Phenomenological Criticism
Phenomenology is a method of
Literary Criticism
which inspects the text without
presuppositions about ontology or
epistemology. (Ontology
is the theory of the nature of being,
Epistemology that of
the nature of knowledge). To the phenomenologist
any object,
although it has existance in time and space, achieves
meaning
or intelligibility through the active use of a consciousness in
which the object registers. Phenomenology finds reality in the
physical
realm of awareness. To accomplish the analysis of the
object as it
registers in the consciousness, the phenomenologist
suspends all
presuppositions, inferences, or judgements about the
object outside the
consciousness. Phenomenological criticism sees
the work of art as an
aesthetic work, existing only in the mind of
the perceiver. they tend to
have little interest in the ontology of
the aesthetic object, a major
concern of the
New Critics, and instead value
the affective aspects of he work.
People of the Movement
Edmund Husserl
Roman Ingarden
Martin Heidegger
Jean-Paul Sartre
Related Movements
When phenomenological philosophy is applied to criticism, the result is
a form of existential criticism, such as that practiced by the Geneva School
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