Biographical Criticism
General Definition of the Theory If we think of a literary piece as a result of personal achievement and an accomplishment of the great mind, then, we may use biographical criticism as to how we may criticize such literary piece. Biographical Criticism not only determines the effect of the writer’s life on his work but also offers to help us understand both writer and his own work. Through understanding the life and influences of the author in writing, readers would thoroughly understand the author’s intended meaning to his work. The assumption of the biographical criticism is that the interpretation of the literary piece in understanding the context in which the work was written. This does not follow in retelling the life of an author but rather applies the information of the author’s life to his or her own work. Its focus still remains on criticizing a literary piece based on the biographical information as means of enhancing the work The Theory Itself According to I.A Richards from his book Practical Criticism (1929), he discovered in the course of his teaching in Cambridge that most of the students would not only read the words printed upon the page but something else that they expect to find; he discovered that most of the students when given a poem to read and knew who the author was, they would likely have time it and apply what they have learned from the author. But if they weren’t familiar with the author, they would just read it but would have a hard time knowing the meaning of the poem because they could not relate to what they have learned from the unknown author. In other words, their response was not directly to the poem but has to do something outside of the poem which reminded of them. Their judgements of such poems were equally unrelated to its merits. If they knew what the message poem is, they would likely read it not only once but twice. In contrary to that, if they could not determine the good side and bad, they would get constant