Literary Criticism

Introduction 

Literary Criticism is a core-course for students of English Language and Literature. This course is to introduce the students to some theories on literature and criticism in Europe and in the Islamic world up to the 20th century used in literary conventions. In this course, selected works of scholars, critics and philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Horace, Plotinus, Sir Phillip Sidney, Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Samuel Johnson, Jacques Derrida, Sigmund Freud, Edgar Allen Poe, Mathew Arnold, Ferdinand de Saussure, Helene Cixous, Karl Marx, Edward Said, Jean Baudrillard and Lyotard are used and being taught to the students. The students are acquainted with theories of criticism; for instance, psychoanalytic, poststructuralism and deconstruction, feminism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, modernism, Marxism, archetypal as well as existentialism in order to assist them to view and critics the literary works in class.

Objectives

The objectives of this course are listed as follows:

• to introduce the students to literary theories and criticisms from Plato to the present.
• to enlighten the students with literary theories and critical approaches of Western and Muslim philosophers from ancient, medieval and modern era and their impacts on literature. 
• to enable the students to learn, evaluate and compare how Western and Muslim thoughts are applied to the literary works.

Therefore, as part of the assessments of this course, we are required to analyse and critic some literary works based on the theories and criticism such as Post-structuralism, Post-colonialism, and Feminism.