The importance of literary criticism in any era is difficult to overestimate. It is these experts who not only render their verdict on a particular work, but also shape public opinion and set the tone for cultural trends.
How did literary critics appear?
Literary criticism arose simultaneously with literature itself, since the processes of creating an artwork and its professional evaluation are closely interconnected. For centuries, literary critics belonged to the cultural elite, because they had to have an exceptional education, serious analytical skills and impressive experience.
Despite the fact that literary criticism appeared in antiquity, as an independent profession, it took shape only in the 15-16 centuries. Then the critic was considered an impartial “judge” who was supposed to consider the literary value of the work, its correspondence to genre canons, and the verbal and dramatic mastery of the author. However, literary criticism began to reach a new level, since literary criticism itself developed at a rapid pace and was closely intertwined with other sciences of the humanitarian cycle.
In the 18-19th century, literary critics were, without exaggeration, the “arbiters of fate, ” since the career of a writer often depended on their opinions. If today public opinion is formed in slightly different ways, then in those days it was criticism that had a paramount influence on the cultural environment.
The tasks of a literary critic
It was possible to become a literary critic only as deeply as possible understanding literature. Nowadays, a journalist and even an author who is far from philology can write a review of a work of art. However, in the heyday of literary criticism, this function could only be performed by a literary scholar who was no less well versed in philosophy, political science, sociology, history. The minimum tasks of the critic were as follows:
- Interpretation and literary analysis of a work of art;
- Assessment of the author from a social, political and historical point of view;
- Revealing the deep meaning of the book, determining its place in world literature through comparison with other works.
A professional critic invariably influences society by transmitting his own beliefs. That is why the often professional reviews are ironic and sharp presentation of the material.
The most famous literary critics
In the West, philosophers were initially the strongest literary critics, among them G. Lessing, D. Didro, G. Heine. Often reviews by new and popular authors were also given by venerable contemporary writers, such as V. Hugo and E. Zola.
In North America, literary criticism as a separate cultural sphere, for historical reasons, developed much later, therefore, its heyday fell already at the beginning of the 20th century. During this period, V.V. Brooks and V.L. Parrington: it was they who had the strongest influence on the development of American literature.
The golden age of Russian literature was famous for the strongest critics, the most influential of which:
- DI. Pisarev,
- N.G. Chernyshevsky,
- ON THE. Dobrolyubov
- A.V. Druzhinin,
- V.G. Belinsky.
Their works are still included in the school and university curriculum along with the masterpieces of literature, to which these reviews were devoted.
For example, Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky, who could not graduate from a gymnasium or a university, became one of the most influential figures in 19th century literary criticism. He has written hundreds of reviews of a dozen or so monographs on the works of the most famous Russian authors from Pushkin and Lermontov to Derzhavin and Maykov. In his works, Belinsky not only considered the artistic value of the work, but also determined its place in the socio-cultural paradigm of that era. The position of the legendary critic was sometimes very tough, destroyed stereotypes, but his authority to this day is at a high level.
