Literary criticism refers to an article that analyzes and evaluates various literary trends, literary schools, literary works, literary development history and literary theories. When writing literary criticism, senior high school students generally only need to analyze and evaluate specific literary works and write a short essay of about 300 words.
Although this kind of literary prose is short in length, it must also be short and pithy articles with complete structure, clear levels, clear views and fluent language. Some people call it an appreciation essay.
A short literary comment on "the sparrow is small and has all its organs". When writing, we should be guided by literary theory, based on the materials of the works, closely follow the works, and evaluate the main contents or characteristics of the original text with a clear aim.
Second, the writing angle and content: 1. Appreciate the theme of the work and its performance. This kind of topic is mainly to evaluate the ideological content of the work and the author's viewpoint and attitude, analyze the main expression techniques used in the work (such as imagination, association, symbol, rendering, comparison, first restraining and then promoting, expressing meaning with things, expressing emotion through scenery, and blending scenes), and point out what theme ideas the work expresses, what social reality it reflects, and what positive significance or limitations the work has.
The commonly used terms of appreciation theme are: prominent center, profound theme, short and far-reaching, concise, profound implication, profound theme and so on. 2. Analyze the image of the work.
The image of literary works refers to a vivid and concrete life pattern created in literary works that can stimulate people's feelings, usually referring to the mental outlook and personality characteristics of characters in literary works. The analysis of the characters in the works should mainly be carried out from two aspects: one is to reveal the typical significance of the characters, and the other is to briefly analyze the main personality characteristics of the characters.
3. Appreciate the artistic technique of the work. There are various artistic techniques in literary works, mainly including the following aspects: (1) expressive techniques, such as narration, description, discussion, lyricism and explanation; (2) Expressive techniques, such as imagination, association, symbol, rendering, contrast, seeing the big from the small, restraining first and then promoting, expressing emotion by supporting things, expressing emotion by borrowing scenery, etc. (3) Narrative methods, such as direct narration, flashback, insertion and supplementary narration. (4) Description methods, such as portrait description, psychological description, language description, action description, environment description, etc. (5) Descriptive techniques, such as dynamic contrast, dynamic and static combination, virtual and real combination, point and surface combination, light and shade combination, sound and emotion combination, rough sketch, meticulous painting, etc. (6) Lyrics, such as direct lyricism (direct expression) and indirect lyricism (borrowing scenery to express feelings); (7) Creation of artistic conception and application of rhetoric.
Appreciate the artistic techniques of the works, mainly from the above aspects for analysis and evaluation. 4. Talk about the conception skills of the work.
The conception skills of the work mainly include the following aspects: (1) writing ideas, such as this and that, from the outside to the inside, from the shallow to the deep, from one aspect to several aspects and so on. (2) article clues, such as a central event as a clue, people, feelings, time and space as clues; (3) Hierarchical structure, such as total-minute-total, total-minute, minute-total and minute-minute. Example: Narration of "Giant"-A Brief Analysis of Beethoven's Language Description: A giant Beethoven depicts the image of a giant through portrait description and profile description, especially the language description plays a great role and is a wonderful stroke.
The language is concise and the image of loneliness is prominent. "What? So what? " "Mama of, today! Oh, all the children I met today laughed at me ... ""Who? Who's that? " After a series of short questions, Beethoven showed impatience, disgust and loneliness when meeting the guests.
Sincere words, tenacious will to show. "I am deaf!" "You know I can't hear you." "The greatest tragedy of musicians is the loss of hearing."
From Beethoven's heartfelt words, we can see that he dared to face up to his shortcomings and lived tenaciously. This shows his tough character through his own words.
The beauty of language includes the beauty of spirit. "How dare you come to the den to catch the hair of the old lion?"
"Struggle hard?" "Listen to the music in my heart!" The metaphor of summoning is used to show the subtle changes in Beethoven's heart. He has physical defects, but he has created a beautiful life. Through Beethoven's personal narration, the whole article created a lonely, tenacious and music-loving giant.
Comments: The article begins with a highly summarized sentence "especially the description of language has played a great role, which is a wonderful stroke", and then analyzes the giant's language from three aspects: "concise language, prominent lonely image", "sincere speech, tenacious will display" and "the beauty of language contains spiritual beauty" in just three paragraphs, and quotes original materials as the basis for argument. Of course, some comments in the article are not accurate. For example, the "loneliness and world-weariness" in Beethoven's Seeing Guests Showing Impatience and the Image of Loneliness and World-weariness Prominent is biased.
Example 2: Narration of "Giant" —— Analysis of the language description of Beethoven: A giant Beethoven successfully shaped the personality characteristics of the great musician Beethoven through personalized language description, and showed readers a vivid three-dimensional personality. It is through Beethoven's language that this paper shapes his image of being willing to be lonely, taking "eternity" as his companion, making music tirelessly all his life, and being calm and incomprehensible to the world.
He called the guest's visit "how dare you come to the wolf's den to catch the old lion's hair", which seemed humorous, but in fact contained sadness that was not understood by the world, with deep feelings and sadness. "I can't help sighing sometimes, I am too weak ..." It is conceivable that Beethoven's helplessness when he was deaf touched us with his more humane side. Great men also have their ordinary helplessness, and their feelings are sincere and touching. "Listen to the music in my heart! You don't know how I feel! A band can only play what I want to write in one minute! " Beethoven's yearning for the world, I hope they can understand his truly kind soul, so the heartfelt call is moving.
In a word, the language description in this paper is vivid and vivid, which deepens the image of the characters and points out the main idea.
2. How to write a short literary essay? Definition of literary essays: Literary essays belong to literary criticism.
Literary criticism refers to an article that analyzes and evaluates various literary trends, literary schools, literary works, literary development history and literary theories. When writing literary criticism, senior high school students generally only need to analyze and evaluate specific literary works and write a short essay of about 300 words.
Although this kind of literary prose is short in length, it must also be short and pithy articles with complete structure, clear levels, clear views and fluent language. Some people call it an appreciation essay.
A short literary comment on "the sparrow is small and has all its organs". When writing, we should be guided by literary theory, based on the materials of the works, closely follow the works, and evaluate the main contents or characteristics of the original text with a clear aim.
Second, the writing angle and content: 1. Appreciate the theme of the work and its performance. This kind of topic is mainly to evaluate the ideological content of the work and the author's viewpoint and attitude, analyze the main expression techniques used in the work (such as imagination, association, symbol, rendering, comparison, first restraining and then promoting, expressing meaning with things, expressing emotion through scenery, and blending scenes), and point out what theme ideas the work expresses, what social reality it reflects, and what positive significance or limitations the work has.
The commonly used terms of appreciation theme are: prominent center, profound theme, short and far-reaching, concise, profound implication, profound theme and so on. 2. Analyze the image of the work.
The image of literary works refers to a vivid and concrete life pattern created in literary works that can stimulate people's feelings, usually referring to the mental outlook and personality characteristics of characters in literary works. The analysis of the characters in the works should mainly be carried out from two aspects: one is to reveal the typical significance of the characters, and the other is to briefly analyze the main personality characteristics of the characters.
3. Appreciate the artistic technique of the work. There are various artistic techniques in literary works, mainly including the following aspects: (1) expressive techniques, such as narration, description, discussion, lyricism and explanation; (2) Expressive techniques, such as imagination, association, symbol, rendering, contrast, seeing the big from the small, restraining first and then promoting, expressing emotion by supporting things, expressing emotion by borrowing scenery, etc. (3) Narrative methods, such as direct narration, flashback, insertion and supplementary narration. (4) Description methods, such as portrait description, psychological description, language description, action description, environment description, etc. (5) Descriptive techniques, such as dynamic contrast, dynamic and static combination, virtual and real combination, point and surface combination, light and shade combination, sound and emotion combination, rough sketch, meticulous painting, etc. (6) Lyrics, such as direct lyricism (direct expression) and indirect lyricism (borrowing scenery to express feelings); (7) Creation of artistic conception and application of rhetoric.
Appreciate the artistic techniques of the works, mainly from the above aspects for analysis and evaluation. 4. Talk about the conception skills of the work.
The conception skills of the work mainly include the following aspects: (1) writing ideas, such as this and that, from the outside to the inside, from the shallow to the deep, from one aspect to several aspects and so on. (2) article clues, such as a central event as a clue, people, feelings, time and space as clues; (3) Hierarchical structure, such as total-minute-total, total-minute, minute-total and minute-minute.
3. A brief comment: I will choose the literary works of oak.
Shu Ting's poems are novel and expressive. Exquisite language and distinctive personal style. To the Oak Tree is a beautiful and profound lyric poem of hers. The love it expresses is not only pure and hot, but also noble and great. It is like an old and fresh song, which touches people's heartstrings. Her poetic images are vivid and beautiful, and her thinking logic is meticulous and smooth. In this respect, her poems are not "hazy". Poetry, on the other hand, mostly uses metaphors, partial or whole symbols, and rarely expresses itself, so the images expressed are vague.
The poet takes the oak tree as the object, expressing the passion, sincerity and firmness of love. The oak tree in the poem is not a concrete object, but an ideal lover symbol of the poet. Therefore, this poem, to some extent, does not simply pour out one's passionate love, but expresses one's ideals and beliefs about love. It is expressed through a kind and concrete image, which is quite meaningful to the ancients.
What the poet wants is the kind of love that two people stand shoulder to shoulder and share weal and woe. The poet compares himself to a kapok, a kapok standing side by side with an oak tree. The roots and leaves of these two trees are closely connected. The poet's persistence in love is no less than the ancients' "I would like to be a lovebird in the sky, and I would like to live together on the ground, with two branches in one tree." . Oak and kapok stand quietly and firmly. When the wind blows, swaying branches and leaves greet each other and they are connected. That is the language of their world, their inner harmony and silent understanding.
To the Oak Tree enthusiastically and frankly sang the poet's personality ideal. Oak and kapok stand side by side, facing each other affectionately in an independent manner, which can be said to be a group of symbolic images with brand-new character in China's love poems.
The image of "oak tree" symbolizes the rigid beauty of men, while the kapok of "safflower" obviously embodies the female personality with new aesthetic temperament. She abandoned the delicate nature of old-fashioned women and was full of rich and vigorous life breath, which was exactly the same as the poet's ideal of women's independent self-esteem.
In artistic expression, the poem adopts the lyrical way of inner monologue, which is convenient for expressing the poet's inner world frankly and openly. At the same time, the image is constructed as a whole symbol (the whole poem correspondingly symbolizes the independent personality and sincere love of both lovers with the whole image of oak and kapok), which makes philosophical thoughts and ideas germinate and poetic in a kind of intimate and sensible image, so this poem with rational temperament makes people feel that there is no preaching.
4. In the writing of literary criticism, what method should be adopted to read the criticized works depends on how you will evaluate them.
For several paragraphs of a sentence in an article, if time is tight, you can start with this sentence and investigate the context a little. If necessary, consult relevant literature and comment on it.
To evaluate the central connotation of the whole article, we need to read the whole article and deeply understand what the author wants to express. Then find a key point, get into it, then spread your thinking, pay attention to step by step and be clear. Comments should be made reasonably, correctly and intuitively, and no distortion or fabrication is allowed.
In fact, I think it is better to read through the article (of course, you can ignore what you think is not too important), so as to achieve the purpose of learning from the article.
There is no definite way to write literary criticism since ancient times. In fact, there are many ways to write literary criticism. If we put aside the academic dogma, from the perspective of taking the exam, we can simply understand it like this:
The ultimate goal of literary criticism is to judge the value of a literary work. Simply put, it is what is good (or bad), what is good (or bad) and why.
What is literary value? Generally speaking, it is basically manifested in two aspects. One is cognitive value (such as ideological significance and social practical significance). ), and the other is aesthetic value (such as innovative significance in artistic style and expression method).
Usually, when we comment on a literary work, we don't need to cover everything. We should not only evaluate cognitive value, but also emphasize aesthetic value, which is superficial and lacks focus. This is a no-no for exams. We should focus on in-depth evaluation from one angle. The principle I advocate is: put pen to paper in a small place and focus on the big picture. How to grasp this principle, one or two words are not clear, care about understanding.
Generally speaking, writing literary criticism needs the help of certain theoretical methods, that is, analyzing the value of literary works with the help of certain literary theories, which is also the reason why literary criticism writing will appear in the literary theory examination. However, this seems profound and often makes candidates feel very scared, because undergraduates usually feel that their training in this area is almost blank (the same is true for undergraduates majoring in Chinese, and there is almost no difference between undergraduates majoring in interdisciplinary and undergraduates majoring in this major).
In fact, using theoretical methods is not so profound. The ultimate goal of using any theoretical method is to make your writing convincing, so as long as it can make your writing convincing, it is an effective method, no matter which school of theory or method it belongs to. Because for undergraduates, various common analytical methods, such as social analysis, psychological analysis, cultural analysis, text close reading, historical criticism, new historical criticism, deconstruction criticism, etc. , are profound and mysterious, and it is impossible to use them correctly. Even if you barely apply it, the result is ridiculous and generous. It is better not to use it.
So what should we do? In fact, it is the most effective way for undergraduates to respect common sense, return to common sense, and reason and analyze their works with the common sense of life that ordinary people usually have. The so-called common sense of life is actually the most convincing. When it was written, it was also a high-level literary criticism writing. Many critics in history have written comments in this way. The comments written are simple and easy to understand, and ordinary people can understand them. However, a few years ago, critics used various sharp and novel western theoretical methods to analyze China's literary works and literary phenomena. They like to complicate the simple truth and concoct a large number of foreign stereotyped writing, which is incomprehensible not only to ordinary readers, but also to professional readers. In recent years, this style of writing has almost become a poisonous phenomenon, which has aroused profound reflection in academic circles. Therefore, even among very professional critics, respecting and returning to common sense has become a common sense. In this case, as an ordinary undergraduate candidate whose professional quality has not yet taken shape, there is no need to force the so-called "theoretical method".
Therefore, a literary criticism writing should make these questions clear: first, what are the advantages (giving opinions), second, where are the advantages (analyzing works), and third, why are they good (making sense).
There are three other points that must be noted:
First, we should be good at putting a work into the whole history of literature or the tradition of literary development to measure its value. For example, since modern times, there have been many schools and traditions in the development of prose, such as Lu Xun's prose (essays), such as "Throwing a Dagger" which is famous for its ideological, critical and combative nature, and Zhou Zuoren's literati prose, which is famous for its leisure, dilution and intellectual interest, and so on. Then when you comment on an essay, you should be good at putting it in such a big background and tradition, and evaluate its similarities and differences, advantages and disadvantages with a comparative eye. This requires a writer to have a certain literary history accomplishment.
Second, the language of exam-oriented review writing must have bright spots, which is an important guarantee for high scores. Because everyone has similar theoretical literacy, the most direct basis for reviewers to evaluate the pros and cons is actually your language expression ability. Accuracy and fluency are the most basic requirements. On this basis, if you can be more energetic, it would be better to be literary. Therefore, this requires writers to have good language literacy.
Three, the volume surface handwriting must be neat and clear, and the format is correct. This principle is very important in any discipline, but critical writing is especially important. Because a review is at least 1000 words, so many words, if the paper is scribbled and the format is chaotic, the marking teacher can't read it, and the result can be imagined.
I wrote a lot. I don't know if I made it clear. I send you an email about a literary review I wrote when I was a graduate student of modern and contemporary literature in 2003. Afterwards, I learned that the marking teacher gave me full marks. I hope to learn something from you.
6. When we write a 300-word literary review, we can go in three steps: we must tune it, we must abstract it, and we must integrate it. Setting the tone is to establish an opinion and put forward an opinion on the work. It is to extract relevant sentences from works as arguments to analyze and prove opinions. Abstract can be an excerpt from the original text or a summary report of the original content. If it is an excerpt, it is generally required to mark these sentences with quotation marks, but if it is a report, it is not necessary to use quotation marks. Integration includes preparing a title, analyzing opinions, and arranging arguments into short articles that meet the requirements. Because students usually stay at many levels when reading literary works, there are relatively few opportunities to speak words, and the accumulation in this respect is also insufficient. Therefore, teachers must provide students with necessary appreciation terms and some typical examples to help them become familiar with the mode and writing of literary criticism. Please look at the following example:
You don't have to cry if you want to —— On metonymy in Homesickness. A major feature of homesickness is the use of metonymy rhetoric to express strong homesickness. The poet is ingenious, using "small stamps", "narrow boat tickets", "short graves" and "shallow bays" to replace the homesickness in different periods, such as childhood, adulthood, later and present, and make it materialized. At first glance, it seems a little free and easy for us to wave goodbye, but after reading it several times, you will feel the poet's tears, and you will be moved by the deep affection between mother and son, the love between husband and wife, and the wanderer's longing for the reunification of the motherland. It is stamps, boat tickets, graves and straits that show the poet's constant sadness. If you want to cry, you can do it through an agent.
This is a typical micro-literary criticism, and the subtitle has clearly defined the content of the article. The use of terms and the style of sentences reflect the characteristics of comments. The article comes straight to the point, closely following the limited topic, puts forward the view that "the characteristic of homesickness is to express strong homesickness by metonymy", and then points out the application of metonymy in poetry, and analyzes the connotation and artistic effect of this technique. The full text has clear viewpoints and pertinent comments, which is of great reference for students to write micro-literary comments.
Let's take a look at the comments on the article "Spring" that students are familiar with. The following comments are about their language features. When reading, pay attention to the methods of excerpt and comment.
Fresh, meaningful and alert —— Comment on the language features of Spring
The reason why Zhu Ziqing's Spring is beautiful and moving is that he is good at introducing readers into a specific natural environment with simple and meaningful sentences, enjoying the fun of spring with the author and appreciating the charm of mountains and rivers. Zhu Ziqing is good at refining easy-to-understand and vivid spoken language, and his prose language is fresh and simple. Such as writing grass "in the garden, in the field, you see, a large area is full of flowers" and writing flowers "you won't let me, I won't let you, all of them are full of flowers to chase", these short phrases come from spoken English. In a sense, it is easy to understand, and in rhetoric, after artistic processing by the author, it has a bright rhythm and a strong lyrical flavor. The author is also good at using wonderful metaphors to enhance the emotional atmosphere of language. For example, writing Spring Breeze says, "Like a mother's hand touching you" and compares spring to "a newborn doll", "a little girl" and "a strong young man". These metaphors are novel, appropriate, unconventional, vivid, profound, intentional, simple and fresh, and meaningful.
The poetry of Zhu Ziqing's prose is also reflected in the expression language. Some words are simply warnings, and a few strokes in natural places have the effect of making the finishing point. His language has no trace of chisel, nor is it engraved with the idea that "words are not surprising and endless", but it has a simple beauty, which shows a summary of the usual image, appropriately conveys his own mood, and even contains some philosophy of life.
"One year's plan lies in spring, just starting, some work, some hope." Finally, the author couldn't help singing spring:
"Spring is like a newborn doll. It's new from head to toe and still growing.
Spring is like a little girl, dressed up and walking with a smile.
Spring is like a strong young man with iron arms and legs, leading us forward. "
It's a strange ending, police strategy. After a perfect description of spring, the author sincerely admires it, further revealing the unstoppable creativity and infinite hope of spring, thus opening up the artistic conception and revealing the theme.
The title of this short comment sums up the linguistic features of the article "Spring" in three terms, and the center is clear at a glance. This paper analyzes its language features from two aspects. The first paragraph focuses on its fresh, natural, simple and meaningful language style, followed by its warning and tactical philosophy of life, and its writing has strong reference value.
7. Composition: A Brief Comment on Literature The Last Words of Li Sao is a poem by Jia Dao, a poet in the Tang Dynasty. This is a question-and-answer poem, but the poet uses the method of combining question and answer to describe the anxiety that can't be found. White clouds are nobler than hermits, and pine trees are used to describe hermits' character. The more I admire you when I didn't meet you when I was writing. It is a rare concise poem with concise words, complex words, profound feelings and unpretentious description.
In the traditional culture of China, pine, bamboo and plum are three old and cold friends. Literati often use them to express their peace and happiness, not worldly, clean and lofty. The first sentence, "When I asked your apprentice, it was under a pine tree", apparently explained that the author could not find a hermit, so he asked the hermit's apprentice about this series of processes; At a deeper level, it implies that the hermit is close to the pine tree and takes the pine tree as his friend, rendering the hermit's high-spirited life. The following three sentences are the boy's answers, including the poet's layers of questioning, with progressive meanings, meaningful words and memorable memories. The first answer: "My teacher", he replied, "I went to collect herbs", from the structure of the whole poem, from the rendering of the environment and atmosphere to the description of the action, from abstract to concrete. In ancient China, there was the idea of pursuing immortality, and the Qin Emperor Hanwu was a typical example. Even alchemists prevailed in the Qin and Han Dynasties, and counterfeiting became a common practice. In contrast, outstanding hermits pay attention to their own cultivation. In seclusion life, enlightenment, health preservation and medication (health medicine) constitute the main contents. This is especially true in Wei, Jin and Israel. Therefore, for hermits, herb picking is an important activity. Its utility lies not only in taking medicine for health preservation, but also in climbing mountains to collect herbs, which is an excellent physical exercise. Therefore, for real hermits, understanding Tao, keeping in good health and collecting herbs are trinity. The profoundness of Tao is manifested in the beauty of cranes, and the communication is like the sky. "My teacher," he replied, "went to collect herbs." This boy showed the typical characteristics of a hermit and added the sadness that the poet hurt him. The second answer is directed at the poet's question about where to collect medicine. This answer is very clear and affirmative, which seems to give the poet some expectations to pursue, but then the third answer seems to guess the poet's expectations, and finally gives a fruitless answer: "How can I tell the difference between crossing so many clouds? "At this time, the mountains are high and the clouds are deep, and the hermit's escape suddenly jumps into the reader's imagination. Around these answers, there are actually two performance structures intertwined and constantly evolving. First, the performance structure of hermit behavior, that is, from virtual to real (not here but in this mountain), from real to virtual (how to say, through all these clouds? ), from the virtual to the real, just like Youlong in the clouds, looming, giving people a sense of confusion, trance, confusion, fully showing the hermit's Shen Feng. First, the poet's own emotional expression structure, from melancholy to expectation (not knowing that he is on this mountain), from expectation to deeper melancholy, reveals an unreachable emotion. The poet was originally a monk, but later he returned to the secular world, but he was not proud of his official career, so he always praised the noble and extraordinary human life. " But on this mountain, how can I tell, through all these clouds? "In fact, it is not only the poet's description of the hermit, but also the realm of life that the poet himself pursues and yearns for. It is said that Jia Dao's poems are too trapped in the "scrutiny" of words, only working hard on words, and often have good sentences but no good articles; This poem, however, takes great pains in the conception of the article. There are no good sentences, only good sentences.