What matters is the soul and spirit of the "Tyger" and not its brawn, to Blake. An indepth study of the iconic poem by Dr AV Koshy.
The contribution of Italy and Dante to literature and literary criticism cannot be negated. Literature is studied here from a Eurocentric base.
This article compares and uses Sanskrit and Dravidian Indian literary criticism with Grecian criticism on English texts, with examples from India mixed in too.
Roman criticism and poetry influenced great writers like James Joyce and Ezra Pound and although not as reputed as the critiques of Plato and Aristotle, continues to be a beacon for most masters of literature who look up to these critics for their precision of thought.
In this essay on literary criticism, Dr Ampat Koshy analyses the words used in Greek for their category of four loves. It later became part of the Western world view too, through Christianity.
Plato’s opinion regarding a text was that it should be didactic. It should instruct society. But Aristotle questioned Plato’s opinions. He strongly affirmed that a text should be purely aesthetic. Therefore, each critic constructs a different frame around the text.
The whole concept of literary criticism arises, maybe, out of a question: On what basis do we judge a book/text as being better than another book/text? Is it subjective, based on one’s personal opinion, or objective; based on a set of parameters? Or both?
I prefer using simpler words like writing for literature, making for creating, verse for poetry and thinking for theory.
Creators will not create original work but engage in curating already existing work to CREATE ORIGINALITY.
While speaking on the present scenario what one has to concentrate on is not "tradition and the individual talent" anymore or whether one's poems are a "spontaneous overflow of emotions recollected in tranquility" or not but something much deeper, which is the philosophical question of what criticism should do today.
Why I respect the best Keralite writing... is because it often has this kind of a 'subversive' edge, ...in... writers famous and unknown, like O.V. Vijayan.
The truth is Kerala has always had, like Bengal, Orissa, Kashmir and many other parts of India, an excellent crop of writers in English. They excel in criticism and poetry, mainly, not to mention novel writing and short stories.
We enjoy a poem by looking at its author, the relevant biographical material, the context, the form and structure, the figures of speech, the musical devices, the imagery, the style and the content.
This column is called Literature DIY for a reason, it suggests that teaching oneself for a lifetime is the best method of learning and excelling at the lonely art of reading, thinking or analyzing or writing, where there seem to be no rules.
