Abstract

CONTEMPORARY LITERARY CRITICISM AND EDWARD SAID

Dr. Prabin Sinha

Volume: 4 Issue: 1 2014

Abstract:

Contemporary literary criticism had long been in the grip of Formalism which had a long tradition from new-criticism and Russian Formalism to structuralism and post-structuralism. Contemporary literary criticism has long been in the grip of formalism. From Russian Formalism through New Criticism and structuralism to American deconstruction. New Criticism held centre stage in the early decades of the 20th Century. It derived its inspiration from elements in I.A. Richards’ Principles of Literary Criticism (1924) and Practical Criticism (1929) and from the critical essays of T.S. Eliot. It opposed the prevailing interest of scholars, critics and teachers of that era in the biographies of authors, the social context of literature and literary history by insisting that the proper concern of a literary critic is not with the external circumstances or effects or the historical position of a work, but with detailed consideration of the work itself as an autonomous entity, independent and self-sufficient by itself. Structuralism postulated that we derive meaning from texts through the differences between words, which are arbitrary signs which refer to themselves instead of any object. Post-structuralism went further ahead to postulate that texts are autonomous entities which are open to limitless interpretations.

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