Biographical / Historical Criticism
Biographical / Historical criticism takes its name from where emphasis is placed when trying to understand the true meaning in a work of literature. The word Biographical comes from the emphasis placed on the author, while the word Historical comes from the emphasis placed on an age or era that the author lived in. This is also known as genetic criticism because of the idea that the author and his/her work are the offspring of an age. Studying the age in which an author lived can be helpful in understanding the author's intention of a work. The purpose of this type of criticism is to be as accurate as possible when trying to locate meaning in literature. To do this Biographical / Historical criticism must ask what the author meant when he/she created it. It is the search for the author's true intention, if in fact there even was one.This concept is the result of two main influences. The first was a change from the reflection of nature to the reflection or expression of the individual. This concept dominated at the beginning of the 19th century. The author was now seen as an individual and as being unique. The second influence was the idea that each age has different assumptions and different values. This appeared in t
Overall, there are strengths and weaknesses to every type of literary criticism, but used together they could be more useful in interpreting a work of literature. " ( Hirsch 24) This means that some things may cohere in some but not all contexts. " ( Hirsch 24) The next step is to check for genre appropriateness. We can better understand the minds that created the works we read today and it is a reflection of the unique minds that were caught up in a unique age in time. Hirsch explains that inclusivism is favorable when trying to consider others' interpretations, but it has little theoretical value because it is impossible to totally agree with one interpretation or another because they conflict directly with one another. The first is to see if the interpretation fits with historical linguistic norms. This is why biographical / historical criticism reigned unchallenged in the 19th century. he 18th century, but didn't dominate or become accepted or well known until the beginning of the 19th century. Historical criticism also can become problematic when we use a piece of work to explain the life of an author and then turn around and use the life of the author to explain a piece of work. "Textual meaning is not a naked given like a physical object. Although we can study the age of an author, the author may not be typical of the age. Another problem is that there is often a lack of biographical information on an author and it becomes more difficult to be accurate. Value judgments are not possible because we are limited to what the author meant at the time. The text is first of all a conventional representation like a musical score, and what the score represents may be construed correctly or incorrectly. Biographical / Historical criticism is helpful for many reasons.
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Acceptance Essays
