Literary Criticism

CHURCH TEACHERS’ COLLEGE: MANDEVILLE

ISSUES IN LITERARY CRITICISM AND THEORIES

NAME: Latoyce Dawes

ID #: CH2004/7371

LECTURER: Mrs. A. Wilmot

TASK: Write a critical analysis of three (3) poems (from the CAPE syllabus), illustrating how an aspect(s) of two different critical theories can be applied to a common situation or scenario or aspect to derive similar meaning(s).

The word poetry means a lot of things to a lot of people. The great Robert Frost once said that, “poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” Others define poetry as, “a painting in words”, “a medium for self-expression” or “a song that rhymes and displays beauty”. Over the years, the Caribbean has produced a plethora of poets who are talented in not only highlighting our history and culture, but also talented in preserving who we are as a people through their words on paper. One such poet extraordinaire is Olive Marjorie Senior. According to Senior, “poetry is a tool for helping us to discover who we are, as individuals, as Caribbean peoples, and as citizens of the world”. Olive Senior’s poems deal with issues of colonial oppression and hardships that the Caribbean people have had to endure, and a special emphasis on the role of women, the struggles they encountered and how they rose from the ashes like the phoenix. Olive Senior’s poems “All Clear, 1928”, “Tropic Love”, and “The Knot Garden” highlight different literary theories. Two such theories are Feminism and Post-colonialism.

The literary theories of post-colonialism and feminism are two of the more common theories that Senior have highlighted in her poems. Firstly, The post-colonialism theory is a set of philosophies which asks us to look at the ways in which literature offers us a view of human experiences as the product of a combination of cultural factors, including race, class, gender, and cultural beliefs and customs. It causes us to turn our eyes to a people who have been victims...