically.
Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus can be read profitably only if one understands
existentialism. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter is seen as a study of the effects of sin
on a human soul.
2.3 Romantic Theory Romantic Theory
refers to a movement in art and literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in
revolt against the neoclassicism of the previous centuries.
The German poet Friedrich Schlegel defined literature as depicting emotional matter in
an imaginative form. Imagination, emotion, and freedom are certainly the focal points of
romanticism.
particular characteristics of the literature of romanticism includes subjectivity and an
emphasis on individualism; spontaneity; freedom from rules; solitary life rather than life in
society; the beliefs that imagination is superior to reason and devotion to beauty; love of
and worship of nature; and fascination with the past, especially the myths and mysticism
of the middle ages.
Among the English poets are William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron,
Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats and American poets are Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Walt
Whitman.
