English Literature

Résumé du document

Here is an essay evaluating three literary critics' view on Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 94.' The essay demonstrates how to build an argument and how to evaluate other pieces of literary criticism, whilst clearly articulating onself in order for the reader to understand the train of thought required to build an argument at degree level.

Extraits

[...] WORDS: 1878. [...]

[...] "On Reading "The Intentional Fallacy": The Problem of "Internal Evidence"." College English 26, no (1965): 540-42. Van O'Connor, William. Short View of the New Criticism." College English 11, no (1949): 63-71. Wimsatt, W. K., and M. C. Beardsley. "The Intentional Fallacy." The Sewanee Review 54, no (1946): 468-88. [...]

[...] By ignoring the importance of the reader's response, the critics are ignoring a vital component of authorial intention: when writing Sonnet 94, Shakespeare would have considered the emotional response of the reader and selected words he thought that were the most effective to evoke such a response. Therefore, Empson and his critics are flawed as they are disregarding a crucial element in judging the literary success of Sonnet 94. As agreed by Martin, there is a break between octet and sestet. [...]

[...] Such wealthy men even own "their faces". However, little thought is given by Empson or Martin into the impact that Sonnet 94 may have had within Elizabethan society. The critics make no application of the effects of irony on the Elizabethan reader; by portraying that upper class men were men of many contradictions through the use of irony and opposing metaphors, the reader is given insight into the "cold" hearted, selfish aristocrat who has no cares for the "others", who are below them in the societal hierarchy and act as "stewards". [...]

[...] The primary aim of literary criticism is to determine the literary value of a text. William Empson argues in Some Versions of Pastoral (1935), that William Shakespeare's Sonnet 94 is piece of grave irony," embedded with metaphors, and implicit as well as explicit ambiguities. Critic Philip Martin agrees with Empson's conjecture that Sonnet 94 is one of the most ambiguous and challenging of the Shakespearean sonnets, and to attempt to investigate it without any criteria of analysis would yield many wild and contrasting interpretations. [...]