LITERATURE STUDENTS’ MANUAL FOR EAP WRITING: A SURVEY OF INTERPRETATIVE PRACTICES AND MOVEMENTS IN LITERARY CRITICISM

Abstract

The practice of teaching Methodology of scientific research, the obligatory course for PhD literature students of Foreign Philology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, has showed that one of the frequent shortcomings in the process of creating a well-equipped literary scholar represents the lack of adequate knowledge regarding the mere purpose of literary criticism, its interpretative practices, methods and movements. Thus, the most important task of a literary instructor is to offer basic scientific insights into the previously mentioned matter, establish firm initial grounds and prepare students for further acquisition of diverse literary specificities. Accordingly, the aim of this article is to offer a brief survey of methods and movements in literary criticism that may serve as a starting point in the critical analysis of a literary work. Before focusing on the survey itself, diverse definitions of literary criticism are presented in the first part of the article. In the next segment, four most common interpretative practices in literary criticism (close reading, contextual analysis, the application of a critical approach, and social critique) are discussed. The last part of the article depicts and shortly explains some major contemporary schools of critical analysis, most frequently used in literature courses at the university level. The theoretical framework of the study relies on the valuable insights mainly of Rapaport, and then Richards, Brooks, Warren, Selden, Widdowson and Brooker. We finally argue that the obtained theoretical knowledge of literary criticism particularities represents a solid ground for developing an analytic apparatus for EAP writing.