Politics and the English Language—a brief analysis George Orwell (abridged)

 

Politics and the English Language—a brief analysis

George Orwell

The English language is at present in a “bad way”.  Many people feel helpless to do anything about it. The decline of a language has political and economic causes, and no individual writer is responsible for the degeneration.

Language becomes “ugly and inaccurate” when thoughts are foolish. The untidiness of the language makes it easy to have silly ideas. Orwell says that “the process is reversible”; we have to get rid of bad language habits and think more clearly.

POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE George Orwell--Detailed summary

 POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Detailed Summary

George Orwell

Writing about the condition of the English language in modern times, Orwell says that the language is in “a bad way”. The general belief is that nothing can be done about it “by conscious action”.

Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes.

The decline of a language has political and economic causes. No individual writer is the reason for the degeneration.

FREUD AND LITERATURE (1940) Lionel Trilling--Abridged

 FREUD AND LITERATURE (1940)

Lionel Trilling

 

FREUD AND LITERATURE is an extract from his The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society.  Trilling was an American literary critic and teacher who brought psychological, sociological, and philosophical methods and insights into criticism.

 

Trilling believes that Freud offers “a systematic account of the human mind”. The psychoanalytical theory has a profound impact on literature.

“Yet the relationship is reciprocal, and the effect of Freud upon literature has been no greater than the effect of literature upon Freud”.

FREUD AND LITERATURE Lionel Trilling (Detailed Summary)

                                                     FREUD AND LITERATURE

Lionel Trilling

(Detailed Summary)

 

Trilling was an American literary critic and teacher who brought psychological, sociological, and philosophical methods and insights into criticism. His critical writings include studies of Matthew Arnold (1939) and E.M. Forster (1943), as well as collections of literary essays: The Liberal Imagination (1950), Beyond Culture: Essays on Literature and Learning (1965).

 

Psychology and Literature-- Carl Gustav Jung--Abridged

                                                 Psychology and Literature

 

Psychology, Jung says, is the study of the psychic process. ‘Human psyche is the womb of all sciences and art’.

 

Psychological research tries to explain the formation of a work of art by studying: i) the Creative process and ii) the Creative artist. 

 

Psychology and Literature Carl Gustav Jung (Detailed Summary) Revised

  

Psychology and Literature

Carl Gustav Jung

 

Carl Gustav Jung (1875 –1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and the founder of analytical psychology. His work influenced psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy and religious studies. 

 

Freud wanted Jung to be his potential heir to carry on his "new science" of psychoanalysis, but the research and personal vision were different, and a breach took place between the two. 

 

THE ARCHETYPES OF LITERATURE Northrop Frye (Abridged)

                                 THE ARCHETYPES OF LITERATURE

Northrop Frye

(Abridged)

Importance of archetypes

 

Literary criticism should have the “methodological discipline and coherence" of science. We can attain these only through total consistency in criticism. The primary source of consistency in criticism is the "recurrence of certain archetypes in the literature of all periods and cultures.”

 

Criticism as a science

 

The criticism we find in journals and scholarly monographs has every quality of science. "Prosody is scientific in structure, so is phonetics, (and) so is philology". And yet, in studying this type of critical science, the student may feel like moving away from literature. 

THE ARCHETYPES OF LITERATURE Northrop Frye (Detailed Summary)--REVISED APRIL 2022

 

Importance of archetypes

 

Literary criticism should have “something of the methodological discipline and coherence of the sciences.” We can attain these only through total consistency in criticism. The primary source of coherence in criticism, according to Frye, is the "recurrence of certain archetypes in the literature of all periods and cultures.”

CREATIVE WRITERS AND DAYDREAMING SIGMUND FREUD--REVISED

                      CREATIVE WRITERS AND DAYDREAMING

SIGMUND FREUD

 

Sigmund Freud, recognized as the founder of psycho-analysis, is one of the seminal minds of the modern era. Most human mental activity, according to Freud, is unconscious. The primary source of psychic energy –LIBIDO—is sexual. Freud divides the human mind into three zones: