lit crit (acc. to Gale EOL) = inquiries into what lit is, what it does, and
what is its worth.
lit crit (acc. to Tyson) = act of interpreting a text (like what New Crits
would call "practical crit"?). Also, she says that "lit crit is the application
of critical theory to a literary text, whether or not a given critic is aware
of the theoretical assumptions informing her or his interpretation" (7).
lit theory (acc. to Tyson) = examination of the premises and assumptions and
values underlying "various forms of lit criticism"
lit analysis =
" There appears to be a tug of war
between the main trends—judicial, personal, scientific,
historical—a tension which was still continuing una-
bated in the 1960's." (
Dict.
of the History of Ideas) Add to this "biographical"?
criticism as use of lit. to study grammar and rhetoric; judgment and gate-keeping,
sympathy and enjoyment, scientific analysis, personal reactions, historical
and scholarly study (identifies what makes a work unique in history); biographical
study (examines the author); crit as art in itself, a becoming the author
Compared to the attention given to the theory of
criticism in Germany, England and France contributed
little at that time. S. T. Coleridge, who was the one
Englishman thoroughly familiar with German critical
thought, said surprisingly little about his concept of
criticism. Coleridge did formulate an ambitious pro-
gram of aiming “at fixed canons of criticism, previously
established and deduced from the nature of man,” and,
in retrospect, said of himself, referring to the 1790's,
that “according to the faculty or source, from which
the pleasure given by any poem or passage was derived,
I estimated the merit of such a poem or passage”
(Biographia Literaria, ed. Shawcross, I, 14, 44). The
theory of criticism implied is a psychological one: a
ranking of the faculties with the imagination higher
than fancy, reason higher than the senses. But Cole-
ridge never developed this as a theory of criticism.
Among the English critics of the time, William
Hazlitt made a conscious attempt to formulate what
would later be called “impressionistic criticism.” “I say
what I think: I think what I feel. I cannot help receiv-
ing certain impressions from things; and I have suffi-
cient courage to declare (somewhat abruptly) what
they are” (
Complete Works, ed. Howe, V, 175). The task
of criticism is the communication of feelings. He uses
the new methods; elaborate evocative metaphors, per-
Page 599, Volume 1
sonal reminiscences, a feeling of intimacy like an en-
thusiastic guide in a gallery or a host in a library.
Hazlitt faces a new middle-class audience; he wants
to win it over, to cajole it to the enjoyment of litera-
ture. The critic becomes neither a judge nor a theorist,
but a middleman between author and public.